Tertullian, his theory of Christian knowledge and the basic principles of his theology

Contents Introduction I. Theory of Christian knowledge II. Basic principles of theology. – The Doctrine of God in Himself III. Basic principles of theology. – The doctrine of the revelation of God in the world as its creator The personality of Tertullian and the significance of his literature. activities - Contradictory judgments regarding the nature, meaning and dignity of Tertullian’s theology and the reasons for this discrepancy - Subject, task, method and plan of the essay. The Carthaginian presbyter Tertullian 1 is one of the most significant church writers of Christian antiquity and is considered the first Latin theologian. He brought his multifaceted pagan education and his rich, varied, spiritual gifts to the service of Christian Science. Tertullian received his scientific education in Carthage, then a hotbed of “lawyers,” and his thorough knowledge of the Greek language, which was in wide use in the West at that time, gave him the opportunity to familiarize himself with the treasures of Greek literature and science 2 . Tertullian embraced all the secular learning of his time 3: history, archeology, jurisprudence 4, rhetoric, poetry, philosophy, medicine and other sciences. Just as in the pagan period of his life he took advantage of the fruits of the Greco-Roman enlightenment, so, with the adoption of Christianity, he assimilated the fruits of the development of Christian thought and life that preceded him. Having become acquainted, during his stay in Rome 5, with the state of faith and life of the Roman church, Tertullian is believed to have visited the Greek churches, and returned to Carthage 6 with a rich supply of observations. Tertullian was also familiar with the works of Christian writers, whom he calls nostri antecessores 7. On everything he studied, read, and discovered through experience, Tertullian imposed the beginnings of his unique genius. Nature endowed Tertullian with brilliant talents and a fiery character. His passionate, ardent, tough, but powerful nature did not submit to any restraining influences: neither Christianity, nor science, nor education had a complete softening effect on it. Always restless and dissatisfied with anything, he wages a struggle all his life - with himself, with the external and internal enemies of the church, the struggle for the church and against the church. Fighting is his calling; in it he reveals the full power of his talent and wealth of talents. His whole being was imbued with love for Christ and His teaching, but for him it is the love of the sons of thunder when he defends the Christian truth against its enemies. With great skill, he knows how to expose error, develop his opponent’s thoughts to the final conclusions - to the point of absurdity, and shower him with well-aimed wit, evil satire and irony. Scholarship, wit, sophistry, legal subtleties - all of this is turned by Tertullian into a weapon to fight the enemies of the church. But he lacks moderation and restraint in everything. His composition “Patience” is a wonderful hymn dedicated to the praise of patience - this “heavenly virtue”, but he himself never possessed it, according to his own consciousness 8. There is, however, something majestic in his courage and importance when he defends Christianity before pagan rulers and responds to their threats with contempt - when he condemns the moral shortcomings of society, drawing a sharp line between Christian and non-Christian. The productivity and creativity of his thoughts are amazing. Tertullian, says Vincent of Lerinsky, has almost as many words as maxims 9. Distinguished by his sharp and strong mind, 10 he is, however, not willing to venture into the speculative field, although here he moves as freely as in the practical sphere. Possessing a variety of knowledge, knowledge of the philosophical systems of various schools and directions, at the same time he is not interested in philosophy. Only the contemplation of nature, unaffected by human art, softened Tertullian's harshness; he always speaks about her with love, even with passion; he considers art a perversion of nature. His dislike for art is also reflected in the language of his writings: not alien to the high flights of rhetoric, he generally writes carelessly. With tireless energy, Tertullian developed a multifaceted literary activity, being in it a remarkable apologist, polemicist, dogmatist and the first of the Christian writers, a moralist, with a bold gaze covering the past and contemporary religious life of Jews, pagans and Christians. From the highest dogma of the Divine Trinity, his thought descended to the trifles of everyday life in his contemporary Christian society 11 . Everything interested him equally and he treated everything with equal fervor of his heart. Maintaining from the very beginning strict views on discipline, he later deviated towards Montanism, which corresponded to his rigoristic inclinations. By his transition to Montanism, Tertullian expanded the field of struggle for himself and closely limited the space in which he could defend Christian truth. Despite the fact that he held tightly to the regula fidei and continued to defend it in the Montanistic period of his life, Montanism brought discord into his internal and external life: his Montanistic writings generally bear the traces of a great but erring man. Separation from church society and sharp attacks on church orders darkened the glory of Tertullian, and in ancient times he was no longer considered homo ecclesiae 12. However, neither the deviation towards Montanism, nor some of his false opinions, especially on issues of church discipline, take away the high importance of his church-literary activity. Tertullian's works were highly valued in ancient times, especially by Latin church writers 13 ; They are also highly valued in church science. The wealth of historical, archaeological, philosophical-psychological, dogmatic and moral-practical material contained in them has long attracted and continues to attract the attention of scientific researchers. This material was studied from different angles and gave rise to quite a significant number of scientific studies devoted to the special study of either Tertullian’s entire literary activity, or only some parts of it. It would seem that, given the relatively significant volume of scientific literature that has studied Tertullian, everything that seemed unclear and dark to him has already been examined, weighed, evaluated and expressed in firm principles that can be considered the generally recognized property of science. In fact, in this case, science does not in all respects have solid results of study. Acquaintance with the literature 15, which has Tertullian as the subject of its study, leads to the conviction that it is hardly possible to point out many ancient church writers who would have evoked in later posterity such diverse and mutually contradictory judgments as Tertullian aroused in him. The contradictory opinions reach a high degree, especially on the question of the character, meaning and dignity of Tertullian’s theology. In the theological and philosophical contemplation of Tertullian, some find a decisive realism, difficult to distinguish from materialism 16; in his teaching about the essence and properties of God they see almost crude anthropomorphism 17 or a subtle form of it 18; In the doctrine of the Trinity, some saw the beginnings of Arianism. Other scholars either completely deny the indicated shortcomings of Tertullian’s theology, or significantly soften them 19. Such a decisive contrast in the assessment of Tertullian’s theology depends on various reasons. Some of them lie in the very object of study - in the character of Tertullian and the properties of his thinking. The instability and variability of the motives that determined the thought of the passionate Tertullian, the discord in his external and internal life, the originality and originality of some of his opinions, which have nothing analogous in patristic literature, pose significant obstacles in the study of Tertullian’s religious and philosophical contemplation and at the same time serve as conditions favorable to various interpretations of one or another of his thoughts. Other reasons are indicated in the insufficiency of the study of the theology of the Carthaginian presbyter and in the method of study. It is not surprising if, for example. The chronology of Tertullian's life and writings still presents many confusions, despite many attempts to resolve them. Neither Tertullian himself nor other church writers who had the opportunity to talk about him provide direct data with the help of which the difficulties in this case could be resolved with greater or lesser success. But if one can complain about the failure of chronological research regarding the life and writings of Tertullian, then one cannot complain about the lack of research in this regard. Almost the majority of works devoted to the study of Tertullian deal with biography and bibliography. The study of Tertullian dogma is completely in the opposite position. Here one can no longer complain about the lack of data for a correct comprehension of it: dogmatic material is scattered with a generous hand throughout all his works, not to mention special dogmatic treatises. Meanwhile, despite the existence of many and varied judgments about the dignity and quality of Tertullian’s dogmatic ideas, there is not a single well-known work devoted to a special study of them. Without constituting in themselves the subject of a separate work, the dogmatic concepts of Tertullian are usually presented either in monographic works on Tertullian, or in courses on church history, patristics, in historical expositions of dogmas, etc. In all these works they are conveyed in the most general and mostly fragmentary form, in accordance with the plan and purpose of those works. Based on expressions taken at random, judgments are often made about the merits of this or that theological thought of Tertullian, and a particular thought, understandable without its relation to the general nature of Tertullian’s theological contemplation, is elevated to a general sign of his theology. Making judgments about the general character of Tertullian’s theology based on individual expressions is facilitated by the paradoxical nature of some of Tertullian’s opinions and the originality and sharpness of their expression. Paradoxicality sometimes appears in the form of a maxim that has the character of a general proposition. The true meaning of such maxims is revealed only when they are considered in connection with everything that Tertullian said about the subject to which the paradox relates. But where no attention is paid to such a connection, paradoxical expressions are elevated to general provisions and based on them judgments are made about the general character of Tertullian’s theology and the merits of his private opinions. However, it also happens that the defense of the dignity of Tertullian’s dogmatic teaching against various censures is based on considerations that have little to do with the matter. The appearance of paradoxes is attributed to the passion of Tertullian’s nature, the lack of a harmonious relationship between his spiritual forces, his inclination to showy expressions, the undeveloped ecclesiastical Latin language, etc. All this, they say, is the reason that Tertullian does not always accurately, or too sharply and, apparently, unorthodoxly expresses his essentially correct thought. Indeed, the indicated properties of Tertullian’s nature were in one way or another reflected in his theology: they, to a certain extent, impose on him those individual traits by which it differs from the theology of Irenaeus, Origen, etc., but one should not, however, attach decisive importance to the indicated explanations of the origin of original opinions and their expressions in Tertullian. Tertullian is recognized not only as a talented, but even a brilliant writer 20 ; In such a writer, much cannot be explained by a love of spectacular phrases to the detriment of the meaning of the highest Christian truths, about which he conducted a witty polemic with educated heretics. One cannot attach special significance to the darkness of Tertullian’s language in relation to his theology. The lack of development of the Church Latin language prevented, of course, Tertullian from always choosing suitable expressions; but the darkness of the language depends on Tertullian and on the way of his thinking. A short distance separates Cyprian from Tertullian, and yet the language of the former “flows pleasantly and evenly, like the purest stream,” according to Jerome 21. Both of these methods of explaining the general nature of Tertullian’s theology and some of its particulars cannot lead to a correct assessment of it, since the first method does not protect against the possibility of accepting the particular instead of the general, from which the first should be clarified, and not vice versa; the second does not explain the difficulties in their essence, but bypasses them. Complaints about the unsatisfactory nature of these methods of studying and assessing Tertullian’s dogma were heard back in the last century, and they can still be heard in our time 22 . A not entirely sufficient and in many respects incorrect assessment of Tertullian’s dogma, in itself not desirable, is even more undesirable in view of the important, undeniable, significance of the dogmatic activity of the Carthaginian presbyter in relation to the development of ancient Western Latin theology. Tertullian is considered the pioneer of Latin theology 23, the first representative of those of its properties that were later and more fully developed in the theology of Augustine 24. If Tertullian was the first herald of theological science in the West, who had influence on its further development; then, studying the dogmatic views of Tertullian, we study the first chapter from the history of Western Latin dogma - those of its embryos, which, over time, developed and grew into a harmonious whole. Not all, of course, of Tertullian’s dogmatic thoughts served as suitable material for the construction of Western dogma: the first steps are not always successful; but, in any case, his significance is great, as the first representative of Western theology: Sicut Origenes apud Graecos, says Vincent of Lerinsky, ita hic (Tertul.) apud Latinos nostrorum omnium facile princeps judicandus est 25. With such a high importance of Tertullian’s theology in relation to the history of ancient Western Latin dogma, it would not be superfluous to make any new attempt to more accurately understand and evaluate the dignity and character of Tertullian’s theology in view of many contradictory judgments, either elevating or degrading the inner dignity of this theology. Since the diversity of opinions about the character and merit of Tertullian's theology arises mainly from methods of study that are not applicable to it; then the method by which a more or less correct understanding of it can be achieved must be exactly the opposite of the above. It should consist in clarifying the general, fundamental in Tertullian’s theological-speculative contemplation and in understanding the particular in connection with the general. To establish the correct relationship between the general and the particular, it is necessary to identify the basic theological concepts of Tertullian, which have the meaning of general provisions or principles from which he proceeds and by which he is determined when judging this or that subject, to monitor the application of these principles in particular cases and to evaluate each private opinion and expression only from the point of view of these principles. By establishing the connection and correct relationship between the general and the particular, the essential and non-essential signs of Tertullian’s theological contemplation are revealed by themselves and the danger of elevating private opinions into general signs of his theology is eliminated. In clarifying the meaning of Tertullian’s basic concepts, which have the meaning of the principles of his dogmatic thought, the entire interest of studying Tertullian theology at the present time, in the presence of contradictory judgments about it, is concentrated. To understand Tertullian’s fundamental concepts that underlie his theology and give it its unique appearance, there is no urgent need to compile and present an entire system of his dogmatic teaching. Tertullian, of course, had a dogmatic system. As an educated and more systematic writer than others, who defended Christian truth against its enemies, he could not help but have a definite idea of ​​its content in its entirety: in his writings the appearance of his dogmatic system was clearly outlined. But Tertullian, carried away by the apologetic-polemical struggle, had no time to think about the uniform disclosure and presentation of all points of Christian doctrine: only those aspects of Christian truths that aroused the greatest interest in Christian society at that time were explained and presented in detail; their other aspects, touched upon only by chance, due to their connection with the first, are not revealed in detail and are not set forth in the writings of Tertullian. That is why the desire to build a complete dogmatic system of Tertullian’s teaching will be legitimate only to the extent that the general outline of his system is outlined in his writings; but the construction of the system itself will be unnatural and artificial due to the lack of necessary material for uniform disclosure and presentation of all parts of the system. Further, not everything in the system has the meaning of the main one, imparting characteristic features to the whole system. In this regard, not all parts of Tertullian theology have the same interest, even those parts of it that are revealed and presented in more or less detail. No matter how interesting Tertullian’s Christology is in itself, for example, it is built on those foundations that he developed more fully in other parts of his dogma, and therefore its presentation does not provide anything new for understanding the meaning of Tertullian’s main dogmatic views. Consequently, to understand the nature and meaning of Tertullian’s theological contemplation, it will be enough to consider that part of his dogma that occupies a dominant position for him in relation to all other parts of it and which contains truths that serve as the basis for Tertullian’s theological contemplation. Tertullian's teaching about God in himself and His relationship to the world constitutes that part of his dogma in which the fundamental concepts of his dogmatic teaching are expressed and developed. The dominant significance of this part of Tertullian’s dogmatic teaching is revealed from the reason for which it was comprehensively developed by him. Christian teaching was defended, explained and expounded by Tertullian in a polemical struggle mainly with the Gnostics, who always remained on the basis of paganism in their understanding of Christianity, losing its Christian character in their systems. The area of ​​the Gnostic worldview also embraced all the most important problems of the human spirit, but the main attention of the Gnostics was focused on questions about infinite and finite being and their relationship with each other. What is God in Himself and how did He become the culprit of such an imperfect material world? If God in himself is infinite perfection and goodness, then how could a world that is involved in evil come from him? Where does evil come from if God created man? The question of the origin of evil was the starting point and, of course, the goal of Gnostic systems. Eadem materia apud haereticos et philosophos volutatur: unde malum, et quare? et unde homo et quomodo? Et proxime Valentinus proposuit, unde Deus? 26. Revealed teaching offered a true concept of God and a solution to the question of the origin of the world in general, man and evil, pointing to the omnipotence of God as the compelling reason for the creation of the world from nothing, and to the free will of spiritual and moral beings as the source of evil. The Gnostics could not accept the frank teaching about God’s relationship to the world simply because the teaching about the creation of the world from nothing required faith, while they wanted to visualize the very process of the origin of the finite from the infinite. To understand this process, they turned to ancient religious-philosophical dualism. Coming from the idea of ​​the opposition between the infinite and the finite, the Gnostics resolved the question of God’s relationship to the world in general in a dualistic way: dualism between spirit and matter, God and the world, is more or less a characteristic feature of all Gnostic teachings, with the only difference being that for some the opposition between God and matter was understood more idealistically, as the opposition between an idea and a sensory phenomenon, between true being and μὴ ὄν, while others thought of it more materialistically, as the opposition between the kingdom of light and darkness. From the mixture of elements of two opposite principles, the Gnostics wanted to explain the origin of the world, man and evil in the world. Their main task was to clarify the mediation between opposites necessary to explain the origin of the world. The contact of opposites was understood by the Gnostics in different ways: it occurred either through the process of self-development of the absolute to approach the finite (pantheism), or through the conflict of light and dark forces of the kingdom of good and evil (dualism). In both cases, various elements were obtained from which the world was formed. In the Gnostic understanding of the origin of the world, the frank teaching about the essence and properties of God and His relationship to the world was completely distorted. Both in pantheistic systems and in dualistic ones, God was subject to necessity and general limitation. Gnostic pantheists assumed in God himself a necessary process of self-development, which, in the end, had its limit in κένωμα; The creation of the world is accomplished by God out of necessity, and not freely. Among the Gnostic dualists, the good highest God was limited to the existence of an eternal and independent evil principle, primarily in the form of ὕ λη. In both cases, the unity of God as the only root cause of everything that exists, His freedom and unlimitedness were denied. The teaching of the Gnostics about the origin of the world broke the direct relationship to the world of the personal free God or confused Him with the world, through which Christian dogmas were perverted, based on the direct relationship of God to the world and on His personal existence, separate from the world (the creation of the world, the fall of man, the providence of the world). The Creator of the world was separated from God, and the unity of man was destroyed. The Gnostics believed that the world originated from three elements - pneumatic (divine), ilic (material) and psychic (the middle between divine and material). The bearer of the psychic essence was the Old Testament Jewish God, portrayed by the Gnostics primarily as a world-forming principle (dimiurge); all three elements were combined in a person, and people were divided into three categories, depending on the predominance of one of the three indicated elements in them. According to the teachings of the Gnostics about God and His relationship to the world, they understood the history of the religious development of man and explained the essence of Christianity. In paganism the ilic element predominated, in Judaism the psychic element; the pneumatic element was suppressed by the dimiurge and matter. The salvation of man accomplished by Christ extended only to the pneumatic element. The personality of Christ and the work of salvation accomplished by him was understood by the Gnostics in accordance with their dualistic teaching about God and His relationship to the world. Coming from the concept of matter as an evil essence from which the human body was formed, the Gnostics could not reconcile with the church teaching about the birth of Christ in human flesh. The incarnation of Christ seemed to them impossible either from a metaphysical or moral point of view. In the first case, the incarnation of God seemed to be a limitation of Him; in the second - by humiliation of His dignity. Finally, the actual incarnation of Christ seemed unnecessary to the Gnostics from the point of view of their anthropological dualism: Christ did not need to perceive the flesh from which he had to free the soul. Considering the real incarnation of Christ impossible and unnecessary, the Gnostics argued that He appeared in carne putativa 27, and with their δόχησις they destroyed the fullness of God-manhood in Christ and completely perverted Christianity, since the whole work of redemption was reduced to the communication by Christ of the highest knowledge to the pneumatics, who through gnosis came to the consciousness of their kinship with the absolute spirit and its highest purpose - a return to the original source. Dualism was also carried out by the Gnostics in the teaching of morality: their asceticism and antinomianism are nothing more than a practical expression of dualism. Thus, the teaching of the Gnostics about Christ and the redemption of the world was directly dependent on their teaching about God and His relationship to the world. – But the Gnostic theories about God and His relationship to the world, for all their fantastic nature, were not, however, the fruit of a mind detached from historical reality and drawing material from itself for constructing theories; Gnostics took material from the religious and philosophical products of the ancient world and from Christian sources of doctrine. Having set themselves the task of rationally understanding and logically developing the content of faith in theoretical knowledge, they were unable to determine the correct relationship between faith and reason, revealed teaching and pagan science. The main cause of all Gnostic errors lies in the Gnostics’ false view of the sources and norms of Christian knowledge. The Gnostics, says Tertullian, would not have proposed a teaching different from the church one if they had not perverted the very sources of the teaching. The nature of the Gnostics' attitude towards Christianity clearly determined the direction of Tertullian's polemics. He had to, first of all, focus on the question of Christian knowledge, in order to determine its task, boundaries and scope of its content, and on the basis of one or another solution to this question, to clarify the Christian teaching about God in himself and His relationship to the world, that is, to clarify the truths of the Christian teaching about the unity of God, His being and properties, about the origin of the world in general from God - the physical world, spiritual beings and man. Only after clarifying these truths could Tertullian begin to defend the church teaching about Christ and the work of redemption of the world accomplished by Him, since the correct understanding of the teaching about the redemption of the world is based on the correct understanding of the church teaching about God and His relationship to the world as His Creator. Indeed, Tertullian focuses all his attention on the polemic with the Gnostics about Christian knowledge and church teaching about God in himself and His relationship to the world, embracing the above truths. In his judgment on Christian knowledge, views are expressed that convey the unique character of his theology; in his teaching about God in himself and His relationship to the world, as the Creator of the material, spiritual and human world, such concepts are expressed about the infinite and finite, divine and human, on which Tertullian’s teaching about specifically Christian truths is based, such as, for example, the doctrine about the incarnation of the Son of God, about the face of I. Christ, etc. Tertullian's teaching about Christian knowledge and his teaching about God in himself and His relationship to the world, as containing the main principles of his theology, form the subject of this work. Its content and the distribution of material according to plan follow from what was said above about the significance that the chosen subject of the work has in relation to the entire theology of Tertullian. The essay will contain: I) Tertullian’s theory of Christian knowledge, II) Tertullian’s teaching about God in himself and III) The teaching about the revelation of God in the world. I. The Theory of Christian Knowledge The emergence of the question of Christians in the ancient church. knowledge, the essence of the question and its constituent elements - Theological scientific directions and the corresponding theory of Christ. knowledge: teachings of the ap. Paul on faith and knowledge - Gnostic-heretic theory. directions - church-Gnostic - and anti-Gnostic directions, Irenaean theory - Results achieved in resolving the issue of chr. knowledge by the time of Tertullian. Tertullian theory hr. knowledge: the doctrine of faith and its relationship to knowledge in general - The doctrine of the principles and sources of natural knowledge - and positive - The doctrine of the meaning of the new revelations of the Paraclete in relation to the xp. knowledge - the doctrine of the essence of the hr. knowledge. Cedat curiositas fidei, cedat gloria saluti. Adversus regulam nihil scire omnia scire est. De praescript. haer. c. 14 The perfect and true knowledge of the 28 leading Christians consisted in the assimilation by faith and preservation of the apostolic heritage, orally and in writing handed down to the church by the apostles. This knowledge of Christian truth, accepted by faith, did not have a scientific and speculative nature: for the commandments of the Lord were written on the tablets of the hearts of Christians, 29 and a high moral and virtuous life according to the law of faith (Rom. 3:27) distinguished Christians from the pagans, who were guided by the laws of reason. But soon, after a period of assimilation of revealed teaching, in the community of believers there was revealed a desire to place theoretical knowledge of Christian truth next to the simplicity of faith: this was required by the innate need of the human spirit to clarify and bring closer to consciousness that which is initially assimilated by the heart and which first constitutes the object and content of faith. This natural desire for knowledge (γνῶσιν) was largely aroused by external circumstances: the hostile attitude of pagans and Jews towards the Christian Church and the emergence of heresies within it. Without science it was impossible to successfully defend Christianity before educated pagans, who accused Christians of the blindness and irrationality of their faith, and without a clear theoretical knowledge of church teaching it was difficult to fight heretical teachings. The desire of Christians for scientific knowledge, arising from the internal needs of the human spirit and acquiring more and more tension under the influence of apologetic-polemical interests, gave rise in the ancient church to the question of Christian knowledge, which was resolved in various directions during the first three Christian centuries and received its final resolution already during the period of ecumenical councils. The essence of the question was to determine the content, method, sources and norms of Christian knowledge; the main problem of the question was to clarify the true relationship between the supernatural and human elements of Christian knowledge, between external and internal or objective and subjective criteria and norms: revelation, tradition and the authority of the church and faith and reason. But since Christianity, at the first stages of its existence, did not have any educational means for creating Christian science itself, there was a need to use, to a certain extent, the form and method of the then general education, which was offered at that time by philosophy in its eclectic state. The involvement of philosophy in the service of the emerging Christian science forced church teachers to clarify its relationship to revealed teaching. Clarification of this relationship was all the more necessary because some Christians were overly keen on philosophy, elevating some of its ideas to the same level as the truths of positive revelation, while others, on the contrary, were more or less unfavorable towards it. The assessment of philosophy in its relation to the knowledge of Christian truth was also included, as an element, in the question of Christian knowledge. Thus, faith and reason, revelation and philosophy, tradition and the authority of the church were the main elements of the question of Christian gnosis, and one or another definition of the meaning and mutual relationship of them in Christian knowledge constituted what we will call the theory of this knowledge, on the nature of which the peculiar features of the theology of individual church writers and ancient church theological movements depended; for the teaching of church writers about Christian knowledge was essentially a teaching about the method, sources and norms of Christian theology in the broadest sense of the word. From the different understanding and combination of elements that were part of the question of Christian knowledge, three scientific directions, different from each other, were formed in the ancient church: gnostic-heretical, ecclesiastical-gnostic or speculative, and anti-gnostic or positive. The first two arose and developed primarily in the East - the birthplace of ancient philosophy and the cradle of Christian idealism and speculative theology, the latter developed mainly in the West, but under the influence of the East; it bears a sharp imprint of the national character of the Romans. Nevertheless, the named directions developed in interaction with each other: each of them defended its point of view on a controversial issue against the other two 31 . A zealous exponent of the anti-Gnostic theological trend was Tertullian, who developed his theory of Christian knowledge in a polemical struggle against the extremes of the speculative direction of theology of his time in general and especially in the struggle against heretical gnosis. Tertullian's views, opposed to the views of the Gnostics on Christian knowledge and church dogmas, rightly earned him the nickname anti-Gnostic 32. In view of the fact that the above-mentioned scientific directions arose before Tertullian and the results of their development positively and negatively influenced his theory of Christian knowledge, as well as his theology in general, it seems necessary: ​​a) to first pay attention to the nature and methods of solving the question of knowledge among the Gnostics and the church writers who preceded and were contemporary with Tertullian: without a presentation of the significant results achieved by representatives of all three directions, Tertullian’s theory of Christian knowledge, all imbued with polemical interest, will not be understood; b) then expound Tertullian’s theory of Christian knowledge. Gnostics 33 and church writers tried to establish their teaching about gnosis on Holy Scripture, especially on the epistles of St. Pavel. Let us present, in a brief summary, the teachings of St. Paul on gnosis: it will serve as a standard for us to evaluate various theories of Christian knowledge from the point of view of their approach to the foundations of Christian gnosis indicated in the New Testament Holy Scripture, or deviation from them, and, consequently, from the point of view of their greater or lesser merit in relation to resolving the question of Christian knowledge. In pagan antiquity, the word γνῶσις meant one-sided, formal, theoretical knowledge 34; in the New Testament Holy Scripture, gnosis is given a new and multifaceted meaning; Christian gnosis is not only new theoretical religious knowledge, but also moral and practical: recognition of God in mind and deeds 35. Salvation for the remission of sins 36, assimilated by human consciousness, constitutes the basis and content of gnosis. More specifically: gnosis in its content is knowledge of the essence of the Christian religion 37 in its difference from Judaism and paganism 38, combined with knowledge and implementation in practice of the foundations of religious and moral life 39. How is such knowledge acquired? The solution to the question is given in the teaching of St. Paul about faith (π ί στις) and reason, about the meaning of Holy Scripture and church tradition in relation to the assimilation and knowledge of revealed mysteries (μυστιρ ί α). The Apostle does not place gnosis in exclusive dependence on the natural human mind, not recognizing it as the main power of our soul in the matter of reconciling man with God. Reason, left to itself, not only does not acquire true knowledge of God, but even rebels against His knowledge 40 . The apostle confirms the powerlessness of the human mind to know God by the history of the religious development of mankind before the revelation of God in Christ, in which he sees only a negative result of development, expressed in the consciousness of man in the impossibility of knowing God without the help of supernatural revelation 41 . The desire to know God and the consciousness of the impossibility of knowing Him is approved by the apostle in this story, but all pagan wisdom - philosophy, which was the pride of the Hellenes, turned out to be madness in the eyes of God 42. Unable to reach the knowledge of the truth through its own efforts, the mind cannot correctly comprehend revealed truths: for the natural man does not accept what is from the Spirit of God, because he considers it foolishness, and cannot understand (γνῶναι), because it must be judged spiritually; but one who has the mind of Christ can judge spiritually. And since the Spirit of God, which opens the way to knowledge for us, is acquired only by faith; then, according to the Apostle, it is the highest power of our soul, leading us to γνῶσις σωτηρ ί ας. Faith is the center and basis of all religious and moral life of a person, a continuously active force (δύναμις) in all functions of the individual: in feeling, in desire and in the activity of the mind. Due to its great and diverse significance in the matter of salvation, faith is absolutely necessary for all people without distinction: for only through faith is the saving power of the Gospel acquired 44, justification 45 and access to grace 46 are acquired, we live by faith 47 and by faith we achieve the superiority of the knowledge of Christ Jesus 48. Faith itself is our conviction, confidence in something, not confirmed by sensory experience, or on grounds that are logically coercive; otherwise our confidence in something is no longer faith, but knowledge 49 . Religious faith, which has God as its object, is based on the moral act of our personal trust in God, regardless of the convictions of our mind. True, it is not alien to its theoretical nature, insofar as it relates to historical events (for example, the death and resurrection of Christ), but it is primarily a matter of the heart 50, and from this side, faith is nothing more than the moral disposition of the soul, completely devoted to Christ 51, seeking Him for the sake of the closest inner union with Him 52. Since through faith we receive from God grace that exceeds our personal merits, faith is directly united with grateful love for God who loved us, 53 and together with it directs and subordinates to the will of God all the powers of our spirit, including reason, becoming for the latter a regulator in the knowledge of revealed truths. Faith makes him able to assimilate the word about the cross, which seems to him madness 54 and protects him from exaltation, which rebels against the knowledge of God 55, teaching a person that he himself cannot acquire true knowledge of God unless he is known by God 56; God gives knowledge only to those who believe in Him and love Him 57. Reason, not guided by faith, does not have in itself a guarantee that the knowledge it acquires is in accordance with the will of God. The danger of deviating from the will of God is eliminated if the mind takes captive every thought into obedience to Christ 58 . The obedience of reason is expressed in the fact that it does not want to have anything from itself, but wants to receive everything from God and understand His will in what it receives. And since the will of God is declared in the revealed word of God, Holy Scripture becomes for the mind the first source of knowledge of revealed truths. The spiritual or allegorical understanding of Holy Scripture is considered by St. Paul as gnosis 59. The second source of gnosis is the apostolic tradition, which has equal significance with the first: for tradition is λ ό γος Θεοῦ and not λόγος ἀνθρώπων 60 . Knowledge acquired on the basis of revelation and church tradition, with the guidance of faith, has only relative perfection: because we, although enlightened by the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of I. Christ 61, generally cannot have complete knowledge in the present century, but only partial knowledge (έκ μέρους), which, as imperfect, will be abolished and will once be replaced by direct contemplation of the truth. Only faith remains unchanged. If in real life complete knowledge is unattainable for a person, then, obviously, the essence of gnosis consists only in the deepening of our mind into the secrets of revelation and in its possible comprehension of them, but not in rising above them. The elevation of reason above the truths of revelation leads to false knowledge (ψευδώνυμος γνῶσις) accompanied by deviation from faith and oral and written tradition 62, practical and theoretical denial of God 63, resort to worthless fables 64, to endless arguments, competitions and genealogies 65 . Based on the stated teachings of St. Paul on faith and knowledge can be expressed as follows: the mutual relationship of the elements of Christian knowledge. Faith occupies a central position in the religious and moral life of a person, and gnosis is peripheral in relation to faith 66, establishing itself on it as a necessary basis. In its inner dignity, faith is higher than knowledge: the first is a constantly acting and always abiding force, assimilating the very basis of our salvation - J. Christ 67, the second has only temporary and relative dignity, never, in real life, rising to a clear and immediate contemplation of the truth. Reason is recognized as having a desire for knowledge of God, but its ability to know God apart from revelation is denied: even revealed truths may seem like madness to it if it does not submit to the guidance of faith. Oral and written tradition serves as the source of gnosis, and the secrets of the kingdom of God are its object and content. In general, gnosis is supplied by up. Paul into a subordinate position in relation to faith and salvation - the ultimate goal of our faith and our knowledge. Now let's see how close the theories of gnosis of the 2nd and early 3rd centuries, which sought support in Holy Scripture, were to the teachings of the apostle. Paul about faith and knowledge or shied away from this teaching as their prototype. – The first experience of scientific disclosure of the doctrine of Christian knowledge was presented by the Gnostics. Comparison of their teaching about gnosis with the teaching of the apostle about it. Paul clearly shows that the Gnostic theory of knowledge is nothing more than a complete perversion of the prototype. First of all, the Gnostics misunderstood the meaning of faith in relation to knowledge. Faith, as we have seen, was placed by the Apostle at the center of a person’s inner religious life and recognized as the norm of gnosis, determining its scope and boundaries. The Gnostics placed gnosis in the foreground, and not only did they not recognize the normative significance of faith, but looked at it as something opposite to knowledge, serving as the property of simple and unreasonable Christians 68 . The preference for knowledge over faith arose among the Gnostics from their view of the essence of man in its relation to the divine principle. The Gnostics, as is known, divided people, according to the degree of their perfection, into pneumatics, psychics and ilics. The spiritual seed (σπέρμα πνευματικὸν), which the pneumatic possesses, brings the Gnostic to the highest level of perfection 69. This seed, as an outpouring of the divine essence, makes the person who possesses it capable of knowledge. The Gnostic, coming to the consciousness of the spiritual seed present in him, begins to know himself; by cognizing himself, he at the same time cognizes all the secrets of the higher world (pleroma): for cognizing the spiritual seed abiding in him, he also cognizes the original source from which it flowed. Therefore the Gnostic, and he alone, has knowledge due to his nature: his knowledge is a natural gift that others cannot possess. For the Gnostic, to whose direct contemplation all mysteries are accessible, simple faith based on feeling (πίστις ψιλἡ) is not needed; such faith is the necessary lot of psychics who belong to the church and are saved by faith and good works 70 . As enlightened (φωτισθεὶς) by nature, the Gnostic has perfect knowledge (τελεία γνῶσις) rather than partial knowledge (έκ μέρους). Confident in his ability to recognize truth at its foundation, the pneumaticus boldly tests revealed teaching, seeing in it nothing superior to human reason and thereby opening access to complete rationalism in scientific research in the field of revealed teaching. And the remarkable thing is that the Gnostics defended their scientific rationalism with the words of St. Paul, who, by subordinating reason to faith, protects revealed truths from a rationalistic understanding of them. Based on the words of Ap. Paul: all tempting, good hold 71, the Gnostics retained in their systems only those Christian truths that seemed to them to be in agreement with their pagan philosophical views: for the essence of gnosis, according to their concepts, did not consist in clarifying and approaching the consciousness of revealed truths, recognized by faith as immutable, but in testing their reliability at the very foundation, which test had its ultimate goal of acceptance some truths and the denial of others, the immutability of which could not be recognized by reason. It is obvious that heretical gnosis, uncontrolled by faith, is that rebellion of reason against the knowledge of God, against which the apostle warns. Pavel 72. The affirmation of gnosis solely on reason indicates that the Gnostics, having not assimilated the Christian concept of gnosis, remained with the pagan concept of it as one-sided theoretical knowledge: for the salvation of the Gnostic depends on his knowledge of his origin, and not on good deeds; he is brought into the pleroma not by πρᾶ ξις, but by γνῶσις 73. Recognition of γνῶσις᾿ as an internal, natural and perfect gift necessarily led the Gnostics to weaken the significance of external authority - Holy Scripture and church tradition, as sources of Christian gnosis. Although the Gnostic diligently studies the Holy Scripture, speaks its language, uses its content, 74 his system clearly shows that he turns to the Holy Scripture not for teaching, but to confirm his doctrine, which is alien to the Word of God in its basic provisions. The Gnostic, as a φωτισθεὶς, does not need Holy Scripture, 75 but with references to it he aims only to prove that his system depicts Christianity in all its purity. But in view of the obvious disagreement of his system with the content of Holy Scripture, he could achieve this goal only by allowing an extremely arbitrary treatment of Holy Scripture. In Tertullian, as well as in other church writers, we find confirmation that the Gnostics’ perversion of Holy Scripture was directly dependent on their doctrines. “There,” he says, there is a perversion of the Scriptures, where deviations in teaching are noticed. Anyone who proposes to teach differently is necessarily forced to arrange the sources of teaching differently. For they (heretics) cannot teach in any other way, unless the thing with which they teach has a different property” 76 . Depicting the blasphematio of heretics in their treatment of St. By Scripture 77 Tertullian asserts that they, in the interest of their teachings, perverted the sense (sensus) and letter (stilus) of Scripture in order to eliminate or make improbable what they found in the Bible contrary to their systems 78 . One corrupts the Scriptures with his hand, the other distorts their meaning with his words. Marcion adapts Holy Scripture to his teaching, and Valentinus adapts his teaching to the Scriptures 79 . The adaptation of their teachings to the Holy Scriptures and vice versa led the Gnostics to not recognizing some Holy books as inspired, to perverting others by adding and subtracting in the text and the method of interpreting them 80 . A distinctive feature of the heretical explanation of the Bible was the “tearing out” of individual expressions from the Holy Scriptures and the construction of various hypotheses and theories on them 81 Based on two or three expressions, the heretics wanted to understand the Old and New Testaments 82 . Prophetic language, expressing truths either simply (simpliciter) or covertly, gave the Gnostics the opportunity to appeal, as needed, either to allegory or to simple meaning. They especially abused allegory, which they wanted to extend to all of Holy Scripture 83 . Based on the art of finding allegories and allegorical expressions in the Bible, the Gnostics seemed to Tertullian to be invincible and crafty sorcerers who turned bitter into sweet and sweet into bitter 84 . From the concept of gnosis as a natural, perfect gift, a heretical misinterpretation of the essence and meaning of oral church tradition followed. In the messages of St. Paul and in the works of church writers, oral tradition in its essence was identified with Holy Scripture: both constitute a single apostolic heritage, one in source of origin and content. The Gnostics separated written tradition from oral tradition and divided the latter into known church tradition and secret one. For the Gnostics, enlightened by nature, tradition was unnecessary as a source and norm of knowledge; but they could not reject it: denying church tradition would be tantamount to recognizing their systems as inconsistent with the spirit of Christian teaching. They could not accept church tradition in all its completeness and integrity, since it exposed the falsity of the direction of their doctrines. That is why heretics, in order to justify their teachings that disagreed with church tradition, were forced to expand or contract the area of ​​tradition and question the authority of the very bodies of tradition: the apostles and the churches founded by them. Two contradictory objections were heard against the apostles, as the infallible organs of Christ’s preaching. One of them, based on the well-known strife of the apostles 85, denied them the full possession of the truth 86; the other, on the contrary, recognized that the apostles had full knowledge of the revealed teaching, but argued that they did not openly preach to everyone the truths they received from Christ, 87 but secretly entrusted something to a few of their chosen followers, 88 from whom the secret apostolic tradition, unknown to the churches, passed into the possession of the Gnostics. To confirm the existence of a secret apostolic tradition, the Gnostics referred, among other things, to St. Paul, who received a special revelation, unknown to the other apostles, during the rapture to the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2 et seq.), and who reported it to Timothy 89, from whom it passed on to the Gnostics. The secret tradition was considered by the Gnostics to be more complete and perfect compared to church tradition; it is more perfect already because the churches adopted the apostolic teaching suo vitio 90, for which they were reproached by the apostles (Gal. 3:1; 5:7). Finally, the Gnostics also misunderstood the attitude of Greek philosophy to Christian revelation. In Hellenic philosophy, ap. Paul approved only of the desire of the human mind to know the truth expressed in it; this desire, which did not find satisfaction in pre-Christian worldly wisdom, prepared the pagans for the acceptance of the Gospel, but the apostle called the image of pagan knowledge of the truth madness in relation to the Divine wisdom revealed in the word about the cross. In the judgment of the ap. Paul about worldly wisdom indicated the basis on which it was possible to more often determine the relationship of philosophy to revelation, when the awakening desire for scientific knowledge among Christians felt the need to use the services of philosophy. It was possible to recognize philosophy as having a negative meaning and, under certain conditions, a formal, but not a material one. In any case, philosophy, as human wisdom, should have been placed in a subordinate position in relation to Christian revelation and this position should have been more precisely defined. The Gnostics recognized the formal and material significance of philosophy, mixing, as Tertullian aptly put it, Christian truths with philosophical ideas, like wine with water, and “the darkness of philosophy darkened the clear and pure light of truth” 91 . The confusion of philosophy with Christianity was so great that the latter constituted only part of the content of Gnostic systems, which were an unholy imitation of Christian teaching 92 . The Gnostics necessarily led to the distortion of Christian teaching by their theory of gnosis, the essence of which, after the presentation of it, can be expressed as follows. Faith is not only not recognized as the main central force of our spirit, capable of assimilating Christianity and serving as the norm of gnosis, but is completely rejected and considered incompatible with gnosis; Reason is installed in place of religious feeling, and gnosis acquires a one-sided rationalistic character. Weak recognition and misinterpretation of the external authority of Holy Scripture and church tradition deprived gnosis of its true sources and norms. Excessive allegorism in the explanation of Holy Scripture opened free access to the field of Christian teaching to the extremes of idealism. Philosophy was placed in the wrong relation to Christian revelation. Gnosis, in terms of the scope of its content, is not Christian knowledge, but knowledge in general, which had a pagan character, which received a new coloring under the influence of Christian ideas. Heretical gnosis provoked intense polemics on the part of church writers, in which a twofold result was achieved in relation to the issue of Christian knowledge: in it, the principles of Christian gnosis were discussed, clarified and revealed from the positive and negative sides, through which the essence of true and false gnosis was brought to a clearer consciousness. In terms of a positive solution to the question of Christian knowledge and a negative attitude towards Gnosticism, church anti-Gnostic literature took a two-fold direction. One of them, in its idealistic character, had some common points with Gnosticism, denying everything heretical in it and approving of its good aspects, such as the desire for scientific knowledge in general expressed in it; This direction is rightly called church-gnostic or speculative. Another direction contrasted the extremes of idealism with Christian realism and chose the word contra as a motto denoting the nature of its attitude towards heretical gnosis. Justin the martyr and philosopher 93, who laid the foundation for the church-speculative theological direction, is considered the founder of the doctrine of true Christian gnosis 94. His ideas found their followers among the representatives of the Alexandrian school, and in the works of Clement of Alexandria and Origen they were developed to the latest conclusions. The main views of the representatives of the anti-Gnostic movement, which emerged in the writings of the apostolic men, were first expressed with relative certainty by St. Irenaeus 95. Let us outline the most important points of the teaching about Christian knowledge of Justin, Clement of Alexandria 96 and St. Irenaeus, since the views of the named church teachers on the essence of Christian knowledge had an influence on Tertullian’s theory of knowledge, as noted above. Representatives of the church-speculative direction, who set the goal of their life as scientific knowledge of truth, recognized the legitimate desire of the Gnostics for scientific knowledge, did not condemn the speculative nature of their systems, but declared only their direction false and took upon themselves the task of clarifying and establishing the foundations of true gnosis (γνῶσις ἀληθινὴ), rooted in the being Christianity and the nature of human cognitive abilities. Christianity must be assimilated and known as an absolute divine truth, the immutability of which is certified by its basis - God; it can be assimilated and cognized if a person has the need and ability to assimilate and cognize it. But in man there really is an inner feeling of the divine and a thirst for higher revelation, and the human mind is capable of knowing the supersensible 97; therefore, Christianity can be assimilated and known in its inherent quality; it is only necessary to clarify the conditions for true assimilation and knowledge of revealed truth. The essence of Christianity, as a divine revelation, is the requirement that it be assimilated by faith without seeking evidence confirming its authenticity: for it is unreasonable, according to Clement, to demand from God evidence in relation to the truth He proclaimed 98. Faith receives its objective basis in the authority of God himself 99 ; the impossibility of finding another higher basis for faith other than God necessarily requires recognizing faith itself as a principle that stands above all evidence that cannot impart greater firmness to faith or improve its dignity 100 . In its origin, faith, according to the teachings of Clement, is not a natural gift that belongs only to the psyche, as the Gnostics claim; to the extent that it arises in us with the assistance of the grace of God, faith is the gift of God (χάρις δέ ὴ πίστις); To the extent that a person himself strives to assimilate divine revelation, it is a free act of our will. According to its dual origin, faith can be defined as follows: it is the free assimilation (πρόληψις) of the divine and the immediate agreement of our feeling with the truth perceived by it with the help of the grace of God 101. As the only means of assimilating the Gospel and its saving power, faith is necessary for all people without exception 102. By recognizing faith as a necessary and common force for all people, capable of assimilating revelation, the opinion of the Gnostics about the uselessness of faith for pneumatics was refuted and the first condition for assimilation and, therefore, knowledge of Christian truth was affirmed: for it is impossible to know what has not been assimilated, without faith the assimilation of revelation is impossible. Without faith, says Clement, knowledge is impossible 103; If you don’t believe me, he repeats the words of the prophet. Isaiah (Is. 7:9), below imate understand; faith serves as the basis of truth 104. If representatives of the Christian speculative movement recognized the significance of faith as a principle, which, in its internal reliability, does not need proof, and the basis on which the knowledge of truth is affirmed, then it is natural to expect that they will retain this significance for faith in relation to the theoretical and practical activity of the Christian Gnostic at all stages of its development. However, their judgments about the relationship of faith to theoretical and practical gnosis clearly show that faith serves only as the initial stage through which reason rises to gnosis, and in the further ascent to the knowledge of truth, reason imparts greater firmness and higher dignity to simple faith, and not faith to reason. The Alexandrian teachers were led to the elevation of gnosis over faith by their psychological ideas. The feeling is unclear and depends on external impressions; The content of faith based on feeling should also be unclear. Gnosis is established on reason; and the mind is the eye of our soul 105, which is in internal connection with the divine Logos, the light of which, falling on the eye of our soul (mind), makes the divine visible and knowable for it 106. Consequently, if reason is higher than immediate feeling, then gnosis, which is based on reason, is higher than faith, which is based on feelings. In connection with these psychological ideas stands the teaching of the Alexandrians about the elevation of faith in knowledge. Simple faith, sufficient for salvation, does not, however, satisfy a person striving for clear knowledge of what is vaguely recognized in the senses, and therefore it is necessary to develop the content of simple faith into scientific knowledge. Development of the content of faith in knowledge is possible: for faith contains knowledge, but only immediate (ἄνευ τοῦ ξητεῖν) and undeveloped (σύντομος γνῶσις). The scientifically known good hidden in faith (ἐνδιάθετ ό ν τ ί ἀγαθ ό ν) is true gnosis; in it faith reaches its perfection (τελείοσις) and a solid foundation (ἀπ ό δειξις). As soon as gnosis becomes the ultimate goal of faith, it obviously no longer occupies the dominant position in the inner life of a person, assimilated to it by the apostle. Pavel. It does not occupy a dominant position in the moral activity of the Gnostic. In contrast to the heretics, who valued only theoretical knowledge, Clement of Alexandria demands from the Christian sage perfection in moral life. On the practical side, gnosis is the knowledge and implementation of the highest ideal of Christian piety and virtue. But this ideal is inaccessible to a person who remains with simple faith. Just as a simple believer is inferior to a Gnostic in terms of theoretical knowledge of Christian truths, so the virtue of the former is inferior to the virtue of a sage. A simple believer is characterized by slavish virtue, based on fear, while a gnostic is characterized by pure, free piety, affirmed in the disinterested service of good for the sake of good. Thus, the measure of theoretical and practical activity is reason; activity, which is based primarily on faith, has a lower dignity compared to that which is based primarily on reason. Representatives of the church-speculative direction were convinced that it was possible to correctly develop the content of faith in knowledge on the basis of Holy Scripture and church tradition, but with the help of Greek philosophy. Polemical interests forced church teachers to defend the inspiration and inviolability of the sacred. the canon in its entirety and to protect Holy Scripture from heretical arbitrariness in explaining its content through reliable hermeneutical rules. St. Justin and Clement of Alexandria reproach the Gnostics for their failure to recognize all Holy Scripture as equally inspired by God and defend its divine dignity not only in content, but also in letter. Holy Scripture, according to the teachings of Clement, as the work of the Spirit of God, is absolutely reliable and serves as a reliable guide in moral and theoretical religious activity. But one assertion of the divine inspiration of St. the canon was not yet enough to protect against arbitrary interpretation; it was also necessary to equip the mind testing Scripture with firm hermeneutical rules. But all the rules proposed by church writers of the first three centuries as a guide for the explanation of Holy Scripture were so general and vague that they were constantly violated, to a greater or lesser extent, even by the very persons who proposed them to others as a guide. It was usually proposed to distinguish two or three meanings in the expressions of Holy Scripture, to understand individual expressions in connection with the general spirit of the teaching of the Holy Books, to be guided by the rule of faith when explaining certain passages of the Word of God, moral purity of heart and pious disposition of the soul were required, etc. All these and similar rules were proposed by Alexander. church writers, but these rules did not protect them from the extremes of allegorism, which had a connection with their mystical-contemplative direction. The Gnostic, striving to penetrate into the essence of things, to comprehend the causes and purposes of phenomena, could not stop at the letter of the Scriptures: for it does not always express the truth directly, but hides it under the form of allegory and parable. Understanding the spiritual meaning of St. The Scriptures constitute the highest task of the true Gnostic, who strives to comprehend divine truth on the basis of the revealed word. The Alexandrians' inclination toward allegory constitutes a weak side of their exegesis, which did not always have a desirable influence on their theology; the allegory gave great scope to their idealism and helped to find in Holy Scripture such ideas as should not have been sought in it. Church tradition was considered another source and norm of true gnosis. Representatives of the Christian speculative movement highly valued church tradition, considering the rule of faith to be the sum of dogmatic apostolic tradition, preserved intact by the church. Only that gnosis is true, they thought, which is based on the authority of church teaching (γνῶσις ἐκκλησιαςικἡ). But, recognizing the fullness of revealed truths in the living stream of church tradition, they nevertheless express the idea that these truths are not all clearly expressed enough, and reserve the right for reason to more accurately disclose and understand them 107. Here lay a great danger for the philosophizing fathers to deviate from church teaching in the form of understanding dogma, if the tradition was declared insufficiently clear in all its parts; only the living faith with which the ancient men were inspired protected them from this danger. For the scientific disclosure and explanation of the truths of revelation, the assistance of philosophy was recognized as necessary. In the unsuccessful application of philosophy to the scientific explanation of Christian truths, allowed by the Gnostics, many Christians saw sufficient evidence of its unsuitability in the field of Christian knowledge. But Greek church writers, who were brought up on philosophy and saw its good sides, did not abandon it, but tried to more accurately determine its relationship to Christianity. Agreeing with the Gnostics on the need to connect Christianity with the pre-Christian natural-historical religious development of mankind, they, in contrast to the Gnostics, put forward the position that philosophy should be close to Christianity, and not vice versa, as the Gnostics thought. The connection between revealed teaching and philosophy was the doctrine of the Divine Logos. The Eternal Divine Word, teaches St. Justin is the mediating principle between God and creation, which has been revealed in the world from time immemorial. This Word has always sowed the seeds of truth (Λόγος σπερματικός) in humanity. Leading the Jews to Christianity through the law, it, revealing the seeds of truth to the pagans, also prepared the latter for Christianity through philosophy: for each philosopher “cognized in part what was akin to the sown Word of God 108. As possessing particles of truth, philosophy, according to Justin, is the highest acquisition in the eyes of God: it alone leads us to God” 109. The propaedeutic significance of Hellenic philosophy was recognized by Justin as so great that, in his opinion, those who lived in accordance with the Word of God are Christians, even if they were considered ἄθεοι, as for example. Socrates and friend. philosophers 110. Clement of Alexandria taught about the meaning of philosophy in accordance with Justin. And according to Clement, the teaching of humanity in the truth in the pre-Christian period was carried out by Λόγος Παιδαγογός, which helped especially philosophers to know the truth, and therefore philosophy, according to Clement, is a matter of divine providence 111, a gift of God 112 for the Greeks; philosophy itself once justified the Greeks 113, who lived in harmony with reason, in which the light of the Divine Word 114 was revealed. If philosophy contains particles of truth 115, then it obviously does not lose its significance in relation to Christian revelation and is not useful for Christian gnosis and in its content. Clement especially highly appreciated the formal significance of philosophy; it, in his opinion, serves as a most useful tool in the hands of a Gnostic for the defense of Christianity 116 and helps to understand the truth: an unlearned person cannot properly understand the content of faith 117 and Holy Scripture 118. Dialectics was especially highly valued: it is the pillar and fence of the vineyard 119. Through dialectics, reason reveals the content of faith, relying on its internal laws and the authority of the Holy Spirit. Scriptures and church traditions. The theory of true gnosis, developed by representatives of the ecclesiastical speculative direction, is not devoid of significant inaccuracies, for all its high dignity. In general, it represents a deeply conceived attempt to scientifically develop the foundations of Christian gnosis through the harmonious combination of the divine with the human, but in the image of the combination of these two elements of Christian knowledge one can discern some not entirely correct judgments. Although faith is recognized as a necessary means for the assimilation and knowledge of Christian truth, the knowledge delivered by faith and life with simple faith alone are recognized, in their dignity, as a lower stage leading to a higher stage - gnosis, which displaces faith from its central position in all spiritual life, assimilated to it by the apostle. Pavel. One can see some instability in the view of the significance of faith for gnosis, if it is recognized as a principle that stands above all evidence, and at the same time it is asserted that in gnosis, or in reason, it reaches its perfection. Gnosis at the highest level of its perfection is the fruit primarily of reason, which itself directs faith to perfection, and is not controlled by it; here we can already see an exaggeration of the importance of reason in relation to the knowledge of revealed truths. The importance of philosophy is also exaggerated. In philosophy, as we have seen, ap. Paul approved only of the desire to know the truth and the consciousness of reason expressed in it in its powerlessness to know God; Greek church writers raised philosophy to the level of revelation 120, as containing the same truths that were discovered in Christianity; the difference was indicated only in the relative incompleteness and obscurity of the truth known by philosophers, in comparison with the truth proclaimed in Christianity 121. The exaggerated importance of the content of philosophy led to an expansion of the volume of Christian knowledge; it is not knowledge only of revealed truth, but knowledge of truth in general, which should be embraced by the philosophy of religion, and not theology even in the broad sense. Finally, the importance of external authority in the matter of knowledge of Christian teaching is not entirely clearly indicated in its inherent quality. Representatives of the so-called positive or anti-gnostic movement took upon themselves to elevate the importance of external authority in Christian knowledge, to build a method of knowing revealed truths exclusively on the essence of revelation itself in its decisive difference from everything human, to indicate the proper boundaries of the knowability of Christian teaching and to highlight a more practical interest in comparison with the metaphysical. The main views of this trend were expressed with quite significant certainty by St. Irenaeus, although they were not developed by him with sufficient completeness. A disciple of the apostolic men, Irenaeus, with the calm importance of his character and the properties of his teaching, reminds us of the times close to the apostles. In the fight against heretical gnosis, he develops his views on the foundations of Christian knowledge. In contrast to the Gnostics, who rejected the significance of faith for pneumatics, Irenaeus recognizes it as the only power of our soul, leading us to God and always directing our knowledge. “Through love,” he says, we approach God 122, and faith, strengthened by the Spirit of God, is “a ladder for ascent to God” 123, and therefore it is always and above all necessary to adhere to faith 124. In faith and love, knowledge borrows its dignity and perfection, and not faith in knowledge, as Clement taught; without faith and love, knowledge puffs up (1 Cor. 8:1), turning into one-sided theoretical knowledge 125. According to Irenaeus, it is better not to know anything than, arrogant with knowledge, to fall away from love and know anything other than the one God and His Son I. Christ 126. Our knowledge is limited; Knowing this, a person should not strive to “find the causes of all things under investigation. Let man think that he is infinitely less than God, that he has only partially received grace, and is still unequal and not like his Creator, and cannot, like God, have knowledge and comprehension of all things” 127, and therefore some questions must be left to God 128. Christian knowledge consists in not changing the content of Christian teaching, which constitutes the subject of faith, not inventing another God other than the Creator, and another Christ; with the help of grace, to delve deeper with reason into the secrets of God's economy regarding the human race 129. Knowledge does not consist in rising above the truths of faith, but only in greater or lesser penetration into their meaning 130. Tradition, oral and written, serves, according to Irenaeus, as the source and norm of knowledge; he advises accepting this tradition in its entirety 131. Holy Scripture, as the work of the Spirit of God, is the safest guide to knowledge; it is only necessary to accept it in its entirety and avoid arbitrariness in the method of interpreting it. If the Gnostics and Alexandrians sought in the Holy Scriptures answers to all the questions of an inquisitive mind and found them with the help of allegory, then Irenaeus, on the contrary, believes that much in the Holy Scriptures. The Scriptures are incomprehensible to our minds; he advises not to look for answers to all questions in the Bible: deep questions that constitute the problems of the human spirit await their solution in the future life 132. Excessive allegorism in the interpretation of Holy Scripture is not approved by Irenaeus 133. Another source of knowledge, besides Holy Scripture, is oral apostolic tradition, which can replace Holy Scripture for those who do not have the opportunity to use it, such as. barbarians 134. The truth and integrity of tradition depends on the authority of its organs - the apostles and apostolic churches. The apostles, taught by Christ and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, possessed “perfect knowledge” 135. Irenaeus denies the opinion of the Gnostics about the existence of a secret tradition: for the apostles did not hide anything, but proclaimed one truth to everyone 136. This truth is preserved “throughout the whole Church.” “For the Apostles, like a rich man in a treasury, completely put into it everything that relates to the truth” 137, and therefore she is the true witness of the apostolic tradition 138. The guarantee of faithful preservation of tradition is the continuous episcopal succession from the time of the apostles 139. When a controversial issue arises, one must turn to the apostolic churches and receive from them a reliable resolution of the controversial issue 140. Thus, knowledge, according to Irenaeus, does not rely solely on reason, but mainly on faith and external authority. Irenaeus does not attach importance to Greek philosophy in relation to the knowledge of Christian truth; in it he sees “ignorance and godlessness” 141. “If philosophers,” says Irenaeus, have known the truth, then the descent of the Savior into this world is unnecessary. Because why did he go? Is it to make known to people a truth that they already knew?” 142. He does not deny that philosophers sometimes reached correct concepts about God, 143 but he is far from considering philosophy to be the revelation of the Logos. – The teaching of Irenaeus about Christian knowledge, its sources and norms, considered from a negative polemical point of view, represents the opposite of the heretical theory of gnosis; on the positive side, it is a true, but not complete enough, disclosure of the foundations of Christian knowledge indicated in the New Testament Holy Scripture. The significant difference between Irenaeus’ theory of knowledge and the theory of representatives of the church-speculative direction is that it considers Christian revelation to be the only content of gnosis and subordinates the subjective human element of knowledge to external authority. Our presentation of the theories of Christian knowledge makes it possible to determine the results achieved in resolving the issue of Christian knowledge by the time of Tertullian. These results are expressed in the following: the question of Christian knowledge has not yet received its full and comprehensive resolution: a) the Gnostic theory was a perversion of the foundations of Christian gnosis indicated in Holy Scripture, especially in the epistles of St. Paul, and demanded refutation not only through simple denial, but also through positive clarification of the foundations of Christian knowledge; b) the theory of representatives of the church-speculative direction, which in its formal direction was in some respects close to Gnosticism, could not be considered a sufficient refutation of the Gnostic theory. On its positive side, it did not present a true combination of elements of Christian knowledge and a correct explanation of their meaning in knowledge; the elevation of the subjective element over the objective serves as its distinctive feature; it does not accurately define the volume of Christian knowledge and the boundaries of the cognition of revealed teaching; c) in the teaching of Irenaeus about knowledge, only the direction in which the foundations of Christian knowledge should be revealed in the spirit of the New Testament is indicated. Holy Scripture, but the full development of these foundations is not presented. The subordination of the subjective element to objective and external authority is an essential feature of Irenaeus's teaching on knowledge; d) both church theories of Christian knowledge did not sufficiently understand the following points in relation to the question of knowledge: it was necessary to more accurately determine the volume of Christian knowledge, incorrectly increased by the Gnostics and representatives of the church-speculative theological direction, to determine the boundaries of the knowability of revealed teaching, to elevate the importance of external positive authority in knowledge and to limit the subjective. Tertullian, a man of an original and independent mind, humbly bowing to faith and at the same time bold to the point of insolence, took upon himself the clarification of these points. The African liveliness of feeling and the practical precision of the Roman lawyer, the eloquence of the lawyer and the dreaminess of the Montanist impart the unique character of Tertullian's theory of Christian knowledge. Tertullian's theory of Christian knowledge is generally imbued with a moral, practical and positive character. Its moral and practical spirit is determined by the decisive subordination of the scientific and theoretical activity of reason in the field of frank teaching of faith and salvation - the ultimate goal of all human activity in general. Cedat curiositas fidei, cedat gloria saluti - this is the main position that imparts the practical nature of Tertullian’s theory of knowledge. Its positive character depends on the fact that the subjective element in it is limited to external, so to speak, tactile authority, which displaces the rationalistic arbitrariness of the Gnostics from the field of Christian knowledge and moderates the mystical idealism and bold metaphysics of representatives of the church-speculative direction. There should be nothing in Christian knowledge that contradicts church authority: for in Ecclesia nihil tradendum nisi a Christo demandatum 144. However, giving his theory a positive character, Tertullian did not mean to completely eliminate the speculative element from the field of Christian knowledge, but wanted to give this element a truer direction than what he saw among his opponents. The idea expressed can be confirmed by the fact that Tertullian himself developed many theological thoughts in a “truly speculative sense” 145. Imbued with high respect for the activity of reason, Tertullian demanded, however, that this activity in the field of revealed teaching should not leave the sphere of its cognition, which is possible in the essence of Christianity itself and the cognitive powers of man without expanding or diminishing this sphere. In faith and positive authority, Tertullian saw a reliable bulwark against the extremes of idealism of his time, not depriving reason of the right and ability to comprehend Christian truth, but clarifying the conditions under which it is possible for it to truly comprehend it. True Christian knowledge is possible. Tertullian sees the highest basis for the knowledge of God in general in God himself: since “man, he says, cannot be considered greater than God, who can, in any way, by his own strength, declare a God who voluntarily does not want to be known as an object of knowledge: for human weakness (mediocritas) is much easier to invent gods for himself, as is clear from the experience of all centuries, than to honor the true God” 146. If man himself could not know God, then it is necessary to believe that God, in His goodness, desiring to be knowable, created man capable of knowing his Creator. “The goodness of the Creator,” says Tertullian, first of all consists in the fact that He did not want to be hidden forever, that is, He wanted something to exist that could know God. For what can be such a great good as the knowledge of God and the enjoyment of him? Although this good had not yet been discovered (before the creation of man), for the one for whom it was to be revealed did not yet exist, but God knew in advance the property of the good that was to be revealed in the knowledge of Him 147 . It was necessary for God to be knowable - and this (knowledge) is already good and, without a doubt, rational (rationale). There also had to be something worthy that could know God. But what could be envisaged more worthy than man - the image and likeness of God? and this is without a doubt a good and a reasonable good” 148. Thus, Tertullian sees the highest basis for the knowledge of God in the goodness of God, by which God voluntarily wanted to be known and created man capable of knowing Him 149. In the very knowledge of God, insofar as it is good in itself, man is given the highest motivation to freely strive for knowledge of God, as his highest good. So knowledge of God is possible both from the side of the cognizable object and from the side of the cognizing subject. Tertullian recognizes two types of knowledge of God, closely interconnected: natural knowledge (naturalis), based on nature (natura) in general, and positive knowledge, drawn from supernatural revelation (ex praedicationibus). This and other knowledge is determined by faith, as the first and necessary condition of all knowledge in general. The place and significance that faith, natural and positive knowledge occupy in Tertullian’s theory of Christian knowledge are determined by the Carthaginian theologian’s view of the history of the development of the religious consciousness of mankind, which contains the idea of ​​​​the gradual development of the knowledge of God and the moral perfection of man. In the plan of divine economy there is nothing sudden (subitum), but everything is done in strict order and steady sequence 150, everything previous serves as a rule for the subsequent 151, elevating a person from one degree of perfection to another - a higher one. But Tertullian’s idea of ​​gradual religious development also has another side: the progressive progress of mankind in the knowledge of God and virtue is, in essence, a return to the beginning, to the primitive state: for in Christo omnia revocantur ad initium 152. Consequently, the historical course of the religious development of mankind appears to Tertullian in the form of a circle. In accordance with the plan of divine economy, the development of man's religious consciousness took place in the following sequence. First of all, faith was cultivated in man: due to a lack of faith, the first man fell, but through faith his restoration had to be accomplished 153. By cultivating faith in a person, natural knowledge of God, which had received a false direction under the influence of sin, was corrected; in addition to natural knowledge, positive knowledge was communicated, gradually expanding to the full revelation of the truth in Christ 154; improvement in the knowledge of revealed truth followed under the influence of new revelations of the Paraclete. Thus, Tertullian’s theory of Christian knowledge, built on the idea of ​​the gradual historical development of the religious consciousness of mankind, can be presented in the following order: a) Tertullian’s teaching about faith and its relationship to knowledge in general; b) his teaching about the principles and sources of knowledge, both natural and positive; c) his teaching about the meaning of the new revelations of the Paraclete in relation to Christian knowledge and d) finally about the essence of Christian knowledge. Faith, according to the teachings of Tertullian, occupies the same central position in the religious-theoretical and practical activity of man as it is acquired by the apostle. Pavel. This position of it follows from the meaning attributed to it by Tertullian in relation to our salvation, as the result of the combined activity of all the forces of our soul, directed by faith, and not by reason, as the Gnostics believed: for faith, according to Tertullian, serves as the unshakable foundation of our salvation 155, directing the mind to the acquisition of true knowledge, the heart and will to a moral and virtuous life 156, giving us justification and making us sons of God 157 . If without faith neither knowledge, nor a virtuous life, nor justification are possible, then salvation is impossible without it. From its origin, faith is the free work of man and the work of God. In the first case, faith is the result of a certain disposition of our soul, seeking unity with God, freely, without coercion by any objective reasons, striving to communicate with Him. Here faith, based on an inner sense of the divine, is completely subjective and practical. “Man,” says Tertullian in the words of St. Paul, is justified out of freedom of faith, and not out of slavery to the law: for the righteous by faith will live." 158 In the second case, faith is based on objective grounds and is already theoretical in nature. Here faith is not only a feeling, a desire of our soul for God, but is a certain conviction or free recognition of God in the facts and phenomena with which He wants to instill in us faith in Him. Tertullian contrasts this faith with unreasonable faith - temeraria fides, monstruosissima fides 159, and not with simple faith, as the representatives of the speculative movement did; this latter is contrasted in Tertullian with fides frivola et frigida 160. Tertullian ardently defends rational faith, especially in polemics against Marcion, who argued that before the appearance of Christ God was not known in the world and that, therefore, there was no faith in Him; Christ produced faith in God per documenta virtutum. Tertullian, who did not recognize the inconsistency in the history of the religious development of man, could not agree that miracles alone could produce faith in God subito - without first preparing it. Faith, in his opinion, does not stand outside history, but is in connection with it, ascending from perfection to perfection. God has always taken care of nurturing faith in Him in a person, preparing it gradually to receive his full revelation in Christ. “So great a thing,” says Tertullian, as the coming of Christ, being prepared for the salvation of man, could not be sudden, since it could be useful through faith: for as much as it had to be perceived by faith in order to be useful, so urgent was the need for its preparation so that it could be perceived by faith” 161. The cultivation of faith in God was carried out in various ways. First of all, faith in the true God was created in man operum auctoritate 162. The greatness of God’s works, expressed in the creation of the world, produces faith in the Creator of the world: for one who delves into the greatness of His works cannot help but believe in Him. Faith in the truths subsequently revealed by Christ was prepared in ancient times ex praedicatione. The need for preliminary preparation of faith in these truths was determined by the essence of the truths themselves, whose incomprehensibility exceeds the human mind. Thus, the famous prophecy of Isaiah about the birth of Christ from the Virgin created fidem incredibili rei 163. Many facts and events of Old Testament history also prepared faith in Christian truths. The appearance of angels in human bodies confirmed in people faith in the birth of Christ in the flesh 164. Faith is also based on miracles, 165 but they alone cannot always give rise to true faith in a person. I. Christ himself, according to Tertullian, weakened the evidence of miracles when he said that false Christs and false prophets can perform signs and wonders (Matthew 24:24). Faith, gradually created by God in the soul of man through the greatness of his deeds, prophecies and miracles, is justly imputed to man and rewarded to God by man who is taught to believe Him on solid and reasonable grounds 166 . In relation to knowledge, faith is placed in a double position by Tertullian: it precedes knowledge in general, serving as the first and necessary condition that opens access to knowledge, and remains the everlasting norm for reason, directing it to the acquisition of true knowledge. In the first case, Tertullian’s teaching about faith in its relation to knowledge is consistent with the teaching about it by representatives of the church-speculative direction, in the second, it noticeably deviates from their teaching and approaches the teaching about faith of Irenaeus. There is no need to say that Tertullian’s teaching about faith, which precedes knowledge and accompanies it at all stages of its development, is directly opposite to the Gnostic-heretical judgments about faith and its relationship to knowledge. Like Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian refers to the famous words of the prophet. Isaiah to confirm his opinion about faith preceding knowledge in general. If you do not believe, then understand (Isa. 7:10), Tertullian repeatedly and persistently repeats 167. He also finds in the Gospel the basis for his teaching about faith preceding knowledge. Explaining the words spoken by I. Christ to the bleeding woman healed by Him: your faith has saved you (Luke 8:48), Tertullian says: “this is the faith that brings with it knowledge” 168. “I praise,” he expresses himself in another place, the faith that believes in the need to observe a custom before it has learned” the reason for its origin 169. Faith in relation to knowledge appears to Tertullian as a lamp, by the light of which they find God and, having extinguished this lamp, lose Him 170. Faith precedes natural knowledge. Although the feeling of the divine, rooted in the depths of the soul, is the dowry with which she is born; but this feeling without faith will not turn into true knowledge: for with a lack of faith, says Tertullian in the words of the Gospel, even if a person has anything, he will be taken away from him (Matt. 13:12). The first man fell for lack of faith 171 ; philosophers who did not always believe the voice of nature, testifying about God, did not acquire true knowledge about Him. In relation to the testimony of nature, faith is our free agreement with the truths to which it testifies and the assimilation of them. Reason, guided by faith, recognizes the truths it perceives on the basis of the testimony of nature Crede naturae, crode animae! 172. Faith also precedes knowledge drawn from positive revelation, being a necessary force of our spirit that assimilates revealed truths. Faith, relying on the inner sense of the divine, senses divine power in revealed truths and assimilates them, convinced that God does not reveal anything unreasonable or useless for the salvation of man. If Christianity, Tertullian believed, is a divine revelation given to man for salvation, then it is necessary by its very origin and, as such, is acquired first of all by faith: for the mind, not guided by faith, is capable of indignation against it. Tertullian expresses the need for faith in revealed truths, which seem stupid to reason (stultitia), in strong antitheses, imitating St. Pavel. The wisdom of God, he says, no one can comprehend, except those connoisseurs of the Divine who say: God should not do this, or: He should rather act this way, as if anyone could comprehend what is in God except the Spirit of God! Those who have the spirit of the world, who do not understand the wisdom of God by the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:21), who are skilled in themselves, are not considered such by God; for just as the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, so the wisdom of God is foolishness with the world. But we know that man is wiser than God; and man is stronger than God’s weakness (1 Cor. 1:25). So, God is then predominantly great when He seems small to man (pusillus), and then he is predominantly good when it seems to man that He is not good 173 . Developing the same idea about the necessity of faith for the assimilation of revealed truths, incomprehensible to reason, Tertullian says in another place: “the word about the cross appears to reason as madness, being in itself strength and wisdom. However, even worldly wisdom was turned by God into madness for the purpose of saving believers through the madness of preaching: for people could not know God in the wisdom of God. Since the man of the world did not know God in wisdom, whom he should have known, and the Jew did not know Him in the wisdom of the Scriptures, and the whole human race in the wisdom of His works, then God, not known in His wisdom, determined to refute the wisdom of man by foolishness through the salvation of those who believe in the foolish preaching of the cross" 174 . Reason considers this sermon unworthy of God, but faith sees salvation in it. “What seems unworthy of God is good for me. I am saved if I am not ashamed of my Lord (Mark 8:38). I find no other excuse for shaming myself except that, due to my disregard for shame, it proves that my shamelessness is saving for me and my madness is happy. The Son of God was nailed to the cross - I am not ashamed of Him, because this is worthy of shame. The Son of God died is undoubtedly true, because it is absurd (ineptum est). Buried, He rose again - and this is undeniable, because it is impossible” 175. Credo, quia absurdum est! All these antitheses and paradoxes, in which the divine wisdom revealed in the saving Christian truths is so sharply opposed to human reason and its wisdom, gave rise to a fairly widespread opinion that Tertullian demanded unconditional blind faith and created antagonism between faith and reason, revelation and science 176. But Tertullian’s teaching on faith presented above obviously does not confirm this opinion. Antitheses and paradoxes contain the simplest and most correct idea: faith is necessary for the assimilation of saving, revealed truths, which in their incomprehensibility surpass human reason; it, by subordinating the mind into obedience to Christ, makes it capable of achieving the knowledge of revealed truths that is possible for it. This idea of ​​Tertullian appears more clearly in his judgments about faith, which accompanies knowledge at all stages of its development as a norm. By recognizing faith as the norm of knowledge at all stages of its perfection, Tertullian’s theory of Christian knowledge differs significantly from the theory of representatives of the church-speculative direction. According to the teachings of Clement, as we have seen, faith reaches its perfection in gnosis, finding a solid foundation in it. According to Tertullian, faith always remains a support and reliable haven for knowledge (statio). It is not only the first and lowest step leading to knowledge and then giving way to it its primary place, but it always stands above knowledge in its strength and self-sufficiency, containing within itself everything necessary for salvation. Knowledge, says Tertullian in the words of St. Paul, as imperfection, will one day be abolished, but faith, like hope and love, endures (permanent fides, spes, dilectio) 177. The regulative significance of faith in relation to knowledge is expressed in the fact that it directs and holds the testing mind in the sphere of revealed truths that it itself embraces. Here her leadership is manifested in three moments (in tribus articulis): in re, in tempore, in modo, i.e. in relation to the subject of scientific research (quid sit quaerendum), the time at which research should be carried out, and the limit of research (ut quousque) in the field of revealed teaching. The regulative meaning of faith in relation to the title, manifested in these three points, was clarified by Tertullian in his polemic against the Gnostics regarding the understanding of the gospel words: seek and you will find (Matthew 7:7). The Gnostics, as already noted, believed that the above words of the Savior do not at all indicate that scientific knowledge should move within the narrow boundaries designated by faith, without being enriched with new results research and without improving in its content, scientific research, they thought, should lead to the retention of only what is good (1 Thess. 5:21), according to the teaching of St. Pavel. We have already seen that the Gnostics, using the above words of Holy Scripture, defended their rationalistic method in the field of Christian knowledge, which led them to the perversion of church teaching and expansion of the scope of Christian gnosis. Polemicizing against heretical rationalism and the illegal expansion of the volume of Christian knowledge, Tertullian pointed to faith as the most reliable means of determining the subject of knowledge, the time and limit of scientific research in the field of revealed teaching. The subject of Christian knowledge should be Christian truth, but it is assimilated only by faith: therefore, without faith it will not be assimilated and will not become the subject of our knowledge. But faith not only makes Christianity the subject of our knowledge, but points to it as the only subject of knowledge: for having believed in the teaching of Christ as the only true one (unum et certum), we thereby recognized it as higher and more self-sufficient than anything else in relation to our salvation. “When we believe in the teachings of Christ, we no longer want to believe anything else. For we believe first of all that there is nothing else in which we should still believe” 178. Faith also serves as an indicator when one must seek the one thing that is certain. In view of the unconditional necessity of Christian truth for our salvation, the search for it should not be endless; The end of the search is supposed to be the finding of what is sought, and the finding is determined by the moment when faith in the divinity of Christ’s teaching is created in the heart. “You must search until you find, and believe, as soon as (what you are looking for) will be found, and (then) do nothing more than preserve what you have believed in, and beyond this believe that which you should not believe in anything else, and therefore you should not seek when you find and believe in what was established by those who commanded you to seek nothing other than what was established by Him” 179 . Condemning the endless inquisition (infinita inquisition) of the Gnostics, Tertullian continues: “One must seek for what Christ established, and naturally as long as one does not find it, and so long until one finds it. But when you believed, you found. For you would not believe if you did not find, just as you would not seek if you did not have the desire to find. Therefore, this is why you seek, that you may find, and this is why you find, that you may believe. By faith you determine the entire duration of the search and finding. The very result of the search (fructus) supplies you with this limit (modum); Christ himself marked this limit. With the assimilation of Christian teaching by faith, the principle of searching for something new has no place in the field of Christian knowledge, as it is not based on faith. “If, just because others have built many different systems (alia tanta ab aliis sunt instituta), we continue to search for everything, thinking that we can still find something, then we are semper quaerimus et nunquam omnino credimus. For where will the search end? Where is the stronghold for faith? Where is the completion of the acquisition? Is it Marcion? But Valentin also puts forward the position: seek and you will find. At Valentin's? But Apelles also encourages me with the same expression” 180. The principle of the endless search for something new outside the content of faith cannot be applied to Christian knowledge simply because it contains a contradiction in itself. “If I have believed what I should have believed, and I imagine that after this I still have to search, then naturally I hope to find something. But I would not hope for this in any way, unless it was because I either did not believe, although I seemed to believe, or stopped believing. But by leaving faith, I am a denier of it. I’ll say once and for all: no one will search except the one who either didn’t have it or lost it.” A famous woman (Luke 15:8) lost one of ten drachmas and was looking for it: but as soon as she found it, she stopped looking 181. The Gnostic principle of endless research after faith seems to Tertullian simply unchristian. “What can you learn from people who themselves admit that they are still looking for? For if they are looking, then they have not yet found anything reliable. When they (the Gnostics) are still seeking, they do not possess, and when they do not possess, they do not yet believe; when they do not believe, then they are not Christians” 182. Thus, faith, according to the teachings of Tertullian, introduces reason into the sphere of revealed truth, guides it in it and does not let it out of it; searching outside this sphere seems to Tertullian to be a destruction of faith. If we compare Tertullian’s teaching about faith and its relationship to knowledge with the teaching about it by St. Paul, representatives of the church-speculative direction and the Gnostics, then the comparison will lead us to the following data. In Tertullian’s judgments about faith, it is impossible not to notice his desire to get closer to the apostle in his teaching about it. Pavel. Tertullian not only bases his judgments about faith on the teachings of St. Paul, speaks in literal expressions of his epistles, but often constructs the turns of his speech in the spirit of the expressions of the apostolic epistles. His antitheses and paradoxes, in which he contrasts divine wisdom with human wisdom, are nothing more than an imitation of the antitheses of St. Paul, although, of course, paradoxical speech belongs to the properties of Tertullian’s language. The dominant significance of faith in the inner religious and moral life of a person and its relationship to knowledge are explained by Tertullian in general in the spirit of St. Pavel. But the doctrine of the consistent historical development of faith is partly not free from Montanist influence. In relation to the Gnostic concepts of faith, Tertullian's teaching about it represents a diametric opposite. The Gnostics taught about the uselessness of faith in general and in particular for knowledge, but Tertullian teaches about the necessity of it and unconditionally subordinates knowledge to it. A significant difference between Tertullian's teaching about faith and Clement's teaching about it is that its self-sufficiency is shaded by Tertullian and defended more consistently than was done by Clement. Tertullian's teaching on faith, considered on its merits, appears to us in the following form. The opinion that Tertullian demanded blind faith, suppressing the activity of reason in the field of revealed teaching, is not justified by the totality of his judgments about it. Faith is blind if it is not affirmed on any basis: on the inner feeling of the divine or on the authority of God, people invested with His authority, etc. But in Tertullian, as we have seen, faith in its various moments is always affirmed on some basis, either on an internal feeling or on the authority of God, and is opposed to gullibility (temeraria fides), which is not based on sufficient grounds. Consequently, the faith that Tertullian demands cannot be called blind in its origin. It is a free act of our spirit, but involuntary: superstition comes from arbitrariness - superstitio, and not religion, says Tertullian 183. Tertullian's faith cannot be called blind in terms of its content. Insofar as it is the perception of revealed truths, it is already knowledge, alien, it is true, of a speculative nature, but presupposing an awareness of the same foundations on which faith itself is affirmed. If faith, based on known foundations, cannot be considered blind in terms of its origin, then it cannot be called blind in terms of its content: it carries within itself a theoretical element in embryo. One cannot see the demand for blind faith and the denial of science in the fact that Tertullian repeatedly and in harsh terms condemns curiositas and scrupulositas, putting faith in the foreground. Tertullian, as is known, fought against the extremes of the speculative trend, which lost sight of faith, preferring knowledge to it. In view of the sad results that accompanied the belittlement of faith or its denial, Tertullian with particular force defends the necessity of faith, subordinating knowledge to it, insisting on its self-sufficiency for salvation. You, as he says to his opponents, place all your hope in knowledge, humiliating faith; and I assert that knowledge, by virtue of its one-sidedness, is not enough for salvation, but faith will save us even without scientific knowledge: Fides, inquit, tua te salvum fecit, non exercitatio scripturarum 184. Here one can see extremes and exaggerations, but not a denial of science. There is no denial of Christian science and the elimination of the activity of reason from the field of Christian knowledge and the subordination of the latter to faith. By subordinating reason with its knowledge to faith, Tertullian delineates that sphere of activity for reason in the field of revealed teaching, from which it should not leave, creating Christian Science in the proper sense. But, subordinating reason to the guidance of faith, Tertullian does not deprive him of the right to knowledge of the supersensible, as we will now see from his teaching about the principles and sources of knowledge, natural and positive. Tertullian's teaching on natural knowledge embraces the following points: a) the doctrine of reason and feeling as tools of natural knowledge of God, b) about nature (natura) and c) about philosophy as sources and auxiliary means of knowledge of truth. In Tertullian's teaching on natural religious knowledge, there is a noticeable desire to give it the most positive and lasting character possible, alien to the abstractness of idealism, which turns actual real objects into abstract ideas. In connection with this desire are Tertullian’s unique views both on the cognitive powers of man - reason and feeling, and on nature and philosophy as sources of knowledge. Tertullian was deeply convinced that man was capable of knowing God even apart from supernatural revelation, if sin had not given a false direction to his cognitive powers: for God, who voluntarily wanted to be known, created man capable of knowledge, endowing him with powers and means sufficient to know his Creator. Reason and feeling are the abilities by which a person can acquire knowledge. Tertullian was imbued with high respect for the rational nature of man and demanded that rationality be manifested in every human action. “Reason is the work of God, since God is the creator of all things. He foresaw everything with his mind, arranged and ordered it, and therefore wants everything to be discussed and comprehended by reason. Thus, those who do not know God do not know the things of God." 185 Reason is referred by Tertullian to the essential attributes of nature in general and in particular of the human being. In human intelligence, he sees, among other things, an imprint of divine properties. Just as in God, he says, everything is as natural and reasonable, so in man 186, in free will and reason, who has imprinted in himself the features of the divine spirit 187. Considering the mind from the side of the objects it comprehends, Tertullian finds that it is the ability of our soul, cognizing the supersensible, spiritual and invisible 188. If the mind can rise to the knowledge of the supersensible in general, then it is obviously capable, to the extent possible for it, of knowing God in addition to positive revelation. But, recognizing reason as a power that cognizes the spiritual and ideal, Tertullian was far from the idea of ​​attributing to it an independent and dominant position in relation to another cognitive ability, to the sense, through which the visible and bodily is cognized, and, therefore, was far from the idea of ​​decisively leaning towards idealism and giving it a wide place in the field of Christian knowledge. Polemicizing with the Gnostics and philosophers who exalted the importance of reason in knowledge and degraded feeling on the basis of the comparative superiority of the objects they cognize, Tertullian put forward the position that our knowledge develops from feeling, and that, therefore, the basis of our knowledge is feeling, which determines the activity of reason; on the different merits of objects cognizable by feeling and reason, it is impossible to assert the comparative superiority of one cognitive ability over another: for our soul itself knows through reason and feeling. Defending the high importance of external feelings in knowledge, Tertullian, in contrast to his opponents, tried to demean the importance of the mind as a cognitive ability and make it too dependent on feelings. “Although what is comprehended by the mind—namely the spiritual—is superior to what is perceived by the senses—namely the body—but here is only the advantage of higher things in comparison with the lower ones, and not the mind in comparison with the feeling, which prepares it for the knowledge of the truth. For if the truth is comprehended through images, that is, invisible things through the visible (Rom. 1:20), then, in the knowledge of the invisible world through the visible, feeling is the leader, the culprit and the main basis, without which truth cannot be comprehended. How can the mind be more than that through which it exists, through which it needs, to which it owes everything that it achieves? With great pathos, Tertullian also defends the reliability of impressions perceived by the external senses. Believing that Gnostic idealism has a connection with the skepticism of academicians who denied the infallibility of external senses, Tertullian entered into heated polemics with the latter. “What are you doing, procacissima academia! You overthrow the entire foundation of life and disturb the entire order of nature, denouncing the blindness of the providence of God himself, as if He had endowed us with false, deceptive guides and feelings. Was it not through them that the second reorganization of the world took place? From them all arts, inventions, sciences" 190. In defending the infallibility of external feelings and their high importance in knowledge, Tertullian’s inclination towards empiricism, and his disposition towards idealism, and the desire to establish knowledge on a more real basis are reflected, making the activity of the mind dependent on the activity of feeling and thereby protecting it from arbitrary flights into the field of metaphysics. By defending the reliability of external feelings, Tertullian thereby defends the importance of nature as a source of natural knowledge of God, since its voice, testifying to God, can be heard by a person only through feeling. Nature - natura serves as a weapon for Tertullian, with which he fights the excessive idealism brought by the Gnostics into the field of Christian knowledge; He attributes to her the same great importance in Christian knowledge that the Greek church writers attributed to philosophy. If Justin and Clement of Alexandria heard in philosophy the voice of the divine Word, which at times conversed with the human mind, then Tertullian hears this voice much more clearly in nature, which from the beginning knows its Creator. Nature is a kind of bible in which a person can always read testimonies about God and find confirmation in it for revealed truths. But for a correct understanding of the voice of nature, Tertullian advises taking it in its original state, in which it came from the hands of the Creator, having not yet been subjected to education or culture: for the devil - interpolator naturae - has always tried to mix tares with this divine Bible. The simpler, more universal and more natural the evidence of nature is, the more true it is 191. However, nature’s knowledge of its Creator is so firmly imprinted in it that it has never been erased from it. By nature, which serves as our guide in the matter of knowledge of God, Tertullian means both the physical world and the moral nature of the human soul. On both, like hieroglyphs, the traces of its Creator are indelibly inscribed; a person can only delve into the recesses of his soul and listen carefully to the voice of nature in order to see these traces and unravel the hieroglyphs of truths. For God, who through goodness wished to be known, taught nature those truths that man needed to know about his Creator, and nature teaches man. Deus magister naturae, magistra natura, anima discipula, homo discipulus its 192. If Greek church writers believed that philosophy prepared people to accept Christianity, then Tertullian, on the contrary, thought that nature prepared a person to accept revealed truths that might not have been learned by a person unprepared for them. Physical nature taught man the knowledge of God and prepared him for the perception of revealed truths. In the wise and beautiful structure of the physical world, in wild flowers, small and great animals, Tertullian sees the imprint of the omnipotence, wisdom, and goodness of God and the destiny of the truths later discovered in Christianity. We present here one passage from Tertullian’s essay on the “resurrection of the flesh,” which will show us how, in Tertullian’s opinion, physical nature makes it easier for a person to assimilate revealed truths; it will show us with what love and trust he treated nature, to what high eloquence his speech reached when he described the imprint of divine truths noticed on it, more fully explained in positive revelation. “Turn your gaze to examples of divine power in the world. The day dies at night and is buried in darkness. The beauty of the universe is darkened and everything is shrouded in a black veil. Everything becomes discolored, everything becomes silent, stillness reigns everywhere... This is mourning for the lost daylight. And yet the day comes to life again... in the same form, whole and unharmed, - comes to life along with its decoration, with its beauty - the sun, killing its death - the night, crushing its coffin - the darkness; he again comes into his own until the night comes to life again with its characteristic decoration. The star rays, extinguished by the morning light, are illuminated; the planets, hidden from view due to temporary disappearance, return again; the lunar disk appears again... Winter and summer, spring and autumn alternately return with their plant forces, with ordinary phenomena and works: for the earth follows the same law as the sky. The naked trees are clothed with leaves, the flowers are again colored, the grains grow; the same seeds that had decayed in the ground appear again, and do not appear until after decay. Mira ratio! From a destroyer, nature becomes a preserver... Every creature after destruction returns to life. This general law-like change in things is evidence of the resurrection of the dead. God wrote it in His works before in the Scriptures; He proclaimed it by his power before by his word. For your benefit, He first sent you nature as a teacher, intending later to give you a prophecy with the purpose that you, a student of nature, having heard it, would immediately perceive what you had already seen...” 193. Moral nature—the human soul—testifies even more decisively to God; consciousness of God, conscietia Dei, is the dowry with which she was born. The importance and reliability of the internal testimony of the soul is based by Tertullian on its godhood. Created in the image and likeness of God, the soul imprinted in itself the features of the divine mind and, among other things, the ability to know God. By virtue of its origin from God, the soul turned out to know the truths, which were later given in positive revelation. These truths are so firmly inscribed in it that even sin and the subsequent gradual deviation of man from God could not erase in it the traces of the original revelation, but only darkened the sense of the divine in it with a thick layer of prejudices and superstitions; the gift of natural knowledge of God also resided in the sinful soul of man, like a lamp, clogged on all sides, but at times giving out its light even in the midst of the deep darkness of paganism 194 . “Although the soul is oppressed by the prison of the body, although it is surrounded by perverse institutions, although it is slavishly subordinate to false gods: nevertheless, when it comes to its senses and feels its recovery, as if after intoxication, after sleep or illness” 195, it again testifies to the truths imprinted in it by God. The testimony of a soul sick with sin and delusions about the true God was heard in all nations, not excluding the pagans: for all nations constitute one humanity and they all have the same soul 196. Since the soul from the beginning turned out to know the Christian God, then in this respect it is naturaliter christiana 197, and its testimony is the most ancient: ante anima quam prophetia 198; she was taught by God himself, her Teacher. Learn to know the soul, which serves as the basis of your knowledge 199. Treating with confidence the testimony of nature, Tertullian, however, argues that this testimony alone is not enough either for the knowledge of all the truths, the knowledge of which is necessary for the salvation of man, or for the understanding and correct achievement of Christian truths. For the testimony of nature about Christian truths is too general, not giving us the opportunity to know these truths in the full scope of their content. On the other hand, nature testifies to relatively few truths; about the one God and His properties, about demons, the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body, about the bliss after death and the torment of man. Due to the incompleteness and generality of its content, natural knowledge of God is recognized by Tertullian as insufficient; and hence nature itself, as the source of this knowledge, is also considered insufficient. If nature in itself is insufficient for a complete understanding of divine truth, then is it not possible to add to it Hellenic philosophy, which strived for knowledge of the absolute truth - God? Greek church writers gave a positive answer to this question, considering philosophy the path along which the pagans walked to the “most royal teaching” 200. This is not how representatives of the church-positive theological trend answered this question. Irenaeus already expressed and developed the view that Greek philosophy did not possess divine truth, otherwise there would have been no need for the revelation of Christ. Tertullian spoke even more decisively about the significance of Greek philosophy in Christian knowledge. His reviews of philosophy earned him the nickname of its enemy, aroused accusations of the inconsistency of his attitude towards it, which resulted in the fact that, while speaking contemptuously about philosophy, he nevertheless uses its services. How fair these and similar accusations are will be shown by a closer examination of Tertullian’s judgments on philosophy, which stand in close connection with his views on the history of the religious development of mankind, on Christianity and the natural knowledge of God. Essentially, Tertullian could not recognize in Greek philosophy either a) traces of divine revelation, or b) its necessary material and formal significance in relation to Christian knowledge, but c) nevertheless, he could not decisively deny its right to knowledge of the truth. Indeed, Tertullian speaks harshly of philosophy. The harshness of his judgments about her was partly due to external and personal reasons. The abuse of philosophy in its application to the knowledge of revealed teaching, which manifested itself in the Gnostic systems, forced Tertullian not only to condemn one abuse, but also to show the shortcomings of philosophy itself, in order to protect Christians from being unreasonably carried away by it. “Oh, if only,” he exclaims, “there had to be no heresies, so that the skilled ones might appear!” (1 Cor. 9:19). We would not discuss anything at all with philosophers, these, so to speak, patriarchs of heretics” 201. He would not have called Aristotle miser, Plato omnium haereticorum condimentarius 202, if the heretics had not abused their philosophy. It can be said that many of Tertullian’s harsh judgments about philosophy are in connection with his heated anti-Gnostic polemics and its interests. But in addition to polemical interests, his reluctance to pagan philosophy is also explained by the properties of Western civilization, which could not instill in Tertullian a special desire to retain philosophy at all costs as a necessary element of Christian knowledge. For Tertullian, the practical goal of knowledge was in the foreground - salvation delivered by Christianity, and not speculative philosophy with its “palestra” of opinions 203. But in general, Tertullian’s attitude to philosophy was in connection with his basic theological views, and did not stem from some incomprehensible fanatical contempt for it. Tertullian's view of the history of pre-Christian religious development of mankind did not allow him to see in philosophy the “greatest acquisition” in the eyes of God, which Justin Martyr saw in it. Man, according to the teachings of Tertullian, was created capable of knowing God and in his knowledge of Him ascending from perfection to perfection. But the sin of the first man led all of humanity away from the path of progressive improvement in knowledge. Just as by His goodness God created man capable of knowledge, so by His goodness He also wanted to restore man, raising him to the perfection of knowledge through positive revelation. But the religious education of mankind was carried out only in the person of the chosen people, 204 in the pagan world, left to its own forces, Tertullian sees the dominance of the devil, sin, lies and hatred of the truth. All human activities, theoretical and practical, reveal in him ignorance of God. The sense of the divine, which never completely faded away in man, was darkened and suppressed by delusion. If at times it broke through the darkness of delusion that enveloped it, then it was only an instantaneous glimpse of the consciousness of a sick soul momentarily recovering, 205 which received healing only in Christ. Consequently, if the religious development of the pagan world was alien to the direct influence of positive revelation and in its natural course took a false direction under the influence of sin, then philosophy, as a product of the natural cognitive powers of man, cannot be considered the owner of the divine truth, later discovered in Christianity; Moreover, it cannot be considered an acquisition in the eyes of God, since the cognitive powers of man for the most part acted incorrectly. “For to whom is the truth revealed without the help of God? Who knew God without Christ? Who found Christ without the Holy Spirit? To whom is the Holy Spirit communicated without the sacrament of faith? 206. Tertullian's view of the essence of Christianity and philosophy did not allow him to recognize the latter's material and formal significance in relation to Christian knowledge. Tertullian posits a sharp distinction between the content of Christian teaching and the content of philosophy, comparing both by origin and inner dignity. The first owes its origin exclusively to divine reason, the second to human reason and is borrowed from three sources. What is more or less true in philosophy is borrowed by philosophers from the sense of the divine common to all people and from nature in general. Included in the content of philosophy and truth drawn from the Jewish priests. books. These books "served as a treasury for all later wisdom, a prophetic source from which philosophers, sophists and poets drew water to quench the thirst of their spirit." But since philosophers cared only about fame and eloquence, they, not believing in the divinity of the sacred books, distorted the truths borrowed from them. The distortion of these truths was all the more possible since philosophers could not understand much in the Holy Scriptures. books, since at a time when the power of Christianity had not yet revealed its effect 207, the hidden prophetic language was not always understandable even to the Jews 208. Finally, philosophy owes a lot to the demons who taught philosophers generally false things. Even Socrates, from whom Tertullian finds something good, could not do without a demon 209. If, therefore, the content of philosophy originated from the three indicated sources, then its very origin does not speak in favor of the material significance of philosophy in relation to Christian knowledge: for in it even what is borrowed from reliable sources is distorted. “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? - academy to church? Our teaching originated from the portico of Solomon, who taught that God must be sought in the simplicity of the heart" 210 . Just as it is impossible to compare the content of philosophy with the content of revealed teaching according to their source of origin, so it is impossible to compare them according to their inner merit. Christianity, as a product of divine reason, contains truths that human reason could not reach without the help of God: “You have been taught from God, says Tertullian, what you possess, or from no one else, if not from God. For who will reveal to us what God has hidden? One must obtain knowledge from where ignorance is safe. It is better not to know from God, because He has not revealed, than to know from man, because he himself has presumptive knowledge" 211. Christian wisdom (christiana sapientia) is characterized by clarity and immutability 212, while worldly wisdom is characterized by the absence of firm certainty 213. The first teaches every artisan to know about God, the second does not give a clear concept of Him even to philosophers; Thus, Thales could not give Croesus a satisfactory concept of the Divine, and Plato assures that the Creator of the universe is difficult to know 214. Philosophers strive for truth, and Christians alone possess it 215. Just as Christianity is infinitely superior to philosophy, so a Christian is incomparably superior to a philosopher in his knowledge and moral perfection. The philosopher seeks knowledge for glory (gloriae animal), and the Christian for salvation 216. The Christian wears on his forehead the banner of wisdom, modesty and compassion, 217 and the philosopher is the enemy of all these virtues. “What do a philosopher and a Christian have in common? A student of Greece and a student of heaven? Destroyer and creator of things? Friend and enemy of error? A perverter of truth and its restorer, a thief and a guardian?” 218. Our wisdom is from the school of heaven 219, and therefore nemo major, nisi christianus. A comparison of Christian teaching with philosophy leads Tertullian to the conclusion that philosophy does not have such material significance that could make it a necessary element of Christian knowledge. Tertullian does not recognize Greek philosophy as having any formal significance in relation to Christian knowledge. Philosophical methods of research, according to Tertullian, do not lead to knowledge, but to opinions and give rise to schools. But Christianity is not a type of philosophy, but a single truth that cannot be either Stoic, Platonic, or dialectical; therefore, methods that could make it stoic and platonic 220 are inapplicable to it. Tertullian does not like the fact that “Philosophy gives (arbitrary) forms to things, now compares them, now distinguishes them, from the known it concludes to the unknown, it resorts to examples as if everything can be compared, for everything it offers norms (hypothetically), it leaves nothing for free divine activity, it elevates its opinions to the laws of nature” 221. If Greek church writers considered dialectic a pillar of truth, then Tertullian, on the contrary, considers it positively unsuitable and harmful for Christian science. “Poor Aristotle! He invented for them (the heretics) dialectics - a master of destroying and creating, unstable in its positions, forced in its conclusions, persistent in its proofs, zealous in disputes, difficult for itself, discussing everything, but in such a way as not to finally decide anything” 222. Tertullian confirms the unsuitability of philosophy with its rationalism and dialectics in the field of Christian knowledge with the words of St. Pavel. The Apostle, he says, warns against the wrangling inherent in philosophy (Col. 2:8); he was in Athens and in assemblies he became aware of this human wisdom, an imitator and perverter of the truth, divided into heresies due to the diversity of its sects, mutually at odds with each other. And Tertullian himself, familiar with philosophical systems, knew how many differences of opinion there were in them, how large the range of opinions was, what a huge ramification of controversial issues and how many intricacies in resolving them 223. However, without recognizing Greek philosophy as having either material or formal significance in relation to Christian knowledge, without elevating its truths to the level of revelation of the Logos, Tertullian does not deny and could not deny in principle the right of Greek philosophy to relative knowledge of religious truth in general, but not Christian truth: his views on natural principles and sources of knowledge of God did not allow him to decisively declare philosophy incapable of acquiring certain correct ideas about God. Tertullian, as we have already seen, teaches that a person can achieve knowledge of the Creator in addition to supernatural revelation, relying on reason, feeling and nature, as instruments and sources of knowledge given to him by God. But Greek philosophy, in its quest for knowledge of God, one way or another relied on the same means and sources of knowledge; therefore, she too could reach, to a certain extent, true ideas about God. This is the necessary conclusion from Tertullian’s teaching on natural knowledge of God in relation to philosophy. Tertullian could weaken this conclusion by referring to the false direction of the theoretical and practical activity of philosophers, but he could not reject it. “Of course,” he says, we will not deny that philosophers have sometimes achieved ideas that are consistent with our teaching. Sometimes, during a storm, when the direction indicators in the sky and the sea are mixed, they end up in the harbor by a lucky mistake, sometimes, by blind luck, they find the entrance and exit in the dark. But nature (natura) also gives (to know) a lot, so to speak, de publico sensu 224, which God has deigned to bestow on the soul.” All of Tertullian’s stated judgments about Greek philosophy show that his view of its meaning in relation to Christian knowledge is more correct in principle than the view of it by representatives of the church-speculative direction, who incorrectly elevated some of its truths to the level of revelation. Tertullian’s opinion can be considered completely correct that in Christian knowledge, which has revealed truth as its subject, Greek philosophy does not have the necessary material significance, insofar as it is the fruit of the natural forces of man, which did not always act correctly under the influence of sin, and not the fruit of positive revelation. It is impossible not to recognize as correct the grounds on which this opinion is affirmed. It, as we have seen, follows from Tertullian from his view of the history of the development of the religious consciousness of mankind, and this view itself is rooted in the biblical teaching about the religious pre-Christian education of mankind, left, except for the Jews, to itself and, in its desire to know God, replaced, according to the ap. Paul, God's truth is a lie 225. We will not touch upon Tertullian’s opinion about the influence of demons on philosophy and its borrowings from the Holy Scriptures. euro books; this opinion, expressed earlier by Tertullian, was repeated only by him, as not contradicting his basic view of philosophy, as sapientia saecularis. Tertullian’s opinion that philosophical scientific methods are not fully applicable to the knowledge of revealed truth cannot be considered unfounded. If Christianity, Tertullian thought, is a divine revelation, then the science of it must be built on foundations corresponding to the essence of its very subject. Christian wisdom, established on philosophical methods, will no longer be Christian wisdom in the proper sense; Christian teaching, learned according to the methods of philosophical schools, will be Stoic, Platonic and dialectical Christianity 226, as it appeared in Gnostic systems. And Tertullian believed in the possibility of constructing a proper Christian philosophy with its characteristic method 227, although he knew that nihil sine aetate est, omnia tempus expectant. This method must be established by reason itself, which knows the truth according to its own laws. If reason is a legislator in general, 228 then there is no reason to deny it, enlightened by Christianity, the ability to build Christian science on its inherent laws. Tertullian's idea that Christian science should be Christian in its own sense was very beneficial in his time, when in some part of Christian society there was a noticeable desire for Christianity to come too close to pagan wisdom. In general, from the point of view of his basic views on Christianity and philosophy, Tertullian could say: Greek philosophy is not a necessary accessory to Christian knowledge. But from the point of view of the same principles, Tertullian could not, as we have seen, deny philosophy the right to know the truth and, therefore, could not help but recognize the share of good in it. The recognition of philosophy's right to a certain degree of knowledge of truth is the explanation why Tertullian, who sharply condemns philosophy, sometimes finds it possible to agree with some of the opinions of Plato and Aristotle, and sometimes even calls the Stoics nostri 229. While decrying the abuses of philosophy in all its forms, Tertullian, however, is not indifferent to any philosophy: one can notice in him an unfavorable attitude towards idealistic philosophy and a disposition towards Stoic philosophy, as more consistent with his desire for reality and positivity; he even borrows some arguments from philosophers. But the nature of the use of the services of philosophy does not contradict Tertullian’s basic view of the significance of Greek philosophy in Christian knowledge: in most cases, he attracts Greek philosophy for the purpose of pushing it away later 230. From a practical point of view, Tertullian can be reproached for rejecting philosophy as a useful means for creating Christian Science. But the brave and decisive Tertullian was not capable of compromise. Positive knowledge of God, complementing and enlightening the natural, is drawn by reason from Holy Scripture and church oral tradition under the guidance of the authority of the church. If in Tertullian’s judgments on the meaning of faith, reason, nature and philosophy, the desire to establish Christian knowledge on the strongest possible foundations clearly appears, then this desire is even more prominent in his teaching about the positive sources and norms of Christian knowledge, the subjective element of which is made dependent on external authority. The first and most important source of Christian knowledge is the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments. Tertullian looked at Holy Scripture as a code containing rules that should determine not only thought, but also every moral act of a Christian. Tertullian expressed his demand to look for the basis for thought and practical life in Holy Scripture in a decisive form: what is not directly indicated in Holy Scripture is considered prohibited 231. This requirement is not contradicted by the position put forward by Tertullian against the Gnostics: non ad scripturas provocandum est, nec in his constituendum certamen. This position, which has a negative character for Tertullian, in a positive sense means that when interpreting Holy Scripture and extracting evidence from it in favor of a controversial issue, one should be guided not by arbitrariness, but by known criteria. With his Prescriptions, Tertullian establishes these criteria that should guide the mind that cognizes the truths revealed in the word of God. Tertullian’s prescriptions are based on two ideas: the idea of ​​knowledge and true understanding by the church of its written and oral heritage 232 and the idea of ​​identity, of course in the essentials, of oral and written traditions, as emanating from the same source. On these two ideas, Tertullian establishes two criteria in relation to understanding the spirit of Holy Scripture: one of them relies on the authority of the church, which testifies to its written heritage, 233 and the other in the rule of faith - regula fidei, with the content of which the interpretation of Holy Scripture must be consistent. Both of these criteria are directed against the Gnostic arbitrariness in handling the canon of St. books and interpretation of their contents. Based on the first criterion, Tertullian demands that only those Scriptures recognized by the Church be recognized as authentic and of importance for Christian knowledge, and that her view of the inner dignity and inviolability of these Scriptures be accepted. This criterion was set by Tertullian primarily against the Marcionites and Valentinians, who, not recognizing the unity between the New Testament and Old Testament revelation according to the source of origin and their inner spirit and denying the equal degree of inspiration of Holy Scripture in all its parts, rejected some holy ones. books and distorted those recognized by them 234. Relying on the voice of the church, which testifies to its written heritage, Tertullian defends the same degree of inspiration of all the books of Holy Scripture, the Old and New Testaments 235. The Old Testament is inspired by God: for in it God himself spoke to the Jewish people through the prophets - the organs of the Holy Spirit 236. Tertullian sees confirmation of the divinity of the Old Testament Scriptures, among other things, in the fulfillment of the predictions contained in them. “What is happening was predicted before, and what is now seen was heard before”; World upheavals, physical, political and social disasters were predicted and are being fulfilled. All this is providenter scripta sunt. Fulfilled Old Testament prophecies also confirm faith in predictions regarding future events: for the same Spirit of God spoke about the events that were fulfilled and those about to happen 237 . The same Spirit of God speaks in the New Testament Scriptures. While distinguishing the New Testament revelation from the Old Testament, Tertullian does not allow, however, an internal opposition between them. The difference of covenants is made by the same God 238 . Even in ancient times, God predicted the advent of a new order of things - novam legem evangelii et novam sermonem apostolorum. It was foretold that the new covenant would be shortened and freed from the burdens of the law, but this novatio was foretold and accomplished by God alone. The preaching of I. Christ was only the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises, and in this respect nec forma sermonis in Christonova 239. The New Testament Scriptures are also sacred and inspired by God, just like the Old Testament ones: for the apostles were authorized to preach by the Lord himself and enlightened by the Holy Spirit. The writings of the disciples of the apostles 240 are certified by the authority of the apostles. Tertullian does not allow, contrary to Marcion, a difference between the preaching of the apostles in terms of its internal content; the difference between the apostolic writings exists, in his opinion, only external: because all the apostles proclaimed one God and one His Christ and they all agree with each other on the foundations of faith - de capite fidei 241. So, recognition of the same degree of divine inspiration of all the Holy. The Scriptures are old. and new covenants, the acceptance of all scriptures as sacred, which are recognized as such by the church - this is what is obligatory for the mind, acquiring knowledge of revealed truths on the basis of Holy Scripture. In the voice of the church, precisely in the rule of faith that belongs to it, Tertullian seeks support for eliminating subjective heretical arbitrariness in the interpretation of the inner meaning of Holy Scripture. The Gnostics, as already noted, looked for confirmation in Holy Scripture for their doctrines, alien to it in their fundamental provisions, and found these confirmations in it through arbitrary treatment of the meaning and letter of Holy Scripture, forcing it to serve the benefit of heretical systems. In view of the abuses committed by the Gnostics when interpreting Holy Scripture, Tertullian pointed out the need to be guided by the rule of faith when explaining the Word of God. Nihil adversus regulam fidei neither in the interpretation of Holy Scripture, nor in the teaching built on Holy Scripture. The guiding significance of the rule of faith in the explanation of Holy Scripture is based on the identification of oral and written tradition. “Is it possible,” asks Tertullian, for a faith that adheres to a different rule to borrow help for its proofs from the faith it attacks? What has Moses to do with anyone who rejects the God of Moses? If there is another God, then his things must be different” 242. “In our teaching,” says Tertullian, there is nothing contrary to Holy Scripture. We too are Scripture from its very beginning. We exist according to Scripture before it became different (among the heretics), before it was damaged by you. It would not behoove us to have the teaching intact without the integrity of the sources from which the teaching is drawn” 243 . But since the identity of Holy Scripture with the rule of faith extends to the most general dogmatic points, the guiding value of the latter is not enough and does not eliminate the need for special hermeneutical rules. The hermeneutical rules proposed by Tertullian are not numerous, but they impart a unique character to his exegesis - namely, literally-realistic, standing in connection with Tertullian’s general desire for positivity, with which the mystical allegorism of the Gnostics and representatives of the church-speculative trend is in little harmony. According to Tertullian, there is no particular need to look for hard-to-understand truths in the expressions of Holy Scripture in view of clarity, certainty and precision in expressions, for the Holy Spirit does not express anything dubious despite its simplicity, and God’s foreknowledge was concerned about the accuracy of the expression of revealed truth, providing for “the appearance of heretics who, in the ambiguity of the expressions of Holy Scripture, could find justification for their errors” 244 . However, the clarity and accuracy of Holy Scripture is revealed, according to Tertullian, only to those who penetrate the paths of divine providence by which it led humanity to the knowledge of the complete truth. The fullness of divine truth was revealed gradually and expressed adaptively to the consciousness of humanity, which passed through various stages of religious development. According to the acceptability of man, the truths in Holy Scripture were expressed; in one case it briefly speaks of a known truth, in another more fully; sometimes it offers an image of the truth, sometimes the truth itself. Based on the idea of ​​​​the gradual revelation of divine truths, Tertullian affirms a rule that requires penetrating into the meaning of the Scriptures and understanding each expression not separately, but in conjunction with other expressions preceding and following 245. With recognition of the clarity of expression of truths in St. Scripture is associated with Tertullian's desire to limit, if possible, the circle of hidden allegorical expression of truths. In contrast to the Gnostics, who wanted to extend the allegory to all of Holy Scripture, Tertullian put forward the position: prophetic language is not always and not in all cases allegorical, but only sometimes and in some cases 246. Although Tertullian, as can be seen from the above expression, does not eliminate the allegorical way of explaining Holy Scripture, he assigns it a very insignificant place in comparison with the literal one, and in the very understanding of allegory, Tertullian’s inclination towards the positive, the real is expressed. This tendency towards literalism and realism is reflected when Tertullian generally discusses prophecies and their fulfillment. In prophecies he is looking not for an idea, but for an event and a thing. “For what is written is justified by events. Behold, all people hate us for our name’s sake, as it is written; we are persecuted by our neighbors just as it is written. This is what the Lord said. If He understood what He said differently, then why didn’t it happen differently than as He announced? Scripture proclaims nothing other than what we know in things. If predicted events do not come true, then how will those not predicted be fulfilled? A perversion of faith would occur if the predictions did not coincide with the events." 247 The same tendency toward literalism and realism is expressed when Tertullian speaks of the properties of prophetic language. He distinguishes two forms of prophetic expression of truths: allegorical (allegoricae scripturae) and simple (simplex) - without the veil of allegory. Since in the second case the truths are expressed clearly and simply, the interpretation here must correspond to the simplicity of the expression itself. Tertullian includes among the simple and clear predictions the prophecies about Christ, the fall of cities, etc. He advises taking all such prophecies in the literal sense. “Where,” he asks, in these places (in the prophecy about the Messiah) are the figures in Isaiah, the images in David and the parables in Jeremiah? Tertullian also indicates the type of prophecies that can be interpreted as spiritaliter and carnaliter, as for example. predictions about the miracles of Christ, expressed in the healing of mental vices and physical illnesses. In general, Tertullian understood some passages of Holy Scripture so literally that his method of interpretation can be called in some respects carnalis. Even in Tertullian’s understanding of allegory, there is a tendency towards realism. He distinguishes three types of allegorical expressions: allegoria proper, parabola and aenigma. In all these three types of hidden language, something is different in words, and something else is in thoughts - aliud in vocibus, aliud in sensibus. But this aliud in Tertullian is far from the same as that of the representatives of the church-speculative school. For the latter, allegory serves only as a conditional cover that hides the idea; Tertullian sees in allegory not only an idea, but also a thing, and the allegory itself is not an empty fiction, but a reflection of reality. According to Tertullian, an image has as much real meaning as the thing on which it is built; the difference here lies only in the power of reflection in the image of the essence of reality itself (veritatis). The image, Tertullian believes, is drawn according to the actual property of the truth itself, just as the reflection of a human face occurs in a mirror. There would be no difference between the images if they did not contain the properties of the truths on which they are drawn. If, for example, a prophet presents an image of the resurrection, then in this image, according to Tertullian, the prophet does not represent any abstract idea about restoration in general, but a real event from which the image is abstracted. Tertullian does not identify the image with the true essence itself (substantia): the image is less than the truth, even if all the features of truth are imprinted in it 248; but it also does not turn it into an empty form into which you can put any idea you like. “Although the image contains a reflection of reality, the image itself has its own reality. It is necessary to first exist for oneself (in reality) in order to be able to serve as a figure for others. Similarities borrowed from the inessential have no meaning, and an allegory based on nothing has no meaning." 249 In general, the character of Tertullian’s interpretation of Holy Scripture is clearly expressed in the following words: res in litteris tenentur, ut litterae in rebus leguntur. In all of Tertullian’s judgments about Holy Scripture, as a source of Christian knowledge, one can see the desire to establish a method of interpreting the word of God on solid principles that can eliminate personal arbitrariness in understanding the content of revealed teaching. But Tertullian, like other church writers of his time, could not adequately realize his desire, because the exegetical principles set forth by him could not protect Tertullian himself from the extremes of allegorical and literal interpretation of Holy Scripture. Tertullian's literal-realistic method of explaining Holy Scripture had only relative significance insofar as it was opposed to the extremes of allegorism; but he also gave Tertullian the opportunity to assert on the evidence of Holy Scripture such ideas that did not find direct and clear justification in it. And Tertullian himself admits that it is impossible to successfully resolve controversial issues of faith using Holy Scripture alone: ​​for the word of God, true in itself, can allow for different understandings of it. “And the heretics can say that we are falsifying the Scriptures and misinterpreting them, and they themselves will make a claim to the truth” 250. Arguing with heretics on the basis of Holy Scripture alone is both useless and harmful: “victory here is either impossible, or indecisive, or of little decisiveness” 251. “And how much can you, the most experienced in Holy Scripture, achieve (in a dispute with an heretics) if what you affirm is denied by your opponent, and what you deny is affirmed? Of course, you probably won’t lose anything in an argument except your voice, but you won’t gain anything more than indignation as a result of the blasphemy you heard. But the one in whose interest you enter into a contest in order to confirm the doubter, will he incline towards the truth or, perhaps, rather towards heresy? Struck by the fact that he sees you failing in anything... won’t he go home with even greater uncertainty, not knowing what he should consider to be heresy?” 252. In view of the unsuccessfulness of the dispute with heretics about the true understanding of Christian teaching on the basis of St. Scripture Tertullian sets himself the task of establishing such a method of proving the truth of the doctrine, with the help of which it would be possible to defend the truth without Holy Scripture. This method of proof constitutes Tertullian's famous praescriptiones 253. In Tertullian's theological terminology, three prescriptions are distinguished: a) praescriptio veritatis 254; b) praescriptio principalitatis et posterioritatis mendacitatis 255; c) praescriptio proprietatis 256 . The first prescription intends to establish the truth of church teaching on the basis of the truth of the church itself: if the Orthodox Church is the true church of Christ, then its teaching is the true teaching of Christ. This prescription draws its strength from history. There is no doubt that Christ, during his stay on earth, announced to the people and especially to his closest disciples a teaching defined in content and scope; It is also certain that He made the apostles teachers of the people; It is also certain that the apostles, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, proclaimed faith in Christ first in Judea, and then transmitted the teachings of the same faith to all nations and all churches founded by the apostles themselves. From the apostolic churches, other churches borrowed faith and the seeds of teaching. All these churches constitute one church throughout the entire space; the highest proof of the unity of the church is a single tradition (una traditio) of the same doctrine of faith 257. So, if there is no doubt that Christ preached on earth, the apostolic ministry of His disciples and the unity of the church are reliable, then there is no doubt that the teaching of the church is the true teaching: for no one knows about God except the Son, and no one knows the Son except the apostles, who received from Him the knowledge of God, and the church, taught by the apostles what they were taught by Christ, and Christ by God. Just as there is one true church throughout the entire earth, so there must be one true teaching; Just as the organs through which the true teaching reached man are reliable, so is the teaching itself reliable. If all this is true, then the prescription is also true; it should not accept other preachers of the teachings of Christ, except the apostles, and other teachings that do not agree with the teachings of the church, which preserves in purity the apostolic heritage transmitted to it orally (viva voce) and in writing. It is obvious that the first prescription is based on the assumption that the apostles and the churches they founded are infallible bodies that preserve the teaching of Christ intact. And since this assumption was disputed by the Gnostics, Tertullian was forced to polemicize against the Gnostics regarding the reliability of the organs of tradition. The Gnostics, as is already known, argued that the apostles either did not fully understand the Lord or did not fully communicate to the churches what they heard from Christ, and that the churches also misunderstood the apostolic preaching. Refuting the objections of the Gnostics directed against the apostles, Tertullian argues that the ability of the apostles to assimilate the teachings of Christ is guaranteed by the divine dignity of I. Christ himself, who could not send apostles to preach who were unable to convey His teaching to people in its entirety 258 . The incompleteness of the apostolic knowledge of revealed doctrine would be contrary to the intimacy of the relationship between Christ and His disciples and the purpose for which Christ always had his disciples with him. In the person of his disciples, the Lord prepared teachers for the people and therefore made them his inseparable companions and witnesses of his teaching, explained in detail to them what seemed obscure in His teaching, saying that they were given to understand mysteries inaccessible to the people 259. If Christ said to the apostles: “You cannot bear this now” (John 16:12), then he added that the Holy Spirit would later guide them into all truth, which was fulfilled, as the book of the Acts of the Apostles testifies. Knowing all the secrets, the apostles preached the same teaching. Tertullian argues that the known disagreement between the apostles cannot serve as proof of the difference between the apostles. sermons This disagreement, Tertullian thinks, concerned not teaching, but external behavior. Tertullian also resolutely denies the opinion of the Gnostics about the existence of a secret tradition originating from St. Pavel. This apostle, as the history of his conversion to Christianity shows, accepted and then preached the same teaching that the other apostles preached. When he was raptured to the third heaven and heard unspeakable verbs there, he did not receive any special teaching conveyed by him to Timothy alone, as the Gnostics believe. In the will of Ap. Paul, given to Timothy: to observe the tradition, does not speak about any secret teaching, but about the non-acceptance of another teaching that was not taught by the apostle. Paul “openly, before many witnesses (1 Tim. 2:2).” In general, the apostles could not hide the highest secrets of the teaching from some listeners: because they were obliged to proclaim the teaching openly, firstly, by the example of Christ himself, who taught openly and never hinted at the existence of a secret tradition 260; secondly, by the direct commandment of Christ. Preaching himself openly, He commanded that His disciples proclaim in the light what they heard in darkness, and preach what was said from Him privately on the housetops. The apostles had to fulfill this commandment of their teacher: failure to fulfill it would have been negligence on the part of the apostles 261. Finally, fear of the enemies of the name of Christ could not keep the apostles from proclaiming all the teachings known to them. The history of apostolic preaching proves that the apostles were not afraid to proclaim their teaching openly. Obliged to proclaim all the truths known to them, the apostles could not hide anything from “the churches that had already believed, in order to entrust anything separately to a few.” Hiding certain points of teaching from the churches would indicate a lack of unity of preaching, which directly contradicts the Apostolic Scriptures, where the desire of the apostles is clearly expressed that all Christians should profess the same teaching 262. True, the apostles sometimes “talked about certain subjects (of faith), so to speak, in the circle of their household.” But at these conversations they did not introduce another rule of faith different from the one they proposed publicly (in mediam); they did not teach about one God in the church 263 openly (in aperto), and about another God secretly (in secreto). But if the apostles were able to assimilate and did assimilate the teaching of Christ in its entirety and passed it on in its entirety, then were the churches able to correctly assimilate the apostolic teaching? This question was answered by the Gnostics in a negative sense. Tertullian gives a positive answer. The doctrine of faith, he says, proclaimed by the apostles, has been adopted by all churches in all its completeness and accuracy. The reproaches caused by some churches from St. Paul 264 cannot serve as proof of the teaching of faith that was incorrectly adopted by the churches: for the churches rooted by the Apostle were corrected, and their correction is evidenced by the unity of their faith with those churches for which the Apostle Paul 265 thanked God. But the churches not only infallibly adopted the apostolic tradition, but also infallibly preserve it. The infallibility of the churches as bodies of tradition is evidenced by the unity of the teachings observed by them. “Is it plausible that so many churches could be mistaken about the same faith among all? There is never the same consequence under many circumstances: what is the same for many is not error, but tradition” 266. Finally, the Holy Spirit always dwells in the church as a teacher of truth - doctor veritatis. His duty is to guide the churches in their observance of the doctrine in all its purity 267 . So, if the authority of the apostolic churches as reliable organs of the teaching of Christ is beyond doubt, then the truth of church teaching is also beyond doubt, and the falsity of teaching that is inconsistent with church teaching and not supported by the authority of the church is also beyond doubt. The second prescription is based on the priority of the church or the law of prescription. If the true church exists in time before the heretics, then there is no doubt that its teaching is older than their teaching; if the church teaching is older than the heretical, then it is the true teaching: for truth precedes error 268. Accordingly, the priority of truth should be given to the opinion that is on the side of the authority of antiquity. But the criterion of temporal priority aroused at that time a strong objection, apparently: in relation to the heresies that arose in the post-apostolic period, of course, it is quite possible to apply the priority of truth, but how to use it in relation to the heretics who acted under the apostles? However, Tertullian found it possible to eliminate this objection. Heretics, he says, will not prove their origin either from the apostles or from the apostolic disciples, because heresy is condemned and rejected by the apostles; in the condemnation by the apostles of contemporary heresies, all subsequent heresies receive their condemnation 269. The true teaching finds its confirmation in the general consciousness of the churches about their apostolic origin; this consciousness is supported by the continuity of episcopal succession from apostolic times. Thus, the Church of Smyrna points to Polycarp, who was appointed bishop by the ap. John, Roman - on Clement, confirmed in episcopal dignity by the ap. Peter. “Let the heretics also invent something similar,” 270 but the inventions will not help them, because their teaching is directly opposite to the teaching of the apostles and apostolic men. So, if church teaching is more ancient than all heretical teachings, then its antiquity alone serves as evidence of its truth (testimonium veritatis). The third prescription denies heretics the right to possess the apostolic heritage bequeathed to the church. This prescription is confirmed by the first two. If the truth belongs to the church, as an inheritance received by it from the apostles, then the right to possess it belongs only to those who are in union with the church. But heretics are rejected by the church; therefore they have no right to possess her heritage. “If,” says Tertullian, the truth should be awarded to us who act in accordance with that rule of faith, which is Ecclesia ab apostolis, apostoli a Christo, Christus a Deo tradidit, then the truth of our position, which states that heretics should not be allowed to refer to Holy Scripture, cannot be doubted; since we have proven even without the Scriptures that they have nothing to do with the Scriptures.” The church can rightfully say to heretics: “Who are you? when and where did you come from? What are you doing in my domain without being mine? By what right do you, Marcion, cut down my forest? Who allowed you, Valentin, to divert my sources? And who gave you, Apelles, the power to move my borders? This is my property. Why do you others, at your own discretion, sow here and be satisfied? This is my possession: I have owned it for a long time, I own it by right of primacy. I have an undoubted power of attorney from those owners to whom it belonged. I am the heir of the apostles! As they ordered in their will, what obligations they established regarding the mysteries of the faith, as they obliged me with an oath, so I own the inheritance. They deprived you of your inheritance and rejected you as alien to them, as enemies” 272. From all three prescriptions the following data regarding Christian knowledge follows. The authority of the church and church tradition are the necessary regulators of our knowledge: for, belonging to the church, one cannot arbitrarily, without listening to its voice, sow and be satisfied. And since only the church possesses the truth, then this truth must be sought in it and in order to know it it must draw support from the church consciousness. “If you want to exercise your desire for knowledge more beneficially in the matter of salvation, then go around the apostolic churches, where the apostolic seats still stand in their places, in which the originals of their messages are read, which represent their voice and currently replace for us the face of each of them. If Achaia is closer to you, you have Corinth; if you are near Macedonia, you have Philippi.” If you look closely at the teachings contained in the churches, you will see that they contain the very teachings that predicted heresies 273 . From the above words it is clear that Tertullian considers true only that knowledge that agrees with the beliefs of the church throughout its entire territory. A universal belief is true not only because it is universal, but also mainly because it presupposes the same reasons that produced it: the unity of tradition, the reliability of its organs, etc. In essence, all three Tertullian prescriptions form one theological proof of the truth of Christian teaching, without the help of Holy Scripture through formal principles. At present, this proof consists mainly of references to the authority of ecumenical councils and church fathers. In Tertullian, it is based on evidence of the truth of the church and its teachings from the point of view of its universality in space and priority in time 274. From the material side, Tertullian’s proof of the truth of the teaching without the help of Holy Scripture does not represent anything new that would not have been known before, before Tertullian. In the ancient church it was very common, and in Irenaeus it is stated in places in almost the same expressions as in Tertullian. Tertullian's merit lies in his clear, definite and harmonious development from the formal side, in the application to him of terminology borrowed from Roman jurisprudence. In relation to Christian knowledge, Tertullian's prescriptions serve as strong and eloquently developed arguments in favor of the guiding importance of the authority of the church and church tradition in the matter of correct knowledge and preservation of Christian truth. Our presentation of Tertullian's theory of Christian knowledge has come close to that point of it, which constitutes its feature not found in other theories. This point lies in Tertullian’s Montanist teaching about the Paraclete as the highest and most reliable leader in the knowledge of revealed truth. The doctrine of the Paraclete, as the highest principle of knowledge, was drawn, as one might assume, into Tertullian’s theory of knowledge for two reasons. The stated doctrine of the sources and principles of knowledge reveals in Tertullian a twofold desire: firstly, the desire to understand Christianity in its independence from philosophical systems and to build Christian philosophy on the principles proposed by Christianity itself; and secondly, the desire to impart the greatest possible strength to the exposed principles of knowledge. Considering the sources and foundations of knowledge offered by Christianity itself, and noting that even with these sources it is not always possible to achieve clear knowledge, Tertullian dwells with special love 275 on the Savior’s promise to send people to guide the Spirit of truth (John 16:13), through which God himself reveals to people what they do not know 276. Of course, none of the Christians doubted God's guidance; but the form of understanding this leadership was different. Tertullian adopted a Montanistic view of the leadership of the Holy Spirit; which was in connection with his other Montanist beliefs. If, Tertullian thought, Christ promised to send the Paraclete to people as mentors and this promise was fulfilled, then there is no reason not to believe that the Paraclete really teaches us in all truth. On the other hand, the adoption of the Montanistic doctrine of the Paraclete, as the highest principle of knowledge, stands with Tertullian in connection with his desire to impart the greatest possible firmness and positivity to knowledge 277. In the fight against heresies, Tertullian set himself the task of establishing Christian truth on solid foundations that eliminated any disagreement regarding its understanding. To achieve this goal, he demanded the subordination of reason to faith, and elevated external positive authority over subjective authority. Believing in the sufficiency of the leaders he indicated in knowledge, Tertullian, however, clearly saw that others did not recognize this sufficiency in them. He himself declared the voice of nature to be insufficiently clear and complete evidence in favor of Christian truths; the rule of faith is a reliable support for the knowing mind, but it does not establish agreement between believers regarding all the truths of faith; Holy Scripture contains many passages that are difficult to understand, which can give rise to differences of opinion regarding their true meaning. Where can we find an indisputable basis for the sources and norms of Christian knowledge that can give them unshakable firmness? The highest and immutable foundation of our knowledge is the Paraclete, which leads us to a correct understanding of the truth through new revelations that clarify and clarify what is dark for us 278 . The objective basis for recognizing the Paraclete as the leader of humanity is the Savior’s promise to send in his place the Comforter Spirit, who should teach us in all truth. The descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, His extraordinary gifts poured out on the leading Christians, serves as confirmation of the fulfilled promise of I. Christ about the embassy of the Holy Spirit as the leader of the believers. The subjective basis for the need for new revelations of the Paraclete is human weakness, which always needs higher leadership in the matter of our salvation. God, who destined man for perfection, does not leave with his help man who is gradually ascending to perfection: if “the devil always acts and daily adds something new to every kind of evil,” then it is impossible for “the work of God to lose power or cease to act” in the future 279. New revelations of the Paraclete help a person ascend to the highest perfection. Tertullian absolutely could not and did not want to understand the naturalness of the fact that in the church, by his time, the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, previously necessary for its establishment, had already ceased. If, Tertullian thought, the human soul at all times was capable of prophecy, if the Old Testament church was endowed with a prophetic gift, then it cannot be that God did not endow the Christian church with this gift. If the revelations of the Paraclete ceased in it, then in this circumstance one should see the guilt of Christians who have driven the Holy Spirit away from themselves by the shortcomings of their moral life. But that the gift of prophecy has not dried up among believers is confirmed by the Montanists, who attract the Holy Spirit to themselves by the purity of their lives; one must cleave to them in order to assimilate the prophetic gift and moral perfection 280. Among the Montanists, the Paraclete, as the vicegerent (vicarius) of Christ and the leader (deductor) in all truth 281, resolves, through new revelations, all doubts, perplexities and disputes that arise among believers regarding Holy Scripture, teaching and discipline 282. The recognition of the Paraclete as the highest basis of knowledge did not, however, have a significant impact on the theory of knowledge and dogmatics of Tertullian 283. The works of Tertullian, which serve as the main source for the study of Montanism, clearly show that he, even though he deviated from the society of the Phrygian prophets, kept church dogma intact, as well as his previous views on the sources and norms of knowledge of it. The mere fact that Montanism was based on a moral-practical tendency serves as proof that its center of gravity lay in the theory of moral-disciplinary life, and not in dogmatics. The Montanist doctrine of the Paraclete, as a source of new revelations, could, apparently, lead Tertullian to a change in his view of Christianity as a revelation complete in its scope, and of the sources of knowledge of this revelation. But Tertullian, in his writings directed against (Orthodox) physicists, offers detailed explanations of the meaning of new revelations in relation to dogma. Defending the need for new revelations of the Paraclete, Tertullian decisively argues that these revelations do not apply to the rule of faith, since the Paraclete does not communicate or add anything new that could overthrow faith 284. Una nobis et illis (Orthodox) fides, says Tertullian, unus Deus, idem Christus, eadem spes, eadem lavacri sacramenta 285. Sufficient confirmation of the validity of the above words are the dogmatic writings of Tertullian, written by him during the Montanistic period of his life. Believing in the inviolability of dogma, he, of necessity, had to preserve inviolable the authority of the sources of his nickname. A comparison of Tertullian's pre-montanist writings with Montanist ones confirms that he did not change his views on the sources of knowledge. As before, so now he recognizes the authority of the apostles 286, considering them to possess the Spirit of God to a higher degree than the Montanist prophets 287 possessed Him; he believes that the apostolic tradition is irreformabilis 288 and is complete in its scope, so much so that it does not need to be supplemented by new revelations 289, refers to the voice of the church, testifying to its heritage received from the apostles 290, and considers Holy Scripture to be a necessary source of Christian knowledge. Comparing his faith with the faith of the Orthodox, Tertullian said, not without sincerity: una ecclesia sumus. Tertullian was even convinced, together with the Montanists, that he, as enlightened by the Paraclete, understood dogmas more clearly than the Orthodox, and in this conviction lies the reason for his heated polemics with heretics on dogmatic issues, which he, in most cases, conducted on strictly ecclesiastical principles, to a small extent mixing in Montanistic errors. The revelation of the Paraclete, so to speak, enlightens the consciousness and thereby helps to more clearly comprehend dogma 291, but does not communicate new truths. But these errors appear in full force when Tertullian argues from a Montanist point of view about moral life and discipline or about special Montanist beliefs and errors. The new revelations of the Paraclete were recognized as necessary for the improvement of moral life and discipline; only in this area could the administration of the Paraclete be accompanied by innovations 292 . The Montanistic idea of ​​the periods of development of the church 293 under the leadership of the Paraclete changed the view of tradition in relation to practical life, but did not concern the dogmatic tradition; in the first case, for Tertullian it is no longer something unchangeable and completely consistent with the letter of Holy Scripture, otherwise the improvement of moral life would not be possible. The paraclete can even change the institutions of the apostles 294 in the field of practical life. As a Montanist, Tertullian also allows for a custom that is approved by reason, even if there were no clear indications of it in Holy Scripture 295 . All these and similar views of Tertullian are to a certain extent not in harmony with his views on dogma and the sources of its knowledge; but in general the doctrine of the new revelations of the Paraclete did not have a significant influence on Tertullian’s dogma. After the stated teaching of Tertullian about the elements of Christian knowledge, its objective and subjective principles and norms and their mutual relationship with each other, it seems relatively easy to clarify Tertullian’s concept of the essence of true Christian gnosis. From the point of view of its origin, our knowledge is the work of God and man. God, who desired to be knowable, created man capable of knowledge and placed in his soul the consientia Dei, as a dowry (dos), from which and on which all the wealth of knowledge should develop. From this side, gnosis is presented by Tertullian as a gift, but not in the Gnostic-heretic sense. Gnosis is not the fruit of a spiritual seed flowing from a self-developing deity until it approaches the finite, as the Valentinians taught; Tertullian's gnosis is a free gift of the goodness of God, which endowed man with this gift at his very creation. Tertullian gnosis is not a natural gift of a person, arising from the essence of his very nature: a person becomes the owner of knowledge in the same way as he becomes the owner of good, i.e. non natura, sed institutione; only God, who has no beginning, has everything non institutione, sed natura 296. Man will have knowledge of institutione if he freely strives for knowledge and acquires it according to the laws of his created nature and in accordance with his destiny to knowledge. Only through free effort can a person turn into property and increase his dowry, otherwise he will lose even that which he has 297. But a person cannot help but strive for the knowledge of God: for in the very knowledge of God, as the highest good, there is an incentive for a person to strive for knowledge. So knowledge from the side of its origin can be defined as follows: it is a good, freely and out of goodness given by God to man and freely acquired by the latter, knowledge non natura, sad institutione. In terms of its content, Christian gnosis is knowledge of the essence of Christianity as a divine revelation, in its decisive difference from everything non-Christian and human. “First of all, I put forward the position: Christ has established something united and certain (unum et certum), in which the nations must certainly believe and which, therefore, they had to seek, so that they could believe when they found” 299. Unum et certum, revealed by Christ, fills the entire volume of Christian knowledge: for it is a complete, self-sufficient truth, the only saving one, resolving all doubts and perplexities in the field of religion, as well as all the most important questions of the human spirit, and excluding any further research outside of it of any new truths to replenish the volume of Christian knowledge. "After I. We do not need curiosity about Christ, nor research after the Gospel" 300: for Christ himself is the whole truth - totus veritas and His teaching is the whole truth - totum eat 301, so complete in its scope that nothing new can be introduced into it by human arbitrariness or removed from it as unnecessary for salvation. “We have as teachers the apostles of the Lord, who did not choose anything of their own free will to introduce (new things into the teaching of Christ), but the teaching they received from Christ faithfully passed on to the nations. Therefore, even if an angel from heaven were to preach a different gospel, let him be anathema.”302 Tertullian defines the boundaries of the volume of Christian knowledge by the rule of faith, arguing that this rule indicates all the truths necessary for our knowledge: adversus regulam nihil scire omnia scire est. And since in the rule of faith only dogmatic truths are indicated, we can say that Tertullian, under Christian knowledge, thinks of Christian theology in a rather definite sense. By limiting the volume of Christian knowledge to one area of ​​revealed Christian truths, Tertullian thereby corrects the false view of the Gnostics on the volume of knowledge and the not entirely accurate concept of it by representatives of the church-speculative direction. Christian gnosis in the sense of Tertullian will not be a Gnostic philosopheme, embracing Christianity, Judaism and paganism in an arbitrary mixture and combination of them; it will not be knowledge of truth in general, as a philosophy of religion, as the Alexandrians were inclined to understand it, since in both cases, due to the expansion of volume, Christian knowledge ceased to be Christian knowledge in the strict sense of the word. Tertullian's concept of Christian gnosis in terms of the volume of its content can be expressed as follows: it is knowledge of the essence of Christian revelation according to the guidance of the rule of faith. This concept of the volume of Christian knowledge does not contradict the concept of the ap. Pavel. What is Tertullian's gnosis in relation to the limits of the knowability of revealed truths? Gnosis, according to Tertullian, has only relative perfection, never in real life rising to direct contemplation of truth, and temporary significance: for permanent fides, spes et dilectio. Although Tertullian’s teaching about the imperfection of Christian knowledge is generally consistent with the teaching of St. Paul and Irenaeus, but it is no longer free from Montanistic influence. From a negative point of view, Christian scientific knowledge should not be an elevation above revealed truth and a shock to it, which can occur if scientific knowledge sets its task to enrich Christian teaching with new results of research or to reduce its content. Neither one nor the other has a place in true gnosis: for the content of Christianity cannot be expanded even by new revelations: regula quidem fidei una omnino est, sola immobilis et irreformabilis 303. In general, scientific knowledge should not lead to the overthrow of the sound rule of faith (salva regula fidei) 304, but to its preservation. On the positive side, Christian gnosis in its essence is a clear, alien to ambiguity, darkness and uncertainty 305, theoretical knowledge of the Christian truths of faith, close to consciousness with our mind. More specifically: Christian gnosis is the comprehension of the divine οἰχονομιας, possible for the mind, the understanding of the times and reasons of the scriptures (tempora et causas scripturarum) 306 understanding of the rational meaning of divine orders; but our desire for theoretical knowledge must constantly be proportionate to what contributes to salvation [quod saluti proficiat] 307. Although Tertullian recognized the impossibility of perfect comprehension of revelation, he did not limit knowledge to a certain stage of its perfection, but recognized progress beyond it. “Everything is gradually improving, everything has its own degrees of development, everything awaits its time according to the word of Ecclesiastes: there is a time for every thing” 308. While allowing for the gradual improvement of knowledge, Tertullian is, however, not inclined to think that our knowledge can rise above faith, having exhausted its content, as representatives of the church-speculative trend [wrote]. Faith, according to Tertullian, always remains an inexhaustible source of knowledge, as it contains truths that are not completely comprehensible to reason. Consequently, Tertullian’s gnosis from the side of the cognition of revealed teaching is a deepening and approaching the consciousness of the truths of faith, but not an elevation above faith. This concept of gnosis is more correct than the concept of the Gnostics, who considered it direct contemplation of truth; in this concept, more accurately than among the representatives of the Gnostic church movement, the boundaries of the cognizability of revelation were indicated. According to the sources of its origin, Tertullian's gnosis is knowledge drawn from Holy Scripture, church tradition and the testimony of nature, but not from philosophy. Tertullian's merit can be considered in exalting the importance of the first three sources of knowledge and diminishing the importance of the latter due to the incorrect combination of these sources allowed by the Gnostics and representatives of the church-speculative direction. But a special inclination towards naturalism, towards literalism in the interpretation of Holy Scripture and a dislike for an idealistic worldview in general could lead, and indeed led Tertullian, to a not always sublime way of understanding Christian ideas. In general, the merit of the Carthaginian presbyter lies in accurately clarifying the meaning of the sources of Christian knowledge based on their essence; but the method of using them recommended by Tertullian is not devoid of imperfection, insofar as it could prevent Christian thought from always rising to pure speculation; it had a special significance only to the extent that it was contrasted with the extremes of idealism in general. From the side of principles and norms, Tertullian’s gnosis is knowledge based on subjective and objective principles and norms. Feeling and reason are recognized as the subjective principles of knowledge. The defense of feeling as a reliable principle of knowledge was of great importance at that time, to the extent that this defense was associated with the defense of many Christian truths, which were perverted by Gnostic idealists 309 . One can, perhaps, reproach Tertullian for making the activity of reason closely dependent on feeling, by which dependence imparted an empirical character to knowledge; but the reproach that Tertullian rejected the participation of reason in the matter of Christian knowledge is unfair. The elimination of philosophy with its methods from the field of Christian knowledge does not mean for Tertullian the elimination of the activity of reason in this sphere; reason, according to Tertullian, as the author of laws in general, 310 and Christian truth must be cognized according to the laws peculiar to it. Tertullian recognized faith as the subjective standard of rank; its significance in knowledge and its self-sufficiency for salvation are illuminated by Tertullian with more energy and consistency than was done, for example. Clement of Alexandria. – Tertullian considers the authority of the church, traditions and leadership of the Paraclete to be objective criteria and principles of knowledge. Perhaps Tertullian’s highest merit in resolving the question of knowledge is to clarify the meaning of external church authority in Christian knowledge. His work De praescriptionibus haereticorum serves as the best ancient monument dedicated to the defense and clarification of the meaning of ecclesiastical authority in Christian knowledge. But Tertullian's teaching about the new revelations of the Paraclete, which did not have a significant influence on Tertullian's faith, in any case, constitutes a dark spot on his theory. Finally, Tertullian gnosis is not knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but for the sake of salvation, which serves as the ultimate goal of our knowledge. The subordination of the subjective element to the objective imparts the positive character of Tertullian’s theory of knowledge, and the placing of gnosis in an inextricable connection with salvation is moral and practical. In general, Tertullian’s concept of Christian knowledge can be expressed in the following few words: Christian gnosis is knowledge of the essence of Christianity in its decisive difference from everything pagan, never, in its essence, rising in real life to full contemplation of the truth, but giving a clear and reasonable idea of ​​it, which can gradually improve in its clarity; it is acquired by us with the help of subjective and objective principles and norms with the subordination of the former to the latter. The general meaning and dignity of Tertullian’s theory of knowledge can, on the basis of the presented presentation of it, be determined in this way: in its general churchly positive spirit, it represents one of the more successful attempts to develop the foundations of Christian knowledge indicated in the New Testament Holy Scripture, although it cannot be considered a true and final solution to the issue in all its details. Compared to other theories, it is the opposite of the Gnostic theory, in its positivity it is different from the theory of the church-speculative direction and close to the theory of Irenaeus, taking a further step in explaining its principles; Finally, she discovers in her author a strong desire to imitate the apostle. Paul in his teaching on faith and knowledge. In relation to the general resolution of the question of Christian knowledge, its merit consists in accurately determining the scope of Christian knowledge by limiting it to one teaching of faith and eliminating the pagan-philosophical element from it, in correctly defining the relationship between the divine, external, positive and subjective elements of Christian knowledge and in indicating the relative cognition of revealed truths. But it is not devoid of shortcomings and even misconceptions in relation to the interpretation of the meaning and significance of certain elements of knowledge and their mutual relationship. The character of the positivity of knowledge that Tertullian’s theory can impart to it cannot be fully approved: it can lead to the introduction of not entirely bright realism into theology and to the limitation of legitimate speculation in it. II. Basic principles of theology. – The Doctrine of God in Himself – The doctrine of God in himself. The relationship between the theory of Christian knowledge and the theology of Tertullian - The Doctrine of the Being of God: the unity of the divinities of the being - the identity of Christ. God and the Old Testament. - physicality of deities. being - and its ability to experience affective states. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity: the reason for revealing the doctrine of the Trinity, Tertullian’s concept of οἰχονομία - the Substantiality of deities. persons - The relation of the trinity to the unity of deities. Omne quod est, corpus est sui generis. Nihil est incorporale nisi quod non est. Tertullian's theory of Christian knowledge determines the volume, content, sources, norms, and in general everything that, in a certain respect, can be called the methodology of Christian theology. The principles of this theory and the view of the meaning and mutual relationship of the elements of Christian knowledge, implemented in practice, were necessary to give Tertullian theology an individual character, containing good sides, but not alien to the shortcomings arising from the very methodology of this theology. According to the nature of these principles, an essential feature of Tertullian’s theology should be a decisive positivity and concreteness in the understanding of everything spiritual, which could, under certain conditions, lead the Carthaginian theologian to careless opinions and give rise to various conclusions about the true meaning of his theological contemplation. Indeed, Tertullian’s theology, testifying to his undoubted ability for a truly speculative understanding of Christian truths, at the same time reveals in him a desire to see the truth, so to speak, with his own eyes and touch it with his own hands 311. A strong desire for concreteness and reality does not always reflect favorably on the speculative element of Tertullian’s theology, who, however, wanted to give this element the true direction in view of the extremes of Gnostic idealism: the constant limitation of the speculative element, for fear of falling into abstract idealism, and the exaltation of the concrete constitute the basic tone of Tertullian’s theological contemplation, which reaches its sharp expression in the following statement: omne quod est, corpus est sui generis. This basic tone, depending on the image and properties of the combination of positive and speculative elements in Tertullian’s theology, is clearly revealed from his teaching about Christian truths, which have the meaning of the basic principles of his theology, developed according to the principles of the theory of Christian knowledge. Since the main principles of Tertullian’s theology are expressed in the doctrine of God in himself and His relationship to the world, then, in order to understand the meaning of these principles, we begin to consider Tertullian’s teaching about God in himself and His revelation in the world in general, as the Creator of this world. In the teaching about God in himself, the basic tone of Tertullian theology is clearly indicated, and in his teaching about the revelation of God in the world as its Creator, this tone reaches its extreme peak. Tertullian's teaching about God contains in itself: I) the teaching about the being of God in general and II) the teaching about the Trinity God in persons. I. The basic theological concepts of Tertullian, which are part of his teaching about the essence of God, were expressed and developed by him in a polemic directed primarily against Marcion; The same polemics determined the disclosure of these concepts only from certain points of view 312. The main provisions, characteristic to a greater or lesser extent of all Gnostic systems in general, include: metaphysical dualism 313, the separation of the highest God, revealed in Christianity, from the Old Testament Creator of the visible world and the concepts of the essence of God and His properties arising from this separation, and, finally, docetism. The first two provisions, which are directly related to the Christian teaching about God, received the following development from Marcion 314. Like other Gnostics, resolving the question of the origin of evil in the world, Marcion came to the conviction that good and evil, as phenomena opposite to each other, cannot come from one beginning, but presuppose the existence of two opposite principles 315 - good God (bonus, optimus, ἀγαθός) and evil matter (ὕ λη). The good God, by virtue of his all-perfect being, was not the Creator of the visible, material, imperfect world, but was the culprit only of the spiritual world. Goodness is the only property of the nature of God, and his ἀπαθεία testifies to the fact that affects in general are alien to him, and even more so affects that contradict his goodness, such as. anger, jealousy and severity in punishments, etc. As not the Creator of the visible world, this God, before his revelation in Christ, was unknown in relation to human consciousness - ignotus, incertus. The Dimiurge, the Old Testament God, was recognized as the culprit of the visible world and man, portrayed as a fair judge, punishing and merciful to man, angry and irritated. Tertullian contrasted the indicated basic provisions of Marcion's teaching about the essence of God in general with the following basic provisions of his teaching about the essence of God: the unity of the divine being, the identity of the highest God and the Old Testament, the corporeality of the divine being and his ability to experience affective states (affectiones). In the doctrine of the unity of the divine being, the image of Tertullian’s theological contemplation is revealed to us from the side of its speculative element, which is in agreement with the positive sources and norms of Christian knowledge. Contrasting Christian monotheism with Gnostic dualism, Tertullian expresses the following position, based on the testimony of Christian truth and in agreement with the demands of reason. Deus, si non unus est, non est, quia dignius credimus non esse, quodcunque non ita fuerit ut esse debebit 316: for the unity of God is one of those essential attributes of Him, without which He cannot exist as God 317. To prove the unity of God, Tertullian, first of all, turns to the evidence of nature and in the universal human consciousness (omnium conscientia) finds the following idea about it. God is the highest being (summum magnum), abiding from eternity, unborn, uncreated, having neither beginning nor end 318. An analysis of the idea of ​​God, inherent in the human soul, as the highest being, leads Tertullian to the recognition of the unity of God and to the rejection of dualism. The concept of the highest being necessarily presupposes conditio, lex, by virtue of which it cannot be equalized (adaequari) to another being, and the latter to the first: for the highest being ceases to be such as soon as it is equalized with another being in any respect 319; in this case, it loses its superiority, because by equating it with another being, the law is violated, according to which nothing can be equal to the highest being 320. If the highest being does not allow the existence of another highest being next to itself, then the conclusion follows that only one thing can exist that is the highest being, which does not allow the existence of an equal being in order to itself be the highest being 321 . If the highest being is one, then God is one: for God is the highest being. “He will not be God unless He is the highest being; He will not be the highest being unless he has no equal, and he will not have his equal unless he is completely alone." If God, as the highest being, is necessarily one, then Christian truth rightly proclaimed: Deus, si non unus est, non est. So, just as two equal highest beings (paria summa magna) cannot exist, so two equal Gods cannot exist. “How, asks Tertullian, can two highest beings exist, when the highest being, according to the concept of it, must be one that has no equal, and not having an equal is appropriate only for one, and with the existence of two, this is in no way possible” 322. Just as two Gods who are equal cannot exist, so, according to Tertullian, two different Gods, separated by their sphere of dominion, cannot exist. Whatever differences exist between gods, as soon as they are recognized as such, they must have common properties, without which deity is unthinkable. Thus, the concept of God is necessarily associated with the idea of ​​Him as the highest being. But the highest being is recognized as such because it surpasses all other beings in its greatness; therefore, by the nature of its essence, it must necessarily be one: for the existence of two different beings presupposes in each of them some kind of deficiency that establishes a difference between them (diversitas), or a lesser degree of greatness in one of them, which already deprives them of the right to be called the highest being. For the reduction of greatness in one places it (the highest being) in a subordinate relationship to another, and with subordination it ceases to be the highest being: desinit enim, si subjicitur. If, on the basis of difference, it is impossible to imagine one highest being as lesser than another, then they must both be recognized as equal highest beings; but two equal highest beings are not possible. Consequently, if the existence of two different (disparia) highest beings is impossible, then the existence of two different gods is impossible: for God is the highest being. “So when two gods are declared to be the two highest beings; then it is necessary that one of them be either higher than the other or lower. Reject God, whom you consider inferior, and deny the highest being, who seems lesser to you. By recognizing them as gods, you recognize both as the highest beings. You cannot take anything away from one or add anything to another. By recognizing divinity in them, you deny difference" 324. But if the existence of two different highest beings is impossible, then, on the other hand, the absence of difference between them does not speak in favor of the reasonableness of belief in the existence of two equal highest beings. Let us assume the existence of two or many equal highest beings. If they are all equal to the point of indistinguishable identity, then they all constitute one due to their equality; for in each of them there is everything that is contained in two or many 325. If the two highest beings, by their indistinguishability, constitute one, then their number makes no sense 326. If it is impossible to recognize two indistinguishable highest beings, then it is impossible to admit the existence of two equal gods, no different from each other, since God is at the same time the highest being. A religion that recognizes two identical gods seems to Tertullian to be simply a superstition, according to which two Gods are worshiped in one and one in two 327. Thus, the analysis of the idea of ​​​​God as an absolutely perfect highest being, from the side of its metaphysical content, leads Tertullian to the affirmation of the church teaching about the unity of the deity and to the denial of dualism, which is inconsistent neither in logical nor in metaphysical terms. Dualism, considered from the point of view of its metaphysical concept of God as the highest being, appears to Tertullian to be a logically inconsistent polytheism. Reason cannot admit two highest beings, because after one comes number and after two many. But since reason, for some reason, allowed the unity of the divine substance to be split into two, then it, based on the concept of the divine being as the most perfect, will act illogically, stopping at the recognition of two gods; for such recognition implies a limitation of its all-sufficiency. According to Tertullian, Valentine does much better, with whom Depth and Silence (Βύθος χαί Σιγὴ) produce up to thirty aeons 328. Tertullian does not find consistency in dualism in the metaphysical sense, to the extent that he seeks grounds for a metaphysical idea of ​​God in the sphere of finite phenomena, referring to the existence of many earthly rulers. An incorrect comparison of absolute greatness with relative and conditional greatness leads to a false conclusion - to the recognition of as many gods as there are kings among different peoples 329. Finally, Tertullian sees the inconsistency of dualism in the fact that it was affirmed by the Gnostics on the use in Holy Scripture of the name God in the plural, 330 as if God were the highest being by name, and not by essence. The result of the analysis of the idea of ​​​​God as the highest being is expressed by Tertullian in the following two regula summi magni: two or many highest beings cannot exist, neither equal nor unequal (nec paria summa magna, nec disparia), 331 therefore many gods cannot exist, contrary to the testimony of nature and Christian truth. By analyzing the idea of ​​God as the highest being, Tertullian not only refuted dualism, but also gave a speculative justification for the church’s faith in one God and the dialectical development of this faith. But for a greater confirmation of faith in one God, it was also necessary to refute their teaching, which was in connection with the metaphysical dualism of the Gnostics, about the difference between God the Father, revealed in Christ, from the Old Testament God - the Creator of the world, and to affirm the Christian teaching that the Old Testament God and the God revealed in Christianity are one and the same God and Creator of the world. The identity of God the Father and Creator of the world is recognized by Tertullian as one of the first and most important points of the Christian faith, and therefore he attaches very great importance to its protection. Tertullian’s extensive work “Against Marcion” is, in essence, nothing more than a defense of the first point of the rule of faith, which teaches us to believe in one Almighty God, the Creator of the world, revealed in Christ after the fulfillment of times 332. The affirmation of the Christian faith in one God, who created the world and was revealed in Christianity, is substantiated by Tertullian on positive and natural sources of Christian knowledge. Turning to the testimony of church tradition, Tertullian finds that faith in one God, who created and redeemed the world, has its basis in the apostolic tradition. In his opinion, the one thing that speaks in favor of the apostolic origin of this faith is that the rule of faith, coming from the times of the apostles, commands to believe in the existence of one God - the Creator of the world. The truth of the testimony of the rule of faith is in agreement with the apostolic writings and the voice of all churches. In the apostolic epistles, Tertullian absolutely does not find any indication of the existence of a dispute about God in general among Christians of the apostolic time, which, in his opinion, indicates that then there was not even an attempt to teach about the difference between the Christian God and the Old Testament. The teaching of the apostles about the God of the Old Testament, revealed in Christianity, was preserved in all the apostolic churches. “You (Marcion) will not find any church of apostolic origin that does not profess the Christian faith in the Creator” 333. If Tertullian found in church tradition a solid basis for faith in one God and Creator, then he saw the same basis in Holy Scripture, which he identified with church tradition in terms of content and source of origin. The nature and manner of proof, based on Holy Scripture. Scripture, faith in God the Creator was determined by Tertullian’s polemic against Marcion, who argued that the difference between Christianity and Judaism depended on the difference between their culprits. Marcion confirmed his opinion about the contrast between the Old Testament and the New with the Gospel of Luke and the Epistles of St. Paul; in the rest of the New Testament St. In the books he saw the illegal mixing of Christianity with Judaism. In the polemic directed against Marcion, Tertullian set himself the task of finding out, on the basis of the inner spirit of the Old Testament and New Testament St. Scripture, the true relationship between the Old Testament and the New, assimilating them to their one author - the Creator. A detailed examination of the Gospel of Luke and the Epistles of St. Paul in their relation to the essence of the Old Testament 334 leads Tertullian to the following conclusions: there is a difference between both testaments: a different order in the Old Testament plan of divine economy and another in the Christian one; but this difference does not create a contrast between them 335 and does not speak of two culprits. The Old Testament, which educated the Jews through the law, had a preparatory meaning in relation to Christianity, which was the most perfect form of divine economy in comparison with the old. But Christianity is not the revelation of a new God: Christ always acted throughout his earthly life in accordance with the Old Testament predictions about Him, fulfilling the law, but not destroying it. In general, he acted as a messenger of the Old Testament God. Like the apostles in general, so did the ap. Paul did not preach any God other than the Creator. Epistles of the Ap. Paul is not shown as a destroyer of the law (destructor iudaismi), but as a preacher of the abolition of the ritual law, in accordance with the Old Testament predictions 336. Tertullian reinforces the evidence of church tradition and Holy Scripture about the one God with natural auxiliary means (naturalia instrumenta) leading to the knowledge of God. These naturalia instrumenta, known by Tertullian under the general name of evidence of nature, are rational methods of persuasion in the existence of the one highest God, now known under the name of teleological proof, cosmological and moral. Through the first two, Tertullian ascends from the contemplation of physical nature to faith in the Creator of the world as the one highest God. The moral proof of the truth of the existence of one God, which for Tertullian has a predominantly moral and psychological character, leads to the same truth and creates a stronger conviction in it. Nevertheless, they receive their support in the teaching of the Carthaginian theologian about the possibility of knowledge of God in general. God, who wanted to be knowable, not only created man capable of knowing Him, but also sent him, as a teacher, nature in general, imprinting on itself traces of the divine, by which we can, to the extent possible for us, comprehend God, the Teacher of nature: for “people were created by God for this purpose, to be knowable through them” 337. Based on the evidence of nature, Tertullian proves that if the Old Testament God is the Creator of the world, then He is the true God: for the creation of the world is possible for a being possessing divine properties, such as, for example, the highest intelligence and power 338. Observing the wise structure in the world and the expediency that dominates it, Tertullian comes to the conviction that the world is not only not a matter unworthy of God, as the Gnostics claimed, but serves as the most decisive proof of His greatness, although the world itself is lower than its culprit 339. But the world, considered in its great and small essences (substantiae), seems to Tertullian to contain the stamp of greatness and beauty, as a reflection of the divine. This reflection of the divine in the world was, according to Tertullian, the reason why some of its elements were recognized by philosophers as gods. So: Thales called water god, and Heraclitus called fire. It also served as the cause of idolatry. Representing God as an omnipotent being, capable of causing good and evil to a person, the pagans began to consider people, animals and various elements as gods, capable of producing something useful or harmful. The error here consisted in the incorrect transfer of the divine, noticed in the world, to man, animals and the elements 340. The name of the world as cosmos serves for Tertullian as proof that the world in general is not something low and unworthy of God. In particular, turning to the plant kingdom, Tertullian sees in them evidence of God as a great and omnipotent artist. “One, I suppose, flower from the garden, not to mention from the meadow, one shell from some sea, not to mention from the red one, one black grouse feather, I’m keeping silent about the peacock, do they tell you about the Creator, like an ordinary artist?” 341. Turning to the animal kingdom, Tertullian finds traces of the almighty creative hand of God here too. Not only great, but also small animals cannot be considered despicable creatures: “for they are very carefully increased by the Greatest Artist with powers and abilities, since He teaches us to recognize greatness in small things, a kind of strength in weakness, according to the word of the Apostle” (2 Cor. 12:9). The structure of the organisms of small animals reveals the divine power that created them, and not human power. “Imitate, if you can, the structures of a bee, the home of an ant, the network of a silkworm... Get rid, if you can, of those insects that annoy you under your bed and blanket, from the poisonous bug, the sting of a fly, the pikes and spears of a mosquito... What are much larger animals like when you experience joy and endure pain from such small ones, so that you do not despise the Creator for his small ones creations? 342. From the kingdom of dumb animals, Tertullian turns the gaze of his opponents to man - this is the highest creation of God and invites them to diligently examine his structure in order to be convinced of the power and wisdom of his Creator 343. In the regularly alternating change of seasons and the physical changes associated with them in heaven and earth, in the sunset and rising of the sun and moon, Tertullian sees the wisdom and power of the highest being, serving as the cause of the wise and purposeful order and harmony that reigns in the world. No matter how decisive the testimony of the physical world is about the highest intelligence and omnipotence of its Creator, it itself finds its justification in the inner feeling of the divine, rooted in the nature of the human soul; only under the guidance of this inner sense can we recognize the imprint of the divine on the physical outer nature. Clarification of the meaning of the inner sense of the divine in the matter of natural knowledge of God constitutes the so-called moral proof of the existence of God. Its essence is as follows. Christianity gives a perfect and complete concept of God. However, the true concept of Him was known to man even before the positive revelation, which is confirmed by some commonly used expressions, such as: the following: God is good and great; if God willing; whatever pleases God; I entrust myself to God; God will reward me; God sees; God is the judge, etc. 344. In all these and similar expressions, involuntarily erupting from the lips of the pagans, one can see the knowledge of God, who has properties befitting only the highest being, namely: unity, goodness, omnipotence, etc. Where could such knowledge about God come from? According to the already well-known principles of his theory of Christian knowledge, Tertullian could not allow that man, as a finite being, could, without the assistance of God himself, reach the knowledge of the infinite; This assistance was expressed, according to Tertullian, in the fact that God planted in the created nature of man, as an appendage, the idea of ​​the infinite - conscientia Dei. On the basis of this idea and feeling of the divine, the possibility was established for man to rise to the knowledge of God in a natural way (naturaliter) through the cognitive powers granted to him; Only this idea, planted in the depths of the human soul, imparts meaning to the testimony of God to external nature. Tertullian explains by the universality of the sense of the divine inherent in the human soul the fact that God has always been known to people, as history shows. The history of the knowledge of God begins, according to Tertullian, not from the time of the appearance of the Mosaic Pentateuch: for it does not introduce a new concept of the Creator, but tells that the knowledge of God came from paradise and from Adam, and not from Egypt and from Moses. “For the majority of the human race consists of those simple people who, not even knowing the name of Moses or his Scriptures, nevertheless know the God of Moses. Even at a time when idolatry darkened them with great dominion over them, they, however, almost exclusively call Him by the name peculiar to Him: and God of gods, and if God gives what pleases God... Look: do they know the One about whom they testify that He can do all things. They do not owe this knowledge to any books of Moses. The soul (occurred) before prophecy, and therefore God-consciousness is the original dowry of the soul; it is the same, and not different, in the Egyptian, Syrian and Pontic countries: since the Jewish soul calls the God of its God” 345. The inner sense of the divine made it possible for philosophers to sometimes acquire correct concepts about God 346. From the evidence about the God of the physical world and the human soul, Tertullian made two immediate conclusions related to faith in one God. Both the evidence of the physical world and the evidence of the human soul convince us that the Creator of the world is an omnipotent God possessing the highest intelligence, and that universal human consciousness represents Him alone as such a being. But to possess power and the highest intelligence is characteristic only of the highest being, which alone can be the true God. The Creator of the world, as shown, has omnipotence and the highest intelligence, therefore He is the one true God. From the testimony of nature, another consequence followed, which had a more polemical meaning: Marcion’s teaching about the unknown God, revealed only in Christ, is false: for God, as the voice of nature testifies, never hides, never lacks anything, He is always heard. What testifies to Him is that we exist and in which we exist 347 . Tertullian's naturalia instrumenta, considered in itself, does not seem to be a new phenomenon in patristic literature; they are found in the works of church writers preceding and contemporary to Tertullian: Clement of Rome, the author of the letter to Diognotus, Justin, Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria. In Tertullian they received, comparatively speaking in general, a more eloquent and detailed development; This should especially be said regarding the moral proof of the existence of God, which found its “eloquent and at the same time classical expression” in Tertullian’s essay “On the Testimony of the Soul” according to the nature of a Christian. It was later repeated by Western fathers only with some changes, such as Cyprian, Arnobius, Lactantius, Jerome, Augustine, etc. Some of them paid primary attention to the ethical-psychological aspect of this proof, others to the historical one. The first pointed out that the consciousness of God is inherent in man from his birth, so to speak, from his mother’s womb (Arnobius); others noted the fact that the existence of a supreme divine being has been attested since ancient times by poets and sages of all nations, etc. 348. Tertullian himself called his “testimony of the soul” new 349 only by the way it was revealed. Representatives of the church-speculative theological trend, due to their inclination towards Hellenic education, borrowed evidence for the Christian doctrine of the unity of God from ancient classical literature. Tertullian, who recognized this method of proof as inconvenient and unconvincing, chose a different path, taking nature in its original state as a guide 350. If Tertullian’s theology in his teaching about the one God appears from the side of its speculative element, then in his teaching about the essence of God and affects, the concrete realistic spirit that prevails in it is revealed, which is in agreement with the general character of his theory of Christian knowledge. This spirit lies rather in the property of revealing theological concepts, but not in the essence of the concepts themselves. The concrete realistic image of Tertullian’s theological contemplation is revealed, first of all, in his next concept of the essence of God. “God is body (corpus), although He is Spirit (Spiritus)” 351. Tertullian's opinion about the corporeality of the being of God, which stood in sharp contradiction with the belief of the entire church in the spirituality of this being, seemed strange to the ancient church writers and caused them to bewilder how such an intelligent and educated Tertullian could teach about the corporeality of the being of God 352; This same opinion serves as one of the main reasons for the unfavorable attitude of some later dogmatists towards Tertullian theology 353. Let us try to understand the true meaning of Tertullian’s teaching about the corporeality of God’s being, as far as it is revealed from the general theological and philosophical views of the Carthaginian theologian: for in his works known to us it does not have a positive disclosure or any kind of argumentation. Consideration of Tertullian's teaching about the properties of the being of God leads to the conviction that under the corpus Dei he did not think of a complex, grossly sensory body: for these properties are thought of by him as befitting only a spiritual and simple being. By calling God incomprehensibilis, Tertullian decisively asserts that the being of God is in all respects (omnifariam) inaccessible to human knowledge 354. In his doctrine of the incomprehensibility of the being of God, Tertullian strictly adheres to the soil of Holy Scripture. “Isaiah, even then the apostle, foreseeing heretical intentions, says: whoever understands the mind of the Lord, and whoever is his adviser, who teaches him. Or: with whom counsel, and instruct, or the way of understanding, who show him (Isa. 40: 13–14). And the apostle, in agreement with the prophet, says: O the depth of the wealth and wisdom and understanding of God! for His judgment was untested and His ways were unsearchable (Rom. 11:33), which no one pointed out to him.” Just as the rays of the earthly sun, Tertullian argues, blind a person, so the rays of divine greatness are dazzling for the eyes of our minds. “O man! There is only one sun that warms this world. And at a time when you don’t even think about it, it is beneficial and useful, and when it seems harsh and dangerous to you. However, it always acts according to its own law. And if you are unable to look at it, then you will not be able to bear the rays of any other sun, if it existed, and especially a much larger one. You do not rather spare your weakness, assuming the existence of another god, when you cannot embrace with your mind the Creator of the universe” 355. Just as the being of God cannot be grasped by the mind, so it cannot be comprehended by it (inaestimabilis): “for that which can be in an ordinary way visible, tangible, comprehended, is less than the eyes with which it is seen, the hands with which it is touched, and the senses with which it is perceived. For what is immeasurable is known to oneself alone” 356. Incomprehensible to the human mind, the being of God is invisible (invisibilis) and to his eyes 357. Moses, who asked God to show his face, was told that a person cannot see the face of God and remain alive (Ex. 33:13, 33:18, 33:20). The Being of God is characterized by omnipresence and unlimited space. “No man has seen or can see Almighty God (1 Tim. 6:16); He dwells in unapproachable light and in things not made with hands (Acts 17:24); from His sight the earth shakes, the mountains melt like wax (Joel 2:10), He lifts up the entire universe like a bird’s nest (Isaiah 10:14), for Him the sky is a throne, and the earth is a footstool, in Him is all space, and He Himself is outside of space, constituting the final limit for the universe; He is the greatest God! 358. Tertullian recognizes the being of God as not subject to change or transformation (inmutalibis et informabilis). “It is necessary to believe, he says, that God is unchangeable and untransformable, as well as eternal. Transformation is the destruction of the former. For everything, no matter how it turns into something else, ceases to be what it was and begins to be what it was not. God does not cease to exist and cannot be different” 359. Such immutability befits the eternally abiding being of God, to whom alone eternity belongs. “What, asks Tertullian, is God’s property other than eternity?” 360 What other property of eternity is there than to always be and henceforth to exist due to the advantage of not having any beginning or end? And if she actually belongs to Him, then it must belong to Him alone. But if it also belongs to another, then it will no longer be the property of God, but will be common with the one to whom it is attributed (except God). The eternity of the Divine being is necessarily connected with its originlessness and infinity. “Eternity has no time: for it itself is all time. It cannot be changed in any way; it does not need age, for it cannot be born. If there is an ancient God, He will not exist (ever); if there is a new one, He did not exist (before). News marks the beginning, but antiquity threatens the end. God is as alien to the beginning and the end as he is to time, this mediator and organizer of the end” 361; The Being of God is eternally alive, possessing perfect intelligence and power 362. In general, the being of God is perfect in everything, and what is characteristic of him is characteristic of God alone 363. From the presented teaching of Tertullian about the properties of the being of God, it is clear that he thinks of it as incomprehensible, invisible, alien to spatiality, omnipresent, unchangeable, eternal, perfect, etc. All these properties attributed by Tertullian to the being of God show that he thought of the corpus Dei as alien to the limitations and complexity inherent in material bodies. Indeed, Tertullian himself, regarding the dispute with the Gnostics about the emotions of God, clearly expresses that just as he thinks of everything in God as different from the human, so he understands His body as corpus sui generis. “The most unreasonable (stultissimi) are those, he says, who judge the divine by the properties of the human, so that, just as in man, passions (passiones) of this kind (anger, irritation, etc.) are considered characteristic of his damaged state, and in God they would be considered passions of the same state (status). Distinguish between substances and distinguish between them the feelings (suos sensus) characteristic of them, although by their names they (feelings) seem to have something in common. For we read (in Holy Scripture) about the right hand, and the eyes and feet of God, but they will not be equal to (similar) human (members) only because they are brought together by a (common) name. Just as great is the difference between the divine body and the human body (diversitas divini corporis et humani) with the same names (proper to them) of the members, so great will be the difference between the divine soul (animus) and the human, although with the same names (proprietary to them) feelings: just as the damage of the human substance shows them to be damaged in man, so the intactness of the divine substance shows them intact in God. Do you truly confess that the Creator is God? Indeed, you say. Therefore, how can you see in God something human, and not everything divine?” 364 If the body of God, in the sense of the above words, is different from the body (caro) of man, created in the image of God, then how much more is it different from all other material bodies; it must necessarily be different from other bodies simply because it is the body of God, and God, says Tertullian, has a body of its own kind in its own image (corpus sui generis in sua effigie). Both from Tertullian’s teaching about the properties of the being of God, and from his remarks about the difference between divine affects and human ones, depending on the difference between the divine body and spirit from the human being, we receive only a negative concept of Tertullian’s corpus Dei: it does not have a grossly sensual meaning for Tertullian. Let us try to form a positive concept about it, which can be deduced from Tertullian’s general concept of body (corpus) and from consideration of the reasons forcing Tertullian to use this word when speaking about God. The meaning of the expressions in which Tertullian speaks of corpus sui generis leads to the conviction that this body means a kind of form of being in general, and not substance in the narrow sense of the word, as some researchers believe 365. Under corpus sui generis, Tertullian thinks of the form of all being - this is evident, firstly, from the fact that it seems to be a general sign of all being, which is clearly expressed in the following words: “Everything that exists is a body of its kind. Nothing incorporeal exists except that which does not exist.” Secondly, it is recognized as a necessary general sign of existence, insofar as it determines the existence of every thing that exists through the body. “Nothing could exist without something through which it exists. Since it exists, it necessarily has that through which it exists. If he has something through which he exists (aliquid per quod est), then this (through which he exists) is his body” 366. In Tertullian, corpus seems to be a common property of all being, it is different from what he calls essence (substantia); the first is that common thing in a substance that imparts real existence to it; the second has a particular meaning and is, as it were, a modification of being in general. “Another,” says Tertullian, is substance 367 and another is the nature of substance; Every thing has its own substance, but nature can be common (communis).” But since the body, insofar as it is a necessary condition for the existence of any thing, is the most general, then it is something non-identical with substance, although inseparable from it. Due to their inseparability, Tertullian could say: “the body is the substance of every thing” 368. Tertullian's concept of a body of its kind and substance, in the sense we have explained, was transferred analogously to the doctrine of the essence of God. Only with the distinction between corpus and substantia will the following expressions found in the writings of Tertullian be understandable: “Who will deny that God is a body, although God is a Spirit? For the Spirit is also a body of its own kind in its own form” 369. Or: Deum ediximus, propriam substantiam spiritum inscribimus... Nam et Deus spiritus 370. By attributing to God a body of a kind, Tertullian thereby indicates that He exists (aliquid per quod) in His own way. By calling God Spirit, Tertullian does not contradict his teaching about the corporeality of God, since by the word spirit he designates the substance inherent in God. Without the distinction in Tertullian's teaching about the essence of God between the body of a kind and substance, one can come to the assumption that Tertullian himself did not have a stable idea of ​​corpus Dei; but such an assumption is hardly possible: his teaching on the soul leaves no doubt that he had a certain idea of ​​the body. – Consideration of the reasons that forced Tertullian to talk about the corporeality of all being in general leads to the conviction that with the word corpus Tertullian primarily focuses on the reality of being, as opposed to the heretical abstract understanding of the spiritual. In a polemic against Gnostic dualism and docetism, which were based on the opposition between spirit and matter, Tertullian insists on the corporeality of everything that exists. In the fight against the Patricians, who considered the Word (Logos) an empty sound (vacuum, inanis), defending the personal existence of the Son of God, Tertullian insists on the corporeality of God, arguing that nothing empty can come from the corporeal 371. It is obvious that in both cases, corpus is opposed to vacuum, as real being to non-being (μὴ ὄν). In general, insofar as the body is presented as the aliquid per quod est of every thing, it is the general form of the real existence of all things (nature substantiae), while substance generally appears to Tertullian as a modification of this form. Thus: Spiritus (est) corpus sui generis in sua effigie 372. The substantial and the corporeal are closely connected with each other; neither the corporeal without the substantial is conceivable, nor the substantial without the corporeal: for both are real being. There is no doubt that Tertullian, with his teaching about the corporeality of the being of God and the spirit in general, pursued a goal opposite to materialism, which could not rise to the representation of a purely spiritual, but real substantial existence, and extreme idealism, which turned everything real into abstract, alien to substance. But Tertullian’s doctrine of the corporeality of the spiritual, opposed to materialism and especially idealism, cannot be considered successful and reasonable. The concept of the corporeality of the spirit, logically developed, put Tertullian in conflict with many truths of the Christian faith and prevented him from rising to the idea of ​​the pure spirituality of the Divine. Tertullian himself was aware of this contradiction when he found it necessary to make the reservation that he represents the corpus Dei as different not only from the material body, but even from the body of the soul. However, there is reason to believe that Tertullian thought about the corporeality of God by analogy with the corporeality of the soul, and his teaching about the soul is not distinguished by its purity, as is generally recognized by ancient church writers and modern researchers. Just as in man in general he distinguishes body and soul, so in the soul he distinguishes body and spirit; members are assigned to the body and soul, which do not, however, prevent it from being simple and indivisible. As in the human soul, so in God, Tertullian distinguishes the body (corpus) and the spirit (animus) and members (membra). But to think of God as a simple and uncomplicated body and at the same time to distinguish the members in it is obviously a contradictio in adjecto, as a necessary consequence of the unsuccessful application of the term corpus to the doctrine of the substantiality of God - a consequence opposite to the goal that Tertullian wanted to achieve with his doctrine of the corporeality of the being of God and the spirit in general. Although Tertullian did not present the grounds on which he affirmed his doctrine of the corporeality of God, his doctrine of the soul makes it possible to judge these grounds. It is very likely that Tertullian owes his doctrine of the corporeality of God to the Stoics, with whom he sympathizes, as can be seen from his writings in general. In his doctrine of the soul, he even names those Stoics from whom he borrows arguments for his doctrine of the corporeality of the soul. Given Tertullian’s disposition towards Stoic philosophy, it does not seem impossible for him to borrow from it and the doctrine of the corporeality of Botus, especially since the general character and some principles of his theory of Christian knowledge could, with a certain understanding of them, predispose to the acceptance of this doctrine. The Stoic teaching about the corporeality of God could be favored by Tertullian’s desire for positive knowledge, his teaching about nature as a source of knowledge, about feelings as the principle of natural knowledge, as well as a literal-realistic way of interpreting Holy Scripture. We have already seen that Tertullian, in the expressions of St. He saw the writings about the hands, eyes and feet of God as an indication of the members of the Divine body, although he advised us to think of them as different from human members. The visions of Montanistic ecstatic visionaries did not remain without influence on Tertullian’s teaching about the corporeality of God, as we will see later. All arguments drawn from these sources are weak, and the doctrine of the corporeality of God, affirmed on them, directly contradicted church tradition and the beliefs of the entire church. In general, based on everything that has been said about Tertullian’s teaching about the corporeality of God, the essence of this teaching can be expressed in the following terms. In Tertullian’s teaching about the corporeality of God, which has a connection with the general character and some principles of his theory of knowledge, but which did not receive strictly logical development and thorough argumentation from him, the corpus Dei is conceived not as a material body, but in the sense of the form of a really and substantially existing divine Spirit, as opposed to the abstract-idealistic idea of ​​it. Tertullian’s teaching about the corporeality of God, according to the underlying idea, does not have anything crudely sensual in itself, but in the way of development of this idea, a generally realistic understanding of the spiritual is reflected, which imparted sharpness to his teaching about the affects of God and caused accusations of excessive anthropopathism admitted by Tertullian in this teaching. But if by anthropopathism we mean the doctrine of a being of God capable of experiencing affective states similar to those that the human spirit is capable of experiencing, then, in our opinion, Tertullian is not above errors in the manner of expression, and not in the content of his teaching about the affects of God. Both in the doctrine of the corpus Dei and in the doctrine of the affects, we are presented with a concrete image of understanding the spiritual, opposed to Gnostic idealism, and primarily to the dualistic teaching of Marcion about the properties of God, who represented the highest God as incapable of experiencing feelings (immobilis et stupens). Refuting Marcion’s dualistic teaching about the properties of God, Tertullian rightly taught that it is natural for a divine being, without being damaged, to experience in general the feelings characteristic of Him as a living person possessing a known treasury of His perfections: the absence of affects in God would, in Tertullian’s opinion, serve as a sign of His imperfection 373 . Tertullian also rightly sees the basis for the doctrine of the emotions of God in the biblical story of the creation of man in the image and likeness of God. If a person, created in the image of God, experiences “movements and feelings,” then God also necessarily experiences feelings in his own way, without suffering any damage through this. However, attributing feelings to the being of God, Tertullian does not think of them in God as identical with human feelings, but only analogous. The essence of Tertullian's teaching about the difference between divine feelings and human ones is expressed by him in the following words. “The most unreasonable are those who judge the divine by the nature of the human, so that, just as in man, passions of this kind are considered characteristic of his damaged state, and in God, therefore, they could be considered passions of the same kind. But just as the corruption of human substance reveals them to be damaged in man, so the integrity of the divine substance reveals them to be intact in God. In whom you do not deny God, you do not consider him a man, just as by recognizing Him as God, you express a judgment in advance about Him as different from any quality of human conditions. Then, when you admit that God created man as a living soul, and not God created man, then it is rather stupid for us to attribute human things to God rather than to man divine things, and that you would rather cover God with a human image than man with the image of God. So, the image of God should be valued in man, since the human spirit has the same movements and feelings as God, although not the same as God,” according to the difference in substances 374. God and man experience feelings in their own way - suo more. With God they are as perfect as everything is perfect in Him; “He is angry, but His irritation does not exceed boundaries (non exacerbabitur), is not in danger; It starts to move, but does not fall" 375. Just as there is, in our opinion, no crude anthropopathism in Tertullian’s stated teaching about the difference between divine affects and human ones, so there is none in Tertullian’s teaching about the types of divine feelings and their relationship to the will of God. Tertullian distinguishes two kinds of affects in God: some of them receive their motive in the goodness of God, others in truth. The first are accompanied, in relation to people, by benefits, the second by punishments for sins 376, which are presented as medical and pedagogical means with which God heals sins 377. Those and other affects are represented as engines (stimulo) and auxiliary instruments (dotes) of the will of God, which without them has no power 378 and presupposes in each of its acts, as a stimulus, an affect that gives it a certain direction in its discovery. So, for example, the desire of God’s will to save a person presupposes in God, according to Tertullian, a passionate desire (concupiscentia) and jealousy “in relation to the person being liberated and to the one from whom he is being liberated”; and where there is jealousy, there may be anger, hatred, annoyance, grief, etc. In the ability of the being of God to experience feelings, Tertullian sees the provision of discipline through which God educates man. If God is not jealous, is not angry, does not condemn, does not punish..., then I do not understand how one can see in Him the basis of discipline 379. “Such goodness is a dream; discipline is a ghost; unsecured legislation allows one to freely violate it” 380. Condemning Marcion’s teaching about a God without feelings, Tertullian exclaims: “Hear, then, sinners and those who have not yet become such, so that you too can become sinners! The best God has been invented for you, who is not offended, is not angry, does not take revenge, who has no flame in Gehenna... He is only good! True, He forbids sinning, but only in words. It is up to you whether you want to express obedience to Him.”381 Tertullian's teaching about the affects in God in general has a close connection with the teaching about the goodness and justice of God: for the whole interest of his polemic against Marcion about the affects was focused on goodness and justice, understood dualistically by Marcion because of the impossibility that seemed to him to put them in an internal connection with each other; The truth of God, accompanied by judgment and punishment and, consequently, the infliction of some kind of evil, seemed to Marcion to be the opposite of goodness. Refuting the dualistic understanding of the nature of goodness and justice, Tertullian clarified the laws for detecting the goodness of God in general and its relationship to justice. Goodness and justice, as properties of God, are immanent and natural (ingenita, naturalia), rational and perfect (rationalia et perfecta). The nature of the divine being, which knows no leisure, 382 always acts, for with the cessation of its activity in any respect, its existence ceases. The goodness of God is one of the immanent properties of this nature: therefore, it must always be active, since its non-activity would be one of the moments of the inactive state of the Divine nature, which is impossible. Continuous action is the first law of goodness. It is obvious that before this law, the goodness of Marcion’s God, unknown in the Old Testament and revealed only in Christianity, is reflected as false, “for there was no natural goodness, which could once not act” 383. But the goodness of God must not only be natural, but also rational (rationalis), since everything that is characteristic of God is rational. Tertullian sees the reasonableness of goodness in the expediency of the outpouring of its gifts, carried out according to reasonable laws. These laws are established by justice (justitia). Tertullian distinguishes two types of discovery of goodness: debita bonitas, et indebita bonitas. Both are governed by the justice of God. It requires that goodness be, first of all, debita - obliged to extend to “its thing” (in rem suam), that is, to the area in which its discovery constitutes its duty (debitum). In the discovery of goodness in its proper field, the fundamental law applies - prima bonitatis ratio. But the goodness of God is inexhaustible and abundant (redundans), and therefore justice requires that the excess of goodness should not remain unused, but should also extend to someone else’s thing (in alienam rem), that is, to the area where the fundamental law does not make it obligatory - this is indebita bonitas. In the discovery of goodness in an area that is not its own, the second law of goodness operates - secunda ratio. The relationship between this and that goodness is defined by Tertullian as follows. Debita bonitas seems to be main (principalis) and preceding in relation to the second; indebita bonitas is the companion (comes) of the first. The rationality of both goodness depends on compliance with the laws of its detection, determined by justice. Goodness is rational if, according to the law of justice, it is first revealed in the first degree, and then, due to excess, in the second (in secundo gradu). But goodness ceases to be rational and becomes irrational (bonitas irrationalis) if, in addition to the first degree, it is revealed in the second. Its unreasonableness here lies in the fact that, depriving its gifts primarily to those who have the right to them, it rewards them with those who should use only its excesses, and thereby reduces the area of ​​its discovery and becomes insufficient (exigua) instead of abundant (redundans). And since by its discovery in the second degree, in addition to the first, the primo ratio is violated, then it is no longer just goodness (justa bonitas), but unjust goodness (injusta, injuriosa) and generally unreasonable. Such is the goodness of Marcion’s god, who appeared to save man, not created by him. – Finally, goodness, acting according to the laws of justice, will be perfect if it comes to help where this help is needed. The goodness of Marcion's god is not perfect, since it did not come to the aid of man in the Old Testament and saves only the soul, and not body and soul together 384. So the goodness of God, acting according to the laws of justice, will be natural, reasonable and perfect. Justice is the lawgiver in relation to goodness. Tertullian's theory of debita et indebita bonitas, built in opposition to Marcion's teaching about the goodness of the highest God, is obviously based on an understanding of the historical course of divine economy in relation to the salvation of man. In the Old Testament commandment about love for one's neighbor, which does not extend to enemies, he sees debita bonitas; in Christianity, which commands us to love our enemies, goodness operates in both degrees 385. In a more particular depiction of the mutual relation between goodness and justice, as far as it has been expressed in history, Tertullian distinguishes two points: the relation of goodness to justice before the fall of man or the origin of moral evil in the world and after its origin. Both in this and in the other moment, goodness is generally governed by justice: for good, according to Tertullian, is only that which is fair 386 . Before the origin of evil in the world, justice was the manager of the gifts of goodness and its adviser (arbitratrix) in general. In the creation of the world, goodness appeared as the culprit (auctrix) of God’s creative works, and justice as justilia architectonica. “From the beginning the creator was as good as he was just. He discovered both equally. His goodness created peace, and His justice established harmony in it... It is a matter of justice that there is a division between light and darkness, between day and night, between heaven and earth, between the highest and lowest waters, between heaven and earth, between the greater and lesser luminaries, between the day and the night, between husband and wife, between the tree of knowledge of life and death, between the universe and paradise, between water and earthly animals. Just as goodness united everything, so justice distinguished” 387. The origin of evil in the world has changed the relationship of justice to goodness: from an adviser, it becomes its protector (tutela) in the fight against evil, a rival of good. “For it was not enough for a good to be liked in itself when it fights with an adversary. Although it is attractive in itself, it cannot be supported through itself, because it can be defeated by the enemy if he does not face some force of fear that would force those who do not want the good to demand and preserve it” 388. The protection of goodness on the part of justice is expressed in the fact that, having limited the freedom of goodness, it distributes its gifts according to merit, endowing them with the worthy, taking them away from the unworthy and ungrateful, and takes revenge on the opponents of goodness, judging them and punishing them. The severity of justice in punishing evil does not make God evil, as the Gnostics believed. Considering the severity (severitas) of punishments for evil in essence, Tertullian finds it only as another form of revealing justice. It is not something evil and an immanent property of God, but an accidental one, forced by circumstances 389. “Before man’s sin, God is from the beginning only good, then a strict and cruel judge, as the Marcionites want,” 390, with severe punishments leading a person to the consciousness of the superiority of good over evil. But if justice is reasonable, then the severity of justice is also reasonable. If severity is fair, then it is good, because good is what is fair 391 . Sic totus Deus bonus est, dum pro bono omnia est 392. The considered doctrine of Tertullian about the being of God appears to us generally in the following form: it contains four main elements: the concept of the unity of the Divine, the identity of God the Father and the Creator of the world, the corporeality of God and His ability to experience affective states. All these elements are revealed not without dialectical art and are based on both natural and positive sources and auxiliary means of Christian knowledge, especially this should be said about the disclosure of the first two elements. The doctrine of the corporeality of God and the affects expressed the positivity and concreteness of Tertullian’s theological contemplation, but at the basis of this teaching there is nothing crudely sensual. II. Tertullian essentially puts in close connection with the doctrine of the one God the doctrine of the Divine Trinity (trinitas Dei). This connection was created by the rule of faith and polemical interests, which forced the Carthaginian presbyter to defend various points of it. The first, commanding to believe 393 in one God, also demanded to observe “the sacrament of divine economy (οἰχονομ ί ας sacramentum), which places one into trinity (disponit unitatem in trinitatem).” The misunderstanding of the doctrine of faith that arose in the church about a single, but trinity of persons, God forced one to defend the Christian faith in the divine Trinity with the unity of the divine being and to give scientific justification for this faith, proving that faith in one God, which does not recognize the divine Trinity, does not distinguish Christians from Jews 394, and faith in three divine persons, which does not preserve their unity in divinity, brings Christians closer to polytheists. Tertullian looks at his teaching about the Trinity as an experience of a comprehensive discussion and revelation of the Christian faith in the triune God, and not as a simple and only formal confirmation of it 395. The ultimate goal of this disclosure is to establish the general position that true Christian faith in one God necessarily includes recognition of the divine οἰχονομία; Tertullian's main views on the doctrine of faith about St. The Trinity, expressed by him when revealing this position, is in connection with his polemic directed against the views of various opponents of the church's faith in the divine Trinity. These basic views of Tertullian were opposed to the dualism of Marcion, which destroyed the Christian belief in the unity of the divine principle, and Valentinian emanation and aeonology, which allowed the division of the divine being, developing until it approaches the final 396. But mainly they were opposed to the views of the monarchians (patripassians) educated and uneducated 397; the latter experienced fearful embarrassment even at the mere word οἰχονομία, believing that it, instead of the Christian faith in one God, pointed to pagan polytheism 398. The essence of the views of both monarchians on the church doctrine of the Trinity in its relation to the unity of the divine principle (μοναρχία) was as follows. The Christian belief in the divine Trinity combines two aspects: the unity of the divine being and the trinity (plurality) of divine persons with the unity of the being. A scientific explanation of this faith will be correct only if it, without breaking the connection between the indicated moments of it, makes this connection as clear as possible to human consciousness. The monarchians could not unite these points in their consciousness, retaining only the first 399 and rejecting the second, believing that the doctrine of the Trinity destroys the unity of the divine substance (substantiae unitas), that the number of persons and their known relationship (dispositio) in the Trinity produces a division of the unit (divisionem unitatis), and testifies to the recognition of two and three gods 400 and the perversion of the rule of faith in the sense of pagan polytheism and gnostic emanation and aeonology or flow (προβολὴ, prolatio) of one thing from another 401. In a word, the doctrine of the Trinity seemed to be an overthrow of the single divine principle 402. Monarchiam, inquiunt, tenemus 403. Observance of the monarchy relied on the denial of the trinity of divine persons and in the belief in one God, invisible before the incarnation 404, revealed in the New Testament by the Son-Father 405 and acting under the name of the son 406 in the person of I. Christ. Jesus was a man called the son of God for the sake of God’s dwelling in him 407 , and Christ was the spirit of God, that is, God himself 408 . It is obvious that the teaching of the monarchians, against whom Tertullian polemicized, perverted the Christian belief in the trinity of divine persons in a single divine being and in their external discovery in the history of the divine economy. This teaching of the Patripassians clearly defined the task of Tertullian's polemic regarding the belief in the divine Trinity; it consisted in clarifying and bringing closer to consciousness the connection that exists between unity and plurality, as two moments of faith in the divine Trinity, without elevating or humiliating one of them at the expense of the other. In carrying out this task, Tertullian opposed his opponents to the concept of the divine οἰχονομία, which unites all his other concepts of the divine Trinity. The word οἰχονομία has a double meaning in Tertullian 409 . It denotes, firstly, the internal, immanent difference in the one Divine being in three persons and, secondly, the external economy of God, expressed in the revelation in history of the Word and the Holy Spirit sent by God the Father for the redemption and sanctification of man. In both of its meanings, οἰχονομία indicates that, with the distinction inherent in God in three persons, μοναρχία is not destroyed; it is necessary to find out how, with divine economy, understood in a double sense, the integrity of the monarchy is ensured. By the force of the indicated double meaning of economy, Tertullian had to prove that a) in one God from eternity there are three divine persons revealed in history, and that b) the existence of three substantial divine persons does not destroy the monarchy. The substantial existence 410 of the Son of God is proven by Tertullian in his teaching about the Word eternally abiding in the bosom of God the Father, and the Word revealed externally 411. In both cases, the following three points 412 are resolved regarding the substantial being of the Son of Genesis (filius): does He exist (an sit), what property does He exist in (qui sit), and how does He exist (quomodo sit). Establishing these three points of his teaching about the Word, Tertullian notes that here the question of the Son of God is being explored at different moments of His divine life 413. In contrast to the patripassians, who identified the Father and the Son, Tertullian finds the basis (argumenta) for belief in the substantiality of the Son in the internal life of the Divinity itself, considered independently of His detection outside 414. From the beginning “God was one; He is for himself - the world, and space and everything. He is alone, since nothing existed outside of Him.” Consequently, the unity of God is spoken of only in a relative sense, since outside of Him, before the creation of the world, there was no real existence at all. But within Himself, in His inner life, He did not exist alone: ​​“for He had with Himself, as well as within Himself, His own reason (ratio). For God is intelligent, and understanding is in Him before (the world), and from Him (intelligence) are all things. This mind is His mind (sensus). The Greeks call it (mind) Logos,” and among the Latins it is incorrectly translated by the word sermo – speech, a spoken word: for “God’s mind is ancient,” since God from the beginning was not speaking (non sermonalis), but rational (rationalis). The difference between the rational God and the speaking God is understood by Tertullian not in the sense that the Word is not immanent to God from eternity, but he points to the internal moments of the life of the second person. Reason and Word are one and the same. As dwelling in the bosom of the Father, the Word is reason; but this mind, opening outward, is conceived by Tertullian as the Word. “For God, although He had not yet revealed (miserat) His Word (sermonem), had It within Himself (intra semetipsum) - in the mind itself and with the mind itself, silently pondering and ordering with Himself what He subsequently intended to express through the Word. For with his mind he meditated and ordered (what he intended to do), and by the Word he made that with which he meditated... So, I can not unreasonably assert that God even then, before the creation of the universe, was not alone, having in himself reason and in reason the Word, which He created second after himself, when he conferred with himself” 415. From the above expressions it is clear that the Word and reason are conceived by Tertullian as one and the same “second” after God the Father; the different names of this second indicate different moments of his life and different relationships to God. In relation to the world, reason appears to Tertullian as its carrier in the idea, which had to appear, in the real realization of the world, as the Word, although it is always immanent to God. Tertullian explains the unity of reason and the Word and the difference between the moments of his life with the following analogy: “So that you can more easily understand this, first know from yourself, as the image and likeness of God: for you also have reason in yourself... Note: when you silently talk to yourself, then in you the same thing happens with reason; it meets you with the word with every movement of your thought, with every excitement of your mind. What you think about is done in words; and there is reason in the word. You must be talking about something in your soul, and when you speak, that is the word speaking to you, in which the mind itself resides; you speak to what you think through when you speak. So, in some way, there is a second word in you, through which you speak when you think, and through which you think when you speak. This is a different word. This happens much more fully in God, whose image and likeness you are considered to be” 416. With the expression plenius in Deo, Tertullian indicates that if in our soul, next to the thinking spirit, the inner word (conlocutor) is the second subject, then much more the Divine Word, which dwelt in the bosom of God and discussed with Him, as reason, the plan of its revelation in the world, is a second and substantially existing subject next to God, which, before its appearance outside, can be called Filius-logos. This Logos, revealed externally as a creative principle, is depicted by Tertullian as already the spoken Word (Sermo) or Filius-Sermo. If Tertullian, in order to prove the immanent existence of the Logos, had to rely primarily on analogous phenomena occurring in the human spirit, then he affirms his teaching about the Word (Sermo), revealed externally, almost exclusively on the basis of Holy Scripture and even uses its words to express his concepts, caring little about the fact that biblical figurative language requires legibility when using it in cases where it comes to distinguishing subtle concepts. “In Holy Scripture,” says Tertullian, the Divine mind, revealed outwardly as a creative principle, is depicted under the name of Wisdom (sophia) and Word (sermo), as the second created person” (ut secundam personam conditam). “As soon as God wanted to create in appropriate substances and forms that which He had disposed (according to the ideal plan) within himself with reason and the word of wisdom, then He first of all produced (protulit) the Word itself, which has in itself inseparable reason and wisdom, so that everything could happen and be created through that through which He thought and disposed (according to plan), insofar as everything existed in the mind of God (sensus - ratio); for they (things) lacked the ability to be known and confirmed in their forms and substances.” The moment when God said: let there be light (fiat lux) is considered as the moment of the full appearance of the Word outside and its perfect birth (nativitas perfecta Sermonis). “Then,” he says, the Word itself will take on its appearance (speciem) and its characteristic decoration (ornamentum) - sound and voice, when God says: let there be light! This is the perfect birth of the Word when it came from God; it was created (conditus) from Him first for reflection (ad cogitum) under the name of wisdom, then it was born for action (ad effectum), then it became the first-born son (primogenitus), as the first-born, and the only begotten, since he alone was born of God” 417. The Word of God is not an empty sound, as the Patripassians thought, but a real person having real existence; nothing comes from God that is empty, and therefore the Word, who created great substances, cannot but have substance; and it is characterized by corpus sui generis. Since it was quickly established that from eternity the Word, which abided in God, appeared outside under the name of the Son of God to accomplish divine economy, then proving the substantiality of the Son, as the second person of the divine Trinity, does not seem difficult for Tertullian: for Holy Scripture, as the written history of divine economy, indisputably testifies to the substantial existence of the Son of God, distinct from God the Father. The very difference in names (Father and Son), found in Holy Scripture, serves for Tertullian as proof that the Father and the Son are not the same, as the Patripassians claim. “If He (God the Father) calls (in Holy Scripture) the Son, then the Son will be none other than the one who comes from Himself; The Word comes from Himself, therefore, it will be the Son, and not the one from whom it comes” 418. But St. Scripture nowhere says that the Father himself was born as the Word and the Son. If by the name of God the Father and the Son the word of God meant one and the same person, then it would speak of one person. “For everything that has a name exists, and everything that exists has a name; there are no names for non-existent things” 419. A father must have a son in order to be a father; and a son must have a father in order to be a son 420 . The entire religious history of mankind, as it is depicted in the Bible, appears to Tertullian as continuous evidence of the substantial existence of the Son: for all the economy of God in relation to the salvation of man is fulfilled by the Son until he returns to the Father the power once received from Him. The son stopped the pandemonium, punished the world with a flood, and sent fire to Sodom and Gomorrah. “He Himself came down to talk with man from Adam to the patriarchs - in a vision, in a dream, in a mirror, in fortune-telling, preparing the order that He had to fulfill in the last times” 421. Acting always in the name of the Father, He thereby showed that He is not an identical person with God the Father 422. Tertullian's doctrine of the Word, from eternity abiding in God and then revealed outside, considered from a polemical point of view, can be considered a sufficient statement of faith in the substantial existence of the second person of the divine Trinity (secunda persona in separatione). Considered from the side of its internal content, it presents obvious imperfections, inconsistent with the correct thoughts underlying it. No matter how we belittle these imperfections and no matter how much we come up with explanations to reconcile them with the main concepts of Tertullian, they still remain undesirable inaccuracies in his teaching about the Trinity. The controversy with the Patripassians posed a clear question to Tertullian; does the Son exist (an sit) as a substantial person? Tertullian gave a positive answer to this question, arguing that Pater et Filius duo sunt. With his doctrine of the threefold sonship 423 of the second divine person (filiatio), Tertullian proved the substantiality of the Son as the second person in various moments of His divine life. In general, belief in the second person of the Divine is sufficiently justified in all these moments, but in the particular development of his idea of ​​​​the substantiality of the Son, Tertullian was not everywhere able to sufficiently highlight the substantiality of the second person - secundae personae and his immanence to the Divine. Depicting the second person under the name ratio-logos, eternally abiding in God and with Him, Tertullian uses expressions that give reason to think that the Logos at first is characterized only by ideal being: for he is conditur primum ad cogitatum; from the ideal it becomes real when it is born to create the world - ad effectum, and only after appearing outside does the Logos acquire personal and perfect existence, which previously belonged to it only potentially. The very expressions denoting various moments in the life of the Logos and his relationship to God suggest that the Word received its existence in time; Such expressions include the words: creavit, condit, although they, judging by the flow of developing thoughts, are identified with the words protulit, generavit. There are thoughts in Tertullian that seem to strengthen these assumptions, such as. the idea that the Wisdom of God, or the Word, had a beginning, or that God was not the Father before the Son 424. The true meaning of these and similar expressions is easily explained, but, in any case, they are not in harmony with his general views on the dogma of the Divine Trinity and his church beliefs. In a polemic directed against Praxeus, Tertullian proves that the Son of God is from eternity an independent person (substantiva res); he exists as such because he always remains equal to himself. “Let the Antichrists see,” he says, “that they deny the Father and the Son. For they deny the father when they call him son, and they deny the son when they recognize him as father, giving them what is not theirs and taking from them what belongs to them. Whoever confesses Christ as the Son of God, and not the Father, God abides in him, and he himself in God (John 4:15)... who does not have the Son of God does not have life (John 5:9, 5:12). But he who acknowledges Him as other than the Son of God does not have a Son." Elsewhere, speaking of the fact that the Word, having become flesh, did not suffer any change in its divine nature, Tertullian argues: “It is necessary to believe that God is unchangeable and untransformable, just as he is eternal. Transformation is the destruction of the former. For everything, no matter how it turns into something else, ceases to be what it was. God does not cease to be and cannot be different. The Word is God, and the Word of the Lord endures forever, perseverando scilicet in sua forma... non capit configurari.” In addition, Tertullian says that the mystery of economy consists in the fact that in the one Divinity it allows for the immanent difference of divine persons. Consequently, if the Son of God must always be thought of as equal to himself, if the Word always exists in his characteristic form of divine existence, if economy indicates the eternal existence of divine persons, then what does Tertullian mean in his above judgments about the Logos, which are not consistent with his concepts of economy and the immutability of the Son? It is possible, of course, to establish reconciliation between both; but in general they seem to us to be shortcomings in the speculative disclosure of the main idea underlying Tertullian’s doctrine of the substantiality of divine persons, that οἰχονομία allows for the immanent difference of persons in a single Divine being. Tertullian says less about the substantiality of the Holy Spirit (tertia persona) than about the substantiality of the Son of God, which is partly explained by the fact that the defense of the second person was already, in essence, the defense of the third person, exhausting the arguments that could with equal right be given in favor of the substantiality of the Holy Spirit 425. But in general, Tertullian is considered one of the first church writers who taught with sufficient certainty about the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Holy Trinity. In his essay Against Praxeus, Tertullian clearly says that the Holy Spirit is tertia persona, that He has divine substance and is God. I, he says, affirm that there is another Father, another Son and another Holy Spirit 426. The substantiality of the third person is affirmed by Tertullian on the rule of faith, which commands the recognition of οἰχονομίαν, distinguishing three persons in the one Divinity, and on Holy Scripture, which testifies that the Holy Spirit took part in the fulfillment of the plans of the divine economy. Discussing the words spoken by God at creation: let us create in our image, Tertullian says: “God speaks in the plural because the Son was with Him - the second person, His Word, and the third person - the Spirit in the Word." 427. During the creation of the world in general, the Holy Spirit is depicted as an assistant (minister), advisor (arbiter), hovering over the waters as a sanctifier, and during the creation of man - as its future sanctifier (sanctificator); in Christianity He is the leader in all truth; in the last days (among the Montanists) he acted as the Paraclete, elevating man to the highest perfection through new revelations. Considering the Paraclete as the leader in all truth, the Montanists were confident that the comprehension of the dogma of the Holy Creator is accessible primarily to them. truth, we believe in one God,” while also observing the divine οἰχονομία 428. The very application of the concept of economy to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is in close connection with the Montanistic beliefs of Tertullian. To express the image of the origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father, Tertullian has two formulas: The Holy Spirit, as the third person of the Trinity, comes: from the Father through the Son (a Parte per Filium 429, or from God and the Son (a Deo et Filio) 430. Although the double form of expressing the image of the origin of the Son from the Father may indicate that Tertullian did not have a stable view in this case, but in general both of these forms express, apparently, the idea that the Son appears to be the mediating principle between the first and the third person, as can be seen from the example presented by Tertullian to explain the image of the origin of the Trinity from the unit: from the root (the Father) comes the trunk (the Son) and from the trunk the fruit (the Holy Spirit). trunk between the root and the fruit. In general, it must be said that Tertullian’s doctrine of the substantiality of the Holy Spirit is less developed than his doctrine of the substantiality of the Son of God. Thus, according to the meaning of οἰχονομία, we know that Tertullian also thinks of the third person as immanent in the Divine, but he did not show us how we should imagine his immanent existence regardless of its detection in external economy. However, even in the doctrine of the Logos, Tertullian thinks of the immanent being of the Word in some dependence on the finite, when he speaks of the divine mind, the object of whose activity was reflection on the plan of creation of the finite world. But the consideration of theological issues, which are often of a speculative nature, generally stands in connection with the specific nature of Tertullian’s theology, which prevents him from renouncing the sphere of finite phenomena and plunging into the realm of pure speculation in order to comprehend absolute truth. By defending the substantiality of divine persons, Tertullian established only one requirement of οἰχονομία - to believe in the Trinity; Now it was necessary to clarify its other requirement, which commands us to believe that “unity (unitas), producing (derivans) from itself a trinity, is not destroyed by it” 431. Explaining this requirement, Tertullian developed the following basic views on the relation of the trinity to the unity of the Divinity: a) The Trinity does not destroy the divine monarchy (divina monarchia) at all: for b) neither the disposition (dispositio) of three persons in unity, nor c) the distribution of a single substance between the three (distributio massae substantiae) does not destroy (non destruit) or divide the unity (non dividit). Opponents of the Trinity objected to its defenders that the divine principle, considered in itself, in its absolute unity, does not allow within itself, due to its simplicity, the differences that are allowed in it by the doctrine of the Trinity: for “the number (of persons) and the disposition of the Trinity” is its division 432. Refuting this objection, Tertullian first gives a brief concept of monarchy in general, justifies this concept of it using an example borrowed from the sphere of human relations and then transfers this concept to the divine monarchy, clarifying the attitude of divine persons towards it. Monarchy, according to his concept, means personal power or domination of an individual (singulare et unicum imperium), excluding the existence of another, alien dominion. From the concept of monarchy as a dominion belonging to one ruler, it does not yet follow that it will undergo division (divisionem) if the ruler exercises it through persons related and pleasing to him, or through his son: for from the concept of monarchy it does not follow that he cannot have a son who is granted participation in the monarchy. I even affirm, says Tertullian, that there is no monarchy belonging to one person in which many do not take part by the will of the ruler himself, and, however, the monarchy does not cease to exist if the son of the ruler, or others, becomes a participant in the monarchy (particeps). The divine monarchy is governed by legions (Dan. 7:10) of angels and is not destroyed; How then will God experience division or dispersion in the Son and the Holy Spirit, who occupy second and third place in the common lot of divinity and co-participants in the substance of the Father? 433 The monarchy would have suffered destruction only if a “different reign” of another God and His son had been introduced, as taught, for example, by Marcion and Valentinus 434. The Son and the Holy Spirit, as originating from the substance of the Father (de substantia patris), are not alien to God the Father and, participating in the monarchy, do not introduce alien domination into it. Monarchy belongs to God the Father, who gives power to the Son; and the Son does nothing without the will of the Father; The same should be said about the Holy Spirit. But the power now transferred to the Son will one day be returned to the Father in all its fullness and purity (1 Cor. 15:24–28). When the apostle says that power was transferred by God to the Son, and this one will return it to the Father, then he clearly distinguishes between two - the one who transfers power and the one who receives it, and therefore indicates that the Father and the Son are two, and not one, that the monarchy is destroyed by the one who overthrows the disposition between three persons 435. Thus, the integrity of the monarchy, according to Tertullian, with the trinity of divine persons, is ensured by the unity of the divine nature of all three persons. God the Father appears to be the bearer of the divine substance; The monarchy is concentrated in His person. The Son and the Holy Spirit, as originating from the substance of the Father and co-participants (consortes substantiae patris) of it, are co-participants of the monarchy (particeps). The appearance of one and the other person externally with primary power is a matter of divine dispensation in relation to the salvation of man; at the end of time the monarchy will be returned to the Father. It is obvious that the agreement between the monarchy and the Trinity is affirmed by Tertullian not on the subordination of other persons to the first person 436, but on economy, which arranges “the arrangement and delimitation of it” in as many names as it pleased God to place it. However, one can see the imperfection of the concept of monarchy given by Tertullian and its relation to the trinity in the fact that it can hardly be considered a direct response to the objection of his opponents, who argued that God, by his absolute unity, does not allow the existence of three persons in him; otherwise the unity of the divine principle will be destroyed. According to the meaning of this objection, Tertullian should have paid primary attention to the internal relationship of the trinity to the monarchy, regardless of its detection in external economy. Tertullian considers this relationship primarily from the side of its manifestation in external economy and by analogy with the relations of finite things, limiting himself only to pointing out the disposition of the monarchy between divine persons, the integrity of which is ensured in the unity of the divine substance, as a result of which an element of subordinationism is heard in his judgments about the monarchy. Heretics, according to Tertullian, were opponents of the doctrine of the Trinity because they saw in the trinity of persons of the deity the destruction of the divine monarchy and the division of the deity, not paying attention to their disposition (dispositio) in the Trinity 437. What does Tertullian's disposition of the Trinity (dispositio trinitatis) mean? Tertullian's disposition (and dispensatio) has a double meaning in relation to the doctrine of the Trinity: general, according to which it also means that οἰχονομία 438, and particular, indicating the formal relationship between the Trinity and the monarchy, or between the general and the particular, the order (ordo) of the arrangement of persons in the Trinity. In this particular meaning, the disposition of the Trinity can be called dispositive economy 439, in contrast to distributive economy. Tertullian's elucidation of the formal relations between unity and trinity can be considered a fairly faithful and accurate disclosure of the belief in the divine Trinity. The disposition of the Trinity is based on the absolute unity of the deity (una divinitas) and the unity of the divine substance and on this basis distinguishes three persons (persona), but not three gods: for there is only one God, from whom all three divine persons come through the unity of substance 440. They do not want, says Tertullian, to recognize the Son as a second person, fearing to fall into ditheism and being tempted by the fact that the Son is also called God. But when we call God the Father and the Son, we are not talking about two gods, but about two persons, according to a disposition 441 that preserves the unity of the deity and distinguishes three persons in Him. Tertullian gives a detailed explanation of when each of the three divine persons can be called God and when not. When the Son is spoken of separately, one can call him God, but when two or three persons are spoken of together, the name God should be assigned to God the Father to designate the unity of the deity cognizable in three, possessing the deity by the power of disposition, and not the division of the deity into three Gods 442. The meaning of disposition in relation to the unity of the deity is that it produces from it number, degrees (gradus), and in general places the unit into the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but leaves the substance indivisible... “The sacrament of economy, says Tertullian, unity (unitatem) disposes into the Trinity, defining three - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - three (exist) not by nature (statu = natura), but according to degree (gradu), not according to essence (substantia), but according to person (forma), not according to power (potestate = monarchia), but according to personal properties (specie), (yet they are) one being, and one nature, and one power, since there is one God, from whom come these degrees, and persons and personal properties under the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit" 443. But by producing three from one, dispositive economy puts them in such a relation to the being of God that it (as a matrix) remains inseparable. “And from the Spirit is Spirit, and from God is God” 444, but they differ in degree, not in essence. In relation to persons, disposition is expressed in their arrangement in degrees and in a certain order (ordo). God the Father is the first person, the Son is the second person and the second degree, Holy. Spirit is the third person and the third degree. Yet these persons and degrees, as participating in one divine substance, are inseparable and inseparable from the Father in essence. As if generalizing his judgments about economy, which places the unit in the Trinity, Tertullian could rightly say: “The Trinity, flowing from the Father through connected and conjugate degrees, does not harm the monarchy in any way and protects the essence of economy” 445. However, it cannot be said that Tertullian with the same justice could apply the above words to his judgments about the distribution (distributio) of the divine being between three persons, in which it could be argued that the Trinity does not divide the divine being: for from his way of understanding this distribution the equality of all divine persons in terms of the degree of participation in the divine being did not follow, which Tertullian himself was aware of. He expressed his view of the image of the relationship between the divine substance and the person in the following formula: Pater tota substantia, filius vero derivatio totius et portio 446. This formula, which indicates the derogation of the second and third divine persons, has served and continues to serve as the reason for its varied interpretation. Let us try to understand this formula in the sense that is revealed from Tertullian’s judgments about distributive economy and from his other judgments about the Trinity. In all his judgments on the relation of the Trinity to the monarchy, the desire is expressed to maintain the indivisible unity and to understand the Trinity in such a way that the divine persons cannot be identified and at the same time degraded in their dignity. To preserve the indivisibility of the unity of the divine substance, Tertullian thought of the image of the origin of divine persons under the guise of an outflow (προβολὴ, prolatio), which brought him closer to the Valentinian emanation, however, clarifying the difference between his teaching about the outflow and the Gnostic one. Tertullian believes this difference is that the Son and the Holy Spirit, flowing from the essence of the Father, are not separated from Him, but inseparably form one deity with Him; whereas the Valentinian aeons are so far removed from their culprit that they do not know him. With us, only one Son knows the Father; – The Son and the Father are one in essence (John 10:30). The Word was always with God (John 1:1) and was never separated from the Father (nunquam separatusa Patre). This will be προβολὴ - the true guardian of unity, when we say that the Son proceeded from the Father, but was not separated from Him 447. In a word, with the origin of divine persons from the Father, the materia matrix remains intact and indivisible 448. By the unity of substance one can judge about God the Father and the Son that They are unum. But since the unification of all three persons in one (in unum) suggested the idea of ​​their merging, Tertullian was forced to indicate their difference in the very distribution of substance in them (materiae matrix), admitting that the explanation he proposed for this difference did not express the truth 449. The Father is distinguished from other persons as the bearer of the divine substance, for He is tota substantia; other persons possess it modulo 450, according to the power of their origin from it. As a derivative (derivatio), they, according to the distribution of substance in them, can be called parts (portio) of the whole. Tertullian repeatedly repeats his idea of ​​the second and third person, as a derivatio et portio of the whole, which indicates that it was a firmly established idea for him, and not something randomly expressed. But, calling the Son and the Spirit parts of the divine substance (portio), does Tertullian allow for a partial division of the substance? He does not allow such a division of it: the word portio he uses does not indicate a partial division; otherwise, the trinity would destroy the monarchy and the unity of the Divine, which lies at the basis of dispositive and distributive economy, while the destruction of unity would destroy Tertullian’s basic position that the essence of God is immanent with internal difference in unity, and would deprive his polemics directed against the monarchians from meaning. But portio necessarily pointed to the difference of persons in terms of their participation in a single substance. The son is called portio totius, so much so that he is a derivatio, and derivatio does not introduce division, as can be seen from the following examples given by Tertullian to explain the image of the production (derivatio) of degrees from one substance: 451 “God produced (protulit) the Word, as a root (produces) a trunk, and a source, a stream, and a ray of the sun. For these species (species) are προβολαὶ, those essences (substantiarum) from which it comes. I can say without doubt that the trunk is from the root, the stream from the source, and the ray from the sun, because every beginning is a parent, and everything that comes from the beginning is progeny, especially the Word of God, who took the name of the Son. However, the trunk is not separated from the root, and the stream from the source, and the ray from the sun, so the Word is not separated from God. So, according to the nature of these examples, I declare that I recognize two - God and His Word, the Father and His Son. For both the root and the trunk are two things, but connected; the source and the stream are two types, but inseparable, and the sun and the ray are two forms, but conjugate 452. Everything that comes from something is necessarily second in relation to that from which it comes, without however being separated from it. Where there is a second (secundus), there are two; where there is a third (tertius), there are already three. For the third is the Holy Spirit from God and the Son, as the third from the root is the fruit from the trunk, and the third from the source is the stream from the stream... However, nothing is alienated (alienaur) from the source principle (matrice), from which it borrows its properties (suas proprietates). So the Trinity, flowing through connected and conjugate degrees, does not harm the monarchy in any way” 453. If, according to the meaning of the above words, the Son, flowing from the substance of the Father, can be called derivatio, which does not introduce the concept of division of substance, then portio cannot be understood in the sense of a term denoting a partial division of substance, otherwise there would simply be no meaning in the words of Tertullian, who speaks of the indivisibility of the divine being and uses immediately, together, derivatio and portio. “I,” he says, declare the following rule, according to which I recognize the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as inseparable; always imagine them as such and you will understand in what sense this is said. For here I affirm that there is another Father, another (alius) Son and another Holy Spirit. What I have said will be poorly understood by any fool if he sees the difference (diversitas) and from the difference deduces the division (separatio) of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit... However, I recognize the Son as different from the Father not by difference, but by distribution of substance (distributio), different not by division (nec divisione), but by difference (distinctione), since the Father and the Son are not the same - modulo alius ab alio. For the Father is a whole substance, but the Son is a product (derivatio) of the whole and a part (portio) of it, just as He himself says: “The Father is greater than Me” 454. From the above words it is clear that the word - portio does not indicate a partial division of substance: substance is not subject to division, according to the teachings of Tertullian, but its distribution between three persons, which can, in its meaning, be called allocation (communicatio) to its Son and Holy Spirit, giving them the right to be called partners in the possession of it [particeps, consors], since they are given (communicatur) the second and third place in its general lot (secundum et tertium sortitis locum, tam consortibus substantiae patris). But Tertullian’s expression, portio totius, which is accepted in this sense as well, cannot be called any apt designation of the distribution of the divine substance between three persons; it, in any case, indicates that Tertullian could not say that the Son, like the Father, is tota substantia, although he approached this formula and described it, it was not clearly and precisely defined in his mind. In one place he is forced to say that the Father and the Son are equal in essence, and in another he seems to be afraid of identifying them and says that the Son is less than the Father. Thus, proving that the Father and the Son are not two Gods, Tertullian writes; “When the Son says: I and the Father are one (unum sumus), He shows that there are two, whom He equalizes and unites (aequit et jungit).” But when Tertullian begins to challenge the heretical identification of divine persons, he already says that the Son is less than the Father. Thus, in both cases, he cannot accurately define unity in difference and difference in unity, although he constantly strives for this and precisely designates individual moments of the relationship between trinitas and unitas. In general, Tertullian’s teaching about St. The Trinity, despite its many merits, is not without significant inaccuracies both in the development of thoughts and in terminology. The essence of Tertullian’s teaching about God in himself that we have outlined can be designated as follows: it expresses and reveals the following basic theological concepts of Tertullian: a) in the doctrine of the essence of God: God is the only highest being, excluding the existence of another highest being equal to Him or different from Him, and having a corpus sui generis, understood as the general form of substantial and real being, being in its own substances by spirit. This highest being can experience affective states without being damaged. In general, in essence, God is both good and perfect in everything. b) In the doctrine of the divine Trinity: starting from the concept of οἰχονομία, which has a double meaning, Tertullian proves a) the substantiality of the Son and the Holy Spirit and b) clarifies the relation of the Trinity to the unity of the Divine, arguing that the Trinity does not destroy the divine monarchy: for neither the disposition of three persons in a unit, nor the distribution of a single substance between three persons do not destroy monarchies. The disclosure of these provisions, with certain advantages, is not without significant inaccuracies in the development of thought and in terminology. III. Basic principles of theology. – The doctrine of the revelation of God in the world as its creator – The doctrine of the revelation of God in the world as its creator. The doctrine of the creation of the world in general - freedom of creation - The doctrine of creation from nothing - The doctrine of the physical world - and the world of spirits. beings: about their origin from God the Creator of the visible world - about their corporeality - the deviation of some of them to evil - the doctrine of demons - The doctrine of man: the union of the soul with the body - the corporeality of the soul - its unity - the origin of the soul - The doctrine of the image and likeness of God in man - the fall of man and the relationship of the freedom of fallen man to the goodness of God, His power and foresight - Conclusion. Opera Creatoris utrumque testantur, et bonitatem ejus, qua bona, sicut ostendimus, et potentiam, qua tanta, et quidem ex nihilo. Advers. Marc lib. II, p. 5. In the doctrine of God in himself, Tertullian expressed and developed those basic theological concepts that serve as support for the theological positions underlying his doctrine of the revelation of God in the world as the Creator of this world. Thus, in the teaching about God, the general dogmatic position was affirmed in itself that God is the one most perfect, highest being, not lacking in anything and excluding the existence of another, equal to Him, highest being. But if God is the one most perfect being, revealed in the world He created, then, one asks, how should the origin of the finite material world from Him be explained, without presenting God Himself as the culprit of the imperfection and evil existing in the world? The explanation of the origin of finite being from the infinite, imperfect from perfect must obviously be in strict agreement with the basic theological views of Tertullian, expressed by him in the doctrine of God in himself and excluding, in essence, the dualistic and pantheistic ideas of the Gnostics about the origin of the world and the evil existing in it: it is impossible to assume, besides the one God, the existence of any other principle that produced the world and evil in it, when it is recognized that “the properties of the being of God include the fact that everything belongs to Him and everything is directed towards Him” 456, when it is affirmed that the divine οἰχονομία, pointing to the internal difference in the one deity, however excludes Valentinian emanations. Consequently, the essence of resolving the question of the origin of finite being from the infinite should not consist in the invention of a new God 457 creating an imperfect world, but only in explaining the image of the origin of finite being from God - the single absolute beginning of all that exists. A correct explanation of the image of the origin of finite being from the infinite was all the more necessary because the false interpretation of the teachings of the Christian faith about the origin of the world and the evil that exists in it served for the Gnostics as the immediate cause of their misunderstanding of Christology and especially soteriology. Defending and explaining the church teaching about the revelation of God in the world as its Creator, Tertullian expressed and revealed those main theological views, the presentation of which exhausts the area of ​​the basic principles or elements of his theology. Tertullian's teaching about the revelation of God in the world consists of the following three points: 1) from the teaching about the creation of the world in general, 2) from the teaching about the physical and spiritual world, and 3) finally from the teaching about man. All named points are considered by Tertullian mainly in relation to the question of the origin of evil in the world. One can even say that Tertullian’s teaching about the revelation of God in the world as its Creator is, in essence, an attempt to resolve, from the church point of view, the great problem of the origin of evil in the world, which was of utmost interest to Tertullian’s contemporary society. That is why we will touch upon the teachings of the Carthaginian theologian about God the Creator of the world only to the extent that it is relevant to resolving the question of the origin of evil in the world. I. The main theological concepts contained in Tertullian’s teaching about the creation of the world in general were expressed and developed in polemics directed against materialist heretics 458 in general and especially against Hermogenes, who taught about the creation of the world from matter 459 . The essence of the teachings of Hermogenes is depicted by Tertullian in the following form. The Lord (dominus) created everything either from himself (gnostic-patent emanation), or from nothing (church teaching) or from something (dualism). But God could not create from himself (de semetipso): for everything that He created from himself would be a part of His being, which is impossible, since the being of God is indivisible, unchangeable and eternal. So God, by the nature of his being, could not create the world from himself. He could not create the world out of nothing (ex nihilo). God is good by nature, and therefore desires good and does only good. But in the world created by Him there is evil. He could not do this evil of his own free will; if it turned out to be created, then its origin should be attributed to the lack of what the world was created from - namely matter; otherwise, it is necessary to consider God himself as the author of evil 460. Hermogenes asserted his opinion about the existence of eternal matter, among other things, by calling God Lord. The word Lord, in his opinion, indicates the eternally active power of God; but “God would not be eternally Lord if there were not something over which he was Lord.” This something is matter, necessarily eternal, just as the Lord himself is eternal, manifesting his power over it 461. To preserve the divine μοναρχία, in view of the recognition of the eternity of matter, Hermogenes considered God to be the only creative (active) root cause of everything that exists, while attributing passivity to matter 462. Tertullian contrasted the presented teaching of Hermogenes about creation from eternal matter, as well as the teaching of other materialists, with the following two main provisions underlying his teaching about the revelation of God as the Creator of the world: the idea of ​​freedom of creation and the idea of ​​creation from nothing (ex nihilo). In the fight against materialist heretics, Tertullian acted as a decisive defender of the church teaching about the creation of the world as a free act of divine activity. Determined by his ideas about God as the highest being, he, with his characteristic paradox, expressed the opinion that recognizing God as a free Creator of evil is much more worthy of Him than seeing Him as a slave, creating out of necessity 463. Tertullian expressed his opinion about the need to present God as the free creator of the world in the following sharp form: “Freedom, not necessity, befits God. I would rather that God would want to create evil on his own, than that He could not help but create it” 464. The freedom of God's creative activity consists in the fact that God creates the world according to his will (ex voluntate), following his free will and choice (suo arbitrio), and not against his will, out of necessity and slavish obedience 465. Where does the need to assimilate the freedom of creation to God arise, and under what conditions does this freedom manifest itself without experiencing restrictions? Tertullian bases his belief in God as the free auctor (liber auctor) of the world mainly on the inherent human consciousness of the idea of ​​God as the highest being. It has already been proven that God is the highest and most perfect being, possessing certain natural properties, in accordance with which His activity is carried out. Such properties include goodness and omnipotence. The reason that prompted God to reveal himself externally could be external or internal. But one cannot assume the existence of an external cause that could force God to revelation: for God is the highest being who cannot experience any limitation. It is also impossible, like the Valentinians, to subordinate God to internal natural necessity, by virtue of which the divine being is conceived as subordinate to the necessary process of self-development: for it was recognized that the being of God is indivisible. Consequently, the reason for the revelation of God must be not only internal, but also moral. The goodness of God is the only reason why God “did not want to be hidden forever.” But this goodness, says Tertullian, did not suddenly (repentina) appear to him, nor was it accidental and not caused by anything external (obventitia provocativa), but is eternal and immanent 466. Goodness, like affects, is accepted by Tertullian in the sense of a stimulus (stimulus) of the will of God, who wanted to reveal himself outside 467. As soon as God had the desire, by His goodness, to reveal Himself externally, His omnipotence turned out to be sufficient to bring this desire into fulfillment: “for with God, to be able means to want, and not to be able is not to want; but what He desires, He can and accomplishes” 468. The lawgiver for the free will of God, which is revealed externally, is the mind of God, which lies at the basis of the divine economy. So, from the concept of God as the highest being, the conclusion necessarily follows that the revelation of God externally should be thought of as a morally free act of the good omnipotent will of God. Tertullian considers the creation of this world out of nothing (ex nihilo) to be the only necessary condition for the free revelation of God in the world. In St. There is no direct indication in Scripture that the world was created by God out of nothing; the church teaching about creation from nothing is affirmed on the general character of the Christian teaching about the essence of God and is only a consistent conclusion from this teaching. The absence of direct indications in Holy Scripture of the creation of the world from nothing provided church writers with a certain freedom in explaining the question of the origin of the world. If the Alexandrian church writers, who resolved this issue primarily on speculative grounds, did not always successfully coordinate their decisions with the spirit of church teaching in general; then Western church writers, when discussing the question of the origin of the world, tried to substantiate the church teaching about creation from nothing, at least on indirect indications of Holy Scripture and to harmonize speculative grounds with them. Tertullian was the first Western church writer to make an attempt to establish the church doctrine of creation from nothing on speculative grounds in accordance with indirect arguments borrowed from Holy Scripture. Tertullian's solution to the question of the origin of the world from nothing has a dialectical-sophistical character, depending mainly on the lack of direct data to resolve the question. But the center of gravity of Tertullian’s teaching about the creation of the world from nothing lies not in the speculative, but in the practical side of this teaching, namely in resolving the question of creation from nothing in relation to the question of the origin of evil. Tertullian’s entire teaching about the creation of the world from nothing at all consists of three points: a negative polemical and a positive solution to the question of creation in general and its solution in relation to the question of the origin of evil. Resolving the question of creation from a negative polemical point of view, Tertullian comes to the conviction that Hermogenes’ teaching about creation from eternally existing matter leads to dualism. Dualism is an inevitable consequence of the doctrine of creation from matter, which equates the latter with God 469. Matter will be equalized with God if properties befitting God as the highest being are attributed to it. To the universal human consciousness, God appears to be the highest being, eternal, unborn, uncreated, having neither beginning nor end. These properties are also adopted by matter when they say that God created the world from unborn, uncreated matter, having neither beginning nor end 470. Consequently, matter is the highest being, equal to God. But the existence of two equal highest beings is impossible, according to the meaning of the already established regula summi magni, therefore, the existence of matter having properties befitting a deity is also impossible, and the creation of the world from eternal matter is also impossible. On the other hand, the difference in the names of the two opposite principles, which are God and matter, does not ensure the unity of the divine monarchy: for the highest being is recognized as such by its essence, and not by name 471, “God is unborn, but is not matter unborn? God always exists, but doesn't matter always exist? Both of them are without beginning, both without end, even both of them are the creators of the universe, both the one who creates and the one from whom the universe was created. For matter, from which the world was created, cannot but be considered the culprit of everything” 472. The integrity of the unity of the divine principle is not preserved when God is considered the main culprit (primus auctor) of everything that exists, incomparable with anything, and eternal matter appears inferior to God. Regula summi magni requires that the properties immanent in God belong to Him alone, otherwise He will not be the highest being. But matter, as has already been shown, also acquires divine properties: therefore, it must be equated with God and cannot be placed below Him, insofar as it possesses properties belonging to the highest being 473. Matter cannot even be thought of as less than God if qualities characteristic of the Divine are attributed to it: for that which is eternal cannot experience diminishment or humiliation 474 . God swears that there is no other being like Him. But isn’t matter similar to God, being ungenerated, uncreated, having neither beginning nor end? God says: I am first (Isa. 41:2); but how is He the first, if matter is the same age and contemporary with Him. I, says God, have stretched out the heavens (Isa. 44:24); but, of course, it did not spread alone, but together with matter. And matter is first together with God, because He is first with it, and it is together with God, the culprit and mistress (domina) of everything that exists and happened in time 475. “And I, matter will say, am first, and I am first of all, and I am the one from whom everything is. We (matter and God) are equal, we existed together, both without beginning, both without end, both without a culprit, without God. How will I be subject to God as a contemporary and peer? Is it because He is called God? But I also have my own name, or better yet, I am God, and He is matter, because we are both what each of us is” 476. But matter not only cannot be thought of as less than God, but must even be placed above God: for the doctrine of the creation of the world from matter puts God in a subordinate position in relation to it, limiting His omnipotence. In a subordinate position is not the one who is needed in general, but the one who has a need for someone or something. God, who wanted to create the world, felt the need for matter; Consequently, He, who needs matter, is in a subordinate position in relation to matter, and not matter in relation to God. God could need matter only because His omnipotence could be insufficient to create the world out of nothing 477. But Tertullian sees the humiliation of God not only in the fact that He used matter for creation, but also in the fact that He used evil matter, creating bad things from it. God could use matter in the creation of the world in three ways (tribus modis): jure, beneficio, impetu, that is, by right of domination (dominio), compliance (praecario) and violence (vi). As Almighty, God had to use matter as his property in the first way. But He could use it in this way only by transforming it from evil to good; but He also created bad things from it; therefore, He did not transform it and used it in two other ways unworthy of God. He could use matter in the second way only out of necessity or weakness 478; the third method is unworthy of God already because it makes Him a debtor to a substance alien to Him, and, moreover, an evil one 479. God would have acted much better by not creating anything than by creating by right of compliance or violence 480 . It is more worthy for God not to create anything than to create from matter - this is the conclusion to which Tertullian comes, having examined the question of the origin of the world from a negative polemical point of view. The idea of ​​creating the world out of nothing is also a necessary requirement arising from viewing this issue from a positive point of view. The creation of the world from nothing is deduced by Tertullian, first of all, from the basic provisions he affirmed, which are part of his teaching about the essence of God. From the concept of God as the highest being, it necessarily follows that nothing could exist either before God or coeternally with Him, otherwise God would be equated with that which is coeternal with Him, and would be humbled before some substance that existed before Him 481 . In the teaching about the Trinity God in persons, by the way, the creative divine principle is also indicated, which could create and actually created the world out of nothing - this is the Word of God. It has already been shown that God, before His revelation outside, prepared an ideal plan for the world, which He thought out together with reason, which was revealed later, at the creation of the world, as the Word. This Word, conceived in the second moment of its divine life, is even considered to have occurred in time to show that outside of God nothing could exist, even if the divine Word was created in time. “If, says Tertullian, God needed matter to create the world, then He had matter more worthy and suitable - His wisdom (sophia); she alone knew the mind of the Lord (1 Cor. 2:11). For who knows what is in Himself, except the Spirit who abides in Him? Wisdom (sophia) is the Spirit; she was His adviser; it is the way of understanding and knowledge, from it He created, creating everything through it and creating with it” (Wisdom 8:27–31). This wisdom is the source and beginning (tons et origo) of all things; the matter of matter, not subject to end, indifferent in its essence 482 - such as God needed. He created and gave birth to it from himself, as soon as it turned out to be necessary for the affairs of the world.” Let Hermogenes know that God declares even Wisdom to be born and created, so that we may believe that besides God there is nothing unborn and uncreated. Through this Wisdom, God created the world out of nothing 483. Tertullian also borrows another argument ex divina dispositione in favor of his doctrine of creation from nothing. Divine economy, argues Tertullian, convinces us that everything will one day return to insignificance (in nihilum): the sky will once shine and cease to exist with the earth, with which it was previously created; the works of God's hands will perish and be changed 484. If everything that exists undergoes change, then this means that everything was created from nothing, and not from eternally existing matter: for the world, which originated from eternal matter, could not undergo change. The evidence in favor of the doctrine of creation from nothing, borrowed from the positive and natural sources of Christian knowledge, is either too general or indirect in Tertullian. Both nature in general and the moral nature of the human soul testify only to the fact that God is the omnipotent Creator of the world 485. Based on the evidence of nature about the omnipotence of God, we can only say that the doctrine of the creation of the world from nothing does not contradict this evidence and finds indirect support in it: for omnipotence is a necessary condition for creation from nothing. The rule of faith strongly testifies to creation from nothing, but its testimony is too general. Tertullian could not find direct indications in the Holy Scriptures about the creation of the world from nothing. The main grounds borrowed by Tertullian from Holy Scripture are the biblical expression: in the beginning (in principio) God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1), and the argument ex ordine legitimae operis enarrationis, borrowed from the biblical story of the creation of the world. In the biblical expression in principio, Hermogenes saw an indication of matter as a substantial and bodily principle (principium substantivum et corpulentum). Challenging Hermogenes interpretation of the biblical expression in principio, Tertullian argues that this expression has a double meaning. It, firstly, indicates the order of origin of things (ordinis nomen); secondly, the word principium has the meaning of a basis, similar to that of the Greek word ἀρχ ή. In this regard, principium means the Wisdom of God or the Word, as a creative divine principle. The Word of God, as shown above, creates the world not from matter, but from nothing. To prove that the Word creates out of nothing, Tertullian resorts to the already mentioned argument, borrowed ex ordine legitima operis enarrationes. The essence of this argument is as follows. Three components (principia) participate in the creation of any work: who creates, what is created, and from what it is created. Accordingly, in the correct narration of the work performed, three names are mentioned, indicating the face of the creator, the type of thing created and the property of the matter from which something is created 487 . The biblical narrative mentions the face of the Creator and the appearance of His creations, but says nothing about the matter from which God created the world. The lack of reference to matter means, according to Tertullian, that God created the world out of nothing. “If,” he says, “matter is not indicated where creation and the author of creation are mentioned, then it is clear that God creates from nothing. If He created from anything, then it would be mentioned from what it was created.” Tertullian also finds in the New Testament a basis that supports his interpretation of the biblical story of creation. The New Testament talks about the Word creating and the things being created (John 1:3), but does not talk about what things were created from, pointing out that there was no matter from which things were created, otherwise St. Scripture would have mentioned it according to the order of the story 488 . Creation from nothing was, according to Tertullian, the reason why the Holy Spirit was silent both about matter and about the fact that things were created from nothing; the silence about matter is a direct indication of creation from nothing 489. Consideration of the teaching of his opponents about the creation of the world from evil matter in relation to the question of the origin of evil convinces Tertullian that the theory of the creation of the world from evil matter does not achieve the goal for which it was invented. They teach about the creation of the world from evil matter for the purpose of considering it to be the culprit of the evil existing in the world, and not God: for, said opponents of the church teaching about the creation of the world from nothing, God is the culprit of evil if he created everything according to his own will 490. But God is not exempt from the accusation of creating evil even when He creates the world from evil matter; because, creating the world from evil matter, He is, if not the culprit (auctor) of evil, then its connivator (assentator mali), deigning for the existence of evil matter, which He must correct, as a good God and an opponent of evil. He turns out to be a weak God if he could not make evil matter good, and even an evil God, if he could make it good, did not wish it of his own free will. In one case or another, He will be either a slave of evil or its friend 491. But the theory of the origin of the world from evil matter does not, in essence, explain, according to Tertullian, the origin of evil and good. Either good and evil must be attributed to God, which He produced from matter, or the matter from which they were created, or both. But if good and evil are attributed to God, then God will be considered the author of evil, which is impossible: for He is good by nature. And when both are assimilated into matter, then evil matter will be considered the source (matrix) of good, which is also impossible: for matter, being evil by nature (natura), must always remain evil (in malo perseverans). If God and matter are considered the culprits of good and evil, then matter will be equal to God and there will already be two Gods, each of whom will have a dual nature, containing within itself the seed of good and evil 492. If good belongs to God, and evil belongs to matter, then God will still be the author of evil, as having extracted it from matter 493. Finally, the doctrine of creation from matter appears to Tertullian to be false simply because, within the meaning of this doctrine, good and evil are portrayed as having a bodily-substantial and irresistible character, which contradicts the Christian doctrine of salvation as liberation from evil through free activity. If matter is evil from eternity, then evil must be eternal, and eternal evil is invincibile et insuperabile (invincibile et insuperabile): since that which is eternal does not undergo change. But the doctrine of the invincibility of evil does not agree with the plans of the divine economy, which leads man to good through the law regulating the actions of the will, free to choose good or evil. “Then, says Tertullian, we try in vain to destroy evil in us (1 Cor. 5:13), then in vain does God issue commandments and orders, in vain did He establish judgment, intending to punish us according to His justice.” The invincibility and eternity of evil also contradict the Christian teaching about the final destiny of the world, when the end of evil will be put, when the devil will be cast into the fire prepared for him and his angels (Matthew 25:41), when every creature will be liberated from the dominion of evil and will be returned to the state of innocence 494. Since the invincibility of evil contradicts the essence of some Christian truths, then, in order to maintain the internal connection that exists between them, it is necessary to think of evil as not having a material nature; it will not have a physical-natural character if it is not understood in the sense of substance. But evil must necessarily be recognized as substantial if it is produced from an evil substance and is itself accepted as a substance 495. What is evil by its nature, if it is not substantial, and how Tertullian resolves the problem regarding the origin of evil - we will now see from his teaching about the physical and spiritual world and about man in relation to resolving the question of the origin of evil, having first noted the following main concepts developed by Tertullian in his teaching about the creation of the world in general: the revelation of God in the creation of the world is the work of the goodness of God, freely, and not out of necessity, creating the world from nothing; the creation of the world from matter does not befit the omnipotent God, making Him an unfree author of evil, which would have the character of natural necessity if it were created from evil matter. II. From the position affirmed by Tertullian that the free creation of the world from nothing befits God, according to the properties of His being, the following two provisions necessarily followed, underlying his teaching about the physical, spiritual world and about man in relation to the question of the origin of evil: the world was created by God as good; evil is something later, not substantial and having no basis in the will of God. Both of these provisions are directed against the opinion of the Gnostics, who argued that God, creating the world out of nothing, is the culprit of the evil that exists in it, which they understood in a substantial sense. The first position was expressed by Tertullian, among other things, in the following formula: mundus ex bonis omnibus consistit 496. The concept of a world consisting of “all goods” was derived by Tertullian from the concept of God as wholly good (totus bonus, dum pro bono omnia est). Being essentially good, He could create the world only good. First, God created the physical world good, as an opus bonum. In the biblical story of the creation of the world, Tertullian saw evidence that the physical world was created good. “And God said,” says Tertullian: “Let it be!” and it was created. And God saw that it was good (Genesis 1).” He called what was created from Him good, honored, blessed and experienced the goodness of creation with the dignity of his gaze 497. In the same biblical story, Tertullian finds no basis for the opinion that the physical world was created from evil matter. In the biblical expression: the earth was invisible and unsettled, Hermogenes saw an indication of evil matter, from which the world was later formed. For Tertullian, the invisible earth is not a special matter, but the same earth that was later put in order: “For we, he says, have one God and one earth, which God created in the beginning” 498. The earth is called unsettled according to the order of the creation of the world, which consisted in the fact that first the unsettled elements were created, which then received, as a result of their arrangement, the beauty of forms characteristic of them. The brilliance of the sun's rays did not immediately appear, the moon did not immediately moderate the power of darkness, and the sky was not immediately dotted with stars and various luminaries. The earth becomes perfect gradually when a division was made between its elements according to the law of divine justice, which distributed among them the gifts of goodness that created the world 499 . The beauty and harmony that reign in the world, the expediency and order that dominates it, testify to the divine goodness that created the world, and not to the evil principle that supplied the elements for the creation of the visible world. Decrying the contemptuous view of the Gnostics on the physical world as the work of an evil principle, Tertullian wittily notes that heretics only theoretically deny the good that exists in the world, but not practically. “The best God of Marcion even now does not neglect the water of the Creator with which he washes his own, nor the oil with which he anoints his own, nor the mixture of honey and milk with which he feeds his own as children, nor the bread with which he represents his body, even for his own sacraments he is forced to beg from the Creator... I would like to see if you are not using what you are destroying. You are an enemy of heaven, and yet you steal its blessings into your home; you despise the earth as the source of a body hostile to you, and you squeeze out all its juice for your needs; You blame the sea, and consider its fish fit for the most sacred food... How great is the persistence of your cruelty! You have a low value for what you live and move in” 500. In general, the goodness of God, which created the world, Holy Scripture, which tells about its creation, and the properties of the world itself convince Tertullian that the physical world is an opus bonum. Just as the physical world was created good by God, so the invisible world (invisibilis) or the world of spiritual beings was created good. Tertullian's teaching on spiritual beings offers, in general terms, the experience of a positive revelation of church teaching about the origin of evil in the world. In the same teaching, the theological-philosophical image of Tertullian’s contemplation appears before us from the side of its new element - spiritualistic, going hand in hand with the concrete-realistic character of the worldview of the Carthaginian theologian. In essence, the doctrine of angels constitutes, in our understanding, one of the weakest parts of Tertullian theology - weak not in terms of the general principles underlying it, but in the way and means of their development. However, in order to justify Tertullian, it should be noted that he partly repeats in a unique form some opinions about spiritual beings that were quite widespread in his time. The main elements included in Tertullian’s teaching about spirits in general can be considered the following: the doctrine of the origin of spiritual beings from God the Creator of the visible world, the corporeality of spirits, the doctrine of the deviation of some of them to evil, as the first moment of the birth of evil in the world (natales) and, finally, the doctrine of demons. The entire world created by God consists, according to Tertullian, of two kinds of things - visible and invisible 501. The divine power that created the visible world instills in us faith in its sufficiency for creating the world of invisible beings. Contrary to the opinion of Marcion, who argued that the invisible world has as its culprit the highest God, distinct from the Creator, Tertullian defends faith in the Creator as the culprit of the invisible world. The external world, he argues, consists of opposites - corporeal and incorporeal, animate and inanimate, verbal and wordless, moving and motionless, generative and sterile, dry and wet, etc. The opposite is noticeable in the body and soul of a person. Some of the members of our body are strong, others are weak; and opposite states also arise in our soul: now joy, now sadness, now love, now hatred. If the entire visible world consists of opposites 502, then it is necessary, for the sake of the completeness of creation, that there should also be a world of invisible beings, opposite to the visible 503. Tertullian is convinced of the existence of the world of invisible beings and their creation by the Creator of the visible world with the voice of the Holy One. Scripture, and especially the epistles of St. Paul 504. The interest in proving the origin of spiritual beings from God the Creator lay for Tertullian in the fact that he, using the doctrine of the essence and properties of their nature, affirmed his theodicy, which he developed in a polemic directed primarily against Marcion. Remaining generally true to his concept of corpus, as the general form of all real being, Tertullian thought under the form of corpus the essence of spiritual beings invisible to man, but visible to God: “and invisible beings, he says, have with God their own body and a form peculiar to them, through which they are visible to God alone” 505. Angels, who by nature have a spiritual substance, are characterized by a body of a kind - corpus sui generis, opposite to flesh - caro 506. “It is known, he says, that angels do not have their own flesh.” However, one cannot help but see that in Tertullian’s idea of ​​the corpus of spiritual beings one can hear a certain crude element that is unnoticed in his idea of ​​the corpus Dei, although in both cases the general concept of the body remains identical. This gross element is heard when Tertullian calls the angel a material spirit (angelus spiritus materialis) 507. The basis that gave Tertullian the reason to call angels material spirits was the following expression of Psalm 103: angels create their own spirits and their servants create a fiery flame. Based on this expression, Tertullian argued that the nature of angels is created from some fiery substance 508. The opinion that angels were produced by God from a fiery essence, found among Tertullian’s predecessors, could have been adopted by the latter as an opinion that was in harmony with his ideas about the corporeality of angelic spirits. In general, in calling angels material spirits one can, not without reason, notice some expansion of the concept of corpus sui generis in its application to angels by introducing into this concept an element that closely borders on the sensory. This expansion confirms our remark about the failure of applying the term corpus to the doctrine of the substantiality of spiritual beings: for the concept of the corporeality of spiritual beings, logically developed, created many difficulties for Tertullian in the field of theology. The remark we made about the meaning of corpus in relation to angels is confirmed in the teaching of Tertullian about the nature of demons and about the body of the human soul. In general, spiritual beings can be called, according to the essence of their nature, corporales-spiritales. According to the properties of their nature, spiritual beings were created by God as good: “and the angel, says Tertullian, God created good in the form of (generally) good (his) deeds” 509: for God, being entirely good (totus bonus), could create and did only good. But since perfect goodness (perfecta bonitas) is an inherent property only of God, the spiritual beings created by Him could not possess perfect good by nature (natura), but institutione - in accordance with their destiny for good, their powers and abilities to possess good and succeed in it. In order for spiritual beings to be able to improve in goodness, God endowed them with free will and power for self-determination and free choice of good and its rejection. Tertullian confirms his judgments about the original good nature of the angels with Holy Scripture, using the allegorical interpretation of one passage from the book of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 28ff.), speaking about the king of Tyre, endowed by God with many material and spiritual gifts. The prophet depicts the king of Tyre as possessing the seal of perfection, the fullness of wisdom and the crown of beauty; he imagines him created in paradise and adorned with precious stones and clothes, describes him in the guise of a cherub standing among fiery stones; In general, the king of Tyre is presented as perfect in everything. In this image of the king of Tyre, Tertullian sees the image of an angel - Satan, since, in his opinion, none of the people, in terms of their perfection, can be equal to the king of Tyre. None of the people was created as a cherub on the holy mountain of God, that is, in the heights of heaven, no one was either between the shining rays of burning stars, or between the fiery stones 510. But the image of the king of Tyre is quite applicable to Satan. The name of Satan with the seal of likeness (resignaculum similitudinis) indicates that he, in his integrity, represented the image and likeness of divine holiness; he is called the fullness of wisdom and the crown of beauty, as “the most excellent of the angels (eminentissimus angelorum), as the wisest of all”; the name of the cherub, located on the mountain of God - in the height above the stars, is applied to it; “he is blameless from the day of his creation (invituperalibis a die conditionis suae), as created good by God, the good author” of 511 blameless creatures, and adorned with all angelic glory and placed before God as a bonus apud bonum, after which he himself turned towards evil. The wisest did not resist in goodness, sponte corruptus, and, overthrown from heaven, sowed sin (delictum seminavit) on earth, becoming the culprit of existing evil in the world (instinctor delicti). Thus, the angel who voluntarily became corrupted should be considered the first author of evil, and not God, who created the angel good. But what is the relationship between the fact of the free fall of an angel and the economy of God, without whose will nothing could happen? A more or less detailed solution to the question of the relationship between the freedom of created beings and the grace of God is given by Tertullian in his teaching on the freedom and sin of man in their relation to the goodness of God; but the doctrine of angels also offers a general solution to this question, insofar as it is necessary to indicate the first culprit of evil. The issue is resolved in polemics against the Marcionites. God, the Marcionites said, cannot be considered free from the reproach of producing evil when He is considered the Creator of the devil. God created angels; the devil is also an angel; therefore he too was created by God; God, as the Creator of the devil, must also assimilate what is produced by the latter 512. Tertullian's defense of God's innocence in the work of evil is built on the concept of free will and the ability to self-determination given by God to the angels, and the concept of their possession of good non natura, sed institutione. Refuting the Gnostic opinion that makes God responsible for the evil produced by the devil, Tertullian argues that God could be considered the author of evil only if he created Satan as a devil, and not a good angel. But in creating good spirits, God could not create them good by nature (natura): for goodness, as a natural attribute, belongs only to the divine being, and not to created beings. The best that God could do to affirm created beings in goodness, without being himself the author of evil, was that He created them capable, by the very institution of their being, of assimilating the good given to them and becoming stronger in it, or deviating from it and establishing themselves in the direction opposite to the good - and being established in both cases without coercion on the part of God. For affirmation in good or the direction opposite to it, spiritual beings are granted by God free will (libertas voluntatis) and the power of free choice and self-determination (potestas sui arbitrii), under which God cannot be considered the author of evil if it is a matter of free choice on the part of beings destined for good 513. The devil became evil sua sponte; therefore, the creator, who intended him for good, is not guilty of the fact that he, of his own will and of his own choice, chose for his activity the direction opposite to that to which he was intended by the Creator. God’s non-involvement in the sin of the devil is visible in His disapproval of evil, expressed in the condemnation of the sin of the devil and in casting him from heaven like lightning (Luke 10:18). Cast down from heaven, he sowed sin on earth, deceiving man. It is impossible, according to Tertullian, to consider God a condoner of evil if He did not prevent the devil from making man a participant in evil. In not preventing the devil from sowing evil in the human race, the goodness and intelligence of God was expressed, who did not want to limit the freedom of spiritual and moral beings, once given to them to possess. “God,” says Tertullian, postponed for a time the defeat of the devil on the same basis for which He postponed the restoration of man. He gave place to the battle so that man would defeat his enemy with the same free will with which he submitted to him, thereby confirming his guilt, and not the guilt of God, and thus would worthily restore his salvation through victory, and the devil would be more severely punished” 514 for abusing his freedom. So, if by evil we mean the free deviation of a good angel from his institution, intended for good, then God cannot be considered the culprit of evil (auctor mali) produced by the devil: for God provided the latter with all the means available to a created being to remain in goodness. What exactly was the evil produced by the devil? In explaining the essence of the offense (delictum) committed by the devil, Tertullian remains partly from the general church and biblical point of view, but partly reveals a deviation from the principles he established regarding the sources of Christian knowledge. The general concept of evil as a moral phenomenon follows from Tertullian’s concept of the institution of angels, intended to assimilate good. According to the meaning of this institution, evil will consist in voluntary deviation from its essential goal, namely, from the good to which the angel is destined by its institution, and in following the direction opposite to good. The direction of the will that is opposite to good is generally evil. The concept of evil, as a formal deviation of the will from the main goal of an institution, is expressed by Tertullian in the following formula: “The devil has deviated ab institutionis forma.” In terms of its content, the concept of the evil of the devil includes the idea of ​​his malice (malitia), as a consequence of the strengthening of the will in an evil direction, accompanied by evil affects, such as. envy, etc., and in general passionate (libido) desires in relation to all hostile good. Tertullian's general concept of the original evil of the devil is expressed in the following words: “the devil has deviated ab institutionis forma libidine propria conceptae ultro malitiae.” Tertullian does not say definitively in what exactly the angel’s first deviation from the form of the institution was manifested; but, apparently, he sees it in the envy and impatience of the devil in relation to the bliss to which man was destined. “I find,” he says, the reason for impatience in the devil himself, that even then, when the Lord God subordinated all created things to his image, that is, to man, he carried impatience within himself” 515. Impatience later manifested itself in three offenses of the devil, expressed in slander against God, who supposedly forbade the first people to eat from every tree, that they would not die if they ate, and, finally, that God was jealous of their divinity (divinitas), forbidding them to eat from all the trees of paradise 516. In explaining the essence of the evil of the devil in relation to man (malitia mendacii et fallaciae in hominem) and to God (malitia infamiae in Deum), Tertullian obviously adheres to the general church and biblical point of view on the evil of the devil. But he also points out other faults of the angels, which served as the reason for their overthrow from heaven - this is contempt for heaven, love for the beautiful daughters of men, carnal union with them 517; they were condemned by God as desertores Dei et amatores feminarum 518. Tertullian based his opinion about the fall of some angels from heaven for the sake of their unclean love for women on the following words of the Bible, which he misinterpreted (Gen. 6:1-2): and it came to pass when many men began to be on earth, and daughters were born to him, having seen the sons of God, the daughters of men, for they are good, having fed on the wives of all izbrasha 519. The opinion about the marriage of some angels with the daughters of men is believed to have been borrowed by Tertullian from the apocryphal book of Enoch. However, this opinion is also found among church writers who preceded Tertullian 520. In any case, it shows that it was not always easy for Tertullian to remain true to his principles regarding the sources of Christian knowledge, which had to be in agreement with the voice of the church. Tertullian explains the origin of demons by the marriage of angels with human women; he is convinced that “a race of demons, more depraved than angels” 521, originated from the latter’s marriage with women. In his depiction of the actions of evil demons, Tertullian shows a tendency towards supranaturalism, which goes along with his concrete realistic understanding of everything spiritual. Tertullian represents the pagan pre-Christian world as the kingdom of Satan and demons. Satan is portrayed as the ever-present enemy of God. “If God, says Tertullian, is the highest good (optimus), then the devil, on the contrary, is the highest evil (pessimus); from their very difference it is clear that each of them cannot help the other, so we cannot assume that something good will come for us from something bad, or something evil from something good.”522 In natural religions, in the arts, in philosophy, in social and family life, Tertullian sees traces of the activity of demons, who were intensifying their dominance over man. Every child born was candidatus diaboli 523. Tertullian proved the existence of demons with references to philosophers and poets, to communis conscientia and to Holy Scripture. Socrates and Plato did not reject the existence of demons; the uneducated crowd uses the name of demons when casting spells; a feeling of disgust is felt in the soul of everyone at the mention of the name of an unclean spirit, which, in his opinion, indicates the existence of demons. “Of course, when we confirm the existence of demons, some follower of Chrysippus will laugh at this, as if we do not prove their existence by the fact that we alone are able to expel them from our bodies. But your spells say they exist. You call a demon a person with malice, or impurity, or arrogance... Finally, you pronounce the word “Satan” with all curses, with any expression of contempt or disgust. This is the name of the one whom we call the angel of evil, the author of every error and the corrupter of the whole world...” 524. All actions of demons are aimed, according to Tertullian, at the destruction of man 525. The amazing tenderness and subtlety (subtilitas et tenuitas) of their nature allows them to act on the body and soul of a person (ad utram - que substantiam). In human bodies they produce diseases or phenomena harmful to the physical life of a person, and in the soul - sudden and strong shocks, frenzies, demons, violent desires and delusions 526. They penetrate the soul due to the ability to “imperceptibly touch the human soul.” And in physical nature, demons produce phenomena harmful to humans. If the cause that affects fruit trees during their flowering, damaging fruit buds or ripe fruits is unknown; if, for some unknown reason, the disturbed air spreads destructive fumes, then all this is the work of demons. They convince people to consider them gods and make sacrifices to them. Stench and blood are the food of demons 527. Demons easily perform the named actions due to the properties of their nature. Demons are swift as birds 528 ; at one moment they appear everywhere; the whole universe is one place for them 529. Speed ​​and impetuosity makes it possible for them to know everything that happens on earth and in the air spaces, and to proclaim to people so that they believe in their omniscience, characteristic of a deity; they prophesy in oracles, perform miracles, etc. In a word: operatio eorum est hominis eversio 530. In Tertullian's teaching about the physical world and spiritual beings, the following main thoughts are expressed: the physical world is a good creation of God, who created spiritual-physical beings as good non natura, sed institutione and endowed them with free will: the evil produced by them consisted in their free deviation from the good - the main goal of their institution. God is not responsible for the free evil of the devil. Demons originated from the carnal marriage of angels with the daughters of men. The image of the disclosure of these thoughts presents us with Tertullian’s theology from the side of its supranaturalistic element, which goes alongside the concrete realistic image of Tertullian’s worldview; There is a noticeable inconsistency in the application of true principles regarding the sources of Christian knowledge. In general, Tertullian’s teaching about spiritual beings contains noticeable imperfections. III. Tertullian's teaching on the nature and properties of angelic spirits presents, in general terms, an explanation of the question of the origin of evil in the world and the relationship of the freedom of created beings to the good and omnipotent will of God, which created the world good. A more detailed solution to this question is given by Tertullian in his doctrine of man. The rather broad formulation given to this issue was caused by polemics directed against Gnostic-anthropological dualism, which was closely related to Christology and morality. In the field of anthropology, the Gnostic solution to the question of the origin of evil consisted primarily in the fact that in man two principles, good and evil, were brought together, and here they were put into hostile relations with each other under the name of the ic, psychic and pneumatic elements. Good was learned only by the latter, and evil by the first two. Refuting the dualistic anthropology of the Gnostics and their dualistic explanation of the origin of evil, Tertullian sets out to prove the following two general provisions: a) man is not a combination of two hostile principles; b) the evil produced by man has a moral, not a cosmological character. By presenting the main concepts that make up the development of these two positions, we end this work: for with the understanding of the meaning of these concepts, the final characteristic features of Tertullian’s theological contemplation are also clarified; Here the basic tone of Tertullian’s theology, which we have indicated, reaches its extreme heights, consisting in the belittlement of the speculative element and the exaltation of the concrete realistic. The first position is developed in the following four points: in the doctrine of the flesh in its relation to the human soul, of the corporeality of the soul and its unity, and finally, in the doctrine of the origin of the soul. All these points are discussed in the spirit of Stoic psychology, which was in harmony with the realistic image of Tertullian's worldview. Condemning the opinion of the Gnostics, who considered the flesh (caro) to be the product of an evil principle, hostile to the soul, Tertullian clarifies the close connection that exists between the flesh and the soul, proving, on the basis of this connection, that the flesh not only does not serve as an obstacle to the religious and moral activity of the soul, but is a necessary and worthy helper for it. The flesh should not cause contempt for itself simply because it was created by the goodness of God, like everything in the world. Tertullian sees the high dignity of the flesh even in the fact that it served as a noble (generosus), and not the most despicable vessel (vilissimo capulo), containing the breath of God - the soul and receiving beauty from it 531. If the flesh were something despicable, coming from an evil inclination, then God would not have placed in it the soul “the shadow of his soul, the breath of his spirit, the work of his mouth” 532. Being a vessel worthy of containing the soul, the flesh is at the same time a necessary part of the whole called man; Without a body, this whole is no longer a person. “Neither the soul,” says Tertullian, in itself is a man, as attached to a creature called man, nor flesh without a soul is a man, since it, after the soul leaves it, is called a corpse. So, the word “man” in some way designates a chain consisting of two conjugate substances, under which name they cannot exist otherwise than connected to each other” 533. In general, man is nothing more than a union (societas) of soul and flesh. Tertullian presents the union that exists between flesh and soul as so close that it is difficult to even say who is its main bearer, the body or the soul. “God placed the soul in the flesh, or rather sowed and mixed it with the flesh and united them so closely that it is difficult to say for sure whether the flesh serves as the bearer of the soul, or the soul as the bearer of the flesh, whether the soul belongs to the flesh or the flesh to the soul” 534. If the flesh is considered unable to live without the soul, then, on the other hand, the soul is placed in such dependence on the flesh that it cannot be recognized as truly existing. Although the soul, according to Tertullian, is itself capable of experiencing sensations (sentire) and thinking (cogitare), it needs help from the flesh to manifest its states. This help extends so far by Tertullian that the flesh is considered a participant in the act of thinking and is considered as caro omne animae cogitatorium 535. In general, in all the functions of its activity the soul cannot do without the participation of the flesh. From a polemical point of view, the clarification of the close connection between soul and body, made by Tertullian, was significant to the extent that it refuted the Gnostic division of man by sex, in the words of Tertullian himself; it is true because of the main idea underlying it, that there is a close connection between flesh and soul. But the development of this thought cannot be considered completely correct. It attaches too much importance to the sensual and diminishes the independence of the soul, and almost identifies mental activity with sensual activity. If in Tertullian’s judgments about the connection between body and soul there is a noticeable inclination towards a concrete realistic understanding of the spiritual, then this inclination is to a high degree revealed in his doctrine of the corporeality (corporalitas) of the soul. We will present this teaching in somewhat more detail in view of the fact that Tertullian expressed all the arguments he had in favor of his doctrine of the corporeality of the soul. He builds his doctrine of the corporeality of the soul on the evidence of Holy Scripture and arguments from reason. The literal-realistic image of understanding Holy Scripture helped Tertullian find in it arguments in favor of his opinion about the corporeality of the human soul. He draws these arguments from the Gospel parable of the stingy rich man and poor Lazarus (Luke 16:23 etc.). The rich man who died, Tertullian argues, suffered torment in hell, and Lazarus experienced joy in the bosom of Abraham. The soul of the rich man feels sorrow in the underworld and, punished by fire, suffers painful thirst, begs Abraham to send the soul of Lazarus to ease it with a finger dipped in water. Is it really, Tertullian asks, that the rejoicing poor man and the suffering rich man are just images? “What then will the name of Lazarus mean if in reality the object itself does not exist?” But even if there was an image here, it should still be considered evidence of the truth: if the soul did not have a body, then the image of the soul would not have the image of the body; Priest Scripture would not deceive about the corporeality of the members of the soul 536 if they did not exist. If the soul is nothing, then it could not be underground in the underworld: for incorporeality is free from all kinds of protection, from punishment and fatigue. But if the soul is depicted as experiencing torment in the underworld, in fire, then its corporeality is thereby proven. Only the physical is capable of experiencing such emotions as the Gospel attributes to the souls of Lazarus and the rich man; only the corporeal can be contained in space 537. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus serves as the only evidence that Tertullian could borrow from Holy Scripture in favor of the corporeality of the soul. Speculative proofs of the corporeality of the soul are partly borrowed from the Stoic philosophers, and partly Tertullian brings his own considerations. Philosophical arguments are drawn from the Stoics Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus and others. The soul, Zeno teaches, is the vital spirit immanent in the body. This vital spirit can only be represented as corporeal: for “that upon the exit of which a living being dies is the body. A living being dies when the condensed breath leaves it; therefore condensed breath is the body, and condensed breath is the soul, therefore the soul is the body” 538. The Stoic Cleanthes proves the corporeality of the soul in the following way. The similarity of children with their parents lies not only in physical outlines, but also in spiritual qualities. Similarity can only take place in relation to the body; therefore, the similar souls of fathers and children must be of a bodily nature. Moreover, such different beings as corporeal and incorporeal could not transmit affective states to each other if the soul were not a body. If the soul suffers along with the body, then it itself is the body. Chrysippus Lucretius draws attention to the fact that the body is abandoned by the soul. But if the soul were itself incorporeal, then it could not leave the body: for contact is not conceivable between the corporeal and the incorporeal. But since the body is left by the soul at the moment of death, it should be assumed that the soul is not something incorporeal 539. The above-mentioned opinions of the Stoics are completely insufficient in their essence and could hardly have convinced Tertullian to deviate from the general church belief in the spirituality of the soul if his own worldview had not been in favor of the Stoic account of the corporeality of the soul, which is evident, among other things, from his polemics with the Platonists who taught about the immateriality of the soul. The soul, in their opinion, differs from animal and non-animal bodies: for it moves by itself, and they move as a result of an internal or external impulse. The soul feeds on immaterial food, for example. different knowledge, and the bodies eat material food. The soul is incorporeal: for the body, after the soul leaves it, becomes heavier 540. The arguments cited by Tertullian against the Platonists, perhaps sufficient to weaken the arguments of opponents, cannot in themselves be considered any convincing. The soul, he says, is a body of a kind that can serve as a moving cause in relation to other bodies; a disembodied soul cannot be a moving cause: for vacua res cannot move dense bodies 541. In addition, she herself sometimes comes into motion from an external cause, as, for example, during divination, demonic possession, etc. As a bodily soul, the soul most likely feeds on bodily food (animam corporalibus ali): for no one can support a fading life with the wise sayings of Plato and Aristotle 542. The soul’s ability to cognize the supersensible cannot yet serve as a negation of its corporeality. Sound is not something physical; However, can it be said that the external senses that perceive sound are alien to the physical? Likewise, a ship becoming motionless on land does not prove the incorporeality of the sea. These are all the arguments given by Tertullian in defense of his opinion about the corporeality of the soul. All of them, in essence, are unconvincing and testify only to the fact that Tertullian absolutely could not rise to the idea of ​​a purely spiritual, but substantial existence, without thinking of it in the form of a body; Tertullian himself could believe these arguments rather because the Stoic doctrine of the corporeality of the soul was consistent with the general nature of his worldview. It has already been shown before that under the body - corpus Tertullian thinks of the general form of real being; it was also shown that in relation to God the idea of ​​corporeality in general does not contain a sensory element, and in relation to the substances of angelic spirits it is already expanded with new signs, although the essence of this idea remains the same; it retains its general meaning in Tertullian’s teaching about the soul. But here it appears before us with all its shortcomings, depending on two reasons; on the one hand, from the unsuitability of the term corpus itself in the doctrine of a spiritual and simple being, on the other, from the specific nature of contemplation characteristic of Tertullian, inclined more towards the sensory sphere than the speculative. From these reasons it happened that Tertullian’s idea of ​​the soul is not free from the gross element. This element is visible when Tertullian speaks of the composition of the soul, distinguishing between spirit (spiritus) and body (corpus), just as in a person in general there is a distinction between flesh and soul 543. This element comes out sharply when Tertullian discusses the properties (accidentia) of the bodily soul 544. While attributing invisibility to the soul, Tertullian nevertheless stipulates that the invisibility of the soul is only relative: for not all, he says, empirical bodies are visible to those who can see. And souls, under certain conditions, are visible; This is how John the Theologian saw the souls of the martyrs 545. Tertullian also attributes quantitative properties to the soul when he says that the soul has properties befitting material bodies; external appearance, limitation, triple extension - length, width and height, “with which philosophers measure bodies” 546. The external appearance of the soul coincides with the external appearance of the empirical body. The breath of God, Tertullian argues, inhaled by God in the face of the first man, passing through his face into the inside, spread over all parts of the flesh, thickened and, as it were, froze in the form of flesh and became his soul, coinciding in the shape of its outer appearance with the shape of the flesh. This condensed soul is the “inner man,” opposite to the outer. Just as the external man has his own members and uses them in his activities, so the internal man has corresponding members and uses them in his own functions; he has his own eyes, ears and other members: the soul of Abraham has a womb, the soul of Lazarus has fingers, and the soul of the rich man has a tongue. The doctrine of the external form of the soul and the coincidence of this form with the external appearance of the flesh led Tertullian to conclusions that contradict such Christian truths as the truth of the immortality of the soul, which is based on faith in its simplicity, which is inconsistent with the doctrine of the complex external appearance of the human soul. Finally, Tertullian acquired the soul and the qualitative properties of bodies, such as the color of air and light. Tertullian proved his opinion about the light-like nature of the human spirit with the vision of a Montanist sister, to whom, during her ecstatic state, a spirit appeared, similar to a person in everything, but having a gentle and light-like form 547. The same general character of Tertullian’s contemplation appears before us in his teaching about the unity of the soul. In ancient philosophy there was a view of the soul as consisting of parts of different substances. This view was adopted by the Gnostics and formed the basis of their dualistic psychology, which prompted Tertullian to prove the unity of the soul in polemics directed against philosophers and Gnostics. Tertullian's teaching about the unity of the soul is in direct connection with his ideas about the correspondence of the form of the mental body with the empirical 548. Since the unity of the human soul cannot be considered indifferent to certain Christian truths; then Tertullian considers the unity of the soul to be part of the Christian faith 549. Coming from the concept of the unity of the soul, which has different, but not in substance, powers, the Carthaginian presbyter denies the opinion of philosophers who posited a substantial difference between spiritus and anima, taking both as substantia naturalis. According to Tertullian, given the substantial difference between spirit and soul, it would be possible that the soul could live and act without spirit, and spirit without soul. But such a separate existence of soul and spirit does not exist in reality, which indicates that in breathing (spirare) and in life (vivere, anima) the same principle is active - the soul. If breathing and living are one and the same, then both spiritus and anima have one beginning. Tertullian also denies the opinions of Anaxagoras and Aristotle, who distinguished the thinking spirit (animus, νοῦς) from the soul (anima, ψυχ ή) and recognized animus as the highest principle of spiritual life, not mixed (incommiscibilis) with the soul (Anaxag.) and incapable of experiencing suffering with it (impassibilis according to Aristot.). Tertullian finds that the animus cannot be represented either as incommiscibilis or as impassibilis, if only it acts in any relationship together with the soul. However, they put him in connection with her when they want the soul to feel, think and move through him. But sapere and movere are combined into sentire, because our consciousness, emerging from sensory sensation, is nothing more than an act of feeling - sentire. If the sensing subject - sentiens - experiences suffering, driven by a sensory impression, then the suffering itself must be represented as a sensation - sentire. So, according to Tertullian, all functions of the soul should be reduced to one sensation: “sertire enim pati est, quia pati sentire est.” Proinde et sapere sentire est, et movere sentire est, ita totum pati est.” If so, then the spirit (animus) is neither incommiscibilis nor impassibilis, but passibilis, therefore it is not different from the soul. Having established the unity of the soul in a polemic against philosophers, Tertullian then turns to the Gnostics, who assumed a substantial difference between νοῦς and ψυχ ή on the basis of the difference in objects cognizable by the mind and soul, and opposes them with the above-proven position that all spiritual activity comes from feeling - sensus. Bringing all spiritual life to feeling gives Tertullian's teaching a character reminiscent of sensationalism 550. Denying the Gnostic substantial division of the soul, Tertullian, however, himself allows for differences in it according to its powers. Together with the Stoics, he distinguishes ὴγεμονιχ ό ν in the soul from its other powers; Tertullian places ὴγεμονιχ ό ν in the heart, based on some expressions of St. Scriptures 551. With the recognition of the sovereign part in the soul, Tertullian combines the division of the soul into two parts: rational and unreasonable. He considered the rational to be immanent in the soul, and the unreasonable to be contingent; the first came from God, the second from sin. Tertullian considers the rational (rationale), indignativum (θυμιχὸν) and concupiscentivum (ἐπιθυμιχόν) to belong to our nature. “And in Christ,” he says, there is this trinity: the rational thing with which he taught, convinced and paved the way to salvation; indignativum, by virtue of which he attacked the scribes and Pharisees, and concupiscentivum, by virtue of which he desired to eat the Passover.” Consequently, Tertullian continues, θυμιχὸν and ἐπιθυμιχὸν should not always be considered unreasonable: for both were with the Lord. God is angry with reason at whom he should; His desire is also reasonable, because He desires what is worthy of Him; He is angry with the evil, but He desires salvation for the good 552. Finally, Tertullian’s teaching on the origin of souls can be considered the crown of his realistic image of the worldview. The question of the origin of souls is related to some Christian truths, such as. to the Christian doctrine of the heredity of sin. Not finding sufficiently clear data in Holy Scripture and church tradition to resolve the issue of the origin of souls, church writers resorted to evidence from reason and, in a certain respect, adhered to various philosophical hypotheses regarding the origin of souls 553. Tertullian's doctrine of the origin of souls has connections with Stoic philosophy. The soul created by God in Adam became the ancestor of all human souls 554. But how did all human souls originate and originate from one soul of Adam? 555 Having rejected Plato's assumption of the pre-existence of souls and the Gnostic emanation based on it, 556 Tertullian constructed his own hypothesis about the origin of souls, known as traductionism (per traducem). Tertullian reduces both the origin of the body and the origin of the soul to generatio naturalis. Tertullian even tried to confirm his crude ideas about the birth of one soul from another on Holy Scripture 557. The origin of one soul from another occurs, according to Tertullian, as follows. In the womb of a woman, he says, two substances are simultaneously formed, the substance of the soul and the substance of the flesh. The generation and union of both substances occurs simultaneously 558. Man, consisting of body and soul, has two kinds of seed (duae species semenis): a bodily seed and a spiritual seed (corporis semen et animae semen). From the first come physical bodies (caro), from the second soul. The release of both seeds occurs in the act of sexual intercourse. The souls and bodies of the spouses take part in the creation of the new substance of soul and flesh. The image of this participation is explained in the following rough form. Tertullian argues that in the production of the substance of the new soul, animam concupiscentia, carnem opera participate; animam instinctu, carnem actu. Unico igitur impetu utriusque, toto homine concusso despumatur semen totius hominis, habens ex corporali substantia humorem, ex animali calorem... Denique, ut adhuc verecundia magis pericliter quam probatione, in illo ipso voluptatis ultimo aestu, quo genitale virus expellitur, nonne aliquid de anima quoque sentimus exire? atque adeo marcescimus et devigescimus cum lucis detrimento? Hoc erit semen animale protinus ex animae destillatione, sicut et virus illud corporale semen ex carnis defaecatione. In the manner described, all souls originated and originate from Adam due to the fact that nature fulfills the command of God to multiply the human race 559. Tertullian’s judgments about the connection that exists between the body and the soul, about the essence of the soul and its unity and, finally, about traductionism are inclined to prove the idea that man is not a combination of two principles hostile to each other - good and evil: for neither in the human soul, nor in the relation of the flesh to it is the presence of an evil principle noticed. If there is no evil principle in human nature, then the explanation of man’s evil activity, based on the assumption regarding the existence of an evil principle in human nature, must be considered untenable: for the evil that exists in man has not a substantial, but a moral character, similar to that of the evil produced by the devil. The position that the evil produced by man has a moral character is developed by Tertullian in his teaching a) about the image and likeness of God in man, b) and about the possibility of the fall of man, as the image of God, with the possession of free will and the ability to self-determination when choosing good or when rejecting it - libera arbitrii potestas, τὸ αὐτεξουσιον 560. In both cases, the relationship of human freedom, his fall and the resulting sin to the goodness of God, His power and foresight is determined, as the anti-Gnostic polemic demanded. If, the Gnostics said, the human soul is the breath of God, a part of the divine essence (substantiae), then damage to the part (corruptio portionis) cannot but be accompanied by damage to the whole 561. But since damage to the divine spirit is unthinkable, then damage to the human soul, as a part of Him, is also unthinkable, and the fall of man will be incomprehensible. It is unclear in relation to the goodness, omniscience and omnipotence of God, under which God could neither create man evil nor allow him to fall 562. If, even with the indicated properties of God, the fall of man took place, then it can only be explained by the existence of an evil principle, opposing God and drawing man to evil. Refuting these objections of the Gnostics, Tertullian first of all explains the church teaching about the image and likeness of God in man and discusses the conditions for the accomplished fall of man, who possesses the image of God. The basis of Tertullian’s teaching about the image and likeness of God in man is a well-known biblical expression. The goodness of God, says Tertullian, created man very carefully and with a gentle hand, prescribing his creation with not an imperious, but an affectionate word: let us create man in our image and likeness 563 . What is the image and likeness (imago et similitudo) of God in man? Although Tertullian makes a distinction between one and the other 564, in general the distinction he established is not recognized as sufficiently firm 565. The image of God extends, according to Tertullian, to the body and soul. The recognition of the image of God even in the external form of man is in connection with his view of the divine economy and his anti-Gnostic polemics, which forced him to exalt the importance of the flesh, which caused the Gnostics to have a contemptuous attitude towards it. The Word of God, according to Tertullian, created man in the image of the flesh that it once had to perceive 566, and the first man was created like the Son of God - similis Filio 567. But in a strict sense, Tertullian sees the image of God in the soul, namely in the human spirit: imago ergo spiritus 568. “I find, he says, man created free and endowed with the capacity for self-determination, not noticing in him the image and likeness of God in nothing other than precisely this property of his being: for not in the face and bodily features, so varied in the human race, he is imprinted according to the property of a simple God (ad uniformem Deum), but in that substance which man received from God himself, that is, in the substance of the soul, corresponding to the image God, namely in free will and the ability to self-determination" 569. Judging by the usage of words, we can say that Tertullian distinguishes the likeness from the image of God in man, which consists in the holiness of man, precisely in the direction of God's will for good 570. The essence of the image and likeness of God consists, according to Tertullian, in the fact that the features of the divine spirit are imprinted in man - reason and free will. In Tertullian we even find an explanation of why these traits of the divine spirit are concentrated in man. God created man intelligent and free. The reason for the creation of man as free and rational is derived from the significance that man has in the universe. God, who wanted to be knowable, wanted to create the world and in it a being capable of knowing Him; Man was created as such a creature. Having created man as the master of the whole world, he could not help but endow him with free will 571. If man is the image of God, possessing reason and free will, then how was it possible for the fall of this image, which, as created for the knowledge of God, must be ensured by its existence in goodness? Tertullian sees the blame for the fall of man not in God, who created man, but in the very powers of man, which are sufficient to counteract evil, but also do not make man a slave of good. The possibility of a fall is derived by Tertullian from the very concept of the image of God in man. Although, in his opinion, the human soul can be considered divine by its origin from God, it should not, in its essence, be identified with the divine substance, as indicated by the name it is the breath (afflatus), and not the spirit (spiritus) of God, as well as the name it is the image of God. The incorrect translation of the Greek word πνοὴ (breath) into the Latin word spiritus (πνεῦμα) instead of afflatus (breath) gave rise to some to think that the damage that occurred in the human soul testifies to the ability of the Divine spirit to damage, which is completely false: for breath is less than the spirit and is like the aurula of the latter. And a small breeze comes from the wind, but the first is weaker than the last. Further, the image can never fully correspond to the truth. Likewise, breathing, being an image of the spirit, cannot be so equated with it that it would be as alien to lack as the spirit of God is alien to it. “In this respect the image is less than the truth, and the breath is less than the spirit.” Imprinting in oneself the features of the divine spirit, such as. immortality and freedom, the soul however remains an image that does not have the power of truth in itself, as for example. integrity in relation to sin, because integrity befits God alone. Otherwise it would not be a soul, but a spirit, not a man, but God. Not everything that is God should be considered God; the soul, although from God, is not God: the work necessarily differs from God 572. So, the human soul, as the image and breath of the divine spirit, can be inclined to damage, without thereby proving the ability of the divine spirit to damage, since it is not identical with it, but only similar to it. But, portraying the soul as weak, capable of damage, Tertullian is far from thinking of considering it damaged as a result of his weakness. She appears weak when compared with God, but in comparison with created beings she appears as the mistress of the universe (domina universitatis), superior to the angels 573. Tertullian also suggests metaphysical evidence in favor of the possibility of man's deviation towards evil. God, as the highest being, is unchangeable; all other things born and created are subject to change. Man's sin is also a change that has occurred in his soul, but not through that which is akin to God 574, or a change not in the essence of nature itself, but through that which is attached, for special purposes, to substance - per liberum arbitrium 575. The fall of per liberum arbitrium occurred as a result of man's violation of the well-known commandment of paradise (Gen. 2:7). Just as this commandment contained together the instructions that were subsequently given through Moses, so in its violation lies the whole sum of crimes testifying to man’s rebellion against God 576. With the violation of God's commandment, sin and evil occurred in the world. The goodness, foreknowledge and omnipotence of God remained unharmed by the fall of man. The freedom given by God to man already contained the opportunity for the latter to act in accordance with the will of God or contrary to it. On God's foreknowledge of the possibility of the fall of man, Tertullian based the establishment of a law that would direct the human will to obedience to the will of the Divine - a law that directs the will along a certain path, and does not limit free will. If a person, using his freedom, chose something that was not pleasing to God, then it is clear that “what happened to a person should not cause reproaches against God” 577 . God, who foresaw the fall of man, could not help but create him free: “Is it possible, says Tertullian, that a man, the owner of the whole world, could not first of all dispose of the property of his soul.” But God also could not endow man with a will incapable of becoming vicious: for God alone is good by nature. Man is only destined for good - non natura, sed institutione; he is totus ex institutione. Therefore, good does not flow from the nature of man himself 578. Thus, a person, according to Tertullian, is given the opportunity to become good, which opportunity is realized with the help of the free will given to him, through which he can voluntarily either realize his destiny for good, or, without being enslaved to his destiny for good, freely fail to fulfill it. By voluntarily practicing goodness, a person can make it his property, in some way his nature. And so that he can turn into property the good given to him, which God, as it were, refused (emancipatum) in favor of man, he, according to his institution, is assigned an appraiser (libripens) of the good given into the property of man - freedom, through which man voluntarily assimilates the good, and, moreover, gradually. The law (ratio) of assimilation of the good is that it is necessary to gradually practice goodness, according to the power of the free will of an institution that is not willing and not enslaved to it 579 . If in free will a person finds a means to strengthen himself in goodness, then in the same free will he finds strong protection against evil 580. If a person did not have the right to do good by will, but had to do it out of necessity, then, due to the powerlessness of his slavery, he could be carried away by evil, just as he would be a slave of good. Therefore, complete freedom of will befits him, in both cases, so that he, master of himself, invariably, of his own free will, is ready to preserve good and avoid evil. If a person has fallen, then his freedom is to blame for his fall, since it was up to him to decide on good or evil 581. The law of God given to man cannot be viewed as a restriction of man’s freedom: for the law meant, on the one hand, to cleave man to God, and on the other, to protect him from the consequences of deviating from the will of God. Moreover, human freedom, uncontrolled by anything, will not differ from the freedom of irrational beings. “That law,” says Tertullian, at which you are angry, was established by goodness, caring for man, so that by this law he would cleave to God, and would not seem so free as an outcast, who had to be equal to his slaves, other animals, since they were left to their own devices out of contempt for them, as limited, so that one person would be glorified: for he alone was worthy to receive the law from God, and how a rational being... in his rational freedom was limited and subordinated to the One who subordinated everything to him” 582. On the other hand, the establishment of the law pointed to the possibility of human will deviating from the divine will: “for the law could not be determined for one who was not able to render due obedience to the law, and the threat of death for breaking the law would not have been imposed if contempt for the law was not implied in the free will of man” 583 . The threat of death for breaking the law was given to maintain the weakness of the human being 584; punishment for breaking the law was a necessary consequence of the establishment of the law. “Goodness ordained the commandment to preserve the law (Gen. 2:17); goodness indicated the outcome of the crime, so that ignorance of the danger would not contribute to negligence about obedience” 585. After sin, a person passed from a state of innocence to a state of sinfulness - corruptio naturae; evil, having darkened the good in a person, becomes in some way his second nature (naturale quodammodo), until the person was restored in Christ. In Tertullian's teaching about man, in relation to the question of the origin of evil, the following two general provisions are developed: a) man is not a combination of two hostile principles; b) the evil produced by man has a moral, not a cosmological character. An explanation of the first position leads Tertullian to the conclusion that no evil principle is noticeable either in the nature of the human soul or in its relationship to the flesh. Developing the second position, he comes to the conviction that man, possessing free will, could remain in goodness and deviate from it, which, however, does not make God the culprit of evil: for the image of God in man is not identical with the divine substance; the fall of the image occurred through the free will of man - per liberum arbitrium, as a result of his violation of the law of God and deviation from the good as the goal of human institution; the law meant to direct human freedom towards good and support it, and not constrain it. In the doctrine of the essence of the soul, the concrete realistic character of Tertullian’s worldview reaches its extreme peak. In conclusion, we point out the results that we obtained during the study of the subject of this work and are presented in different parts of it: 1. Tertullian's theory of Christian knowledge, in its general church-positive spirit, represents one of the more successful attempts to develop the foundations of Christian knowledge indicated in the New Testament Holy Scripture, although it cannot be considered a true solution to the issue in all its details. According to the interpretation of the meaning and significance of the sources and norms of Christ. knowledge, it is opposite to the Gnostic-heretic theory of gnosis, in its positivity it is different from the theory of the church-speculative direction and is close to the theory of Irenaeus, taking a further step in the development of its principles. In relation to the general resolution of the question of Christian knowledge, its merit lies in the precise determination of the scope of knowledge by limiting it to one teaching of faith and eliminating the pagan-philosophical element from it, in the correct determination of the relationship between the positive and subjective sources and norms of Christ. knowledge. But it is not devoid of shortcomings in relation to the interpretation of the meaning and significance of certain elements of knowledge. In understanding the essence of gnosis, Tertullian strives to get closer to the teachings about it. Pavel. 2. The main principles of theology, developed in the doctrine of God in himself: a) the unity of the divine being, having a corpus sui generis, understood as the general form of the substantial and real existence of the divine spirit, capable of experiencing affective states; and b) the trinity of this being, which the divine οἰχονομία locates in the Holy. Trinity (trinitas) and Trinity into one (unitas): for neither the disposition (dispositio) of three persons in a unit, nor the distribution (distributio) of a single substance among three persons destroys the monarchy. The revelation of the relationship between the trinity and unity from the point of view of the distribution of a single deity among three persons cannot be considered satisfactory. 3. In the doctrine of the revelation of God in the world as its Creator, the following provisions are revealed: a) in the doctrine of the creation of the world in general: revelation in the creation of the world is the work of the goodness of God, who freely, and not by necessity, created the world out of nothing; The doctrine of the creation of the world from eternal matter makes God the unfree author of evil, which through this acquires the character of natural necessity. b) In the doctrine of the physical world and angelic beings: the physical world is the good creation of God, who created bodily-spiritual beings (corporales-spiritales) as good non natura, sed institutione and endowed them with free will, which served as the cause of the evil they produced, consisting in deviating from good as the goal of their institution. God is not responsible for the free evil of the devil. The doctrine of demons and spirits in general is not without its shortcomings. c) In the doctrine of man, two general provisions are developed: a) man is not a combination of two hostile principles: for neither in the nature of the human soul, nor in the relation of the flesh to it, nor in the origin of the former is the presence of an evil principle imperceptible. b) The evil produced by man has a moral, not a cosmological character: having free will, he could remain in goodness and evade it, which does not make God the culprit of evil: for the divine substance is not identical with the image of God, who freely violated the law, which was intended to support and direct human freedom, and not to constrain it. 4. All of the indicated basic principles of Tertullian theology are developed according to the principles of the theory of Christian knowledge with minor deviations from them. In the way of revealing these principles, Tertullian’s theology appears to us with a decidedly positive, concrete-realistic character, going alongside the supra-naturalistic element; but it is not alien to the speculative element. The belittlement of the latter and the elevation of the concrete-realistic elements constitute its main tone. Antiquity has preserved very little information about the life and external activities of Tertullian. News about him begins to be found in the 4th century and mainly among Latin church writers - Lactantius - Divmar. instit. lib V, p. 1, 4; Eusevia Caesar. Hist. Eccl. lib. II, p. 2; Hieron. De viris illusfcr. from 53 and other works; Augustine – De Haer. c. 86, Vincent. Ler. Common. With. 24, etc. Brief information and judgments about Tertullian by the mentioned writers are based partly on tradition, and partly on some data contained in the writings of Tertullian himself. Tertullian himself calls himself either simply Tertullianus (de baptismo p. 20), or Septimius Tertullianus de virgin. veland. c. 17); Church tradition adds two more names Quintus and Florens (see Roensch, Das neue Testam. Tertul. S. 4). The year of Tertullian's birth and death is unknown; the extreme limits of his life are supposed to be between 160 and 220, but there were attempts to place the year of Tertullian’s birth at 145–50 (Petr. Allix, see Roensch. S. 5), and the year of death at 240. Tertullian was born in Carthage, where his father held the position of proconsular centurion (Hieron. De vir. illust. p. 53). In paganism he lived viciously (Ad Nat. 1, p. 10; De resur. car. p. 59). He turned to Christianity, which had previously caused him ridicule (Haec et nos risimus aliquando: de vestris sumus. Fiunt, non nascuntur christiani. Apolog. p. 18). (185–196). The reasons that prompted Tertullian to accept Christianity can be guessed from some expressions found in his writings - this is his acquaintance with Christianity, St. Scripture and the life of Christians. Having become acquainted with Christianity, he could no longer return to paganism (Apol. p. 50. Ad Scap. p. 5). In the indestructible patience of Christians during persecution and their power over demons, Tertullian recognized evidence of the divinity of the Christian faith (Apolog. pp. 23, 50: Ad Scap. p. 5). In Carthage he was a presbyter. Approximately he turned to Montanism. 199–202 There is news that he, having separated from the Montanists, formed a special society of Tertullianists (August. De Haer. p. 86). The guess that Tertullian at the end of his life reconciled with the church has no solid foundation After accepting Christianity, Tertullian wrote his first works in Greek. See de baptis. With. 15; de cor. With. 6, de virg. vel. With. 1. In the works. Advers. Prax. With. 3 he directly says that he knows Greek and Latin well Hieron. Ad Magn. Quid Tertulliano eruditius, quid acutius? Apologeticus ejus, et contra Gentes libri, cunctam saeculi obtinent disciplinam. Vikent. Lerin. speaks enthusiastically of Tertullian's learning. Common. With. 24 According to Eusebius, Tertullian was famous in Rome as an expert in Roman laws Eccl. Hist. lib. II, p. 2. Eusebius points out Tertullian’s stay in Rome, and in his work. de cul. feminine Tertul. speaks about some Roman customs as an eyewitness. Opinion (of Hesselberg and Beringer) about the journey of Tertul. on Greece is based on his description of Greek church meetings (in work. de jejun. p. 13), in which he apparently took part. However, this place is quite dark, but in general Tertul. was familiar with the customs of the Greek churches, as can be seen from his writings. Adv. Valent. With. 5. The material of this work is borrowed mostly from works. Irenea Contr. haer. Tertullian was also aware of the writings of Greek apologists, such as. Justin, Tatiana and others. Common. With. 24. Cujus quot paene verba, tot sententiae sunt, quot sensus, tot victoriae. Hieron. Devir. illustr. Hie acris et vehemens ingenii... Vincent. Lerin. well characterizes the properties of Tertullian's mind: ingenio vero nonne tam gravi ac vehementi excelnit, ut nihil sibi paene ad expugnandum proposuerit, quod non aut acumine inruperit aut pondere eliserit?... De cultu femin lib. 2. p. 7. Hieron. Adv. Helvid. For the characteristics of Tertullian, see Jacobi - (Die Kirchl. Lehre von der Tradition und Schrift. 1847), - Mehler (Patrologie), Huber, Behringer, Ebert (in the works named below) and others. St. Cyprian, Lactantius, Jerome, Vincent of Lerins. So in 1877, the essay Hauck was published. Tertul. Leben u. Schriften, 1878 – Bonwetsch, Die Sclriften Tertul. nach. d. Zeit ihre Abfassung untersucht The best-known studies that can serve as aids in the study of Tertullian’s dogmatic teachings are, firstly, monographic studies that present, more or less, everything related to the life of Tertullian and his literary activity. These include works: Neander - Antignosticus. Geist des Tertilliaú's und Einleit. in dessen Schriften. 1849 2 Ausg; Freppel-Tertullien. Cours d'éloquence sacrie, and Beringer - Die Kirche Christi und ihre Zeugen oder die Kircheng. in Biographien. 3 Theil. The named works contain analyzes of all of Tertullian’s works. There are many sound judgments here about Tertullian's dogma; but the dogmatic material contained in his writings is conveyed briefly, scattered across various pages of research, the choice of Tertullian’s dogmatic opinions is made arbitrarily. It is hardly easier to form a definite idea of ​​his dogma from these studies than from the writings of Tertullian himself. Secondly, research aimed at clarifying the chronology of Tertullian’s life and his writings. The best of the ancient studies of this kind belongs to Pamelius - Vita Tertulliani...auctore Jacobo Pamelio; Allix - Dissertatio de Tertulliani vita et scriptis, Mosheim - Disquisitio chronologico-critita de vera aetate Apologetici a Tertulliano scripti; Nesselt- De vera aetate ac doctrina scriptorum etc; Centner-Tertulliani quae supersunt omnia in montanismo scripta videri; Lumperu – Dissertatio de vera aetate ac doctrina scriptorum Tertulliani; Nurri – Dissertatio in Tertulliani Apologeticum, duos ad nationes libros, et unum ad Scapulam. All these works are included in editions of the works. Tertullian - in Migne, Patrologiae cursus compl. series. latin t. I and II and in edit. Oehler t. III. Of the latest research, essays belong to this group. Hesselberg – Tertullian''s Lehre entwickelt aus seinem Schriften. 1 Th. Einlettung. Leben u. Schriften. Dorpat 1848. Ulgorn – Fundamenta Chronologiae. Cottingae. 1852, Grotemeier – Uber Tertullian''s Leben und Schiften. Kempten 1863; Hauck, Tertullian's Leben und Schriften. Erlangen. 1877, and Bonwetsch – Die Schriften Tertullian''s nach den Zeit ihre Abfassung untersucht. 1878. The question of Tertullian’s literary dependence on the church writers preceding and contemporary to him was dealt with by Zemler – De varia et incerta indole librorum Q. Septimii Flor. Tertulliani (Ochler t. III, and Ebert - Tertullian''s Verhaltniss zu Minucius Felix nebst einem Anhang uber Commodian''s Carmem Apologeticum. Leipzig. 1868. The listed works are only indirectly related to the subject of this work, with the exception of the study of Nurri, who devoted several chapters (VIII, IX, X) to the explanation and defense of some of Tertullian's dogmatic opinions. Thirdly, studies that have as their subject the internal side of Tertullian’s works. These are the works: Roensch, das neue Tertament. Tertullian's. 1871, Leimbach-Tertullian als Quelle für die christliche Archeologie (Zeitschrift für die hisrtorische Theologie 1 H. 1871, Beitrage zur Abentmahlslehre Tertulhan''s. Gotta 1874. Kellner Die Lehre uber Kirche and Hierarchie bei Tertul. (Der Katolik. Zeitschr. 1873 r), Tertul. Seenlehre. 1865. - Hefele. Tertullians als Apologet. All the named works, as can be seen from their very title, are not directly related to Tertullian’s dogma, with the exception of the article “Tertullian’s Doctrine of the Soul,” which contains some apt judgments about Tertullian’s anthropological opinions. Fourthly, works on the philosophy of the church fathers and the history of dogma. Essays of this kind are directly related to the subject of this essay. But research, both on the philosophy of the fathers and on the history of dogmas, according to its plan and task, is not included in a detailed consideration of all the theological and philosophical thoughts of church writers in general. The first limit themselves to a cursory list of the most important philosophical and theological thoughts of each church writer, accompanying them with critical remarks in places; the latter, pursuing a common goal - the progressive revelation of church teaching in general, take from this or that writer only what is significant in relation to the general, as a more definite expression of a dogma at a certain time, leaving aside everything that does not matter in this regard. (From the works on paternal philosophy one can indicate: Huber - Die Philosophie d. Kirchenvater, 1859. Munchen, Ueberweg Grundriss d. Gesch. der Phil, der patrist. Zeit. Berlin. 1864. - Stockl Gesch. d. Philos. d. patrist-Zeit. (Works on the history of dogmas will be indicated in the appropriate places). Tertullian is also well-known in Russian spiritual literature. About two thirds of his works have been translated into Russian. Translation by Karneev in 4 parts. 1847–50 Incorrectness and deviations from the original in many places are the shortcomings of this translation. The language is alive. Translation of op. Tertul. ad Nationses in Labor. Kyiv. d. Acad. 1876. The Russian translation is missing about 8 op. Tert. and including 2 extensive and very important dogmatic ones. regarding Advers. Marcion. and de Anima. The philosophical and dogmatic teaching of Tertullian is briefly but vividly presented in “The Philosophy of the Fathers and Teachers of the Church” by K. P. Skvortsov. Tertullian's teaching on the church is revealed in detail on the basis of close acquaintance with his writings in “The Teaching on the Church in the First Three Centuries of Christianity” by Archimandrite. Sylvester. The dogmatic and polemical works of Tertullian from the point of view of their significance for the history of ancient heresies are examined in detail in the work “Heresies and Schisms of the First Three Centuries of Christianity” by Archpriest Ivantsov-Plat. Article “The Moral Teaching of Tertullian” Work. Kyiv. spirit. Academician 1866 July, which contains a sharp condemnation of this teaching, does not essentially concern the basic theoretical theological and anthropological views of Tertullian, but refers to moral rigorism, as an extreme expression of Tertullian’s moral teaching. In Russian literature there are also the following works and articles about Tertullian: treatise Tertullian. about the Lord's prayer and tract. about the spectacles from Freppel - Skvortsov. Work. Kyiv. d. Academy 1865 – Tertullian and his works 1842. S.P.B. (from Christ. Read. of the same year). The brochure contains a very brief overview of the contents of Op. Tert. – Tertullian and his century. Savelyev-Rostislavich. 1848. S.P.B. – Tertullian, in the Spirit. Conversation 1861. The direct source for studying Tertullian's theology is his writings. In polemical treatises, he primarily developed his dogmatic views. All these treatises were written during the Montanist period of the life of their author, with the exception of the works de baptismo and de praes. haer. (see classifications of works. Tertul. in Lumper and Nässelt. Curs. compl. ser. lat. t 1., as well as Ulgorn Fundam. Chronolog Tertul.); but in general they contain the same teachings of Tertullian, which he developed in the writings of his pre-Montana period of life. Montanism, as will be shown below, did not have a significant influence on Tertullian’s attitude to church teaching. The language of Tertullian's works is generally distinguished by darkness and incomprehensibility, which constitute great obstacles in the study of his works. The darkness of Tertullian's style attracted the attention of ancient church writers. Tertullian, says Lactantius, in eloquendo parum facilis, et minus comptus, et multum obscurus (lib. V Instit. Divinar. p. 1.) Likewise Jerome: (Epist. ad Paulin) Tertullianus creber est in sententiis, sed difficilis in loquendo. Tertullian, who called Heraclitus Tenebrosus Heraclita, can rightly himself be called tenebrosus. Ebert, Geschichte der christ. latein. Literat. S 31–34. Münscher, Dogmengesch. 1 B.S. 184. Neander, Christl. Dogmeng. S. 108–9. Le-Nourry, Hagenbach-Lehrb. d. Dogmeng. Schaff, Real-Encycl. Herzog., t. 15. Roensch, das n. Testam. Tertul. S. 1. Schaff, Real-Encycl. Herzog, t. 15. De praescr. haeret. With. 7. Adv. Marc, liber. 1, p. 2. Languens enim (Marcion), quod et nunc multi et maxime haeretici, circa mali quaestionem... Tertul. De carn. Chr. c. 1 Klim. Rome. Epist. 1 ad Corin. With. 1. Ap. Barnabas writes in the preface to his epistle: I hasten to write to you (the readers of the epistle) a few words, so that along with faith you may have perfect knowledge (τὴν γνῶσιν). Thus, heretical gnosis polemicized against representatives of both church movements; representatives of the ecclesiastical-speculative trend polemicized against the Gnostics on some issues, and against representatives of the ecclesiastical-practical. directions; the latter fought against the Gnostics and polemicized against representatives of the Gnostic church movement, especially on the issue of the meaning of philosophy in Christ. knowledge. This nickname was given to Tertullian by Neander; see his op. Antignosticus. We mean the Gnostics of the 2nd table Heinrici (Die Valent. Gnosis. S. 162) to prove the opinion that by γνῶσις the Greeks meant only the theorist. knowledge, quotes the following expressions from Arist. Eth. I, S. 1095: τὸ τέλος ἐστὶν οὐ γνῶσις ἀλλὰ πρ ᾶ ξις. – Γνῶσις σοφίας διαφέρεται γνῶσις μέν ἐστι τὸ εἰδέναι τὰ ὄντα · σοφία δὲ καὶ τὸ τὰ ὄντα γινώσκειν, καὶ τὸ τὴν τῶν ἀντιπιπτ ό ντων λύσιν ἐπίστασθαι γνῶσιν σωτηρ ί ας ἐν … ἀφέσει ἁ μαρτιῶν ... Lk. 1:77. 1 Cor. 8:1–5; Rome. 2:17–20. Κατὰ τῆς γν ώ σεως τοῦ Θεοῦ, 2 Cor. X, 5. Τὸ ὑπερέχον τῆς γν ώ σεως Χριστοῦ. Phil. 3:8. Rome. 4:18; 6:8; 10:9, 2 Cor. 5:7. As far as one can judge from the use of the word πνευματικὸν and the allegorical understanding of the Old Testament. events (1 Cor. 10 ch.). On the meaning of the legend of St. Paul speaks especially in his letters to Timothy and Titus. Here the apostle insists on the need to adhere to tradition in view of the heretical. gnosis, which denied or distorted the meaning of tradition. See Hilgenfeld's article: Der Gnosticismus und das Neue Testament. Zeitschr. fur wissenschaft. Teolog.1870, 3 Heft. 1 Tim. 6:21 ; 2 Tim. 2:14, 2:23. 1 Tim. 1:4; 2 Tim. 2:14, 2:23; Titus 3:9. We use Heinrici's expression; see his above-mentioned work, p. 163. A detailed presentation of the teachings of the apostle. Paul on faith can be read in Otto Pfleiderer (Der Paulinismus, S. 162–172) and Edouard Reuss (Histoire de la théologie chrétienne au sie %` cle apostolique. T. 2). The apostle perfectly expresses the inner union of man with Christ on the basis of faith: I live by faith in the Son of God... and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me... I have been crucified with Christ. Gal. 2:19–20. Tertul. Advers. Valent. With. 2: Ideoque simplices notamur apud illos, ut hoc tantum, non etiam sapientes. Here (p. 1) Tertullian] with his characteristic irony, depicts a Gnostic exalting himself with knowledge over a believing Christian: if you ask them (the Gnostics) about something in the simplicity of faith, then with a serious look and a wrinkled forehead they answer: depth! Irin. Contr. Haer. I, 6, 7. Irin. Contr. Haer. lib. I, p. 1, n. 2; With. 6, 2. 1 Thess. 5:21. De praescr, haer. With. 4, 8, 10. Baur, Christl. Gnosis. S. 170. – “They (the Gnostics), says St. Irenaeus (Contr. Haer. I, 6, n. 2, 3, 4), they strongly believe about themselves that in any case they will certainly be saved, not through works, but because they are spiritual in nature, therefore the “most perfect” among them fearlessly do all the things forbidden... It is not any activity that introduces into the pleroma, but a seed from there imparted in an immature state and here reaching perfection.” Heinrici, Die Valent. Gnosis. S. 182. Irin. Contr. Haer. I, 8, 1. Tertul. De praescr. haer. With. 48. De Resur, carn. With. 20: Volunt. (Gnostics) omnia prophetas per imagines concionatos. Gal. 2:11–14, Tertul. De praescr. haer. With. 23. Ibid. With. 22: Solent dicere non omnia apostolos scire. Ibid. from 25: non tamen omnia volunt illos omnibus revelasse, quaedam enim palam, et universis, quaedam secreto et paucis demandasse. In the expressions of the ap. Paul: keep the tradition (1 Tim. 6:20), keep the good tradition (2 Tim. 1:14) the Gnostics saw an indication of the existence of a secret tradition. Tertullian depicts the harm that occurred from mixing philosophy with Christianity in the following way: “From here (from philosophy) came (among heretics) aeons and some infinite forms (ideas), and the threefold division of man in Valentinus: he was a Platonist. From here came the best god of Marcion, the best in dispassion: he came from the Stoics. And what is said about the destruction of the soul comes from the Epicureans; where the resurrection of the flesh is denied, this is borrowed from the teaching common to all philosophers, and where matter is put on an equal footing with God, this is the teaching of Zeno... From here (came) endless fables and genealogies (1 Tim. 4:1), fruitless research, spreading like cancer (2 Tim. 2:17) "De praescr haer. With. 7. Not everything, of course, the Gnostics borrowed from one philosophy: their systems embraced paganism with mythology, philosophy, Eastern theosophy, Judaism and Christianity; but it is true that they viewed Christianity from a pagan-philosophical point of view, and not vice versa. Justin ended his life as a martyr c. 166; see Patrolog Alzog. 1876 Thomasius, Die Dogmeng. der alten Kirche S. 133. Irenaeus died a martyr around 202. It is believed that the work of Clement Alex. († 217) were known to Tertullian; see op. Zemlera – De varia et incerta indole librorum Q. Septim. Flor. Tertulliani (Oehler t.III). Klim. Strom. VI, p. 1, 16. Ibid. c. 4: ὁ τῷ Λ ό γ ῳ πιστεύσας ο ἶ δεν τὸ πρ ᾶ γμα ἀληθές · ἀλ ή θεια γὰρ ὁ Λ ό γος · ὁ δὲ ἀπιστ ή σας τῷ λέγοντι ἠ π ί στησε τῷ Θεῷ Cohort. ad geut. ὅ τι γε μ ί α καθολικὴ τῆς ἀνθρωπ ό τητος σωτηρ ί α ἡ π ί στις . Str. II, 6: οὐδ᾿ ἄνευ π ί στεως γνῶσιν ἐπακολουθῆσαι . Ibid. α ὕ τη το ί νυν κρηπὶς ἀληθε ί ας . Ritter (Hist. de 1a philos. chr. p. 394) makes the assumption that Clement, calling faith σύντομος, hints at regula fidei; if so, then tradition, like simple faith, seems to Clement not an entirely reliable norm of knowledge, due to the vagueness of its content and dependence on human authority (see Redepenning, Origenes; S. 99). Klim. Str. lib. I, c. 1, 5. Klim. Paedag. lib. 1. c. 9. True, the material significance of philosophy is somewhat diminished when the Greek. church writers said that it contained only fragmentary revelations of the Logos, that philosophy borrowed a lot from Judaism. St. books that she was influenced by demons (Just. Orat. ad Grac. 8, 11; Clim. Str. I, 1; VII, 2). But the dispersion of truth in philosophy does not prevent the true sage from collecting its disparate members (membra disjecta) into one whole, which will also be revelation. Borrowing from St. books humiliated philosophy only in terms of its independence, but for that it brought it closer to revelation. The opinion about the influence of demons on philosophy, which stood in connection with the church teaching about the subordination of man to the devil since the Fall, was weakened by Clement (Str. VI, 17) Klim. Str. I, p. 20: Greek truth differs from ours both in the volume (μεγέθει) of knowledge, and in the evidence of testimony, and in divine power, and other similar things. Irin. Contr. haer. lib. II, p. 26, paragraph 1. Ibid. III, 5–1, 2; 13, 14, 2; 15, 1. Tertul. De praescr. haeret. With. 6. Advers. Marc. lib. I, c. 18. Ibid. With. 4: animal (man) rationale intellectus et scientiae capax. Ibid. III, p. 5. Nihil putem a Deo subitum, quia nihil a Deo non dispositum. Omnia res anterior posteriori regulam praeministravit. Ibid. I, c. 9. De carn. Chr. from 17: Crediderat Eva serpenti, credidit Maria Gabrieli. Quod illa credendo dehquit, haec credendo delevit. Advers. Marc. I, c. 18: Nos definimus Deum primo natura cognoscendum, deinde doctrina recognoscendum, natura ex operibus, doctrina ex praedicationibus. De baptis. With. 18: Fides integra secura est de salute. Advers. Marc. I, c. 2: Neque fides bona malas edat operas neque mala bonas. De fuga in Persecut, p. 3. Apolog. With. 23. deo et deo. Adv Marc. III, with 2... quo ordine fides informata merito et homini iudiceretur a Deo et Deo exhiberetur ab homine, ex agnitione debens credere quia posset, quae scilicet credore didicisset ex praedicatione. Adv. Marc. IV, p. 20, 25; V, 11. De carn. Chr. With. 5; de baptis. With. 2. 3 and many more. Friend. essays. Freppel, Tertull. t. II, pag. 194. De testim. an. With. 5; De resur. carn. With. 12. Klim. Alex. Strom. I, p. 16. De anim. With. 3; Advers. Hermog. With. 8. De praescr. haer. With. 7. De anim. c. 23. Rome 1 – Adv. Mar. V. c. 19. Eg. in essays De anim. Tertullian clearly expresses the idea that in his study of the soul he intends to present the experience of Christ himself. anthropology as opposed to pagan Ritter. hist. de la philos. chret. p. 328. In the works. de praescr. haer. c. 22 Tertullian expresses the idea that I. Christ revealed figuram vocis sui to the apostles, and after his resurrection, on the way to Emmaus, he explained to them all the Scriptures. The apostles passed on their knowledge of the Holy Scriptures to the church. Advers. Marc. lib. IV, p. 5. Marcion rejected the entire Old Testament as the work of Dimiurge, and from the New Testament Scriptures he accepted the Gospel of Luke and some of the Epistles. Paul, with the omission and amendments in them of what contradicted his system. In the rest of the Gospels and Apostolic Epistles, he saw a perversion of Christianity under the influence of Judaism (Adv. Marc. IV, p. 4). The Valentinians divided all Holy Scripture into three parts according to the degree of its divine inspiration. Not everything, they said, in Holy Scripture is equally inspired: in it there is something expressed from the heights (from the mind of the Pleroma), something from the middle (Ahamoti) and something from the Dimiurge (Irin. III, 2, 1). Tertullian knew St. the canon is as follows: although Tertullian knew the Old Testament, in translation 70, but he, it seems, used the Old Latin translation, and to the Greek. he rarely consulted the text, as can be seen from his writings. To designate the entire Holy Scripture, Tertullian uses the expression divinum instrumentum, divina literatura, divinae scripturae; the connection of the books of both testaments is denoted by the word: utrumque testamentum, and the difference between one and the other: vetus, novum testamentum. Tertullian divides the New Testament into two parts: evangelicum instrumentum and apostolica instrumenta. The first part includes 4 gospels - John, Matthew, Mark and Luke (in this order they are counted in Tertul. Adv. Marc. IV, 2, 5). Part 2 includes: act. apostle. (instrumentum actorum), 13th last. ap. Paul (instrumentum Paulu), 1 last. John and the Apocalypse, adding the Epistle to the Hebrews. ap. Barnabas; last Peter ad Ponticos, Judas and Epist. presbiteri (like the second epistle of John). Apostolici discipuli Mark and Luke. De praescr. With. 18 no edit. Oehler. Praescriptiones is a legal term that ancient Roman jurists used to designate such an objection to a civil claim, which, due to its thoroughness, made both the investigation into the subject of the claim and the process itself unnecessary. Gal 3:1; 5:7, 1 Cor. 3:1; 8:2; 16:19. De praes. haer. e. 31; ...id esse dominicum et verum, quod sit prius traditum, id autem extraneum et falsum quod sit posterius inmissum. Adv Marc. c. 4. De praes. haer. With. 33–35. Kellner, Die Lehre uber Kirche a. Hier. bei Tertul. eg De monog. With. 1 and other op. De cor. mil. With. 4: S quid ignoratis, Deus vobis revelabit (Phil. 3:15). Ritter clearly clarifies the connection between Tertullian’s views on the sources and norms of Christian knowledge and his teaching about the new revelations of the Paraclete (see Hist. de la phil. chr. p. 331..). De resur. carn. c. 63: Deus providentissima gratia sua effundens in novissimis diebus de suo spiritu in omnem carnem pristina instrumenta (Holy Scripture) manifestis verborum et sensuum luminibus ab omni obscuritate purgavit; omnes jam retro ambiguitates et quas volunt parabolas aperta atque perspicua totins sacramenti praedicatione discussit per novam prophetiam de Paracleto inundantem. Of course, Tertullian’s transition to Montanism took place more on a practical basis, rather than purely theoretical. Moral and practical works of Tertullian, written in Domont. period of life, show that in Carthage. Christian. society there were two directions in relation to issues of moral life and discipline. One of them treated the world with stern rigorism, the other freely. Tertullian, by his properties, is rigor. nature, adhered to the first direction and defended its views in his writings. The transition from this direction to Montanism is very natural, since Montanism arose on the basis of moral rigorism. But there were probably external reasons that contributed to Tertullian’s transition to Montanism. Tertullian's adoption of Christianity dates back to the time when Rome. The church favored Montanism. Favor of Rome. the bishop to the new prophets (Adv. Prach. p. 1) could have prompted Tertullian to be credulous in the beliefs of the Phrygian prophets. Tertullian looked suspiciously at the change in Rome's attitude towards Montanism, since this change, according to Tertullian himself (Ibid.), coincided with the favorable reception in Rome of the monarchian Praxeus, an opponent of Montanism. In addition, the writings of Tertullian show that Montanism, having reached the West, lost its sharp features. De virg. vel. c. 1; de cor. mil. s. 4; Adv. Rgah. With. 2.30. There is generally a more or less general opinion that Tertullian, as a Montanist, adhered to the church. the dogma is intact, that Montanism had no significant influence on Tert's dogmatic views. see Schwegler – Der Montanismus n. die Christl. Kirche. De exhort, cast. With. 4. Spiritum quidem Dei etiam fideles habent, sed non omnes fideles apostoli. Regula fidei Tertullian expounds twice in his Montanists. Advers essays. Prax., de virg. veland. And in Montana. works of Tertul. threatens Marcion with anathema for destroying the rule of faith: si angelus Marcion, citius anathema dicendus quam evangelizator, quia aliter evangelizavit. Ad. Mar. IV, c. 4. Tertullian only stated more about inner enlightenment from the Paraclete than he actually showed it. Eg; Nos (montanists) vero et semper et nunc magis, ut instructiores per paracletum, deductorem scilicet omnis veritatis... Adv. Prax. c. 2. De virgin. velan s. 1. Quae est paracleti administratio nisi haec, quod disciplina dirigitur, quod scripturae revelantur, quod intellectus reformatur, quod ad meliora proficitur. Tertullian represented the growth of the church, developing in four periods, under the image of a developing tree before bearing fruit. First the grain, from the grain a stem grows, from the stem a trunk is formed, then branches and leaves grow, then the buds appear, from which the color develops, and from the color the fruit is first immature and rough, and then reaches a sweetness that is pleasant to the taste. This is how the church grew in the truth of God. At first she is in childhood, being nature, fearing God; through the law and the prophets she reaches adolescence; through the Gospel - youth, through the revelation of the Paraclete she reaches maturity. De virg. vel. With. 1. De monog. With. 14: Si enim Christus abstulit quod Moyses praecepit, quia ab initio non fuit sic, nec sic ideo ab alia venisse virtute reputabitur Christus, cur non et paracletus abstulerit quod Paulus indulsit. Ibid. II, p. 3. Quid enim tam bonum quam notitia et fructus Dei? Ibid. With. 14: quid tibi videretur, vel ambiguitate pendere, vel obscuritate obumbrari, est utique frater aliquis doctor gratia scientia donatus, est aliquis inter exercitatos conversatus, aliquis tecum, curiosius tamen quaerens. De virg vel. With. 1. Nihil sine aetate est, omnia tempus expectant.. Aspice ipsam creaturam paulatim ad fructum promoveri. Granum est primo, et de grano frutex oritur. Eg. reality of the flesh of Christ, miracles, etc. see de anim. With. 17. De cor. mil. With. 4....et legem ratio commendet. The comparison between Tertullian and St. Petersburg made by Pressance can be called very successful. Thomas (John 20:25–29), who did not want to believe the story of the resurrection of I. Christ without touching His wounds with my hand (Geschichte der drei erst. Jahrh. der Christl. Kirche. 5 Th. S. 303). It is rightly noted that in the polemic against Marcionem all Tertullian spoke out. Pressense in the above. composition page 304. Advesus Marc. I, p. 3: Principalis itaque, et exinde tota congressio de numero, an duos deos liceat induci, si forte, poetica et pictoria licencia, et tertia jam, haeretica. Marcion was born at the beginning of the 2nd century. in Pontic Sinope was the son of Sinopsk. bishop. At first he was distinguished by his great zeal for the church and the severity of his life (Adv. Marc. IV, p. 4: pecuniam in primo calore fidei catholicae ecclesiae contulit). But partly due to a temporary moral decline, and mainly for anti-church opinions, he was excommunicated by his father (Ponticus genere, episcopi filius, propter stuprum cujusdam virginis ad ecclesiae communicatione objectus...). From Pontus he arrived in Rome, where he gained power under bishop. Anikite (Irin. Contra haer. III, 4, 3). But even here, ob inquietam semper curiositatem, qua fratres quoque vitiabant, he was not accepted into the church. communication (De praescr. haeret. p. 30), although he made attempts to get closer to the Christian Orthodox Church. society. In Rome, Marcion sided with the Gnostic Cerdon (Advers. Marc. I, p. 2) and finally formed his own Gnostic system, which intended to reform π ί στις through the exclusion of Jewish admixture from Christianity (Hasse, Kircheng. S 63). According to Tertullian, Marcion acted under the emperor. Antonina Pius (Adv. Marc. I, p. 19: Antoninianus haereticus est, sub Pio impius. A Tiberio autem usque ad Antonimum anni fere CXV et dimidium anni cum dimidio mensis). Marcion's heresy aroused controversy even earlier than Tertullian (Euseb. h. eccl.). For a description of Marcion’s personality and the time of his life, see Neander (Allgem. Gesehichte der Chr. Rel. 2 B. S. 164) and Lipsius: Die Zeit des Marcion und des Heracleon, – Zeitachrift fur wissenschaftl. Theolog 1867 1 H. Ibid. Ergo non aliter erit, quam per quod habet esse, id est unicum omnino. Ibid. Si adaequabitur, non erit summum magnum. Ibid. Eversa conditione et, ut ita dixerim, lege quae summo magno nuhil sint adaequari. Advers. Marc. I, c. 3; Ergo unicum sit necesse est quod fuerit summum magnum, par non habendo, ne non sit summum magnum. Ibid. c. 4: distincta atque disjuneta in suis finibus could exist, according to Tertullian’s opponents. Ibid. With. 6: Agnoscens divinitatem negasti diversitatem. Ibid. from 5: Una enim res est, quae eadem in duobus est. Ibid. Vererer ne abundantia officii superstitio potius quam religio existimaretur, quia duos tam pares, et in altero ambos, possem in uno demereri, hoc ipsum testimonio praestans parilitati et unitati eorum, dum alterum in altero venerares, dum in uno mihi duo sunt. Ibid. With. 5: tanquam Aeneiae scrofae, examen divinitatis effudit. See Books IV and V. Advers. Marcionem. Ibid. IV, 1: Atque adeo confiteor alium ordinem decucurrisse in veteri dispositione apud creatorem, alium in nova apud Christum. Non nego distare documenta eloquii, praecepta virtutis, legis disciplinas, dum tamen tota diversitas in unum et eundem Deum competat. Tertullian's stated opinions on the relationship of the Old Testament to the New are developed especially in books IV and V. Adv. Marc. Ibid. I, 3... ut sit Deus summum magnum et forma et ratione et vi et potestate. Advers. Marc. lib. I, p. 13. These expressions are given in many of Tertullian's works: Adv. Marc. I. s. 10: Si Deus dederit, Quod Deo placet, Deo commendo. – Apology, c. 17: Deum nominat, hoc solo, quia proprie verus hic unus. Deus bonus et magnus, et Quod Deus dederit omnium vox est. Judicem quoque contestatur illum Deus videt, et Deo commendo, Deus mihi reddet. See De an. c. 2, 41; De Scap. with 2. – De resur. carn. e. 12. Advers. Marc, lib. I, p. 10. Dean. With. 2; De testim. an. c. 1. Adr. Marc. lib. I, p. 10. Nunquam Deus latebit, nunquam Deus deerit: semper intellegetur, semper audietur, etiam videbitur, quomodo volet. Habet Deus testimonia totum hoc, quod sumus et in quo sumus. Zockler, Geschichte der Beziehungen zwischen Theologie und Naturwissenschaft I Abt., I H. S. 104 et al. Opinions of the ancient churches. writers about Tertullian's teaching on the corporeality of people. the souls and beings of God are enumerated in Tillemont, Memoires pour servir a l'histoir. eccles. t. troisieme. See Dogmeng. Hagenbach pp. 80–83. Adv. Marc. lib. II, p. 2. Advers. Marc. lib. II, p. 2. Adv. Hermog. With. 4, 5, 12. Adv. Marc. lib. I, c. 11. Advers. Marc. lib. II, p. 16. Eg. Kuhn in his essay: Die christl. Lehre von der gottlichen Dreieinigkeit. S. 195. De carn Chl. With. 11. In the expression: Si invisibilia illa (spiritual beings), habent apud Deum et suum corpus et suam formam... one cannot see any indication of the difference between corpus and forma, since here forma is understood in a particular sense, as the appearance characteristic of spirits. Adv. Prax. With. 7. Advcrs. Hermog. With. 35.-To understand Tertullian’s teaching on the relation of corpus to substantia, one should keep in mind Aristotle’s teaching on essence De carn. Chr. With. II; Adr. Rgah. With. 7. There is an assumption that Mileton bishop. Sardis was the first to express an opinion about the corporeality of God in his work περὶ ἐνσωμάτου Θεοῦ, see Dogmeng. Hagenbach st. 82 notes 3; but this assumption has no significance in relation to the teaching of Tertullian. Adv. Marc. lib. II, p. 16. Movebitur, sed non evertetur. Ibid. lib. I, c. 25: non poterit ea bonitas sine suis dotibas, id est sine sensibus et affectibus. Adv. Marc. lib. I, p. 22: Ergo non fuit naturalis bonitas, quae potuit aliquando cessasse, quod naturalibus non licet. Ibid. lib. II, p. 12: Illic consistit bonum ubi et justum. Ita prior bonitas Dei secundum naturam, severitas posterior secundum causam. Illa ingenita, haee accidens; illa propria, hae accommodata; illa edita, haec adhibita. Ibid. 15; 16: Severitas deditum est justiae. Ibid. With. 31: Ceterum Juda cae fidei ista res, sic unum Deum credere, ut filium adnumerare ei nolis, et post filium spiritum. Quid enim erit inter nos et illos nisi differentia ista? Quod opus evangelii, quae est substantia novi testamenti... si non exinde pater et filius et spiritus, tres crediti, unum Deum sistunt? Pointing to the priority of truth, refuting the news of the heresy of the patripassian Praxeus, Tertullian adds: Sed salva ista praescriptione utique tamen propter instructionem et munitionem quorumdam dandus est etiam retractatibus locus, vel ne videatur unaquaeque perversitas non examinata, sed praejudicata, damnari... Advers. Prax. c. 2. Ibid. c. 3: Eversio enim monarchiae illa est tibi intellegenda, cum alia dominatio suae condicionis et proprii status ac per hoc aemula superducitur, cum alius deus infertur adversus creatorem, cum Marcione, cum Marcione, cum plures, secundum Valentinos et Prodicus... Tertullian obviously distinguishes between educated heretics - monarchians, since he contrasts them with simple believers (Simplices enim quique, ne dixerim imprudentes et idiotae... p. 3), who adhered to the rule of faith regarding the unity of the deity, but who, in their simplicity, could not combine faith in a single Deity with the trinity of divine persons, and therefore agreed with the heretical monarchians in their views on monarchia (For those and other monarchians, see Hagemann’s work: Die Romische Kirche S. 147 et al.). Tertullian considers Praxeus to be a representative of the former, against whom his essay on the Trinity (Adves. Praxean) was written. Praxeus, according to Tertullian, was of Asia Minor origin, and was known for confession. From Asia Minor he arrived in Rome and here he committed “two diabolical deeds: he expelled prophecy and introduced heresy, put the Paraclete to flight and crucified the Father,” that is, he opposed Montanism and the Church. doctrine of the Trinity (Ad. Prach. p. 1). Ibid. With. 3: Simplices enim... quoniam et ipsa regula fidei a pluribus diis saeculi ad unicum et verum Deum transfert, non intellegentes unicum quidem, sed sua οἰχονομία esse credendum expavescunt ad οἰχονομίαν . Praxeus, Tertullian says, based his heresy on the defense of one God (de unico). Adv. Rgah. With. 1. Adv. Prax. from 3: Itaque duos et tres jam jactitant a nobis praedicari, se vero unius Dei cultoris praesumunt... Ibid, p. 12: te (Praxea) numerus scandalizat trinitatis, quasi nop connexae in unitate simplici. Ibid.-The essence of the teaching of Praxeus is briefly expressed by Tertullian as follows: Itaque post tempus Pater natus, et Pater passus (hence the name Patripassian), ipse Deus, dominus omnipotens, Jesus Christus praedicatur; c. 2. The Greek word is οἰχονομία, according to the research of Dr. Gass'a (Das paristische Wort οἰχονομία . – Zeitschr. wissenschaft. Theolog. 1874, 4 H.), belongs to the number of technical words that have many different meanings. Initially it meant housebuilding, disposal of property (as in Luke 16:2) or, by analogy, disposal in another broader area. It had class. writers meaning equivalent to Ταξις, διάθεις or disposition, order according to a certain measure or plan. In general, this word denoted the concept of expediency in the dispensation. The most extensive economy is the government of God. In the messages of St. Paul, it takes on different meanings already in the Christian sense and, by the way, it means deities. world governance, which reached its fullness in Christ and His perfect reconciliation of God with man. In patristic literature, οἰχονομία means the revelation of God in history, the plans of which regarding the salvation of man were fulfilled in Christ; This is how Ignatius and Justin understand these words. In Tatian (Orat. ad Gr. p. 5, 6) and Theophilus (Ad Antol.) it is already transferred to God himself; in Tertullian this meaning receives a more precise expression. The formula in which Tertullian expressed the substantiality of the existence of deities. persons: Potuimus patrem et filium ostendisse duos esse. Adv. Prax. with IV In the doctrine of the Logos, Tertullian followed his predecessors: Justin, Tatian and Theophilus Antiochus. and developed the latter’s teaching about λόγος ενδιάθετος and λόγος προφοριχός. Ibid... Oportet et totum de filio examinari. Ibid. With. 8... alia me argumenta deducunt ab ipsa Dei dispositione, qua fuit ante mundi constitutionem adusque filii generationem. Adv. Hermog. With. 18: Si enim intra Dominum quod exipso et in ipso fuit sine initio non fuit, sophia scilicet ipsius exinde nota et condita. Ibid. with 3: Nam nec pater potuit esse ante filium, nec judex ante delictum. Fuit autem tempus cum ei delictum et filius, qui judicem et qui patrem Domininum faceret. Developing any thought about the Son, Tertullian often concludes by saying: the same should be said about the third person. Adr. Brax. With. 3: unitas ex semetipsa derivans trinitatem non destruatur, sed administretur. Adv. Prax. c. 3: quale est ut Deus divisionem et dispersionem poti videatur in filio et in spiritu sancto, secundum et tertium sortitis locum, tam consortibus substantiae patris... Hagemann, Die Rom. Kirche, s. 153 etc. Adv. Rgah. With. 9: Numerum et dispositionem trinitatis praesumunt unitatis... Ibid. With. 2; οἰχονομία...quae disponit. Ibid. With. 19: Si filium nolunt secundum a patre reputari, ne secundus duos faciat deos dici, ostendimus etiam duos deos in scriptura relatos et duos dominos: et tamen ne de isto scandalizentur, ratiom reddimus qua dei non duo dicantur nec domini sed qua pater et filius duo, et hoe non ex separations substantiae, sed ex dispositione, cum individuum et inseparatum filium a patre pronuntiamus, nec statu sed gradu alium... Adv. Prax. With. 9: Necessitate autem hoc dico, cum eumdem patrem et filium, et spiritum contendunt, adversus οἰχομομια monarchiae adulantes. Apolog. from 21; Ita ot de Spiritu spiritus, et de Deo... Deus, modulo alterum numero, gradu, non statu fecit: et a matrice non recessit, sed excessit. Which ones were used by Justin and Tatian. Conjunctae, indivisae, cohaerentes. Not only from a metaphysical, but also from a moral point of view, heretics did not want to attribute to the highest God the creation of the world, which, in their opinion, contained many elements unworthy of the creative activity of God, such as. locusts, etc. Adv. Marc. lib. I, p. 17. Adv. Marc. 1, p. 11. quia Dei hoc est, omnia illius esse et omnia ad illum pertinere. Ibid. c. 8. Deus si est vetus, non erit, si est novus, non fuit. Novitas initium testificatur, vetustas finem comminatur. Tertullian calls heretics-materialists (materiarii haeretici, Adv. Hermog. p. 25) those who taught about the origin of the world from eternal evil matter. The opinion about the origin of the world from matter was shared by some Christians who belonged to the church, as can be seen from the following words of Tertullian: Nam et quidam infirmiores hoc prius credere de materia. De materia potius subjacenti volunt ab illo universitatem dedicatam secundum philosophos. – De resur. cam c. 11. Hermogenes, judging by his name, was a Greek, and by profession a painter (pessimus pictor), who lived in the time of Tertullian (ad hodiernum homo in saeculo). It is likely that Hermogenes was not a heretic in the proper sense of the word, as Tertullian calls him, but belonged to the number of educated Christians who studied Greek philosophy and shared the view of some philosophers on the origin of the world from evil matter. Tertullian accuses Hermogenes of the following three crimes: of drawing “illegal,” meaning, probably, by illegally borrowing subjects from pagan mythology, of allowing a second marriage, and of engaging in Greek philosophy, which led him to deny the Church. the doctrine of the creation of the world from nothing and the doctrine of the creation of the world from matter (see Advers. Hermog. p. I; de virg. veland. p. 16) Advers. Hermog. With. 2: praestruens (Hermogenes) aut dominum de semetipso fecisse cuncta aut de nihilo aut de aliquo. Negat illum ex semetipso facere potuisse, quia partes ipsius fuissent quaecumque ex semetipso fecisset dominus, porro in partes non devenire, ut indivisibilem et indemutabilem, et eumdem semper qua dominus... Igitur non de semetipso fecisse illum qui non ejus fuerit conditionis ut de semetipso facere potuisset. Proinde ex nihilo non potuisse eum facere, sic contendit, bonum et optimum definiens dominum, qui bona atque optima tam velit facere quam sit... Igitur omnia ab eo bona et optima oportuisse fieri secundum conditionem ipsius. Inveniri autem et mala ab eo facta; utique non ex arbitrio nec ex voluntate; Quia si ex arbitrio et voluntate nihil incongruens et indignum sibi faceret. Quod ergo non arbitrio suo fecerit, intelligi oportere ex vitio alicujus rei factum, ex materia esse sine dubio. Ibid. With. 5: Non statim materiam comparari Deo si quid Dei habeat, quia non totum habendo non concurrat in plenitudinem comparationis? Ibid. c. 14: Dignius est Deum etiam malorum auctorem liberum quam servum. Ibid p. 16: Libertas, non necessitas, Deo competit: Malo voluerit mala a semetipso condidisse, quam non potuerit non condidisse. Ibid. from 14: aliud non habens facere quam ex malo proferre; invitus utique qua bonus, ex necessitate ut invitus, et ex servitute ut ex necessitate. Advers. Marc. lib. I, p. 3. Ibid. lib. I, p. 25: Voluntas nulla sine concupiscentiae stimulo. Adv. Prax. c. 10: Dei enim posse velle est, et non posse nolle, quod autem voluit, et potuit et ostendit. Adv. Hermog. With. 4: Ita Hermogenes duos deos infert, Materiam parem Deo infert. Ibid. Hinc denique incipiam de materia retractare, quod eam Deus sibi comparet proinde non natam, proinde non factam, proinde aeternam, sine initio, sine fine propositam. Ibid. c. 5: Quasi diversitas nominum comparationi resistat, si status idem vindicetur. Ibid. With. 7:. praescribo non capere ullam diminutionem et humiliationem quod sit aeternum et innatum, quia hoc et deum faciat tantum quantus est, nullo minorem neque subjectiorem, imo omnibus majorem et sublimiorem. Ibid. With. 8: nisi quod jam non omnipotens, si non et hoc potens, ex nihilo omnia proferre. Adv. Hermog. c. 9: ex necessitate mediocritatis suae. Ibid c. 10: Fatue satis itaque gloriae suae causa molitus est mundum, ut debtorem se alienae substantiae ostenderet, et quidem non bonae. Ibid. With. 17: God, says Tertullian, is first, because everything is after Him; and everything after Him, because everything is from Him, everything is from Him, because everything is from nothing. De resur. carn. With. 11: Finding in publico naturae the testimony of an omnipotent God, Tertullian says: confide illum totum hoc ex nihilo protulisse. De praescr. haer s. 33: Regula est autem fidei.,. qua creditur unum omnino Deum esse, nec alium praeter mundi conditorem; Qui universa de nihilo produxerit, per verbum suum. Advers. Hermog. from 20: Nam cum in omni operatione tria sint principalia, qui facit, et quod fit, et ex quo fit, tria nomina sunt edenda in legitima operis enarratione persona factoris, species facti, forma materiae. Ibid. Ita quod non potuit Scriptura profiteri, et non profitendo satis probavit non fuisse, quia profiteretur si fuisset. Ibid. Si materia non edetur, ubi et opera et operae operator edentur apparet ex nihilo eum operatum. Ibid. c. 10: materiam cum creatore proponunt, ut malum a materia non a creatore deducant... Ibid. Aut famulus erit mali Deus, aut amicus; cum materiae malo conversatur, nedum etiam de malo ejus operatus. Adv. Hermog. c. 13: boni atque optimi semen. Ibid. With. 41: Bonum ergo et malum, erras, si substantias esse vis. Advers. Marc. lib. II, p. 3. Adv. Marc. lib. IV, p. 12: Bonitas ejus operata est mundum. Advers. Marc. lib. I, p. 14. Advers. Marc. lib. I, p. 16: tota operatio ejus ex diversitatibus. Advers. Rgah. With. 7; Sed et si invisibilia illa, quaecumque sunt, habent apud Deum et suum corpus et suam formam, per quae soli Deo visibilia sunt... De carn. Chr. c. 6; constat angelos carnem non propriam portasse... Adv. Mar. lib. II, p. 8:.. sed afflatus Dei (human soul) generosior spiritu materiali quo angeli, constiterunt... Adv. Marc. lib. II, p. 10:... Qui (God) et angelum ex forma operum bonorum instituit bonum. Ibid... a Deo in bonum conditus, ut a bono conditore invituperabilium conditionum... Advers. Mars. lib. II, p. 10. ) Ibid... non minus et ipse liberi arbitrii institutus, ut spiritus. Nihil enim Deus proximum sibi non libertate ejusmodi ordinasset. Advers. Marc. II, p. 10: Primo, quod Deus illos ex omni ligno edere vetuisset, dehinc quasi morituri non essent, si edissent; tertio, quasi Deus illis invidisset divinitatem. De cultu femin. lib. I, c. 4: Nihil angelis illis imputetur praeter repudium caeli et matrimonium carnis. De virg. vel. With. 7; Adv. Marc. lib. V, from 18. It is believed that the opinion about the fall of some angels with women, found in Josephus, passed to Christians from the Jews. Tillemont, Memoires pour servir a l'histoire ecclesia. t. troisieme. Apol. p. 22: Sed quomodo de angelis quibusdam sua sponte corruptis corruptior gens daemonum evaserit... apud litteras sanctas ordine cognoscitur. Ibid. Itaque corporibus quidem, et valetudines infligunt et aliquos casus acerbos, animae vero repentinos et extraordinarios per vim excessus Ibid... pabula propria nidoris et sanguinis procuret... Ibid. Omnis spiritus ales est… Ibid. Igitur momento ubique sunt: totus orbis illis locus unus est De resur. carn. With. 7: caro et limi rudimenta deposuit et animae ornamenta suscepit. De resur. carn. from 7: Deus vero animae suae umbram, spiritus sui auram, oris sui operam vilissimo alicui commiserit capulo. Ibid p. 15:... non sola anima transigit vitam, ut nec cogitatus, licet solos, licet non ad effectum per carnem deductos, auferamus a collegio carnis, siquidem in came et cum carne et per carnem agitur ab anima quod agitur in corde... Adeo et sine opere et sine effectu cogitatus carnis est actu... caro erit omne animae cogitatorium. Si enim non haberet anima corpus, non caperet imago animae imaginem corporis: nec mentiretur de corporalibus membris Scriptura, si non erant. – De an. from 7. De anima c. 5: Denique Zeno consitum spiritum definiens animam hoc modo instruit. Quo inquit digresso animal emoritur corpus est: consito autem spiritu digresso, animal emoritur; ergo consitus spiritus corpus est consitus autem spiritus anima est; ergo corpus est anima Ibid. With. 6: Ab illa est enim impingi et pedes in incessum, et manus in contactum, et oculos in conspectum, et linguam in effatum, velut sigillario motu superficiem intus agitante. Unde haec vis incorporal animae? unde vacuae rei solida propellere? Ibid. Sicut ergo Soranus ipse rebus ostendit animam corporalibus ali... Sed nemo unquam cunctanti de exitu animae mulsam aquam de eloquio Platonis infudit aut micas de minutiloquio Aristotelis infersit. Adv. Marc. lib. V, p. 15: Licet et animae corpus sit aliquod suae qualitatis, sicut et spiritus: cum tamen et corpus et anima distincte nominantur, habet anima suum vocabulum proprium, non egens communi vocabulo corporis; id relinquitur carni, quae non nominata proprio communi utatur necesse est. Ibid... ut illud trifariam distantivum, longitudinem dico, et latitudinem, et sublimitatem, quibus metantur corpora philosophi. Ibid. Inter cetera, inquit (soror), ostensa est mihi anima corporaliter, et spiritus videbatur, sed non inanis et vacuae qualitatis, immo quae ctiam teneri repromittcret, tenera et lucida et aerii coloris, et forma per omnia humana. Hic erit homo interior, alius exterior, dupliciter unus. Ib. 18: Quid erit sensus, nisi ejus rei, quae sentitur, intellectus? Et buid erit intellectus, nisi ejus rei, quae intelligitur, sensus? Eg. Wis 1:6; Proverbs 24:12; Ps. 138etc. Thus, Origen leaned towards Plato’s teaching about the pre-existence of souls. Adv. Marc. II, p. 4. Adv. Prax. With. 5. De baptismo p. 5: Imago in effigie, similitudo in aeternitate censetur. Worter, Die Christl. Lehre uber das Verhaltniss von Gnade und Freiheit. 2 H.S. 383. See Adv. Marc. V, 8. De resur. carn. With. 6. Quodcunque enim limus exprimebatur, Christus cogitabatur homo futurus, quod et limus et caro sermo quod et terra tunc.– Et fecit hominem Deus, id utique quod finxit, ad imaginem Dei fecit illum, scilicet Christi. – Ita limus ille jam tunc imaginem inducens Christi futuri in carne, non tantum Dei opus erat, sed et pignus. De exhort, cast, with 1: Voluntas Dei est sanctificatio nostra. Vult enim imaginem suam nos etiam similitudinem fieri, ut simus sancti, sicut ipse sanctus est. Quod illi cum Deo affine est. ...non suum habens bonus essay. Adv. Marc. lib. II, p. 6.