17) Проф. А. И. Гренков.

The named scientist expresses his views on asceticism in his following articles: The original origin of the science of Christian moral teaching and its brief history. Orthodox Interlocutor. 1875. April, pp. 349–391. Pioneer of the science of Christian morality. Bibliographic note about the essay “The Moral Ideal of Buddhism in its Relation to Christianity” by A. Gusev. Right Sob. 1875. January, pp. 23–64. The beginning of the originality of the Christian moral ideal, according to prof. Grenkov, manifested itself not so much in doctrine as in asceticism, or asceticism. This broad, vital, majestic movement in its content and character was a moral κατεξοχήν. The named direction from Christian teaching has predominantly adopted its purely divine “religious” side, “the desire for heaven and eternity,” for the realization and achievement of the highest holiness.” “The Gospel lifted the veil of the heavenly world, the world of the highest good, before us and said: strive there.” 1318 The means to achieve this goal were complete selflessness, crucifixion of the flesh with passions and lusts, and intensified feats of struggle against sin. All the ascetic’s strength went into this struggle, all his attention was directed to it, so that his whole life was a long series of attempts to triumph over moral evil. Hence it is natural that “for asceticism, all earthly life with its interests did not have such significance.” “Complete renunciation of external goods, property, will rights and the instinct to continue one’s kind has become the ascetic’s program. It is worth looking into the first biography of St. ascetics, to make sure that for them the body was the subject of the most debilitating attacks, marriage was a tolerable phenomenon among the imperfect.” 1319 “How many hermits who measured the degree of their perfection by the number of years during which they did not see a woman’s face.” 1320 In general, a Christian ascetic reflects the evangelical ideal “from the point of view of its spirituality, heavenliness and divinity, with material earthly interests relegated to the background.” 1321 Christianity firmly established the principle that the body “should be a serving instrument of the spirit, that the latter is higher than the body and, in general, the internal is higher than the external,” 1322 “Christianity, describing the progressive movement of the spirit, leaves the organic life of the body with its serving role in the background.” 1323 Moreover, this must be said about the Christian’s attitude towards everything external, earthly, secular. “When the late Fr. Theodore (of course Bukharev) thought to find the love of Christ and about Christ in literature, painting and music, then what came out was a caricatured mixture of the heavenly and the earthly.” However, while fulfilling the indicated and similar “requirements” of the Gospel, the ascetics did not consider them “an obligatory commandment for everyone,” but only “advice” for those striving for perfection. Thus, the ascetics lived a completely “individual” life, alienating “all public interests.” Focusing exclusively on himself, on his inner life, the ascetic was naturally able to perfectly study “all manifestations of the human soul in its process of religious and moral improvement.” Hence, in ascetic literature we find not so much a clarification of a positive, objective ideal, but a psychological analysis of the manifestation of inner life in the process of gradual religious and moral improvement on the path of overcoming one’s own sinfulness while achieving the ideal of Christian perfection. As a result of this, an essential and even predominant element in ascetic Christian writing is the analysis of the actually negative side of human life - that which is not Christian in a person, that which belongs to the sphere of sin.” In the history of Christian moral teaching, ascetic writing was of enormous importance. Orthodox moral teaching itself has until now been built on the principles of asceticism. 1324 The moral ideal preached by the Orthodox Church is ascetic in nature; “The main element of this ideal, coloring the entire moral teaching of our church, is asceticism.” 1325 Essential, basic provisions of prof. Grenkov's thoughts are as follows: 1) the ideal of religious, heavenly, individual asceticism completely replaced the earthly, social element from the life of ascetics; 2) the requirement of asceticism is not a commandment obligatory for everyone, but “advice carried out by those striving for the highest perfection; 3) the predominant element of ascetic writing is the analysis of the negative side of Christian life; 4) Orthodox moral teaching is built primarily on the principles of asceticism; The main element of the ideal preached by the Christian Church is asceticism. The general main feature and shortcoming of the author is that he often stands on the basis of purely formal concepts. Thus, for example, he proclaims the complete opposite and complete incompatibility of the earthly and the heavenly. But what real features does he think of in the concept of “heavenly”, the late prof. He doesn’t exactly explain it himself. So, a certain formalism and obvious dualism of earthly and heavenly, ideal and real, spirit and body - these are the outstanding features of the briefly but quite clearly expressed views on Christian asceticism of Prof. A. I. Grenkova. Pioneer spiders about Christians. morality, p. 62.