4. Основные темы богословия преподобного Никиты Стифата

Generally speaking, it is deification that is the main theme of this treatise. Deification is not a return to the original paradise state, for the goal of man is to become the dwelling place of the Holy Trinity. Rev. wrote about the same thing. Maximus the Confessor: “Thanks to deification, make it even more excellent than the first creation” 23. Therefore, from the very beginning of the treatise, Rev. Nikita Stifat repeatedly warns against being carried away by the visible world as an image of a sensory paradise. From letters to the sophist, the 6th letter is entirely devoted to the sophist’s failure to distinguish the primordial paradise from the paradise that is in Heaven. There, in this paradise, which is in Heaven, Christ entered in our human flesh and, thus, opened the entrance to it for us. In Chapter 58 of the treatise “On Paradise,” Rev. Nikita describes the deified man in this way: “... he himself completely became a divine paradise and the dwelling of the indivisible Trinity, having in the center of his heart the planted Tree of Life, God Himself, endowed with the immortal fruits of God and His Holy Spirit, he is not damaged by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, I say, from these own feelings, having well separated the best from the worst, born from one integral action of the Holy and Divine Spirit.” The very term “deification”, θέωσις, Rev. Nikita does not use, but does use the phrase “union with God” (chapter 25) - Θεου συνάφεια (compare “union with fire” - συναφή φλογός “ignition”), as well as the term “union” - ένωσις (Ch. 51). Most often Rev. Nikita speaks of a person reaching the age of Christ. Such growth is the goal of man, since he is destined for God, that is, deification is the initial task of doing and keeping a person by fulfilling the commandments. All who have achieved this perfect state, Rev. Nikita calls “His servants and saints” (letter 5.12). At the very beginning of the treatise, Rev. Nikita calls on readers to become “eyewitnesses of the truth” (chapter 2). Moreover, this knowledge of the truth can only be internal (ενδιάτος), experienced. And then the person himself can reveal the truth through himself. “The Divine Fathers, who followed the contemplation of the Tree of Life with a pure and unclouded gaze, unmistakably plucked from it the fruit of theology and, having received it, had a part of it in the divinely inspired life, and as faithful servants they gave us a part in order to feed from it into eternal life” (chap. 46). Faith is given as a special gift from the Tree of Life, through which the Holy Trinity is cognized and the mystery of the Incarnation is revealed (chapter 33). The acquisition of this knowledge is associated with the reverend. Nikita and the teaching dignity of the saints. Such a person “purely theologizes the Trinity, but moreover, the incarnation (σάρκωσιν) of the Word, and his tongue becomes, according to the divine David, a “reed of a scribbler” (Ps. 45:2), as a result of which he alone (μόνος), without hiding the fact that everything is enjoyed with God, pours out good speeches from the heart into the Church of Christ, drawing out new and ancient things from mouth; even if he wanted to, he cannot in any way restrain his lips from that time from preaching the mercy and truth of God in the great assembly of the faithful, and cannot hide the righteousness of the Lord in his heart (Ps. 39:10-11), since he is completely in tune with the Spirit, pushing him and prompting him to speak” (chap. 55). In the final chapters of the treatise, Rev. Nikita Stifat brings the reader to the most important conclusion, that from here it is possible for us to reach that New Jerusalem, which is in Heaven. The only way to achieve deification is through participation in divine life. At the same time, Rev. Nikita speaks of communion in biblical terms, as the communion of the Tree of Life, by the Tree of Life meaning God Himself. In the 22nd chapter, he comments on the commandment given to Adam in paradise: “Of every tree in paradise you will eat” (Gen. 2:16), that is, from every nature of visible creations, from every movement of them, from logoi, - states (God) - to partake of My true knowledge, My greatness and kingdom and creative foundation, and, spreading them (visible creations) before you, like the table of an immortal feast, through contemplation, and through them you will enter into the knowledge of My invisible ones, as into a kingdom, and with thanksgiving you will worship Me.” The sacrament in the treatise is designated by three terms: η μετουσια, η μετάληψις and η μεθεξις, which are used interchangeably. According to St. John of Damascus, “It is called communion (μετάληψις) (sacrament) because through it we partake of the divinity of Jesus” 24. Thus, the term “communion” introduces us to the mysteries of the liturgical life of the Church. In this regard, we discover that this entire treatise directly concerns many issues of Orthodox worship, and especially liturgy. The discussion of some exclamations and sacred rites has not so much a statutory, but a soteriological character. Communion - introduces to immortal life (chapter 14), those who receive communion are not subject to death. On the other hand, if a person, partaking of the Tree of Knowledge, i.e. feeling, closes in on himself, then he knows only pleasures and suffering in this visible world and falls away from Divine life, falling under the power of death. ο θάνατος – “death”. Briefly, but accurately and strongly expresses the essence of the patristic teaching on this point of St. John of Damascus: “Having found ourselves in sin, we have lost divine communion: “For what fellowship is there between Righteousness and lawlessness?” (2 Cor. 6:14) and, finding themselves out of life, fell into the corruption of death” 25. Thus, according to the patristic teaching, “man’s independent life, isolation in his own nature, existence for himself and by himself, and not for God and in God, is in reality death. The holy fathers Gregory of Nyssa say the same thing: “Just as the separation of the soul from the body is the death of the body, so the separation of God from the soul is the death of the soul,” and Macarius of Egypt: “true death is hidden inside a person, in the heart, and a person is mortified internally” 26. 4.3. The doctrine of man as a great world Wanting to emphasize the special purpose of man, Rev. Nikita Stifat calls it the great world, placed in the visible world, as in a small one: “man was created to (be) the great world in the small visible world, and was placed by God on earth” (chapter 3). We are talking about the idea of ​​macro- and microcosm, widely known back in antiquity 27. It is noteworthy that in this matter Rev. Nikita Stifat is the most original (although it is difficult to say that he was completely independent); he gives an opinion that is different even from the position of St. John of Damascus, who, following the ancient tradition, considers man to be a small world (microcosm). Thus, in the “Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” we read: εν μεγάλω μικρόν 28. While at St. Gregory the Theologian in “Word 38:11” reads: εν μικρω μέγαν 29. This discrepancy clearly shows that regarding the terms “small” and “great world” in Christian theology there was no established position shared by all. Therefore, it is interesting to trace the reflection of this idea in patristic writing with many nuances and transitions. So, there are two options when characterizing a person - small in the great εν μεγάλω μικρόν) or great in the small εν μικρω μέγαν). It's not just about terms, but about the starting point, i.e. What does a person relate to? In a nutshell: paganism, including modern paganism - atheism and its derivatives, has always correlated man with the world. And Christianity relates man to God. These are two fundamentally different positions. We must not obscure them, but, on the contrary, present them as clearly and clearly as possible. This is the starting point of differences in a conversation about a person. The centuries-old development of the ancient tradition firmly established in human self-awareness the simple idea that man is a reflection of the world. There is space - the outside world, and there is its small, but quite accurate and complete copy - this is man. Here the starting point for reflection was the thesis about the elements of the world. Man is made up of these same elements. So, there is a great world - this world, and there is a small world - this is man. The name, of course, is not based on size, but the main thing is on the hierarchy of being. This position immediately determines the subordination in the pair in question. Great - of course, the original, the main, the first. Small – subordinate, derivative, second. This alone shows the weakness of this concept. But antiquity, not having support in the Revelation of God (which was given to humanity with maximum completeness in the fact of the Incarnation), could not rise above the idea of ​​​​a spiritualized cosmos. Christianity initially accepts this terminology, but reworks it to apply it to the biblical worldview. Of the Christian authors, Nemesius is closest to antiquity. He diligently studied pagan thinkers and built his idea on their basis. In his treatise “On the Nature of Man,” he connects ancient anthropology and biblical cosmology into a single whole. “Moses, too, rightly, describing the creation of the world, says that man was created last, not only because since everything was created for him, it was necessary to first prepare what was intended for his use, and then create the user himself, but also because after the creation of intelligible and - then visible being, it was necessary to produce (create) some connection between both, so that all being was one, proportionate in itself and not alien to itself yourself. So man appeared as a living being, connecting both (above-mentioned) natures” 30. Nemesius understands the world not as a collection of disparate elements, changing phenomena, but as one organic whole, with a clearly expressed mutual connection of its component parts. This shows the influence of Plato (Tim. 30–31). Since human nature has elements and functions akin to both the inanimate world and the spiritual world, man is a microcosm that reproduces in itself the structure of the macrocosm, and from the idea of ​​man as the crown of creation it follows that all creation is created for man and serves his benefit. And in this great world created for man, he occupies a central place. It combines the stages of being and therefore appears as a microcosm in the macrocosm. With his body he is connected with irrational beings, and with his spirit - with the intelligent world. He stands on the border between God and the world. “In fact, a person is similar to inanimate (objects) in body and composition (combination) of the four elements, and with plants, in addition to what is indicated, also in terms of productive and nutritional power; with dumb creatures (animals) he is similar not only to all this, but beyond this - in voluntary movements, in aspirations (desires), anger, and finally - in sensitive (sensing) and respiratory power (ability): after all, all this is characteristic of people and unreasonable (animals), although not all. Through the medium of reason, a person comes into contact with incorporeal and rational beings” 31. Nemesius, outlining the ancient view of man, makes a very important clarification regarding the fact that man only by his nature represents the image of the world (creation), but man was created in the image and likeness of God: “So, who can worthily appreciate the nobility of this being (man), uniting in himself the mortal with the immortal and combining the rational with the irrational, representing by his nature the image of the entire creation and therefore called the “small world”, awarded such a great industry (goodwill) of God, that for his sake - everything: both the present and the future, for his sake God became man - passing into incorruption and avoiding mortality? Created in the image and likeness of God, he (man) reigns in heaven, lives with Christ, is a child of God, has every principle and power” 32. So, Nemesius speaks of man as a small world, discussing the man-world pair. Considering, as it were, the composition of man himself, St. Gregory the Theologian finds in him the great and the small. The small is the substance of the body, similar to the world, and the great is the rational soul, in the image of God. Thus, he speaks in “Homily 38, On Epiphany or the Nativity of the Savior” about the creation of man. “He creates, I say, man, and from the already created substance, taking a body, and putting life from Himself (which in the word of God is known under the name of the rational soul and the image of God), creates, as it were, some kind of second world - great in small things (εν μικρω μέγαν); places on earth another angel, a worshiper composed of different natures, a spectator of the visible creation, the secret of the speculative creature, a king over what is on earth, subordinate to the heavenly kingdom, earthly and heavenly, temporal and immortal, visible and speculative, an angel who occupies the middle between greatness and baseness, one and the same is spirit and flesh - spirit for the sake of grace, flesh for the sake of exaltation, the spirit to abide and glorify the Benefactor, the flesh to suffer and, suffering, remember and learn how much it has been disadvantaged by greatness; creates a living being, here prepared and transferred to another world, and (which is the end of the mystery) through the desire for God achieving deification” 33. Another great teacher of the Church is St. Gregory of Nyssa generally speaks of the inadmissibility of calling a person a “small world” (in his treatise “On the Structure of Man”). “How small and unworthy the nobility of man was dreamed by some of the outsiders, who tried to exalt the human by comparison with this world. And they said that man is a small world, made up of the same elements as everyone else. But while praising human nature with this loud name, they themselves did not notice that they honored man with the differences (idioms) of a mosquito and a mouse. After all, a mosquito and a mouse are the essence of a fusion of the same four, because in each of the creatures, along with animate ones, they are necessarily seen in greater or lesser proportion, because without them nothing in nature can be composed of feeling. What is great in this - to honor man as the distinctive sign and likeness of the world? And is it when the heavens pass away, the earth changes, and all their contents pass away along with them, when the contents pass away? But what, according to the church word, is the greatness of man? Not in likeness to the created world, but in being in the image of the nature of the Creator” 34. Rev. Maximus the Confessor, perceiving this ancient ancient idea, nevertheless gives it a completely different meaning: he connects it with the idea of man as the mediator and focus of all created being, whose task is to unite all opposites. Man is not just the “great world” as a certain given, but he becomes this world in the process of spiritual success. Moreover, such formation (or birth) has the character of an increasingly spiritualization of the “microworld” and its increase. Therefore, Rev. Maxim calls it no longer a “small”, but a “great” world (an idea later developed by St. Nikita Stifat). The starting point of his views is the idea of ​​bringing all created being to God. Moreover, a person must bring it. That is why it is called the “great” world. Through the spiritualization of the “microcosm” the “macrocosm” is also spiritualized and saved 35 . The same words about “great in the world” are used by St. Symeon the New Theologian, whose opinion was obviously decisive for St. Nikita. But he develops this concept, saying that the great and small worlds are not worlds of the same order, but different in nature, like the intelligible and the visible. Here he follows the ideas of St. Gregory the Theologian. Rev. Simeon the New Theologian in “Hymn 43” says: “We call man, whom God Himself created in His own image and likeness, the world (κόσμον), because he is adorned (κοσμειται) with virtues, and rules over earthly (creatures)” 36. In "Word 84" Rev. Simeon emphasizes: “But knowing that each of us is created by God as a second world, a larger one inside this small visible world, as Gregory the Theologian testifies with me, we will not allow ourselves to be in any way worse than the dumb or even soulless creatures created by the man-loving God for our instruction, but we will imitate everything that is good and avoid, as much as we can, imitation of evil” 37. The teaching of St. Nikita Stifat about that. that man is a “cosmos of space” or a “new cosmos”, created better and more sublime than the visible world, and therefore being a great world located in a small world. But it should be noted that, following his teacher, Rev. Nikita first of all calls the intelligible great, i.e. the spiritual world, and man is called the great world, as a participant in this first created, intelligible world. Thus, his statement from the Philokalia in Sotnitsa 3:14 is known: “Whoever has exalted the best of our two natures over the worst and made it free from the influence of this latter, he has acquired an immaterial residence among immaterial spirits, becoming himself a mental spirit, although physically he is seen rotating among other people” 38 . The main reason why man can be called the great world is that he is created in the image of God: “At first, after the translation of the existents from the non-existents, creating the great world (κόσμον μέγαν), God placed man on this visible (world), as on a small one, in his own image (κατ᾿ ειςόνα ιδίαν) having created him and proclaimed him king over everything on earth. And therefore, as in the great world, he spiritually plants in him (man) another divine paradise, lying far above the visible, since in fact it is decorated with immortal and ever-blooming plants and illuminated by the Sun of Truth” (chapter 19). So, the resolution of this issue can be briefly outlined as follows. Ancient philosophy had the concept of the two-part nature of man - the bodily, visible part and the intelligible part. But it was believed that this two-partness is a reflection of the same two-partness of the world - it also consists of a visible part and an intelligible part. Those. man was completely determined by this world, was completely immanent to it. Christian thought tries to find a way out into the divine world transcendental to this world. Thus, Nemesius, calling man the “small world,” says that man, created in the image of God, lives with Christ and reigns in heaven St. Gregory the Theologian approaches this issue more subtly. He preserves for a person his visible relationship to the world around him - a small person relative to the great world. But in this little thing there is a spark of something even greater, that is, the image of God. "In small things great." Further, Christian thought, developed by many ascetic fathers, went in the direction of combining anthropology, the doctrine of man, and asceticism. So, for example, Rev. Maximus the Confessor writes about the need for spiritual success in order for a person to reveal the idea of ​​him as a great world. Rev. Simeon the New Theologian and his student Rev. Nikita Stifat talk about the deification of man. Deification is the main goal of man, the revelation of the image of the Creator in him. And its achievement lies through the path of Christian achievement, in the understanding of the ascetic tradition of Orthodox monasticism. The deified man “himself completely became a divine paradise and the dwelling place of the indivisible Trinity, having in the center of his heart the planted Tree of Life, God Himself, endowed with the immortal fruits of God and His Holy Spirit” (chap. 58). Such a person is a great world, great in that in this visible world he represents the image of God. Traditionally, εικών is understood as the second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, God the Son, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the first begotten of all creation” (Col. 1:15). This idea of ​​the Apostle Paul began to be actively developed by Christian theologians very early. It is, for example, found in Origen, who claims that the Son is “the visible image of the invisible Father.” It is also picked up by Origen’s disciple St. Gregory the Wonderworker, in whose concept εικών “the idea of ​​displaying a prototype for revelation to others comes to the fore.” In the 4th century. the idea of ​​the Son as the “Image” of God the Father becomes widespread. Yes, St. Athanasius of Alexandria defines the Son as the “Image of the Father”; man was created “in the image”: if the Son is “Logos”, then people are λογικοί 39. But St. Gregory of Nyssa in his treatise “On the Structure of Man” understands the image of the divine nature by image: “After all, the image is not in a part of nature, and grace is not in any one of what is in it, but this power spreads equally throughout the entire race. And the sign of this is that the mind is equally established in everyone. everyone has the power of understanding and will, and everything else by which the divine nature is reflected in what is created according to it” 40. Rev. Nikita also says that man is created in the image of the divine nature: “Man is a multi-formed creature and has different ideas, just like names - after all, he is called light, life, tree, branch and precious stone, candlestick and in other ways, and thereby bears the multi-name nature of the divine nature, existing as its image” (chapter 9). Thus, in understanding man as the image of God, he follows St. Gregory of Nyssa, who taught: “Man is created in the image - a complete nature, something similar to God. What was produced by the omnipotent Wisdom was not a part of the whole, but at once the entire fullness of nature” 41 . Reflecting on the image of God in the “speculative chapters” of Centurions 3:5, Rev. Nikita writes: “They have one and indivisible nature, although according to the difference of hypostases it is divided into persons and glorified in trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These persons, as one nature and one God, are never separated from the co-essential being and nature. You see the image of this trinitarian and individual nature in the man He created, but in the mental part, and not in the visible, in the immortal part, and not in the mortal and decaying part” 42. Further, Centurions 3:7: “the threefold one sees the image created by Him - man, with soul, mind and word, worshiping Himself, who created all things from those who are, God” 43 . It is interesting to note here the divergence from the traditional human trichotomy “body-soul-spirit”. And in the next chapter 3:8: “The image of God is the mental soul, mind and word, a single and indivisible nature” 44. It is about the soul that Rev. speaks most of all. Nikita in his treatise “On Paradise”, although a separate work “On the Soul” - the first part of the trilogy - is devoted to this topic. Considering a person, Rev. Nikita Stifat approaches it from a dichotomous perspective. The main principle is duality - the world, man, heaven. In this duality there is no equivalence, one is always higher, the other is lower. Initially, the world was created double - intelligible and visible. Moreover, first the intelligible, invisible world was created, which he calls the great world. And man is also created double, corresponding to these two worlds connecting them. In “Active and Theological Chapters, 152” Rev. Simeon the New Theologian emphasizes: “Of all that is visible and mental, only one man was created by God as twofold. He has a body made up of four elements, feeling and breathing, and a mental, immaterial, incorporeal soul, united inexpressibly and unexplored, unmerged, and combined incomprehensibly with what is in the body” 45. Developing a dichotomous view of man, Rev. Niketas Stiphatus follows Nemesius, Leontius of Byzantium and St. John of Damascus. In the famous text of St. Paul (1 Thess. 5:23): “May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved completely without blemish at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” - St. Irenaeus, St. John Chrysostom and St. John of Damascus understands the spirit not as an integral part of human nature, distinguishing it from the nature of other creatures, but as a gift of the Holy Spirit, as a gracious charisma 46. So, the composition of a person is soul and body. “Man consists entirely of two natures, the soul, I say, and the body. One thing is low with him, the other is sublime and divine” (chapter 32). Therefore, God gives man two commandments, for the soul and for the body: “Since man is double... God created for him a double commission. On the one hand, He exhorts him to receive a portion of the best and immortal food and not to pay any attention to the needs of the body, just as the Word made man encourages: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33), sealing, as it were, His first commandment. On the other hand, He protects it from the described implantation of the feeling, so that the one who, having tasted through it (the feeling of) the pleasures of this life, would not be increased in suffering, has fallen through this kind of perception from the divine feast and eating” (chap. 28). In the New Testament commandment, St. Nikita sees a repetition of the commandment given in Paradise, to eat from every Tree, i.e. seek first the Kingdom of God. The New Testament sees the analogue of the second commandment, not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, in the words: “Arise, let us go from here” (John 14:31). In turn, the soul also appears to be double, consisting of rational and irrational parts. “Together with Plato, St. John of Damascus distinguishes two souls in a person: rational and unreasonable, calling them, however, not souls, but forces; but then, according to Aristotle, he divides the unreasonable soul into its functions - irritable and desirable"47 47. An indication of this by Rev. Nikita again sees that God gives precisely two commandments to man in paradise: “Therefore, turning to the rational part of his soul, as the only one existing from the best lot, God rewards (it) with the land of contemplation of divine affairs and offers a meal filled with divine food for reflection, thus saying: “From every tree in paradise you will eat” (Gen. 2:16), in fact, from every nature of beings, you would accept part of My knowledge and pleasures through integral contemplation, exploring their logos and movements. For the more unreasonable (part of the soul), as existing from the carnal duality, irritation and lust, and easily allowing the intention of evil, (God) admonishes, so to speak: “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, do not eat from it” (Gen. 2:17) (chap. 27). The rational part of the soul exists from the best share, i.e. created in the image of God. She is also dual, in the sense that she is verbal and intelligent (λογική τε και νοερά) (chap. 42, 45). The unreasonable part of the soul also has two forces, these are irritation (ο θυμός) and lust (η επιθυμία), these forces are not bad in themselves. The concept θυμός was usually used to designate the natural strength (ability) of a person, which serves as a stimulator of mental energy, an inspirer of reason and will and is, in the words of St. Basil the Great, "the nerve of the soul." But θυμός (the violent principle of the soul) is such only “when it is guided by the principle of godlikeness” and love, subordinating to the rational and higher principle in man. Otherwise, submitting to the egoistic inclinations of an individual, it becomes unnatural, turning into a vicious passion. For επιθυμία - “desire, attraction”, as in the case of θυμός, here we are talking about the natural power of the soul, which, when used unnaturally, turns into sinful passion 48. Rev. Nikita says that “every movement of the soul is excited by nature (τη φύσει) in accordance with the desire (εις επιθυμίαν) of a useful and necessary deed for the sake of a noble and necessary pleasure” (chap. 25). Those. the point is not in these forces themselves, but in the use of these forces. Therefore, Rev. Nikita says: “(God) exhorts, thus saying: “From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, do not eat from it” (Gen. 2:17), and as if he determines to flee the temptation of feeling and the knowledge of these two fruits of the planting of feeling - Which ones, I ask? - pleasure and suffering, as I said before. And rightly, for the first (pleasure), received against the need, instills knowledge of himself in the desirer, the second (suffering) - to the irritable, and thus, participation in them (pleasure and suffering) sends these two forces (lust and irritation), to which speech is spoken, into eternal death, because (God) says: “For in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17)” (Ch. 27) Therefore, the incorrect use of these two forces of the soul leads them to sin, which means death. Incorrect use is unpreparedness for communion with feeling, in the terminology of St. Nikita Stifat - impurity, imperfection. This again raises the question of the need for human spiritual practice, the transformation of these forces. The transformation or transformation of the forces of the soul, irritation and lust, goes its own way for each of them. For irritation through humility, and for lust through love: “the first, irritation, enters through humility into the dwelling of meekness, the second, lust, through love leaves the addiction to the worldly and visible and finds its destiny in God through communion with the Spirit” (chapter 32). Humility and love in this view are seen as the two gates of heaven, which will be discussed in detail in the last part of the treatise. Paradise is understood as a place of transformation and growth of man. The rational part of the soul is imperfect and also requires transformation. In a letter to the sophist Gregory, Rev. Nikita calls for him to “first throw out the mundane (τον χουν) from the mind and thus prepare the ear to receive the word and hear the Savior saying to us: “Arise (εγείρεσθε), let us go from here” (John 14:31), from the more corporeal and sensual to the intelligible beauties and sights of the word” (letter 5.2). About this transformation of the mind, Rev. Nikita Stifat says this in a letter to the sophist: “And therefore, I would repeat again, it is necessary for us to first cleanse the earthly mind with the oil of the Spirit and find it unearthly, then acquire as a mother the hypostatic (ενυπόστατον) wisdom of God, descending from heaven into contrite and humble souls, which (wisdom), “first, is pure , - according to the divine James, - then peaceful, modest, obedient, full of mercy and good fruits" (James 3:17)" (letter 5.4). That is, we can approach the Father only with the assistance of the Spirit in the hypostasis of the Son. Hypostatic wisdom is the Son of God, which is emphasized in Chapter 42. treatise “On Paradise”, where Rev. Nikita quotes St. John of Damascus: “And then the hypostatic (ενυπόστατος) wisdom and power of the Most High God, the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father, like a divine seed, overshadowed her.” 49 It is very important to note the discrepancy at this point with the teaching of Rev. Maximus the Confessor, exactly how the mind perceives the wisdom of God: hypostatically, as the Rev. writes. Stifat, or but of grace, as the Confessor believes: “The mind of Christ, which the saints perceive by the verb: “We have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16), is not born in us as a result of the power of thinking; (is not) an integral part of our mind and does not move in an essential and hypostatic way (ουσιωδως καθ υπόστασιν) into our mind, but (the mind of Christ is born) as a force, with its quality making our mind clear and imparting to it action directed towards it. For to have the mind of Christ, as I understand it, means to (constantly) think according to the Lord and always think about Him” 50. Nikita’s letter says about this: “However, the disciples of the Word did not first accurately know the laws of God until they received essentially (ουσιωδως) from the Word His mind, opening “to the understanding of the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45)” (letter 5.2). The term ουσιωδως – essentially, in an essential way, prep. Nikita is not the first to use this in relation to the acceptance of the Wisdom of God. St. stood in the same position. Gregory the Theologian (41 Words), speaking truthfully about the reception of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Is the acceptance of the Spirit by the ascetics as essential as the acceptance of Him by the apostles? This is a question answered by St. Nikita and Rev. Maxim gives different answers. The formulation of this problem was a precursor to the development of the doctrine of the uncreated energies of St. Gregory Palamas several centuries later. The theme of transformation of the mind is one of the leading ones in the reflections of Rev. Nikita. Hence the introductory sentence often found in letters and treatises: “listen wisely” (for example, Chapter 9), συνετως – “with understanding,” an adverb meaning spiritual wisdom and the ability of a person’s pure (chaste) thinking. “The concept of σύνεσις (lit., “understanding, intelligence, intelligence”), according to, for example, Origen, means that highest principle in man, which distinguishes him from animals. It was originally given by God for the advancement of human virtues, and such spiritual understanding itself is also a virtue. This “understanding,” darkened by the Fall, is regained, according to St. Methodius, through the sacrament of rebirth in Christ: “Truly for those people who do not yet feel the manifold Wisdom of God, Christ has not yet been born, i.e. not yet known, not yet revealed, not yet revealed. If they too experience the sacrament of grace, then it will be for them too. when they are converted and believe, He is born through knowledge and understanding.” According to Evagrius, it is precisely this “spiritual understanding,” coupled with “wisdom” and “judgment,” that is the true “acquisition of the righteous”" 51. When considering a person as dual, consisting of soul and body, the second component - the body, of course, is thought of as the lower of them. The body is considered to be composed of the elements of the world. This manifests its lowness in relation to the soul, which keeps the body from disintegrating into its simple elements. The body is also characterized by variability, characteristic of this created world. About the properties of the body, Rev. Nikita Stifat says in a letter to Nikita Koronidsky: “Just as the properties of the body are threefold, I am talking about dissection, flow and variability; I have already interpreted the flow and variability, but I left the cut without attention; it slipped away when it came to thoughts. Know that the dissection of the body is really such a (dissection) from life to death, which separates it (the body) from the unity of the elements through which it was united, and sends it into decay after the removal of the spirit” (letter 4.7). Such a lower position of the body in relation to the soul, however, does not indicate the secondary nature of the body in a temporal sense, i.e. that the soul existed before the body, or pre-existed, as Origen falsely taught. In letter 4.9 Rev. Nikita especially emphasizes that the soul was created simultaneously with the body, in other words, man was immediately created in all his completeness. This applies to Adam and to every person. In general, a body without a soul is dead: “dead to all movement and motionless” (letter 4.5). But this deadness of the body simultaneously removes ethical responsibility from it, i.e. Actually, it is not the body that sins, but only the soul. “It was not the bodily eye that turned away first, as you wrote, and then the soul, but the soul itself turned away through the eyes of the body. After all, the bodily eye does not have light in itself, just as the moon does not have its own (light), but its light (the eye) comes from the soul that moves the body, just as for the moon (light) from the sun. In fact, at first the soul, looking as if through the windows of the senses, is carried away by the sensual and visible and thus excites the movement of the body with the desire to master it (sensual and visible), since outside it (the body) is dead to any movement and motionless; so that error is by no means of the body, but of the soul, through which it moves towards error” (letter 4.5). Adam tasted the first bitter experience of sin. The pristine, sinless state of Adam was equal to the angels: “For Adam was like an angel in paradise, and he enjoyed the contemplation of the truly Existent” (letter 4.5). But his condition is rev. Nikita Stifat still characterizes it as imperfect. The imperfection of man stems from the variability of his created nature. As a result of this imperfection, Adam cannot constantly remain in an equal-angelic way of life and, through the envy of the devil and the deception of a woman, falls away from him. Regarding each person, Rev. Nikita believes that the Fall occurs individually: “Since our nature is changeable, and we are weakened in order to constantly remain in this way of life, therefore we share the fate of Adam. For the thought of a person from his youth inclines (him) to evil deeds, as if Eve, accepting the offer of the evil serpent as profitable, raises it to the mind of a person and persuades him to taste as if from a forbidden good and immediately becomes an intercessor for his fall (Gen. 3:6)” (chap. 12). Here the role of Eve is played by human thought, which is not in obedience to God. When a person follows his thoughts, which deviate him from obedience to God, he falls into the foundations of original evils. “The foundations of the original evils are glory, desire, indifference, everything that, growing through all the feelings of a person, becomes an intercessor for him eternal death. In them, of course, through feeling there is for us knowledge of both good and at the same time evil, through the perception of them a person dies, coming either into the “pride of life” because of the love of glory, or into the “lust of the eyes” because of the disposition of the love of money, or into the “lust of the flesh” because of the love of pleasures and the tasting of spiritual pleasures (1 John 2:16)” (chap. 25). The decisive moment for the fall of man is the distortion of his will, η γνώμη - this is will, arbitrariness; more precisely, the inclination or disposition of the will to a certain decision after a previous struggle of motives, the act of self-determination is the most important concept of morality and asceticism. By definition, St. John of Damascus in “An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Vol. 2. Chapter 22 On passion and activity”: “Then one is disposed (in favor of this) and shows love for what is chosen as a result of the consultation; and this is called γνώμη, i.e. the choice of a direction by the soul and the determination to follow it” 52. The Fall perverted and distorted, first of all, γνώμη - not just the free will of man, inherent in his nature, or, rather, the “logos of nature,” but the will corresponding to the hypostatic existence of man 53. In the “Epistle to John Cubicularius on Love,” Rev. Maximus the Confessor says: “Since at the beginning the devil, who deceived man, through selfishness maliciously (lured) him into a skillfully invented trap, deceiving him with the attack of pleasure, he separated our will from God and from each other (literally, “separated us according to the will [κατα την γνώμην]”)” 54. The external cause of the Fall is the envy of the devil (chapter 5). By definition, Rev. Simeon the New Theologian, the devil is “an evil intelligent force that has departed from God” 55. St. Gregory the Theologian denounces envy in Homily 36: “Envy darkened Dennitsa, who fell from exaltation. Being divine, he could not resist not recognizing himself as a god, and threw Adam out of paradise, taking possession of him through voluptuousness and his wife (Gen. 3:23): for he assured him that the Tree of Knowledge was forbidden to him for a time out of envy, so that he would not become a god” 56. The main consequence of the Fall is that we all sin in imitation of Adam. “The expression of the Apostle Paul in Romans 5:12: εφ ω πάντες ήμαρτον, translated, as is known, into Slavic in it (i.e. in Adam) all have sinned, St. Patr. Photius, like Bl. Theodoret is understood completely differently. This expression, he says, does not mean the person of Adam, “in him,” but the reason, “because all have sinned” (To Amphilochius, question 84). Thus, there is no our participation in Adam’s sin, it does not apply to us, and we sin in imitation of the Forefather” 57. 4.9. Pleasure and Pain While in paradise, Adam experienced one state, which is characterized by the word τρυφή - pleasure. The property of this state is that it does not have its own antinomy, like an absolute state, it does not necessarily entail suffering. This word is consonant with the term “feast” - πανδαισία - a feast that does not require costs. These same terms characterize the future state of man in the Kingdom of God. V.N. Lossky describes the feast of the Kingdom in the following way: “This joy of resurrection and eternal life turns Easter night into a “feast of faith,” at which everyone, at least in the smallest measure and perhaps for a few moments, participates in the fullness of the “eighth day,” which will have no end. The “Catechetical Sermon” of St. John Chrysostom, which is read annually at the end of Easter Matins, perfectly expresses the meaning of that eschatological fullness to which Eastern Christianity strives: The meal is complete: enjoy, all of you; a well-fed calf: let no one come forth hungry; “All of you will enjoy the feast of faith; you will all receive the riches of goodness” 58. The falling away from the primordial state due to a bad disposition of the will leads a person to the antinomy of pleasure and pain instead of pure pleasure. This pleasure and suffering are, according to Rev. Nikita, the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge, i.e. feelings. Although by nature a person strives for pleasure, but as a result of this falling away, pleasure always turns out to be associated with suffering. Rev. Nikita tries to absorb the entire previous tradition. Pleasure ηδονή among the Greeks is the opposition or opposite side of a negative feeling. The negative feeling for Anaxagoras is πόνο (exhausting work, suffering, pain), for Aristotle it is λύπη (sadness, sorrow). The Stoics divided passions into 4 groups, i.e. 2 pairs of passions positive - negative: ηδονή - λύπη, επιθυμία - φοβός (attraction - fear). This reveals the dialectic of pleasure and suffering. Porfiry considers only 2 passions ηδονή – λύπη. Philo also has the dialectic ηδονή – λύπη. Evagrius has ηδονή – λύπη. He also has a pair ηδονή – οδύνη. Rev. Maximus the Confessor consolidates this pair of pleasure and suffering, so, in “Questions to Thalassius” he says: “By performing corruptive service to this body and becoming selfish in relation to it, man continually had pleasure and suffering active within himself, so that he always ate from the tree of disobedience, which, according to sensory experience, contained a mixed knowledge of good and evil” 59 . And in the same place: “And since it is inherent in every evil to be destroyed along with the ways that form it, then (man), convinced from his own experience that every pleasure is followed by suffering, had a complete aspiration for pleasure, and avoided suffering in every possible way, fighting with all his might for the first and diligently defeating the second” 60. Such a dialectical conjugation of a pair of opposites: “pleasure-suffering” (ηδονή και οδύνη) is the result of man’s voluntary renunciation of God. Accepting the opposition of St. Maximus the Confessor, in addition to the listed Venerable. Nikita sees in each of the elements of the pleasure-suffering pair, also, in turn, a division into useful and harmful. He writes: “Pleasure and suffering (ηδονή και οδύνη), each of which is divided once again into two: the first – into natural and necessary need, and into voluptuousness and satiety, the second – into fear and sadness, and into spiritual labors and exploits” (chapter 21). Further discussions about the reasons for this danger lead to the denunciation of the so-called. smoothness of pleasure (chapter 16) In this rev. Nikita follows Rev. Maximus the Confessor: “The face of the devil is the smoothness of pleasure, thanks to which he tends to have dominion over every soul possessed by him and preferring sensual (things), which lead to temptation, to contemplation, which feeds the mind with spiritual (food)” 61. The same expression το λειον των ηδονων is found three times in the blessed. Diadoche of Photikiysky. He, for example, says: “Thus, our mind, according to the Apostle (Rom. 7:22), always finds pleasure in the laws of the Spirit, and the senses of the flesh are inclined to be carried away (sliding) along the smooth surface of pleasures” (or “willingly to be carried away by the smoothness of pleasures”). As K. Popov notes 62, this expression was also used by St. Basil the Great, according to whom a vicious life, in contrast to a virtuous life, is a smooth (even, easily traversed) path that leads many to destruction, because vice is caught by the “smoothness of pleasure.” Therefore, this expression from St. Vasily also meant in a figurative sense “the sweetness of unreasonable pleasures.” In a similar sense this expression was also used by St. Athanasius the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa" 63. However, the most useful pleasures should be taken in good time, i.e. when a person is prepared to safely accept them, having gone through the path of spiritual practice, guided by a mind given in obedience to Christ. The role of reason here is decisive, for, according to Rev. Nikita, “reason rightly makes it safe to use (χρησιν) it (feelings), not because it is of a hostile nature - after all, God did not create bad things - but because (feelings) brings knowledge of evil in what is apparently good” (chap. 22). 4.10. Storing feelings Exclamation Doors, doors, let's shout! Repeatedly in his treatise and letters, Rev. Nikita addresses the liturgical cry “Doors, doors, let us open to wisdom!” The word “Wisdom” is not in the manuscripts of the 9th century 64, and in the treatise “On Paradise” by St. Nikita cites the exclamation τας θύρας, τας θύρας, πρόσχωμεν, relating it primarily to our feelings and relating it to the commandment given to Adam in paradise. In the Greek of the New Testament, the verb προσέχω has the following basic meanings 65: a) pay attention, pay attention; b) to listen, to adhere to something, to be devoted to something; addicted to wine (1 Tim. 3:8); c) be attentive, beware, stay away from something; d) to come (to the altar), to be a priest (Heb. 7:13): “For he of whom this is spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one came to the altar” (ουδεις πρσέσχηκεν τω θυσιαστηρίω). The word θύρα has the following basic meanings 66: c) access; (1 Cor. 16:9): “For a great and wide door was opened for me” [θύρα μοι ανέωγεν – opportunity was given to me] 67. It is this word that is used when advising you to lock the doors when you pray to the Heavenly Father, as Christ teaches: “When you pray, go into your room and, having shut your door (κλείσας την θύραν), pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you openly” (Matthew 6:6). Rev. Nikita Stifat mainly refers this exclamation to the doors of our feelings, so that nothing unworthy penetrates inside, and not to the doors of the church. To designate the church gates in the church, the word πύλαι is used, which means “gate”, “big doors”, πύλη sometimes “gate”, “half of the gate”. The Royal Gates (Holy) separating the altar part are called άγιαι πύλαι, the Northern and Southern gates respectively βόρειαι and νότιαι πύλαι, the Red gate of the central entrance to the church itself is called ωραιαι πύλαι, the entrance to the narthex is the Great Gate μεγάλαι πύλαι 68. Nikita of Koronidsky, in a response letter to the Monk Nikita Stifat, who asked him to express his opinion about his treatises, writes: “Whoever says that the deacon’s exclamation: “Doors!” is worthy of ridicule. Doors! encourages those standing outside the altar to listen to the divine sacraments. For if the sacraments are hidden in every possible way, who, perhaps, possessing reason, would encourage someone outside these (sacraments) to comprehend the hidden? For the sacraments are now given from the priests and they are performed in silence. In other places, I myself saw that the curtain hanging at the divine altar during the sacraments floats up and covers it so that even the priests themselves are not visible from those standing outside (the altar). This was also introduced by the most blessed among the patriarchs, Mr. (our) Eustathius 69 “(letter 3). Nikita Koronidsky adheres to the traditional understanding of the exclamation as referring to the gatekeepers closing the doors of the church during the Liturgy of the Faithful, and objects to a broad interpretation. The veil is understood by him as a cover of a sacrament inaccessible to those uninitiated into it. Rev. Nikita Stifat, formally agreeing with Nikita Koronidsky, nevertheless says that this exclamation applies to our entire life, comparing this exclamation with the commandment given by God to Adam. In the treatise “On Paradise”, Rev. Nikita Stifat gives the following interpretation to the deacon’s cry: “Doors! Doors! Let us take notice!”: “That is why it is forbidden by God, who said: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it; For in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17). For in a natural way, the observation of our body and the contemplation of its structure carries the imperfect, even the unwilling one, into the knowledge of the smoothness of pleasure, and not only, but also, as has been said, into obscene excitement and ideas: rightly for his sake (the imperfect one) the divine exclamation is ever uttered for us: “Doors! Doors! Let's get loud!" By doubling the tangible doors, protection is established from unworthy thoughts and, I affirm, the very feelings through which death is in the habit of entering the human soul” (chapter 16). Here we are talking not only about the external doors of the church, but, above all, about the internal “doors of feelings” of each person. Rev. Nikita Stifat writes a lengthy letter to the sophist Gregory explaining his interpretation of the exclamation: “Doors! Doors! Let's get out there!" In it he adheres to the principles of interpretation of the liturgy by Dionysius the Areopagite 70. Hierarchy is the focus in which the rays of spiritual light are concentrated, and from there they spill out onto ordinary members of the Church. In relation to persons of different spiritual maturity, church sacraments are learned differently. He makes a distinction not only between the catechumens and the faithful, but also distinguishes the latter according to the degree of success. Rev. Nikita says this about the laikas: “For if the divine fathers closed the entrance to the altar for all the laiks - for only the kings bringing gifts were allowed entry there by them (the fathers) - how is it even possible for them (the laiks) to even approach the altar when divine (sacraments) are being performed, let alone casting an unclean glance at them and pondering with complete impunity the terrible and divine things that are happening in them?” (letter 8.3). Saying that those who listen understand what is said to the extent of their spiritual progress, Rev. Nikita concludes: “The fact that, in fact, during the bloodless sacrifice, the word encourages the subdeacons to approach the gates of the church and lock, as it is said, the entrance to the unfaithful and the catechumens, saying: “doors, doors, let us open,” I also know, but not only this, however, and to all the faithful to lock the gates of feelings from wandering outside and not to delve without fear into what is being done with trepidation by the priests in altar" (letter 8.5). Rev. Nikita, emphasizing that this exclamation applies not only to the Divine Liturgy, but is transferred to a person’s entire life, indicates that all life should be service and attention to God. In the same letter he says: “For if, where the holy anaphora is performed, we lock our senses, like doors, from thinking about terrible and holy (sacraments) and from any outward wandering of the mind, so that we do not give entrance through such doors, so that something alien to piety and purity does not penetrate into our hearts, and after that we allow them (to be) open and gaping open, so that they give every beast, reptile and unclean and poisonous, and livestock and birds of passion, entry into the sanctuary of God’s rational work within us, then how do we differ from horses and mules tied to a manger, in their understanding of the manger and the food in it (the manger)?” (letter 8.6). Rev. Nikita Stifat associates this state of attention with silence (ησυχία) and thanksgiving to the Lord for every good deed and unceasing prayer. Rev. Nikita constantly emphasizes that only through the wisdom of God's grace can a person act in accordance with the commandments and achieve knowledge as far as possible. In Chapter 5 of the treatise he calls: “Let us, therefore, of course, with reason and wisdom (εν λόγω και σοφια) by God’s grace, we not only enter the intelligible paradise and carefully examine the natures, movements and logos of everything (found) in it, but also fully enjoy its flowers and piously cultivate the arable land of the immortals.” 4.11. About heaven ο παράδεισος – lit. “The Garden of Eden”: Gen. 2:8: And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east; and he placed there the man whom he had created. According to the teachings of the Fathers of the Church, this Garden of Eden is not just the location of the first man, but also a symbol of special closeness to God and God’s gifts to man. Let us give a brief overview of the opinions of the holy fathers about heaven. According to the mystical definition of Isaac the Syrian, “paradise is the love of God, in which there is enjoyment of all blessings” 71. St. Anastasius of Antioch (7 books “On the Sixth Day”) says that Philo, St. Papias of Hierapolis, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Justin, Panten of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria... what was written about paradise was understood spiritually about the Church of Christ. Of these, two saints should be especially noted. Gregory 72. St. Patr. Photius in “Question 6 to Amphilochius” says: “Paradise was for Adam a place of achievement and the beginning of the Kingdom of Heaven, but not yet this Kingdom itself. The original light, which shone even before the creation of the sun, allows us to imagine the Kingdom of Heaven as even more perfect than Paradise” 73 . St. Simeon the New Theologian in Hymn 52 “A brilliant study about the mental paradise and the tree of life in it” shows when and how the soul becomes a mental paradise: “You showed me another paradise in the visible: in the sensory - mental, mental with feeling (and another spirit), for You united with my soul (my) another Your Divine Spirit, Whom you also infused in my womb" 74. The paradise of sweets is the first paradise The expression “paradise of sweetness” (or: joy, spiritual bliss - o παράδεισος της τρυφης) in church writing usually means that paradise from which the first people who violated the commandment of God were expelled. “The origins of this expression perhaps go back to Philo of Alexandria, according to whom “for the habitation of man, God planted paradise, i.e. virtue; the place of heaven is Eden (pleasure), for joy is characteristic of virtue.” Later, Clement of Alexandria also interprets the word “Eden” as “sweetness” (τρυφή), meaning by it “faith, knowledge and peace (rest)”, which the first person who transgressed the commandment was deprived of. Rev. Simeon the New Theologian in the “45 Words” gives an interpretation of why God did not create paradise on the seventh day, and after: “For after he had created everything else, he also created man, and on the seventh day he rested from all the works that he had begun to do—he planted paradise in Eden on the east, as a royal dwelling, and brought into it man, whom he had created as a king. But why didn’t God create paradise on the seventh day, but planted it on the east after He had finished every other creation? Because He, as the Seer of all things, arranged all creation in order and orderly order; and he determined seven days, so that they would be in the image of the centuries that would pass later, in time, and he planted paradise after those seven days, so that it would be in the image of the future age” 76. Rev. Nikita Stifat in his treatise reveals the content of this movement: from paradise - the primordial Eden to paradise - the Heavenly Jerusalem. In the doctrine of heaven, Rev. Nikita follows St. John of Damascus: “Some, of course, imagined paradise as sensual, while others imagined it as spiritual. However, at least it seems to me that, just as man was created consisting of both a sensual and a spiritual nature, so his sacred church was sensual and at the same time spiritual and had a twofold appearance; for with his body he was, as we have said, in a divine and beautiful place, but with his soul he lived in a higher and more beautiful place, having God living in him as his dwelling place” 77 . In his treatise, Rev. Nikita considers man as consisting of two natures, therefore, according to these two natures, there are two paradises - one intelligible, the other sensual. After the Fall, we are expelled into this visible world, which Nikita calls another paradise: “this visible world is like another second paradise, one not greater than the other in the splendor of grace, but equal in all appearance, and indeed filled with pleasure” (chapter 8). Here we must once again note the importance of the moment. Rev. Nikita Stifat talks about two paradises, in his terms - tangible and intelligible. In more detail, tangible is perceived by the senses, external, visible, paradise that was real in earthly history. The concept of intelligible paradise is more complex; here we have to think in terms of Plato’s world of ideas; the closest synonyms would be spiritual paradise, intelligent, ideal, internal, invisible. This is one of the difficult moments for understanding the treatise, to correctly grasp the depth of meaning invested in the antinomies: visible and invisible, tangible and intelligible, external and internal. The main focus of Rev. Nikita devotes attention to intelligible paradise. Moreover, he believes that none of the holy fathers had previously had such an understanding of the intelligible paradise as being in our soul (chapter 18). The content of the concept of “paradise” by Rev. Nikita's story becomes more precise as he goes deeper into theology, moving from discussions about man to reflections on the mystery of the Holy Trinity. But the main essence of the concept of “paradise” remains unchanged - as a place of “doing and storing,” i.e. human transformation. In a letter to Gregory the Sophist, he emphasizes that paradise is simply the name of a certain spiritual reality that can be seen in various objects: “First, God himself is called and named paradise, to whom Paul, raptured, was raised and from whom he heard “unspeakable words,” which he affirms are impossible for man to hear (2 Cor. 12:4). Then - the Church of the faithful, which has, as the plantings of life, the saints, feeding with deed and word “those who hunger and thirst for the righteousness” (Matthew 5:6) of God. After this, all creation, revealing the greatness of God and His glory for us people, because from the beauty of it (creation) we rise to the Creator, as Solomon believes (Wis. 13:5). In addition to them, there is the divine Scripture, and the whole person himself, and a wise life according to God” (letter 6.2). But often the idea of ​​paradise comes down to a literal understanding of the story of Eden, which is what he warns the sophist Gregory against. In letter 6.8, he says that by paradise we must understand “that paradise into which Paul entered, being caught up, and (in it) heard unspeakable words, but which you did not comprehend, pondering the Divine Scripture according to the letter.” Rev. Nikita insists in Chapter 4 of the treatise that we have no need for that sensual paradise, and in letter 6.7 he emphasizes that: “The Divine Scriptures nowhere mentioned that Christ entered the sensual paradise.” It is important that through our mixture of the flesh He ascended to Heaven, where the saints are now. “Know that Basil the Great went to that paradise in which the delighted Paul heard exactly what he heard. This (paradise) is above the heaven of heavens, where at the right hand of the Father dwells the Son, who hypostasized our nature in the hypostasis of Himself” (letter 6.8). This paradise is the ultimate goal to which man is destined. The earthly paradise is the place of man’s infancy, where he is given the task of transformation, of revealing the inner man. This is what the Church serves—improvement from humility to love. It is important already in this life, i.e. earthly paradise, acquire virtues and grow “to the measure of... the stature of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). From this approach to paradise as a place of doing, testing a person, another feature of the reasoning of the Rev. follows. Nikita - the doctrine of the two gates of heaven. He devotes special attention to this. These two gates are the entrance to heaven and the exit from it to a more perfect state, after successfully completing the race. Of course, these gates are interpreted exclusively spiritually: the first gate leading to heaven is humility; second, the crown of the ascetic efforts of the ascetic is love. η τελεία αγάπη – perfect love; Rev. John Climacus says that perfect love is “the perfect indwelling of God in those who, through dispassion, have become “pure in heart, so that they will see God” (Matthew 5:8)" 78. St. Nikita Stiphatus in Sotnitsa 3 speaks of doing the will of God: “He who loves God ... is known from God as the true worker of the paradise of His church, who through love will do the will God, converting souls and making the unworthy worthy by the word given to him by the Holy Spirit" 79 . Another characteristic of the state of perfect workers of paradise who have successfully completed its journey is peace. “Already in the so-called In the Second Epistle of Clement of Rome we find a similar usage, combining this concept with eternal life, incorruptibility and the future Kingdom. Clement of Alexandria says that “the end (accomplishment) of piety is eternal rest in God.” Origen speaks in approximately the same sense: “All people who are “toiling and burdened” (Matthew 11:28) as a result of sin are called to rest in the Word of God,” for “God sent His Word, and healed them, and delivered them from their graves” (Ps. 106:20)” 80. But, despite the purely spiritual understanding, we are talking about the location of the gates of heaven in geographical terms. Since the final goal of prayer aspirations, according to Christian tradition, is in the east, it is quite natural that the exit from paradise will be there. Accordingly, the entrance gates of heaven are located on the opposite side, i.e. in the west. This is the scheme of Rev. Nikita was misunderstood by Felter: “strangely, there are two gates in heaven” 81. The fact that there are two gates in heaven, one entering, the other exiting, and thus heaven is clearly seen as an intermediate stage, is completely unacceptable for a modern Western scientist. It should be noted that here Rev. Nikita is only partly original. Yes, Rev. John Climacus in “Homily 25. On the eradicator of passions, the highest humility that occurs in an invisible feeling” calls humility the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven: “Humility is the door of the Kingdom of Heaven, it leads there those who approach it. I think that the Savior Himself speaks about those who enter through this door in these words: “he will enter and go out” (John 10:9) without fear from this life, and he will find pasture and grain in the villages of paradise” 82 . According to what is understood by Rev. Nikita Stifat there are two paradises - visible and intelligible, in each of them there are two trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. But even the trees of sensory paradise are interpreted by St. Nikita is very sublime, not like these or those real trees, but: in the visible paradise, the Tree of Life is God Himself, and the Tree of Knowledge is man. This opinion partly echoes Nemesius of Emesa, who calls man a “heavenly plant”: “So, knowing what nobility we participate in, (knowing) that we constitute a heavenly plant, we will not disgrace our nature, we will not prove unworthy of such great gifts and we will not deprive ourselves of so much power, glory and bliss, exchanging the enjoyment of everything eternal for short-term and insignificant pleasures” 83. In the intelligible paradise the picture is even more complex. If we consider the intelligible paradise in the human soul, then here the Tree of Life will be the Holy Spirit, and the Tree of Knowledge will be the feelings of man. If we call the intelligible paradise “the valley of practical philosophy,” then mystical theology becomes the Tree of Life, and natural contemplation becomes the Tree of Knowledge. The attitude towards the fruits of these plants (trees) depends on the state of the person eating them. For the perfect, i.e. purified or, as the Rev. says. Nikita, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “a perfect man, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Eph. 4:13), it will be beneficial to eat not only from the Tree of Life, but also from the Tree of Knowledge. For the prohibition against eating from the Tree of Knowledge was given to an imperfect person. Cleansing does not happen according to a person’s desire alone, but the participation and help of the Holy Spirit is necessary. And for the imperfect it will be harmful not only to eat from the Tree of Knowledge according to the commandment, but it can even be damaged by the fruits of the Tree of Life Of all the possible above descriptions of paradise and the plantings in it, the most important is the understanding of paradise as a valley of practical philosophy, and this is nothing other than the Kingdom of Heaven. Moreover, the door leading into this paradise is Christ Himself (chapter 51), and the gatekeeper is the Holy Spirit. Regarding the Tree of Life in such a paradise, or mystical theology, Rev. Nikita writes. “Mystical theology is the Tree of Life; for it has the fruits bestowed from life and immortality, I say, namely: faith in the Holy Trinity, which is in it (theology) beyond all reason and feeling - after all, the Holy Trinity is cognized neither by feeling nor by reason, but only by one strong and inner faith and the Orthodox idea of ​​​​the incarnation of the Only Begotten” (chap. 33). This affirms the important position that the main dogmas of the Church (about the Trinity and the Incarnation) are nothing more than the fruits of the Tree of Life for man. There is another Tree in this paradise, Ven. Nikita Stifat defines it as natural contemplation, which “is the implantation of the knowledge of good and evil, since it has, in fact, like fruits, judgment and knowledge of divine and human affairs, for it cognizes through the knowledge of beings the logoi of Providence, and through judgment creates an accurate division of beings, unmistakably distinguishing what is best and what is worst, what is the creative cause and what is created” (chap. 33). 4.13. Two kingdoms - the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven Traditionally, the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven are not distinguished in the patristic writings, being synonymous. “The concept of βασιλεία του θεου means that order of things in which, in contrast to the existing order of empirical existence κόσμος᾿, the will of God is carried out, and the Divine plans for the salvation of the world and man are actually justified. Representing, by its very concept, the final chain and consequence of divine providence for the salvation of the world and man, βασιλεία του θεου - together with this and therefore itself - is the supreme goal of the life and aspirations of every person... The fact that the expressions - βασιλεία του θεου and βασιλεία των ουρανων are synonymous, explained by the biblical meaning. This concept sometimes receives a directly religious meaning here, since it is associated with the idea of ​​​​the place of the special presence of God. Hence the name of the Kingdom of God βασιλεία των ουρανων actually contains the meaning that the will of God is carried out and God is glorified not in the present order of things, but in the one that comes from above” 84. But in the treatise of Rev. Nikita Stifat traces a different approach, when these concepts are different, but not opposite to each other, but complementary. This view is also found in Origen, Evagrius and St. Maximus the Confessor. Of course, each of the authors, distinguishing between the two Kingdoms, gives them their own interpretation. “The distinction between the Kingdoms (only the Heavenly is called Christ’s) goes back to Origen’s essay “On Prayer.” Origen relies on the well-known gospel saying: “The Kingdom of God is within us” (Luke 17:21). Therefore, for Origen, the Kingdom of God is “the blessed dispensation of the ruling principle of the soul” and “the orderliness of wise reasoning.” And the Kingdom of Christ is “saving words addressed to those who hear them,” and “the accomplished deeds of righteousness and other virtues.” In other words, Origen correlates the Kingdom of God with contemplation, and the Kingdom of Christ with action. Origen, and then Eusebius of Caesarea, St. John Chrysostom and other Christian writers, trace the difference between the “eternal Kingdom” (in which the Father and the Son “reign”) and the “economic Kingdom”, which begins and ends its existence with the Second Coming of the Lord" 85. We find a slightly different view from Evagrius in “Epistle on Faith, 7”; he distinguishes between the Kingdom of God as the area of theology proper (άυλον γνωσιν or της θεότητος θεωρίαν) and the Kingdom of Christ, corresponding to economy, i.e. the sphere of the Economy of God (πασαν την ενυλον γνωσιν): “For they say that the Kingdom of Christ is all (together) material knowledge, and the Kingdom of God and the Father is immaterial knowledge and, so to speak, the undisguised contemplation of the Divinity Himself” 86. He also shares the concepts of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God in chapters 2 and 3 of “Tales on Spiritual Work”: “The Kingdom of Heaven is the dispassion of the soul, combined with the true knowledge of things. The Kingdom of God is the knowledge of the Holy Trinity" 87. Rev. Nikita Stifat also distinguishes between these two concepts. Thus, practical philosophy is the Kingdom of Heaven or “the fragrant paradise of His (Christ) Church” (chapter 30). And from the Kingdom of Heaven the entrance to the Kingdom of God opens (chapter 31), to the Throne of God, where the angels stand, only for those who have reached the final gate, i.e. the highest level of virtues, passing from humility to love. So, according to the treatise, the Kingdom of God is standing before the Throne of God, which is “not only the divine powers around Him, but also all His servants and saints, among whom the treatment of the Word, they say, is the achievement of staying there and resting” (letter 5.12). The Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God are different in the understanding of St. Nikita, but there is no clear definition of both; their difference is similar to the difference between the earthly Church and the heavenly Church. Rev. Maximus the Confessor speaks more definitely on this topic: “Some ask: what is the difference between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven; Do they really differ (καθ᾿ υπόστασιν) from each other or only mentally (καθ επίνοιαν)? This should answer that they differ not in reality, because in essence they are one, but only mentally. After all, the Kingdom of Heaven is the comprehension of the pure and eternal knowledge of beings according to their logoi (abiding) in God. And the Kingdom of God is the acquisition by grace of goods that are naturally characteristic of God. The first (is acquired) at the end of things, and the second (is acquired) mentally after this end” 88. 4.14. The commandment to “cultivate and preserve” The image of "cultivating the soil" appears quite often in Christian literature, although usually in different aspects. Thus, Origen speaks of “cultivating a speculative skill” (της γεωργίας της έξεως νοητικης) 89. St. Gregory of Nyssa calls a person who has dedicated himself to an ascetic (virgin) life, “a reasonable farmer (ο σώφρων γεωργος). cultivating themselves wisely" 90. Rev. Maximus the Confessor in “Chapters on theology and on the Economy of the Incarnation of the Son of God, First Centurion, 42–43” uses the image of arable land and harvest to express spiritual work: “Harvest is the gathering and cognition by the rational soul, according to virtue and nature (of things), of the spiritual logoi of existence. The harvest of harvests is the comprehension of God, which is not accessible to everyone, arising in the mind after the mysterious contemplation of intelligible (beings); this comprehension is appropriately offered (as a gift to God) by the one who worthily and reverently honors the Creator, (glorifying Him) from creatures visible and invisible” 91 . This phrase suggests that “one of the ways of knowing and honoring the Creator is knowledge of the created world, but knowledge not in its “phenomenal” fluidity, but, so to speak, in its logos structure,” i.e. in its spiritual basis. This is simply “harvest”, which correlates with “spiritual work” and “natural contemplation”. It is followed by the “harvest of harvests”, i.e. "Mysterious Theology"" 92. Rev. Simeon the New Theologian says in Homily 26: “Now work in virtues, and keep the commandments of God, or, better said, keep yourself through the commandments, so as not to transgress anything that God has commanded you, and not to suffer for the same thing that Adam suffered, or even more, losing greater and heavenly blessings” 93 . Rev. Nikita examines in some detail the path to perfection for an ascetic, breaking it down into different stages. In this he follows his teacher, Rev. To Simeon the New Theologian, who described the stages of human progress in this way: “Therefore, every person born into this world, especially a Christian, should not think that he was born in order to enjoy this world and taste its joys, because if this were the end and this the purpose of his birth, then he would not die. But let him keep in mind that he was born, firstly, in order to be (begin to exist) from the non-existent that he was; secondly, in order to, like gradual physical growth, grow little by little and with spiritual age and good deeds ascend into that sacred and divine state about which blessed Paul speaks: “until we achieve everything... perfect into a husband, according to the age of the fulfillment of Christ” (Eph. 4:13); thirdly, in order to become worthy to dwell in the heavenly villages and to be included in the host of holy Angels, and to sing with them the victorious song of the Most Holy Trinity, which alone gives him existence, and by Her grace also grants well-being, i.e. that shown sacred, divine state” 94. Rev. Nikita distinguishes three stages of ascetic life: active asceticism, natural contemplation, mystical theology 95. And the Centurions themselves have similar titles: “The first centurion of active chapters,” “The second centurion of natural psychological chapters on the purification of the mind,” “The third centurion of speculative chapters, about love and the perfection of life” (according to the Philokalia). Rev. Maximus the Confessor also speaks about moral, natural and theological speculations, for example in the Commentary on 59 Psalm 96. These three degrees of ascetics are described by St. Maximus the Confessor, for example in Questions and Answers to Thalassia 10 97. (For the three main parts of the ascetic system of St. Maximus, see the study of S.L. Epifanovich 98). This is a diagram of the main stages of spiritual success of Evagrius, who, as G. Bunge notes, took it from Origen. The first stage involves fulfilling the commandments of Christ, the second - knowledge of created nature in the sense of comprehending the logoi of all created things, the third - contemplation of the sacrament of the Holy Trinity 99. At Rev. Nikita Stifat we find an extremely detailed description of the stages of success, and this detail does not stem from the continuing fragmentation and detailing of the stages, but, on the contrary, from a more general, broader view of them, assessment and understanding of the path to perfection from different points of view. For each of the directions, three stages are distinguished, according to the principle of trinity. Let us give a brief systematization of Nikita’s statements on this topic. So, the following criteria for a person’s spiritual growth and the corresponding stages of success are obvious: – according to spiritual age – infants, young men and husbands are perfect 100. This division is most often found in the treatise “On Paradise”, Ch. 15, 35, 48; – from the point of view of anthropology – carnal, mental and spiritual 101. Chapter 18 of the treatise; - according to the state of the soul - worldly (sensual), zealous (purification), perfect (according to the Spirit 102. Zealots in Chapter 34; – by virtue – faith, hope, love 103; – according to the stages of ascent – beginner (purifying), middle (enlightening), perfect (mysterious or perfective) 104. Chapters 42–44; - according to the degrees of ascetic life - active asceticism, natural contemplation, mystical theology 105. Chapter 33; – by love of God – the beginning (contempt for visible things), the middle (purification of the heart and the knowledge of the Heavenly Kingdom in us), the end (rest in God) 106; - a person in the environment of the Church, when he acts by nature, is active, contemplative, theological 107. It should be noted the special importance attached to Rev. Nikita on the concept of “skill”. η έξις - a skill acquired by exercise, habit, changing the natural properties of a person. The skill for good acquired by an ascetic is called virtue, and the skill for evil is called passion, vice 108. This meaning of skill is connected in depth with the more general antinomy of changeability and immutability. It is clear that immutability is a property of the higher world, while the adjective τρεπτός - “changeable” - in Christian writing served as one of the stable characteristics of the created world. “Origen, in particular, applies it to matter, saying that it is changeable by nature and is capable of undergoing all kinds of transformations at the will of the Creator. St. Gregory of Nyssa says that everything that exists is divided into two parts: created and uncreated; uncreated nature contains immutability and immutability, while the property of creation is variability” 109. Then it is clear why the holy fathers attached such importance to skill; they saw in it a manifestation of constancy, and therefore a step towards the unchangeable, therefore eternal. St. Gregory the Theologian in the 36th word speaks about the constant habit of virtue: “But whoever honors and loves goodness for its own sake, because he loves something constant, and has a constant disposition towards virtue, so that, feeling in himself something characteristic of God, he can say about himself what was said by God himself: I am one and the same, “I do not change” (Mal. 3:6). Therefore, it will not transform, taking on different forms, adapt to circumstances and affairs, become one thing or another, change different colors, just as a polyp takes on the color of the stone to which it adheres; but it always remains the same - unshakable among fluctuations, incorruptible among vicissitudes, and, as I imagine, it is a rock that, when struck by winds and waves, stands unshakably and crushes what attacks it 110. So, the acquisition of a skill, according to the holy fathers, is the most important stage in the practical activity of an ascetic. “The general significance of freely undertaken, consistently and expediently carried out asceticism lies, therefore, in the fact that thanks to it, skills (η έξις) are acquired that significantly change the natural properties of a person. This is the difference between η έξις and φύσις, that η έξις is acquired through learning, a long-term skill (habit), and one skill, thanks to asceticism, can be replaced by another, directly opposite to it” 111. But the Rev. Nikita we encounter a slightly different shade in the conversation about the skill of virtue, for example, in the Active Chapters (1:72) “skill in virtue is the restoration of the powers of the soul to their primitive nobility and the combination into one of the most important virtues for the action inherent in it by nature; and this does not come into us from the outside as something introductory, but is innate to us from creation, and through this we enter the Kingdom of Heaven, which, according to the word of the Lord, is within us” 112. In short, in contrast to the general opinion of the ascetic fathers, St. Nikita considers a skill not an acquisition, but a return of what a person has by nature. This once again demonstrates his unusually high assessment of man, at least in concept, in potential capabilities. 4.17. Angelic Ministry Rev. Nikita compares the state of Adam before the Fall with that of the angels. “For Adam was like an angel in paradise, and he enjoyed the contemplation of the truly Existent” (letter 4.5). And he compares our purpose to angelic service. “This is exactly how God wished for us to be dispassionate, serene and to have only one task for the angels, this is to continuously and unceasingly glorify the Creator and enjoy the contemplation of Him from one study of His creations” (chapter 13). This comparison of human and angelic service is common among Christian writers. “For Origen, the boundary separating the human world from the angelic world was very unsteady and uncertain, for spiritual achievement, moral purity and knowledge of a person can make him a “cohabitant of the Angels.” And St. Gregory of Nyssa also believed that man collects the best fruits of the blessings prepared for us at the Resurrection, for he leads a “life equal to the angels.” This idea, already laid down in the New Testament (Luke 20:36), became widespread among many early Christian authors (Clement of Alexandria, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil of Ancyra, Didim the Blind, etc.). It acquired a special meaning in monasticism, for monastic life was considered as a “life equal to the angels” par excellence” 113. This comparison shows the possibility of man’s closeness to God, for the angelic nature is created, which means that man, becoming a saint, stands together with the angels before the throne of God. “Angels participate in light and grace in proportion to rank” (letter 4.1), although “they are both rational and divine creatures” (letter 5.8). “After all, by the fact that angels are described, we do not affirm that they are outside or far from standing before the throne of the Lord, but God affirmed that His throne is heaven, and earth is the footstool” (letter 5.11). Moreover, Rev. Nikita persistently emphasizes that the saints are equal to the divine powers and occupy the highest position in the hierarchy of all creation: “the throne of God is not only the divine powers around Him, but also all His servants and saints” (letter 5.12). As we see, Rev. Nikita had an extremely high regard for man, which is the running theme of all his creations. Describing the perfect, for example in Sotnitsy 3:44, he says that it is given to them to “revolve in the circle of the high ranks of heaven” ( ουρανων) 114, which means equality with the Seraphim and Cherubim. Their distinctive features combine perfect ones, so that they include “ever-moving around the Divine and unshakable presence and abiding” (η περι το θειον αειπινησία ται ακλινης ίδρυσις και μονή) 115. According to Felter, “Areopagitic notes are obvious here, only Dionysius does not place the perfect ones so close to the highest angelic ranks” 116. For comparison, Rev. Nikita says, for example, about the admiration of the Apostle Paul that he, “having reached the dignity of the Cherubim themselves with the degree of virtue, appeared before the throne of the Holy and Incomprehensible Trinity” (letter 6.9). The unity of the heavenly, angelic world and the earthly, human world is usually emphasized by the Holy Fathers in connection with the Divine Liturgy. Like, for example, Rev. Maximus of the Confessor: “The threefold proclamation “Holy” performed by all believing people indicates our unity and equality with the disembodied mental forces, which will be revealed in the future, when human nature, due to the identity of the unchanging and ever-present movement around God, will learn, in full harmony with the heavenly forces, to chant and sanctify the one Trinitarian Deity singing “Holy” three times 117. In a similar sense, St. Herman of Constantinople: “The priest standing at the reconciliatory sacrifice between two Cherubim, bowing before the invisible and undisguised glory and splendor of the Divine and mentally contemplating the Heavenly service (την επουράνιον λατρείαν), is imparted the knowledge of the light of the Life-Giving Trinity... And mentally he contemplates and proclaims the Trisagion of the seraphim powers. Overshadowed by the Cherubim and with the exclamation of the Seraphim, he cries out with them, singing a victorious song, crying out loud and speaking.” 118 The same liturgically colored view of the ministry of angels is held by St. Nikita. “The angels always stand before Him with fear and trembling, according to their principles, since the heavenly hierarchy has its own structure and ranks of their presence at the supra-heavenly and reasonable altar of God, as Dionysius, the great in the divine, describes it, without deviating from His Liturgy” (letter 5.11). In turn, the view of liturgy as a common work of angels and the Church makes it possible to draw an analogy between the heavenly and church hierarchies. Rev. calls for observance of the latter. Nikita the sophist Gregory in the 8th letter, where it is said that teaching dignity belongs only to priests initiated into the sacrament. The entire treatise is essentially dedicated to the action of the Holy Spirit. This is his main theme. For without the gracious help of the Holy Spirit, it is impossible “to understand anything that is of the Spirit, nor to expound it for the benefit of those listening, even if the speaker could be greatly strengthened by other external sciences” (letter 5.3). There is one detail in the reasoning of Rev. Nicetas about the action of the Spirit in relation to man, this is when he speaks of grace as a kind of payment to the ascetic (chapter 2). This view is based on the Gospel text - Christ calls those persecuted for the sake of righteousness Matthew 5:12: “Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward (μισθός) in heaven.” Also Luke 6.35: “And your reward (μισθός) will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High.” The teacher, Rev., argues in the same vein. Nikita, the Venerable Simeon the New Theologian, when he uses another image to explain the action of the grace of the Holy Spirit given by Christ. This is an image of the service of the warrior, the king and the payment that the latter gives to the warrior. “We must,” he says, “... having fulfilled all virtue, make our man perfect according to God, that is, not lacking in anything or in any way... and accept the grace of the Spirit from the heavenly King Christ, just as warriors receive their daily maintenance from earthly things. And then, as having already become perfect men, having entered into the stature and measure of Christ and being numbered among His soldiers, because, as Paul says... no one fights on his own livelihood. What does he call "sustenance"? Daily royal maintenance. So, if we have not received from God the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world, that is, the grace of the Spirit, for this is the spiritual daily content with which the soldiers of Christ are fed and with which they are spiritually armed, how, tell me, will we come out with the army of God or how will we be numbered among His servants? 119. The main content of the statements of the Rev. Nicetas about the action of the Holy Spirit is that all human salvation is accomplished by the grace of the Holy Spirit, “for this Holy Spirit is speaking, and acting, and moving, and if it appears in anyone through repentance and purification, it makes their mouth clear to speak everything provided by Him, and moves their mind to investigate divine and human affairs and to discern “the depths of God” (1 Cor. 2:10–11), and in general, acts in them with the energies of His gifts (1 Cor. 12:7–11)” (chap. 56). Thus, deification is associated with the action, the “energy” of the Holy Spirit, and we can speak of deification by grace. Following the biblical text Is.11:2–3, Rev. Nikita examines these seven “energies” of the Holy Spirit in the 56th chapter of the treatise. The important wording here is “acts in them with the energies of His gifts.” It should be noted that the question of the seven “energies” of the Holy Spirit arose again during the hesychast disputes. John Cantacuzene (in monasticism Joasaph), defender of the teachings of St. Gregory Palamas, wrote a special treatise on the uncreated nature of these “energies”. Rev. Nikita speaks about the presence (εγγένηται) of the Holy Spirit in a person, which is possible after repentance (δια μετανοία), i.e. changes of mind, and purification of the ascetic, and therefore about the new birth of a person enriched with the gifts of the Holy Spirit (chapter 57). Now the Holy Spirit lives and works in man. Rev. here. Nikita Stifat strictly follows his teacher Rev. Simeon the New Theologian, who taught that “the whole person, body and soul, is united with God and becomes the image of the Most Holy Trinity. “Body, soul and God are three: God... mixes with the intelligent soul... in order to save the spirit and immortalize the flesh. He promises this, saying: “I will dwell in them and walk” (2 Cor. 6:16)... Just as in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one God is inseparably and indivisibly worshiped, so, in turn, in God and soul and body, inseparably and inseparably, man becomes God by grace...” Thus, man also becomes a threefold image, trinitarian - body, soul and God, as the third component of this union by grace" 120. Creations of Rev. Maximus the Confessor... Vol.2. P.191 St. John of Damascus. Exact summary... Book 4. Chapter 13(86). P.297 Right there. Book 4. Chapter 4 (77). P.273 Zarin S.M. Asceticism... P.25–26 Alters R. Microcosmus, from Anaximandros to Paracelsus. Traditio. 1944. 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