On the contemplative speculations of St. Maximus the Confessor in “Difficulty 41”

Contents Part 1 1. Hypostatic unity of the world 2. Intelligible 3. Sensual 4. Heaven 5. Paradise Part 2 6. Practice of overcoming divisions 7. Theological wisdom of Maximus and the dialectical method of Plato This article makes an attempt to study “Difficulty 41” from the point of view of the contemplative practice of mental doing, in which the meaning of the five divisions and the ways of overcoming them by a person as steps of the mystical ascent of the mind to unity with God is comprehended. From this point of view, the concepts used by St. Maximus the Confessor are clarified, as well as the meaning of uniting the divided and finding in oneself the logoi of the universal natures of the created world. In “Difficulty 41,” St. Maximus the Confessor describes the knowledge of the holy fathers about the division of the created world into five divisions and about the destiny of man to overcome these divisions in himself in order to come to unity with God. The source of such knowledge is mystical contemplation, and the level of presentation in “Difficulty 41” is designed for a person who had previously acquired, in the words of Maximus, “possession of secret knowledge of the divine inaccessible to others” 1, which was Archbishop John of Cyzicus. In addition, Maximus, in the preface to the “Difficulties,” notes that he worked on perplexities in the writings of St. Gregory the Theologian together with Archbishop John and, perhaps, therefore does not clarify the concepts that they used together. There are several translations of "Difficulty 41" into Russian. In the article we rely on the translation of S.V. The month that is most interesting to us in terms of the depth of interpretation of terms and comments. For comparison, translations by A.R. are used. Fokin, Archimandrite Nektarios (R.V. Yashunsky) and the translation into English of the Greek Archimandrite Nicholas Constas. We also rely on a comprehensive scientific and theological study of the terms and issues of “Difficulties 41” in the book by V.V. Petrov 2 and in his report “Transformation of ancient ontology in Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor” 3. However, despite several translations and a detailed study of “Difficulty 41” by Petrov, it remains unclear what exactly Maximus means by the terms “intelligible”, “sensible”, “heaven”, “earth”, “paradise” and how a person can practically unite what is divided, gain equal angelic knowledge and ascend to heaven like the Lord. This article makes an attempt to study “Difficulty 41” from the point of view of the contemplative practice of mental doing, in which the meaning of the five divisions and the ways of overcoming them by a person as steps of the mystical ascent of the mind to unity with God is comprehended. From this point of view, the concepts used by Maximus 4 are clarified, as well as the meaning of combining the divided and finding in oneself the logoi of the universal natures of the created world. The first section of the article examines Maximus’ use of the concept of “hypostasis” in relation to the entire created world and the hypostatic features of other compounds of opposite natures. The second section examines the change in the meaning of the term “intelligible” from its original meaning of eidos-ideas in the teaching of Plato to the teaching of the Areopagite-Maximus about logoi and their intelligible images in order to understand what exactly and how is comprehended by the mind. The third section examines the meaning of the term “sensible” in order to clarify whether Maximus refers to the sensory world as things comprehended by the mental sense of the contemplator. The fourth section examines the ambiguity of the term “sky” and its specific meaning in the third division. The fifth section examines the meaning of the term “paradise” and its connection with the practice of smart doing. The sixth section explores the contemplative practice of overcoming divisions and correlating the stages of prayer development with the divisions of Difficulty 41 and with the five contemplative troposes of Difficulty 10 (1123B). Finally, the seventh section sets out an understanding of the method of Platonic dialectics as a method of hesychia and provides a comparison of the divisions of “Difficulties 41” with the divisions of Plotinus’ dialectics, as well as a comparison with the celestial hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. 1. Hypostatic unity of the world First, let's look at the first division, which is translated in different ways. Translated by S.V. Month 5, the first division is described in the following words: “The saints say that the hypostasis of all created things is divided into five divisions. Of these, the first, according to them, is division, which separates all created nature as a whole from uncreated nature and receives existence through emergence” (1304D). In this text, the thesis about dividing the hypostasis of all emerging things into created and uncreated nature raises a question. An idea may arise that the term “hypostasis” refers to some single reality of entities, consisting of uncreated and created natures, which, as V.V. notes. Petrov, would be a pantheistic idea of ​​God and contradicts the dogmas of Orthodoxy. But, nevertheless, the idea of ​​​​a certain joint reality of the uncreated and created may have a basis, since Maxim refers to uncreated entities the energies around God, about the emergence of which nothing is known, except that they exist eternally in God before the emergence of times and centuries and that all created things exist thanks to participation in divine energies, which in a sense can be called uncreated creations or works (εργα) of God: “The creations [εργα] of God, whose existence did not begin in time, are perhaps those beings that allow participation in themselves; beings who participate in them participate by grace. Such, for example, are: goodness and everything that is included in this concept, as well as simply all life, immortality, simplicity, immutability, infinity and that which is essentially contemplated around God - they are also creations [εργα] of God, and did not begin to be in time” 6 . The uncreated works of God did not begin to be in time, but they exist, and, perhaps, in the words about the division of things that came into existence, Maximus is talking about the emergence of beings both in time and outside of time. Let's see how other translators translate this passage. Translated by A.R. Fokin 7 this place is translated in the same way as in S.V. Month; Archimandrite Nektariy (Yashunsky) 8 replaces the word “hypostasis” with “being”, and Archimandrite Nicholas Constas 9 also replaces “hypostasis” with “the existence of all things”. But Maximus explains that the uncreated and created natures are not united into a single essence and do not have a single logos: “Indeed, this division that naturally separates created nature from the uncreated, never accepting union into a single essence, they left without a name as incapable of accepting a single and identical logos” (1305A). Therefore, what never unites cannot be divided, and the words about “the hypostasis of everything that has arisen into existence” refer only to created entities. Perhaps, in order to avoid misconceptions about the first division, in the translations of the arch. Nectarius and Constas, the term “hypostasis” (ὑπόστασις) is interpreted in the sense of “being” of all created things, or “existence” of all things that arose into being, that is, the property of individuality of hypostasis is omitted 10. Confusion about the first division arises due to the fact that the peculiarity of the first division does not immediately become clear, which is that it does not divide the entire existing reality, but separates the created world that has arisen into existence as a whole from the uncreated. Thus, the divisions of the nature of the created world into parts include the following four divisions: “The saints call the second division the way in which the entire total nature, which received existence from God as a result of creation, is divided into the intelligible and the sensible. The third is how sensual nature is divided into heaven and earth. The fourth is how the earth is divided into paradise and the inhabited earth. And the fifth is how, after everyone else, like some kind of all-encompassing crucible of all kinds, man, splendidly introduced in the course of his emergence into the number of beings, naturally mediating with himself all the edges that appeared during divisions, is divided into male and female” (1305B). Of the listed divisions, Maxim speaks in more detail about the second division of the created world into the intelligible and the sensible in “Mystagogy”: “The entire world of beings, which received its origin from God, is divided into the intelligible world, formed from intelligent and ethereal entities, and into the local world, sensory and carnal, which is majestically woven from many species and natures... Each of these worlds, fused in unity, does not reject or deny the other, according to the law [of the Creator] that united them. And, in accordance with this law, they contain the logos of a unifying force, which does not allow one to be ignorant, despite the natural otherness of [the two worlds], regarding their identity in hypostasis in [this] unity” 11. The above quotation from Mystagogy confirms that in Difficulty 41 Maximus’s words about the “hypostasis of all things” refer to the created world. Such use of the concept of “hypostasis” in relation to the entire created world had not previously been encountered among the holy fathers. Typically, the concept of hypostasis was used to theologically describe the complex hypostasis of man and the complex hypostasis of Christ at the incarnation. But if you look at the definition of a complex hypostasis as an entity that has the properties of connected natures and independent existence, then the created world fully fits the entire definition of hypostasis developed by the fathers. V.V. Petrov, examining Maxim’s texts, comes to the conclusion that Maxim in “Difficulty 41” extends the concept of “hypostasis” to a wide class of compounds of natures: “Maximus’s predecessors mostly spoke about special cases of hypostatic unions: in relation to two natures in Christ or to the union of soul and body in man. In contrast to them, Maxim builds a whole sequence of hypostatic connections. The masculine and the feminine, the ecumene and paradise, heaven and earth, the sensual and the intelligible are united” 12. Indeed, the connections of divisions of the created world in Difficulty 41 have the properties of complex hypostases, namely, the connected parts remain unchanged, unfused and indivisible 13 . Maxim considers these connections as a whole, possessing a single logos. However, it seems to us that not all of the listed compounds satisfy the condition of independent existence of the hypostasis 14 and possess the logos of independent existence, which distinguishes hypostasis from nature: “Nature has a common logos of existence, and hypostasis also has the logos of independent existence (του καθ’έαυτό είναι)” 15. And if you look at the connections from “Difficulty 41”, then the condition of independence is satisfied only by the connection of the nature of the sensory and the nature of the intelligible into a single whole, forming an independent hypostasis of the created world. The independence of the hypostasis of the created world as a whole lies in the fact that it has the logos of independent individual existence and this logos manifests itself as the intelligible individuality of the created world. There is no other world in which this logos manifests itself. Maxim calls the logos of the created world the first and most complete. It is the most primal because it embraces all the logoi of beings 16, and the most integral - because it unites all that exists into an integral unity: “Next, He united the intelligible and the sensible, revealing in Himself completely indivisible and unshakable the convergence of all creation into unity, carried out in accordance with its first and most integral logos” (1309C). Above we quoted from “Mystagogy”, where Maxim also calls the logos of the created world “the logos of the unifying force”, connecting the intelligible and the sensible into a hypostatic unity. But the logos of sensory nature is common to many hypostases. Every sensible thing has a logos, which manifests itself in it as an intelligible essence. Therefore, every sensible thing has two essences (natures) - sensible and intelligible. Sensible nature does not have independent existence, because it cannot exist without its logos and, therefore, without an intelligible image of the logos. Therefore, heaven and earth are two natures that are part of sensible nature, which do not exist independently without the intelligible. Therefore, the union of the natures of heaven and earth does not have an independent existence, and this union cannot be considered as hypostatic, but as a union of parts of the common nature of the sensory, hypostasized in the hypostasis of the created world. Likewise, the union of heaven and the earth of habitation is a particular union of two natures in the general nature of the earth. The union of male and female cannot be spoken of at all as a union of two natures in the human hypostasis. Maxim in “Difficulty 41” does not speak about the combination of male and female natures, as S.V. noted. A month in the comments to his translation, but about getting rid of such originality that arose after the Fall. If we assume that the connections of heaven and earth, paradise and earth of habitation, have an independent hypostatic existence, then, following Maximus’s analogy about the intelligible and sensible of the created world as the soul and body of a person, we can imagine the body of a person whose hands and fingers have an independent existence. Thus, neither the sensible nature, nor the intelligible nature, nor the natures of heaven and earth exist independently as hypostases. What then exists for Maxim? Maxim gives a cardinal answer about the existence of everything general - the general does not have independent existence, but the general exists in the particular: “[we determine that God is a Provider] for the general and for the individual (των καθόλου καί των καθ’ έκαστον), knowing that when everything is private (των κατά μέρος), not being granted providence and preservations are destroyed, then the general will be destroyed along with them (for it is common for the general to be composed of particulars)... If the general has been realized (ύφέστηκεν) in the particular, completely not accepting the logos of independent existence and implementation (του καθ’ αύτά είναί τε καί ύφεστάναι), then it is clear to everyone that when the particular is destroyed, the general cannot resist” (1189CD). This position of Maximus about the existence of intelligible essences (general natures) in individual created hypostases is fundamentally different from the fundamental idea of ​​the Platonists about the real existence of only the intelligible world and the apparent existence of the created sensory world 17 . Therefore, it seems important to us for the practice of mental doing to clarify what exactly Maxim understands by mind, the intelligible world, sensory heaven, earth and paradise and how their interconnection is realized. The answer to this question is not obvious due to the fact that St. Gregory the Theologian uses the paired terms “intelligible and sensible”, “heaven and earth” as synonyms 18. Intelligible entities are called angelic and heavenly, and the sensible is also called earth. Considering that “Difficulty 41” is devoted to the interpretation of St. Gregory the Theologian, it becomes unclear why and how Maximus distinguishes between the intelligible and heaven, the sensible and the earth. Let us consider in more detail the meaning of these terms in the appendix to this “Difficulty”. The term “intelligible” (noumenon) was first introduced by Plato to divide everything that exists into two worlds - the invisible world, comprehended by the mind, and the visible world, comprehended by the senses 19 . At the same time, the intelligible world seemed to Plato and his followers to exist truly, unchangeably and eternally, and they viewed the visible world as constantly changing, perishable and not really existing, being an imitation, imprints, similarities of intelligible entities 20 . Intelligible entities were called prototypes, prototypes, ideas, eidos or form, which are essentially the same thing, but reflect different aspects of their manifestations in the sensory world. The concept of eidos differs from idea 21 in that eidos differentiates a thing among many things and defines it as belonging to a certain prototype. An idea, on the contrary, has an integral property and unites many things based on their common prototype. The differential or integral shade of perception of the prototype depends on the method of its contemplation. The concept of form is used mainly when considering the formation of sensory things, but it is also no different from eidos. The intelligible, eidos, ideas, forms and prototypes, thus, are essentially different descriptions of the same thing. The prototypes of Plato and the Neoplatonists do not depend on the method of intelligibility; they pre-exist eternally and unchangeably. And here a stumbling block arises - to what do the prototypes belong? Plato and his followers, including the later Neoplatonists in the person of Plotinus, believe that the basis of the economy is the triad of divine hypostases, the One-Mind-Soul, which differs from the Christian Trinity. The One is the highest divine hypostasis, which generates the second divine hypostasis, Mind, and which in turn generates the third divine hypostasis, Soul. At the same time, a single Mind contains many smart eidos as a whole. Eidos have divine status. The mind is the Creator-Creator (Demiurge) of the world Cosmos as a whole, and many smart eidos are the prototypes and creators of many sensory things, including human souls. The mind and smart eidos have the divine properties of eternity, immutability and true existence. The human mind belongs to the kingdom of Mind in the same way as the eidos, but due to the connection of the mind with the sensory part of the soul, not every person has the ability to comprehend the divine eidos. Plato's intelligible, having a divine status, is cognizable by those who clear their minds of attachment to the sensory and ascend to pure contemplation of the eidos. And before this, eidos are perceived by the human mind through their manifestations in sensory things in the form of reflections. This is how Plato and the Neoplatonists represented by Plotinus imagined the intelligible. However, in the teachings of the Areopagite and Maximus, in accordance with the Christian teaching about the one God the Creator, the status of the intelligible changes significantly 22. The Areopagite separates the concepts of prototype and intelligible and identifies prototypes with divine logoi: “We call prototypes the logoi of beings that pre-exist in God in unity, creating the essence, which theology calls predestination and divine and good wishes, dividing and creating existing things, in accordance with which the Superessential both predetermined and realized the omnipresent” 23 . The Areopagite, thus, deprives Plato's prototypes of the status of independent existence outside the first hypostasis of God and creative self-embodiment in the sensory world. And the Areopagite relates the concept of the intelligible to the created sphere of the intelligent world. If you look at the use of the term intelligible in the Areopagite corpus, you can find the following phrases: “intelligible names of God”, “intelligible and intelligible essences, powers and energies”, “intelligible ones are higher than intelligible ones, since they exist near God and are closest to Him”, “intelligible and intelligible essences of godlike angels”, “intelligible life”, “the powers of angelic minds are uniformly intelligible intelligible in the divine”, “the divine intelligible minds of the soul, having united and reduced their various ideas to a single mental purity, move towards a super-rational Unity”, “the higher I ascend in thought to the contemplation of the intelligible, the narrower the horizon of my (spiritual) vision becomes”, “God as the Cause of intelligible existence is not something intelligible”, “intelligible rational beings, including our souls”, “perceived by the sense of fragrance - imprints of the spread of the intelligible.” From the context of the above phrases it follows that the Areopagite includes angels and human minds (souls), their powers and energies, Divine names, what is contemplated by the mind, and what is intelligible in the divine to the intelligible world. That is, we can presumably say that the intelligible is associated with the knowledge of God. But the Areopagite emphasizes that God is a super-existent and above everything existing and intelligible. And the question arises - how is God known with the help of the mind and what is intelligible in the divine? To this the Areopagite replies: “In addition to what has been said, we should ask the question how we know God, who is not related to the mental, or the sensory, or to existence in general. Perhaps it would be correct to say that we know God not from His nature, for it is unknowable and transcends all meaning and intelligence, but from the structure of all things, for this is His work, preserving certain images and likenesses of His divine prototypes” 24 Here the Areopagite divides reality into three different spheres: 1) uncreated prototypes (logoi) unknowable by the mind, 2) created intelligible images of logoi, 3) created sensory things 25. At the same time, the Areopagite notes that God is knowable not from His essence, but through His prototypes (logoi), which appear in created things in the form of “certain images and similarities.” That is, logoi are knowable through their manifestations in the created world, but do not belong to the sphere of the intelligible. And the sphere of the intelligible includes the image-likeness of logoi stored in created things. Platonists can also distinguish three spheres of reality: 1) the superexistent unknowable One, 2) the uncreated world of Mind-eidos, cognizable by the pure mind, 3) created sensible things. The difference between the Platonists and the Areopagite lies in the second sphere of reality, namely, what belongs to the created and what to the uncreated 26 . Platonists relate the intelligible to the uncreated set of eidos, constituting the second divine hypostasis of the Mind. The Areopagite relates the intelligible to the created sphere of images of uncreated logoi, which arise in the mind of a person who sees created things. Images in the form of imprints are stored in created things, and logoi are contained in the second hypostasis, God the Logos, as a single indivisible whole, but manifesting itself in the created world in the form of many logoi. Maximus, like the Areopagite, classifies the images of logoi as intelligible: “The whole world is limited by its logoi, and the [beings] living in it are determined by place and time. [The world] possesses [these logoi] as images of speculation inherent in it by nature, which make possible partial comprehension of the Wisdom of God, [absiding] in all [creatures]” 27. Thus, Maximus and the Areopagite separate logoi and the intelligible, attributing the logoi to the Wisdom of God, and the mental images of the logoi to the intelligible. Maxim expresses this thought in Difficulty 41 with the thesis about dividing the created world into two parts - the intelligible and the sensible, that is, the intelligible refers to the created sphere. It should be noted that the concept of “intelligible” underwent a transformation already in Aristotle, who recognized the existence of eidos and ideas as common essences in many things, but did not recognize the divine primacy of their existence and saw them as existing only in sensory things. For Aristotle, in contrast to Plato, the entire sensory cosmos appears not to be created, but to exist eternally, and in this cosmos the intelligible is located in sensible things. Aristotle views all things as consisting of matter and form 28 . Moreover, the terms “intelligible”, “form”, “eidos”, “idea” are synonymous for him, but these concepts do not have the property of being a prototype of the creation of things, since the entire sensory Cosmos is uncreated. If we compare the intelligible world of Plato, Aristotle and the Areopagite, then what is common is only the name of intelligible entities as eidos, ideas or forms and the fact that they reflect something common in many ways. But the meaning of these terms is very different. The question arises: can the intelligible in “Difficulty 41” be called eidos (ideas)? The answer to this question depends on what is meant by eidos. If by eidos we mean Plato’s uncreated essences, then the answer is negative, since Maximus attributes the intelligible to the created sphere. But if by eidos (ideas) we understand the Aristotelian form as that which is knowable through the contemplation of sensory things, then the answer is positive. And we have examples of Maximus using the term “eidos”, for example, when he speaks of eidos as the essence of sensory things consisting of matter and eidos 29 . Or, for example, when Maxim says: ““Essence” means the species itself (εἶδος) and nature - what it is in itself” 30. Moreover, for Maxim: “Nature and essence are one and the same thing” 31. In such cases, the word “εἶδος” (eidos) is usually translated as “form” or “appearance,” which logically refers to the Aristotelian concept of eidos rather than the Platonic one. After all, for Maximus, as for Aristotle, the essence of a thing is a species or genus that does not exist independently, but only in individual things 32. And for Plato, the essence of a thing is its divine eidos. Thus, we can conclude that in Maximus the meaning of the Platonic term “prototype” was transformed into “logos”, the term “intelligible” acquired the meaning of the image or likeness of the logos in created things, and the terms “eidos”, “idea”, “form” acquired the meaning of the essence or, which is the same, the nature of created things. It should also be noted that Plotinus, along with the term “eidos” (idea), also uses the term “logos” (λόγος). Plotinus distinguished eidos and logos as cause and effect. Logos comes from eidos and is the semantic and organizing principle of a created thing, or, in other words, the logos of Plotinus has the Areopagite meaning of the “will” of eidos in the creation of sensory things 33 . Plotinus calls the reflection of eidos in matter eidol. That is, the sequence of creation of a sensory thing is as follows: eidos-logos-matter-eidol-thing. A thing is formed from eidol and matter in accordance with the logos of eidos. Eidol is something else in relation to eidos and something else in relation to a thing. Eidol is the image of eidos, reflected in matter before the formation of a thing. If the eidos is compared with a living object, then its eidol can be compared to the reflection of the object in the mirror of matter, forming an inanimate image of the eidos. And if this image is directed onto the surface of the water, then a distorted image is formed, which we see on the surface of sensory things. In the same way, with Maximus, the image of the divine logos is its created reflection in sensory things, but not an appearance, but an intelligible image, similar to the eidol of Plotinus. Therefore, the intelligible of Maximus coincides in meaning with the eidols of Plotinus. The conducted study of the transformation of the meanings of terms in Plotinus and Maximus allows us to make a cautious assumption about what the Plotinian triad of One-Mind-Soul corresponds to in the Christian terminology of Maximus. The first hypostasis of the One, according to the property of the unknowable origin, corresponds to God the Father. The second hypostasis of the Mind in Plotinus is called the Son, born of the Father, which corresponds to the concept of Logos. Moreover, the Mind, in which all eidos exist as a single whole, is, in full accordance with the words of Maxim, in the Logos, in which all the logoi of beings exist from eternity. Plato's concept of the divine eidos (idea) corresponds to the concept of the divine logos in Maximus. Eidos, like logoi, exist pre-eternally, immutably and are the “creators” of sensory things. Eidos, like logoi, are uncreated, but they are born from Mind. Plotinus' concepts of eidos and logos reflect two sides of the Christian understanding of logos. Eidos is the pre-eternal predestination of a created thing, and Plotinian logos is the will of the Creator to bring a created thing into existence. Moreover, the difference that Plotinus calls the eidos intelligible, and Maximus calls the logoi inaccessible to intelligibility, is only terminological. After all, Plotinus also says that eidos are partially comprehended by the mind, in the form of reflections in visible things, but they are the object of intelligibility and therefore are called intelligible. However, Plotinus’s Mind has a duality: on the one hand, He is consubstantial with the first hypostasis of the One and is indivisible, and on the other hand, He is multiple in the eidos, just as in the Christian Trinity the second hypostasis, the Logos is one and indivisible in the Trinity in essence, but when God the Logos appears in the created world, He is divided into many logoi existing, and His first the logos that embraces all the logoi of beings into a single whole is the logos that Maxim calls the logos of the unity of the created world. Similarly, Plotinus speaks of the appearance of the Mind into many eidos and calls the Mind embracing all the eidos into a single whole. Therefore, when Plotinus speaks of Mind as the second hypostasis of God, this corresponds to the second hypostasis of the Holy Trinity - God the Logos. And when Plotinus speaks of the created Cosmos or the contemplation of the Mind, then the Mind is the primary logos of the created world. Further, the third divine hypostasis, the Soul, according to Plotinus, belongs to the intelligible world of eidos and is generated by the Mind, like all eidos. The soul is an indivisible entity. But when the Soul emerges from itself into the corporeal world, it is divided into many souls in each body. The Eidos of the Soul embraces all the Eidos of visible things. Every visible (bodily) hypostasis contains within itself that common element that Plotinus calls soul, and Maxim calls sensual nature, or simply “sensual.” Therefore, the eidos of the Soul of Plotinus corresponds to the logos of sensual nature, and the world Soul of Plotinus corresponds to the concept of “sensual nature” in Maxim. As Plotinus says: “There is something about which Plato divinely and secretly narrates: “From the indivisible and always existing, the total that becomes divisible in the sphere of bodies is identical, from both he mixed the third eidos of essence.”” The One of the Soul is its first logos, “sensible,” and the many of the Soul are the many sensory essences in bodily things. And finally, the third hypostasis of the Christian Trinity, the Holy Spirit, can be compared in Plotinus with the second name of the first divine hypostasis of Good, which Plotinus understands as the energy of goodness emanating from the One into the entire created Cosmos, and in Christianity this is called the grace of the Holy Spirit. Plotinus emphasizes that the One and the Good are two names of the one God, and God-Mind is one-plural and one-essential with the Father and that all his eidos were originally in the One, which also corresponds to the Christian understanding of the unity of the three hypostases. Thus, we can say that there is a very similar interpretation of contemplative speculation in Plotinus and Maximus. The difference is seen not so much in the meanings as in the names. So, presumably we can say that the Christian names God the Father, God the Logos and the Holy Spirit in the teachings of Plotinus correspond to the names God the One, God the Mind and God the Good. At the same time, Plotinus refers the concept of “intelligible” that we are considering to the eidos of the Mind or, in the terminology of Maximus, to the logoi of the Logos. But Maximus by “intelligible” does not mean the logoi of the Logos, but their images in the minds of man and angels. Plotinus calls intelligible images (representations) of eidos “eidols,” but Maxim does not use this term. Therefore, in order to avoid terminological confusion, in this article we will not use the Platonic concepts of eidos, idea, form, eidol, but will limit ourselves to the term intelligible and clarify the composition of the intelligible world, as Maxim understands it, and also consider how the intelligibility of the intelligible occurs. In “Mystagogy,” Maximus gives a definition of the intelligible world: “The entire world of beings, which received its origin from God, is divided into the intelligible world, formed from intelligent and incorporeal entities, and into the local world, sensory and carnal, which is majestically woven from many species and natures 34.” Here the intelligible world is defined as formed from intelligent and incorporeal entities (ουσια). In Maximus's terms, the word "ουσια" (ousia) can mean either "being" (hypostasis) or "essence" (nature). But in this case we can only talk about natures, since otherwise the intelligible world would consist of intelligent and incorporeal hypostases, to which only angels correspond. But since the intelligible world is not limited to angels, it should be clarified what Maxim understands by intelligent essence and what by incorporeal essence, and what for Maxim there is essence. For Maxim, essence is a synonym for the nature of beings (hypostases). The essence and logos of existence are not the same thing, since logos refers to the uncreated divine sphere by Maxim, and essence to the created sphere. Essence does not belong to the divine sphere even in potential form, since the potential existence of things in God is their logoi 35 . Where do essences or, what is the same thing, natures exist? Maxim's answer: essence, being a general and generic concept in relation to individual hypostases, does not have a logos of independent existence and therefore it can exist only in hypostases 36. Intelligent essence is the nature of hypostases that have a mind and are therefore capable of comprehending intelligible essences. Intelligent hypostases include angels and humans. The disembodied (incorporeal) essence is something common in many forms that is comprehended only by the mind. These include the properties of angels and human minds, as well as the intelligible in the visible world, which, as we have defined, are images of the divine logoi. In these definitions of intelligible entities, it remains unclear what the images of the logoi of beings are. Images of logoi exist in hypostases objectively, that is, independently of the human mind. Objectivity is conditioned by logos. These images are a similarity of logoi, formed during the formation of things, but this similarity is different in essence from logoi, and is associated with created things. Also, images are different in relation to hypostases and what is perceived on the surface of hypostases as external forms of bodily things or as accidents of angels. The human mind perceives the images of logoi subjectively, depending on the ability of the mind, and gradually approaches the comprehension of pure images through contemplation. Therefore, intelligible images of logoi are those images in the mind that arise when comprehending logoi in the process of perceiving created hypostases. Logoi is one of the names of divine energy, and therefore logoi are cognizable, but not by every mind, but by that mind which, according to Difficulty 41, is purified by virtues. And as the mind is purified, it comprehends ever higher logoi, up to the highest and most primary logoi of the created world, which embraces all the logoi of beings. Maximus explains that the logoi of particular things are comprehended by the mind, and the logoi of general and universal natures are comprehended when the mind acquires equal angelic knowledge, the source of which is the Wisdom of the Lord: “The logoi of everything divided and partial, according to [the saints], are encompassed by the logoi of the whole 37 and the generic. And if the logoi of more integral genera are contained by wisdom, then the logoi of the particular, variously contained in the logoi of the genera, are embraced by understanding” (1313C). In practice, this means that, contemplating the visible world, we are able, with the help of reason, to divide what is visible into parts and determine the essence of the visible thing. But this speculation will be incomplete knowledge about the logos of a thing, but only some approximate image of the logos. And the more general things are studied, the more difficult it is to grasp the logos with some understanding. We can easily formulate an image of the logos for everyday objects, but it is difficult for us to understand the logos of the Sixth Day, for example, the logos of heaven and earth at the beginning of creation or the logos of light on the first day of creation. The comprehension of these logoi is beyond understanding, but they are comprehended when knowledge of the most general logoi is acquired through contemplation of the invisible angelic world. We will consider the practice of comprehending the most general logoi in more detail in section 6. And here we will consider the role of angels in comprehending logoi. The source of the mind’s knowledge of the divine, including logoi, is not the mind, but the Divine light. Divine light is one of the Names of God, which, according to the Areopagite, defines the divine energy of purification, enlightenment and perfection of angels and human souls. The ability to perceive Divine light depends on the purity of the mind. Angels have a pure mind, and a person achieves purity of mind through virtues and prayer. A pure mind, according to Maximus, is capable not only of contemplating the visible and the invisible, but also of comprehending the logoi of beings in a state of pure prayer, a sign of which is “...the admiration of the mind by the divine and boundless light in the very impulse of prayer, when it does not feel at all itself or anything that exists, but only One Who so illuminates it with His love. Then, moving around the logoi that relate to God, the mind perceives pure and obvious images of Him that relate to Him” 38. The perception of “pure and obvious images” of God is the comprehension of divine logoi. In the process of perceiving the Divine light, angels play the role of mediator between God and man, namely the role of mentor, educator and teacher of divine wisdom: “For those who are given the first to know God and supernaturally partake of divine virtue are the first to be, as far as possible, the owners of God-imitating strength and energy; and already, as much as they have the strength, they plausibly direct upward the beings that are below them, abundantly transmitting to them the light that has come to them, and those again to the smaller ones; and in each order, the first transmits to the next the divine light bestowed and reaching everyone in an appropriate manner thanks to Providence. So, the beginning of enlightenment for all those who are enlightened is God, who by nature, by truth, and who is actually the essence of light” 39. Elsewhere, the Areopagite directly says that angels enlighten man with the understanding of the logoi of existence: “Since they are incorporeal and immaterial, they are perceived by the mind, and since they are minds, they super-peacefully understand and appropriately enlighten the logoi of existence and then forward their own to the related ones” 40. The human mind, not purified by contemplative prayer, is unable to directly contemplate the logoi of beings, like the angels. And therefore, angels play the role of an intelligent intermediary who communicates the knowledge of existing logoi in the form of simplified images of logoi in the form in which a person is able to perceive it. And we can say that angels represent the intelligible radiance of logoi, dimly comprehended by the mind when contemplating the visible world of sensory things and clearly comprehended when contemplating the angelic world, “where everything is light, everywhere intelligibly shining, or mentally illuminated” 41 in the mind of the contemplator. Thus, the logoi of beings are both knowable and unknowable. The cognition of logoi depends on the purity of the mind and a person’s ability for angelic contemplation. Strictly speaking, according to Maximus, logoi are comprehended by man in a state of deification and unity with God the Logos not by the mind, but by the Holy Spirit. But the intelligibility of secondary images of logoi can also be called the intelligibility of logoi to the extent that this is accessible to a specific person. The images that appear in a person’s mind can have different sources of origin. They can originate in God through god-like powers and God-originating (that is, originating in God) energies of angels. But they can have their origin not in God, but in the free will of man or demons, and instead of enlightenment by the light of wisdom and virtue, they obscure the mind with ignorance of the Divine light. From here the meaning of Maximus’s following thesis about the instructive and purifying role of angels becomes clear: “The inner voice is like some kind of Angel, through conscience, scourging the sinning mind and condemning every thought that moves contrary to what is proper. Indeed, truly, the path of virtues is filled with many holy Angels, that is, logos and methods that produce every kind of virtue, as well as Angels who invisibly contribute to our good and arouse similar inner voices in us” 42. The contemplative ability of the human mind is thus in constant interaction with the Divine light, which, through the angels, enlightens, purifies and perfects man. As Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite says: “Beautiful phenomena are reflections of invisible splendor, and those perceived by the sense of fragrance are imprints of the spread of the intelligible, and material lights are images of immaterial light-giving, and detailed sacred teachings are a way of saturating the mind with contemplation characteristic of the mind” 43 . The beneficial effect of the intelligible light occurs when contemplating the things of the visible world, then when contemplating the invisible world, and this ends with the contemplation of the Light of the Holy Trinity. The knowledge of the intelligible, thus, is the knowledge of the Divine light, which carries within itself the knowledge of the logoi of beings. The intelligible world does not exist on its own, outside the minds of angels and humans. It exists in their minds in the form of images of the logoi of beings. Intelligible nature does not exist without sensory nature, but only in the hypostasis of the created world: “To those who have [spiritual] vision, the entire intelligible world appears mysteriously imprinted on the entire sensory world through symbolic images. And the entire sensory world, in spiritual speculation, appears to be contained in the entire intelligible world, being known [there] thanks to its logoi. For the sensible world exists in the intelligible through its logoi, and the intelligible in the sensible through its impressions” 44 . In this thesis, Maxim directly speaks about the source of his spiritual speculations - the ability to see the intelligible in unity with the sensory. Angels do not have a sensual nature. But the angelic nature is connected with the sensory world through the natural property of angels to illuminate the sensory world with the secondary radiance of Divine light. This light affects not only minds, but all things, for light is the single energy of the logoi of God, which is not divided by the names “Good”, “Light”, “Beauty”, “Love”, “Goodness”, but is the source of existence of all things. As the Areopagite says: “Mental Light is called the Good that surpasses all light, as it exudes, sows radiance and effervescent outpouring of light” and “everyone who has a sensual soul or life - and they are all animated and enlivened thanks to Good. From Good and plants, everyone has life associated with nutrition and movement. And everything that is soulless and lifeless is an essence thanks to the Good and thanks to Him has been awarded the property of being an essence” 45. So, we can come to the following understanding of the term “intelligible” in “Difficulty 41” and the composition of the intelligible world according to “Mystagogy” and the Heavenly Hierarchy: the intelligible is the incorporeal nature of all visible and invisible beings, reflecting their logoi in the form of mental images. The intelligible world consists of angels and human souls, as well as of the images of existent logoi formed in their minds, the source of which is the Divine light, perceived by the angels according to their hierarchy and redirected to man in the image in which the mind is capable of perceiving it. In “Questions and Answers,” Maxim defines the intelligible as incorporeal, and the sensible as corporeal: “Knowledge that comprehends corporeal and incorporeal [things], that is, corporeal natures [consisting of] matter and species, and intelligible beings [consisting] of essence and inessential properties” 46. Therefore, the terms “sensual” and “bodily” can be considered as synonyms for Maxim. However, the term “feeling” is used by some fathers to designate, among other things, the sensations of the mind when contemplating things invisible and comprehended by the mind alone. How is this term used by Maxim? Maxim separates mind and feeling and compares them with similar opposites of the created world - intelligible and sensory. At the same time, Maxim calls feeling the connection between the sensual and the sentient, and thinking the connection between the mind and the intelligible. Maxim connects the sentient and the sensual with the corresponding human sensory organs, leaving no possibility of implying by feeling something connected with the mind: “All sensuous and sentient, that is, related to sensory perception (αισθητικά), through the feeling standing between them, which is a common connection for the separated extremes (some as through it perceiving the sensory; others as through it falling into [perception] sentient) around the [corresponding] sense organ (αισθητήριον), in which the limit of the strength of each is set in relation to connection [with the other] and around which extremes tend to unite with each other through an intermediary connection” (1229A). Maxim divides the intelligible and the sensible not only by the nature of their attribute (correlating the intelligible with the mental ability of the soul, and the sensory with the ability of the human body), but also in their relation to eternity and time, which also does not leave the possibility (in Maxim’s terminology) to call the spiritual sensation of eternal intelligible entities, carried out outside of time, a feeling: “For if every nature of beings is divided into the intelligible and the sensible, and the intelligible is called and is eternal, as having received the beginning of being in eternity, and the sensible is temporal, as created in time; and the first is subject to understanding, and the second to feeling due to the inseparable power of the attribute associated with nature that firmly connects them to each other” (1153C). Of course, one can always call contemplative sensations of the mind a feeling due to the similarity of sensations, but then one has to additionally point out that this is not a bodily feeling, but a mental or mental one, as Maxim once does in the question of the ten foolish virgins: “A person has five mental senses, comprehending the mental, and five bodily, comprehending the sensory” 47. It can be assumed that in those cases when next to the words “sensual” or “feeling” there is not the word “smart” or another similar clarification, then by sensual in Maxim one should understand what is felt with the help of the bodily senses. In Difficulty 41, confusion arises due to the use of the terms “heaven” and “heavenly” in opposite meanings. On the one hand, Maxim speaks of the division of all nature into two opposite natures - the intelligible and the sensible, and further divides the sensible nature into heaven and earth (PG91, 1305A). And upon first reading these paragraphs, an idea arises that lies on the surface that by the sky as a part of sensual nature, Maxim understands the visible sky - the luminous blue firmament, the night stars 48. But in the same text, on the other hand, Maxim speaks of heaven as an intelligible world of angelic ranks: “having passed through all the divine and intelligible ranks located in heaven” (1309C). And he also speaks about heaven, directly quoting the Apostle Paul, who views heaven and earth as two parts of the entire created world, and not just the sensory: “[The Lord Jesus Christ] by Himself bringing things that are apart from each other into unity, ending the war going on in existence and uniting with bonds of love, peace and indivisible like-mindedness everything that is in heaven and on earth, according to the words of the divine Apostle” (1313B). From the above quotes, the question arises: why are the words “heaven”, “heaven” and “heavenly” used by Maximus in different meanings when describing the opposite natures - the intelligible and the sensory? This use of these terms could be explained if by sensual we understood not only what is felt by a person with the help of the five bodily senses, but also spiritual sensations when contemplating the angelic world. However, as discussed above, Maximus uses the terms “sense” or “sensory” exclusively in the sense of the five bodily senses. If, nevertheless, we assume that in “Difficulty 41” Maxim understands by “heaven” the place of residence of angelic entities that can be “felt” with the help of the mind, then this does not change the intelligible nature of angels, and, based on the immiscibility of the movements of the mind and feelings, heaven should be classified as intelligible, but Maxim classifies heaven as sensual. It follows from this that the sky, which is spoken of in Difficulty 41 as part of the sensory world, should be classified as visible things that are felt bodily, with the help of the organs of vision. What, then, is the difference between the sensible natures of heaven and earth? The term “heaven” is often used in conjunction with the term “earth,” for Scripture defines the sky as the firmament-boundary (Genesis 1:7–8) between that which is above or below, and also the sky refers to everything that is above the earth. In “Questions and Answers,” Maxim defines the concept of heaven as that which is above everything sensual, and refers to it God, the heavenly powers and the human mind, cleared of the sensual: ““Heaven” in the Holy Scriptures often refers to God Himself... But Scripture also designates the heavenly powers with the word “heaven”, according to the saying: Heaven is my throne (Is. 66:1), since [God] rests among the holy and incorporeal natures. And if someone calls “heaven” also the human mind, cleansed of all material dreams and adorned with the divine logoi of intelligible [things], then he, it seems to me, will not deviate from the truth. If someone designates [the word] “heaven” the height of intellectual knowledge in people, then he will again not sin against proper [understanding]" 49 . And in the “Difficulties to John” Maxim defines the concept of “heaven”, distinguishing between the sensory heaven and the heaven of the angelic ranks: “For if heaven by nature is the limit of what is contained within it, and the boundary for everything sensible, then it is clear that everyone who limits any virtue or knowledge of logoi, the end, as the limit of what is determined, and the boundary of what is limited, figuratively (τροπικώς) is called heaven. Or it is also possible that what Scripture calls the “third heaven” are the three orders of holy angels following us on the ascending ladder, which St. Paul probably reached” (PG91, 1240B). That is, the Apostle Paul and Maximus distinguish three limits and boundaries for the division of natures. The first heaven is the limit for everything sensible, beyond which there is an angelic world, which has a hierarchy of three angelic ranks, having the same nature, but differing in the measures of virtue and knowledge of logoi. The second limit is the boundary of the invisible world of angels. This limit of the intelligible angelic world, which, according to Scripture, is the throne of God (Is. 66:1), can be called the second heaven. This limit of angelic knowledge was probably overcome by the Apostle Paul. Beyond the limit of all created things, the knowledge of the uncreated around God opens, which has no limit, for it is the abode of unity with God, and which can be called the third heaven. Thus, the sky for Maxim is not only a designation of a natural species, but also the logos of theology: “If someone interprets “heaven” as the logos of theology, and “the abyss” as the sacrament of the Economy [of God], then, in my understanding, he will not be wrong” 50. So, Maximus calls the visible sky the sensory sky, that is, the sky that we see with our own eyes; but at the same time he distinguishes the invisible sky, which he attributes to the place of residence of the incorporeal angelic ranks. This idea of ​​the visible sky seems strange to modern man, for whom the sky is just a visible picture of stars and planets that do not differ in nature from earthly bodies. And therefore, the division of the nature of the sensory world into heaven and earth causes bewilderment. But for those who lived in Maximus's time, when there was no telescope yet, the idea of ​​the visible sky was different. At that time, a person, looking at the sky, saw only the light from the sun, moon, stars and sky, perceived sensually, and therefore these luminaries and the sky seemed to be sensory beings consisting of the same nature of light, which we now call electromagnetic waves. Maxim says that the stars are light: “[just as] the light of the stars is not [visible] during the day and the stars themselves are not visible when the sun appears in great and incomparable light, from which the fact that they are light is hidden, and that they exist at all becomes unknowable to the senses” (1076C). Even more specific statements about the nature of the stars can be found in the Areopagite and the scholia to him: “He calls the sky and what is in the sky, such as stars, beings that are above us, for their subtlety and oneness is in some way close to immateriality” 51. As we see, in the time of Maximus, stars were considered as luminous entities, the subtlest nature of which is close to immateriality and which are located in the visible sky. This idea of ​​the stars was natural science for that time, consistent with the Biblical Sixth Day: “And God said: let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens.” That is why Maximus speaks in Difficulty 41 about the division of everything sensible into two distinct natures, heaven and earth, of which heaven consists of the finest visible matter of light, and earth of dense matter. It is this sensory sky, consisting of subtle matter, that Maxim calls the limit, beyond which lies the immaterial and invisible angelic world, called the intelligible. The division of the hypostasis of all things into the intelligible and the sensible, and the sensible not heaven and earth, according to “Difficulty 41”, can be represented schematically, like a wheel within a wheel (Ezek. 1:16). Fig.1. Schematic representation of the created world according to Difficulty 41. The dashed lines show the limits of the sensory and intelligible worlds. These limits are called heaven and second heaven respectively. The third heaven, which contains the uncreated around God, has no boundaries. Within the sensory sky are the sun, moon, stars and earth. Another difficulty in Difficulty 41 can be caused by the division of the earth into heaven and the earth of habitation. However, this difficulty is explained by Maximus in “Puzzling Questions”: “I believe that heaven means the heart of man, planted in the east of the knowledge of God. In the midst of this [heart] God planted the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:9). The tree of life is understood as the logos of the intelligible, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - as the logos of the sensible 52.” Paradise is a heartfelt place in the spiritual “earth” of Adam, where he could pray and grow in the knowledge of the logoi of beings. In the mystical language of Maximus, heaven means a state of the soul that is not attached to anything sensible, but uses sensible things as symbols for the knowledge of God: ““Earth” is the heart of Adam, which accepted as a crime [the commandments] a “curse” - deprivation of heavenly blessings... So, the eaten “earth” in a good sense is the purification of the heart through [spiritual] work, the “grass” is the knowledge of created [beings, achieved] in natural contemplation, and the “bread” is the true secret knowledge of theology” 53. From this division of the Earth into two parts, of which paradise is not a place to live on earth, but the spiritual state of a person’s heart, changing the tropos of his existence on earth, the spiritual meaning of all the divisions of “Difficulty 41” becomes clear. After all, the created world for Maxim, as we examined in the first section of this article, appears to be a single hypostasis, in which opposite natures are not separated, but are united in an unmerged way in hypostatic identity. But the division of the unified nature of the created world into parts depends on how a person perceives their natural differences. That is, separation is a consequence of the tropos of human existence after the Fall. In paradise, Adam's heart was filled with the grace of the Spirit, and therefore man did not distinguish between male and female, although Adam and Eve had the characteristics of a man and a woman. By the grace of the Spirit, the human mind could embrace the entire sensory world and reach the limits of the sensory world, called heaven in Scripture, and ascend to the angelic knowledge of the intelligible world. Therefore, heaven still exists today for everyone who purifies their heart through spiritual work. And despite the fact that the first division separates created beings from God by a terrible and great abyss 54, the union of paradise with the earth of habitation through spiritual work makes it possible for a person to overcome the abyss and unite with God. We offer readers the second part of a previously published study of the treatise of St. Maximus the Confessor. The author continues the analysis of the contemplative practice of smart doing, in which the meaning of the five divisions and the ways for a person to overcome them are comprehended. Thanks to this overcoming, according to St. Maximus, the mystical ascent of the mind to unity with God is realized. 6. Practice overcoming divisions In this section, an attempt is made to correlate Maxim’s teaching on overcoming divisions with the stages and degrees of development of prayer in the practice of mental doing. It seems to us that it was this practice that became the source of Maximus’ knowledge, which is set out in “Difficulty 41.” Although we do not have historical documents confirming this assumption about Maxim, such a correlation suggests itself if we believe in a single source of Orthodox Tradition. And this allows us, not scientifically, but theologically, to try to correlate one with the other. In Difficulty 41, Maximus speaks of man as possessing within himself all the parts of the natures of the created world, and that man’s destiny is to unite within himself the separated parts into a single whole and to unite with God. In this case, the connection must be carried out by successively bringing the edges (of opposite natures) into a single whole and moving upward to God through the middles (of opposites): “For this purpose, man is introduced into the number of beings last, like some kind of natural bundle, mediating with his parts the edges of the whole world and bringing together in himself that which by nature is distant from each other at a great distance, so that, starting first of all with his own division, he can begin to collect all that exists. to God as the Cause, the union and then, continuously and consistently moving forward through the middles, to find in God, in Whom there is no longer division, the limit of his sublime ascent that unites the omnipresent” (1305 BC). To understand this thesis of Maxim, you need to answer several questions: 1. How can one practically achieve the ascent to God? 2. What does it mean to bring together opposing natures? 4. What does it mean to move forward (upward) towards God? In order not to tire those looking for an answer, we will first give brief answers to the questions posed, and then proceed to explanations. 1. Ascension to God is carried out through the active and contemplative sides of human life. The active side is the acquisition of virtues. The contemplative side is the acquisition of knowledge of the logoi of existence through mental doing (hesychia). 2. Bringing together opposite natures in the active side of life means observing a righteous lifestyle, in which a person ceases to be dependent on opposites, they cease to be noticed and influence the will of a person, uniting into the identity of the whole. And in the contemplative side of life, this means acquiring the ability for pure silent prayer, in which the mind comprehends logoi that unite opposing natures into a single whole. Maxim calls the distinction of combining opposites into one the contemplative tropos of confusion. 3. In the active side of life, the middle is virtue, and in the contemplative side of life, the middle is the knowledge of logoi, connecting opposites into one. 4. Moving upward in the active side means acquiring a higher virtue, starting with the acquisition of moral virtues, then the virtues of knowledge of natural laws, and then moving on to the higher virtue of contemplation in the Spirit. Advancement upward in contemplation means a transition, with the assistance of grace, to the contemplation of the logoi of more general natures, starting from the logos of the one earth and ending with the logos of the hypostasis of the created world, after which the one praying can be lifted up by grace to unity with God. Maximus calls the distinction between the ascension or decrease in the level of contemplation of logoi the contemplative tropos of position. Let us recall what Maxim says about overcoming the divisions of the hypostasis of the created world in order from bottom to top from the lowest state of fallen man to the highest state of deification. The fifth division of man himself into male and female uniqueness is overcome “thanks to the most dispassionate disposition in divine virtue through perfect unity with his own, as I said, logos” (1305C). The fourth division of the nature of the earth into paradise and inhabited earth is overcome when “through his holy life, man would make the inhabited earth and paradise one earth. It would not be divided for him according to the differences of its parts, but rather would be brought together, since he would not experience any dependence on any of its parts” (1305D). For a pair of heaven and earth, the logos of unity is the logos of a single earth - “the earth is one and indivisible in itself, for it preserves the logos according to which it exists free from division into different [places]” (1309B). The third division of sensible nature into heaven and earth is overcome when a person makes “his life in everything identical with the angels in virtue (as far as this is accessible to people)” (1308A). For the pair of heaven and earth, the logos of unity is the logos of the sensual - “revealed all sensually perceived nature as one in accordance with its more integral logos, destroying in itself the originality of the division that dissects it” (1309C). The second division of the hypostasis of the created world into two universal natures, intelligible and sensory, is overcome “thanks to the equality of angels in knowledge, man would make the whole creation unified, which would not be divided for him into the known and the unknown, since his knowing knowledge of the logoi of existence would be completely equal to that of the angels” (1308A). For the pair, the intelligible and sensual logos of unity is the logos of the single created world - “united the intelligible and sensual, revealing in itself completely indivisible and unshakable the descent of all creation into unity, carried out in accordance with its highest and most integral logos” (1309C). Maxim speaks of the logos of the created world in Mystagogy as the logos of a unifying force, uniting the intelligible and the sensible into a single hypostasis according to the law of the Creator - “Each of these worlds, fused in unity, does not reject or deny the other, according to the law [of the Creator] that united them. And, in accordance with this law, they contain the logos of the unifying power of the hypostasis in [this] unity” 55. The first division between created and uncreated is overcome supernaturally by grace and does not have a single logos - “having united created nature with uncreated nature by love (oh the miracle of Divine love for us!), man would reveal them as one and identical in the property of grace” (1308B). In Mystagogy V, Maximus calls this union a union with “the one and only Logos and God, in whom, as the Creator and Creator of beings, in accordance with a single and inconceivable simplicity, all the logoi of beings uniformly exist and abide.” To make Maximus’s idea of the stages of ascent to God clearer, let us imagine the divisions in the form of stages of knowledge of logoi connecting the separated parts of natures: Fig. 2. The ladder of ascent along the steps of knowledge of the logoi of universal natures, connecting opposite natures into generic unity. The Logos of the created unites all that exists into a single hypostasis of the created world. The union of created and uncreated things does not have the logos of natural unity, but is accomplished supernaturally by the grace of union with the Logos-God. To further consider the ladder of ascent to God, it is necessary to clarify what Maxim understands by the terms “logos”, “mind” and “reason”, “contemplation”, “knowledge”, “thinking”, “wisdom”. Logos - this term is polysemantic in Maximus, but in the context of “Difficulty 41” we will limit ourselves to the meaning that the Areopagite defined and which we have already quoted in the second section on the intelligible: “The logoi of beings, which theology calls predestination and divine and good wishes, dividing and creating existing things, in accordance with which the Superessential all things existing and predestined and carried out" 56. Mind and reason are not two different organs of the soul, but two abilities of the human mind. The intelligent ability of the mind is manifested in contemplation and comprehension of the logoi of things in the visible and invisible worlds. And rational ability is manifested in the leading role of the mind in the accomplishment of virtues: “... rational strength includes active and contemplative abilities; the contemplative is called mind, and the active is called reason. The mind is the driving principle of the rational force, and the mind is the providential principle of the vital force. The first (I mean the mind) is and is called wisdom, when it fully observes its immutable aspirations for God” 57. Contemplation is a manifestation of the mind’s ability to contemplate the invisible logoi of beings, just as vision is a manifestation of the visual ability of the eye to see the external forms of things. In contemplation, the mind “sees” the intelligible essences of things. Not every mind is capable of contemplation, but only a pure mind: “A pure mind is one that has emerged from ignorance and is enlightened by the Divine light... A pure mind abides either in simple thoughts about human things, or in natural contemplation of the visible, or in the contemplation of the invisible, or in the light of the Holy Trinity” 58. Knowledge is the process of contemplating the logoi of beings, which are stored in memory in the form of intelligible images, similar to the process of seeing with the eye. Also, knowledge means the result of the process of knowledge in the form of experiential knowledge. Ignorance is the absence of the ability to contemplate the invisible. Thinking can be multiple and single. Multiple thinking is characteristic of the mind and includes rational thinking, understanding and reasoning, occurring over time in the form of verbal thoughts. Uniform thinking is characteristic of the contemplating mind and consists in the simple perception of simple essences, which are logoi. Uniform thinking immediately perceives the object of contemplation as a whole and immediately distinguishes logos in the fullness of meanings without dividing them into parts. Uniform thinking is achieved “through the rejection of symbolic contemplation by the mind of beings and the transition to a uniform and simple occult wisdom of theological wisdom” (1360C). Wisdom is the ability of the mind to uniformly contemplate the highest logoi, as well as knowledge of the most general logoi of existence, including the highest logos of the created world: “... the mind is and is called wisdom when it fully observes its immutable aspirations for God; the mind, set in motion by wisdom, comes to contemplation; through contemplation - to knowledge, the power of the mind is wisdom, and the mind itself is wisdom in possibility" 59 ​​. Love of wisdom - “love of wisdom as connecting character and will (γνώμης), action and contemplation, virtue and knowledge, and understood in relation to wisdom as a cause” (1136D). Maximus distinguishes between “active, natural and theological wisdom, or, which is the same thing, love of God” (PG91, 1296B). The term “philosophy” in the original means the same as “philosophy,” but since the term “philosophy” is not currently associated with the love of God, translators usually use the term “philosophy,” which is closer to “love of God.” Maxim also calls active philosophy moral, since its goal is the acquisition of moral virtues. Natural wisdom is the comprehension of the visible world and its laws with the goal of comprehending God as the Cause of all things. Theological wisdom is the mystical contemplation of divine logoi and the experience of deification: “To make the mind clean from all passionate dreams is the work of active philosophy; and natural contemplation - to reveal it to those skilled in the true knowledge of the reason why beings exist; and theological mystagogy - to make him by grace like God” and, as far as possible, equal in property and not thinking of anything more from what is after God, according to [his] superiority [over them] (1241C). Now let's move on to a more detailed presentation of the answers to the questions posed at the beginning of the section. We noted two sides of human life - active and contemplative, “for without virtue and knowledge it has never been possible for anyone to achieve salvation” (1065D). The active side of life is controlled by the mind, and the contemplative side by the mind. And since mind and reason are two abilities of a single mind, then the two sides of salvation are not realized separately from one another: “The mind, which, as we said, is also called wisdom, developing through skill in the contemplation of ineffable silence and in knowledge, is brought to the truth with the help of unforgettable and infinite knowledge. And reason, which we called prudence, through practical skill in virtue, [carried out] in a bodily manner, finds its completion through faith in goodness. And it is from these two [beginnings] that the true science of divine and human affairs is formed, truly infallible knowledge - the highest point of all divine Christian wisdom" 60. Let us pay attention to Maxim’s thesis about the need to develop the skill of contemplating ineffable silence. Here he indicates the method of acquiring contemplative skill and comprehending the truth - ineffable silence. This is an indication of the clever work of the hesychasts. There are other opinions about the methods of contemplative ascent of the mind to the truth, which are supposedly possible without the practice of silent prayer, or, which is the same thing, hesychia. In the next section, “On Dialectics,” we will look at these methods. And here we will focus on the method, which for Maxim is true science. We will not describe the characteristics and practice of the hesychasts, but we will only note that mental activity is available not only to hermit monks, but to every person striving for the knowledge of God, and we will consider those mystical features of mental activity that appear in the texts of Maximus and which indicate that the source of Maximus’ theological wisdom was the mystical experience of contemplation. Mental doing has three main stages: 1) mental prayer, 2) heartfelt prayer and 3) pure silent prayer, which is also called contemplative. And if the first two stages help the person praying in purifying the mind and heart and acquiring moral virtues, then in pure prayer the mind ascends by the grace of the Holy Spirit to the contemplation of divine logoi. It is no coincidence that Maxim begins the “centurion on love” with words about the importance of pure prayer for the knowledge of God: “Love is a good disposition of the soul, according to which it does not prefer anything that exists to the knowledge of God... All virtues promote the mind in loving God, but prayer is purer than all.” Maxim distinguishes two states of pure prayer, the first of which is characteristic of ascetics of an active lifestyle, and the second of a contemplative life. Moreover, in the first state, the mind remains in the presence of God, but does not ascend to the contemplation of logoi: “Two are the highest states of pure prayer. One thing happens to people of an active life, another to people of a contemplative life. One thing happens in the soul from the fear of God and good hope; the other is from Divine love and extreme purity. The sign of the first measure is when the mind is collected from all worldly thoughts, praying without distraction or confusion, and as if God Himself were standing before him, as indeed he will be” 61 . And in the second state, the mind admires the grace to the pinnacle of mental activity - the silent, unified contemplation of logoi: “... the admiration of the mind with the divine and boundless light in the very impulse of prayer, when it does not feel at all either itself or anything that exists, but only One Who so illuminates it with His love. Then, moving around the logoi that relate to God, the mind perceives pure and obvious images of Him that relate to Him” 62. Without intelligent work, the ascetic can diminish passions and comprehend, with the help of rational thinking, the logoi of individual things of the visible world, but cannot come to the knowledge of paradise and the angelic knowledge of the logoi of existence, as described by Maximus in “Difficulty 41.” By this we do not diminish the importance of reasonable good deeds, but elevate the importance of prayerful contemplation. Without the first, it is impossible to move on to the second. When the ascetic diminishes passions and moves from moral wisdom to the practice of intelligent doing, then a change occurs in his interaction with God. Smart doing from the very beginning is carried out not only by the will of man, but also by the gift of the calling grace of the Holy Spirit. Grace teaches and instructs everyone who prays, even when there is no experienced mentor nearby, but there is humility and desire for God. Mental doing begins with the oral Jesus Prayer, performed with the lips, and gradually turns into the skill of attentive prayer, first performed with the mind in the head, and then in the larynx. Prayer purifies the mind and heart of the one praying, and one day there comes a moment of radical change in prayer, when the knowledge of heaven is revealed to a person. This happens when the spiritual heart of the person praying is opened by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the mind is removed from the larynx and united with the heart. At this grace-filled moment, the heart becomes an abode for Jesus Christ and is filled with the grace of Christ’s Love for every person, who loves everyone equally. The one who prays feels heavenly bliss, as Maxim says: “Blessed is the man who can love everyone equally” 63 . And what is asked in the Jesus Prayer is fulfilled, as promised by Christ: “If you ask anything in My name, I will do it, and We will come to him and make our abode with him” (John 14:14–23). With this significant restoration of the presence of the Holy Spirit and the Love of Christ in the heart and the acquisition within oneself of the logos of heavenly existence, true spiritual life begins and the transition to the contemplative lifestyle of natural philosophy. Great and wonderful, as the fathers say, is the knowledge of heaven in the heart. Prayer is done spontaneously by the grace of the Holy Spirit; joy and delight are combined with the crying of the heart, which pours out delightful streams of tears along with prayer. This state is given for a while, and the grace-filled sensations in the heart gradually diminish, the self-propulsion of prayer disappears, and the person praying returns to laborious prayer, but the quiet and barely noticeable presence of the Spirit in the heart remains and prayer is done in the unity of the mind and the Spirit, as the Apostle Paul says: “I will pray with the spirit, I will pray with the mind also” (1 Cor. 14:15). Gradually, the love of prayer and patient stay in silence are rewarded by a transition to a state that Maxim describes as being raptured into heaven. If previously the person praying could distinguish the spatial positions of his body and could hear prayer at a local point of the spiritual heart, then with admiration for heaven, the person praying passes into a state in which the body and heart cease to differ, as if uniting into something single and expanding to infinity. In this case, orientation in space is lost, and prayer happens everywhere. The mind gains freedom from thoughts and feelings and the ease of wordless movements, but there is still a feeling of the movement of prayer in time and a general feeling of bodily weightlessness. This contemplative state of the praying person can be correlated with the knowledge of the logos of a single earth, when the bodily earth and the earth of the spiritual heart are united in identity. With the acquisition of the logos of a single earth within himself, the person praying simultaneously ascends to heaven to a uniform perception of the intelligible world. Following this, an even higher state of unity of heaven and earth is given in a single sensory logos. The mind moves to the tropos of contemplation, in which it completely renounces images and thoughts about sensory things, and the prayer book is given the grace of insensibility of everything sensory, including time, space, one’s own body and physiological processes in it. All the bodily senses of the prayer book seem to cease to exist. Everything sensual is united into one. In this simple perception of the sensory, the mind, as if forgetting about everything sensory, ascends to the angelic contemplation of the intelligible. Finding in oneself the logos of the universal nature of the sensory means that nothing of the sensory, previously distinguished in the multitude of sensory things with the help of bodily organs, is now distinguished and is perceived as a simple unit. It is impossible to see the logos of the sensory with the mind, but one can perceive its energies. Becoming simple, infinite and free from the perception of multiple and limited by space and time sensible things, the mind becomes capable of perceiving the simple and infinite energies of the Logos. This state is the acquisition of the logos of sensory nature within oneself, and mental perception in this state is the contemplation of the logos of a single sensory world. Maxim describes this mystical state in the chapters on love as the first state of pure prayer, and in “Difficulty 41” as an ascension to heaven: “Then, having made his life in every way identical to the angels in virtue (as far as is accessible to people) and thereby connecting earth with heaven, man would make the entire sensual creation united and completely indivisible in himself, which would have absolutely no spatial division for him into distances, since man would become spiritual light and would not be drawn to the earth by any bodily weight and would not be restrained from ascending to heaven due to the complete blindness to the local things of his mind, devotedly directed towards God and wisely carrying out, as if following a common path, an ascent that began with an appeal to God and naturally progresses step by step” (1308A). Maxim also speaks about bodily lightness and ascent to heaven during pure prayer in the speculative “Chapters on the Theology and Economy of the Son of God”: “He who has passed from an active state to a speculative state is absent from the body. Enraptured, as if by clouds, to the heights of speculation, [he finds himself] in the clear air of mysterious contemplation, in which he can always be with the Lord.” The one who is unable to contemplate [divine] speculations with a pure mind, without their influence on the feeling (as far as possible [for a person]), and who is not able to contain a simple word about the Lord, without allegories, moves away from the Lord. Here the words “to contain a simple word about the Lord, without allegories” mean the ability to uniformly contemplate divine logoi, which are simple and perceived without rational thinking. This ability appears when the bodily senses fall silent and the mind ascends to contemplation in the tropos of the angelic mind. From a theological point of view, Maximus explains this transformation of the person praying in terms of cataphatic and apophatic knowledge: “For every nature of verbal [creatures], in accordance with its rank and power, learns and imitates the Gnostic properties and cataphatic positions of a superior essence and rank through apophatic withdrawals of what is peculiar to it, so that cataphatic knowledge of the superior is the negation of what is left below [apophatic] the negation of the sensory is the mental 65 "(1240D). With the negation of the sensory, the prayer moves on to the contemplation of the intelligible world. In this state, the energies of the various logoi of existence are comprehended, and the mind passes into the corresponding troposes of contemplation. At the same time, it is not the logoi of private things of the created world that are distinguished, but the logoi of providence and judgment in relation to the person of the person praying and his fellows, as well as the logoi of confusion and position, teaching and guiding the person praying on the path of truth. In Difficulty 10, Maximus describes “five troposes [ways] of contemplation, by which, dividing the creation, the saints piously collected its mysterious logoi, dividing it into essence, movement, difference, confusion and position” (1123B), of which the troposes of confusion and position correspond to the knowledge of the logoi of universal natures discussed above. In the tropos of confusion (or otherwise Maximus calls it composition, or synthesis, (1136B) the contemplation of the logoi of opposite natures is united unmerged in the logos of unity. And at the same time, the contemplator is aware of the action of the Holy Spirit, rapturing him to a higher position in relation to the communion of grace. Mixture and position change the mystical state of the contemplator and are perceived by him as a gift of grace in response to his will to knowledge of God. The diminishment of grace leads to the loss of the grace-filled states of pure prayer and is perceived as a punishing or testing action of the Spirit and encourages the prayer to humility and repentance. Therefore, Maximus calls the troposes of confusion and position in Difficulty 10 “pedagogical, leading to virtue and affinity with God.” Maxim calls the tropos of mixing a symbol of our will, because the grace of mixing symbolizes the truth of the humble aspirations of the one praying to know God, and Maxim calls the position a teacher of unshakable character, because through the increase and decrease of grace the person praying learns the correct way of life and prayer. Let us consider in more detail the contemplative tropos of position. This tropos is directly related to the contemplation of the logoi of unity. The higher the degree of community of logos, the higher the position of man and his tropos of existence becomes more and more simple and consistent with God’s plan for man. Man gradually ascends the ladder of natural tropos to the highest simplicity of mind (see Fig. 2). Thus, the restoration in oneself of the logos of a single person elevates him above the bestial way of life and makes him capable of spiritual life and prayer. With the knowledge of paradise, the two parts of the earth are united into a single knowledge, and man, finding in himself the logos of the single earth, ascends in his position to a step higher, where the single earth becomes part of sensual nature. With the ascension to heaven 66, everything sensible is united into a single knowledge of the sensory logos, and man ascends in his position to another step higher, where the united sensory becomes the opposite of the multiple intelligible world. With the knowledge of the intelligible world as a whole and simple, man ascends to the last stage of natural contemplation and finds in himself the logos of the single created world. In this highest contemplative state of pure prayer and knowledge of the logoi of existence, man stands before God in a single simplicity of mind, like the highest ranks of angels. From this position man can be raised by grace to a supernatural state of union with the Logos. A person’s ascent up the ladder of knowledge occurs at the will of a person with the assistance of grace. Moreover, the term “position” reflects the degree of participation of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Position also matters the direction of movement in relation to God, that is, a person’s movement towards grace or destruction. The highest position of man is the position of Son, which no longer depends on the will of man, but is an ascension to theological wisdom by the gift of grace: “Names, in their scope, are some related to essence, others to relation, others to grace or destruction. to grace - when the Scripture calls a person who has become obedient to God in everything God, according to what is said: “Az rekh bozi este,” although he neither by nature nor in relation has [the basis] to be or be called God, but by grace and position he becomes and is called [as such], for the grace of [son] position is not connected with anything and does not have any perceiving power for itself in nature, because then it would no longer be grace, but a manifestation of the action of [this] natural force” (1237AB). Now let's take a closer look at the contemplative tropos of confusion. If the tropos of position differentiates the state of mind and determines the position of the praying person in relation to grace, then the tropos of confusion, on the contrary, integrates the contemplative movements of the mind and connects the perception of the plural and the opposite into a simple uniform perception of the logos, which connects everything into the indivisible identity of the unit. The paths of confusion and position are a manifestation of the unifying power of logos, mixing the perception of many things of one nature and the duality of things of opposite natures into a single perception through the transition to contemplation at a higher level, where a different distinction is made according to other signs. The higher the level of mixing of beings, the simpler the perception. If, when the perception of earthly things is mixed, the distinction of bodily signs is lost, then during the transition from the perception of everything sensory to the perception of the multiplicity of the intelligible world, the perception of sensory and spiritual sensations is lost and the mind remains in a state of only intelligibility and distinction of logoi 67 . When all the diversity of the intelligible mixture in the tropos is combined into a single perception, then the intelligible and sensory are mixed into a single and simple perception of the energies of the created logos, connecting the intelligible and sensory into a single hypostasis of all things. Therefore, we can say that the contemplative tropos of the confusion of beings means their simple uniform contemplation. The connection between simple perception and the contemplative tropos of the position is that “cataphatic knowledge of what is superior is the negation of what is left below,” that is, the negation of perception means the simple perception of the parts as one, and the transition to distinguishing what is higher. The position “above” or “below” is determined by the level of contemplative awareness on the ladder of ascent along the steps of the logoi of connection, as presented above in Figure 2. It is necessary to clarify what the loss of distinction means in the tropos of confusion. In mixing the multiplicity of things into a single perception and in uniting the opposite parts of nature into identity, the mind does not lose the power of distinguishing the parts, but perceives them as a simple one at a higher level of contemplation. Just as with the unification of the divine and human natures in Christ, “the tropos of unity leaves the logos of difference intact” (1056CD), so also in the tropos of confusion the logos of man does not change and the ability to differentiate is not lost, but the influence of differences on his perception is lost. Thus, with the acquisition of the human logos within oneself, the dependence on the differences between people by gender is lost. At the same time, marriage relationships can remain, but they are filled with spiritual content and a joint aspiration towards God, like the patriarch Abraham, who, according to Maximus, overcame everything that rejects the mind from the contemplation of the divine (1148A). With the acquisition of the logos of the earth, the distinction between divisions based on life on the earth of habitation and in the paradise of the heart is lost. At the same time, concern for life support is not excluded, but it ceases to be the main one, as in the Gospel parable of Martha and Mary. With the acquisition of the sensory logos, the distinction between dividing sensory things according to spatial characteristics into bodily things and luminaries in the visible sky is lost. In this case, the person remains to live physically on earth, but during prayer his mind becomes light-like and ascends to the subtle perception of the intelligible world. With the acquisition of the logos of the created world, the distinction between the visible bodily world and the invisible angelic world on the basis of knowledge and ignorance is lost. In this case, a person does not become an angel, but during prayer by the Holy Spirit, the angelic knowledge of universal logoi is revealed to him. Now let us consider in more detail the mind's ability to single-minded contemplation. The nature of the human mind is one with the nature of the angelic mind. And the mind can exist both in the tropos (way) of earthly existence and in the tropos of angelic existence. In the angelic tropos, the movements of the mind are carried out uniformly in eternity and infinity. And in the earthly tropos the mind moves through time and in a limited space. Smart doing allows the mind to leave the earthly tropos and ascend, with the assistance of the Spirit, to the tropos of angelic thinking. In practice, this is done during prayer by removing the mind from verbal thoughts and focusing on the meaning of the words of the Jesus Prayer. The meanings of the words of the Jesus Prayer are ugly, wordless, divine, unchangeable, eternal and are the logoi of Divine light. By penetrating into meanings, the mind leaves the movements in time and ascends to the movements in the tropos of eternity, that is, to the contemplation of invisible things comprehended by the mind. In the tropos of angelic contemplation, reason and its power of prudence do not disappear, but acquire movements characteristic of the immutability and simplicity of the divine logoi. Prudence is manifested in the discernment of ever-moving immutability, and reason - in the virtuous activity of the mind in striving to comprehend the things contemplated. At the same time, Maxim distinguishes between two types of thinking - single and multiple: “Thinking is formed by conceivable [things]; be it one or multiple, it is formed in the image of each of the conceivable ones” 68. The difference between a single (simple) perception and multiple perception is that the distinction between parts disappears and everything is perceived as one. For example, time and bodily sensation are inherent in everything sensible, and one of the first signs of the transition to simple perception is the disappearance of all sensory sensations of the five bodily senses, including one’s own body and its orientation in space, as well as physiological processes such as breathing, heartbeat, fatigue, and the heaviness of standing. It is important to note that the transition to simple contemplation is not carried out by volitional movements of the mind, such as a generalizing superficial look at visible things, but is acquired as a grace-filled “transcendence of the mind in the Spirit” (1237D), changing the tropos of its movements in accordance with the contemplated logos. Thinking is the connecting movement or energy of the mind between the contemplator and the contemplated object. And if the object of contemplation exists in time, then the mind thinks about it and reasons in time. If the object of contemplation exists in the tropos of eternity, then the mind thinks and reasons about it uniformly outside of time. And as long as the mind exists, it will think and reason either uniformly outside of time, or multiple times in time. And only when the mind is raised to unity with the One who is above the mind, the mind ceases to think and remains in a state of supernatural contemplation, in which there is no distinction between the duality of subject and object of contemplation and there is no plurality - the mind becomes a single light, like the Light of the Holy Trinity. Maxim describes it this way: “All thinking reflects multiplicity, or at least duality. For it is a mediating connection of certain extremes connected to each other, that is, it is a connection between the thinker and the thinkable. Neither of these extremes is capable of remaining completely simple. After all, the thinker is a certain subject who contains within himself the ability to think, which is inseparable from him. And the thinkable is either the substratum or that which is in the subject; inseparable from it is the ability to be comprehended by thought or the underlying essence to which this ability relates. For no being is in itself a simple essence or a simple thought so as to be an indivisible unit. And therefore, the one who participates to some extent in thinking does not yet go beyond duality; the one who completely abandons this thinking finds himself in a certain way in the Unit and removes from himself the ability to think” 69. In the practice of mental doing, described by the hesychast fathers, one gains the experience of a single mental contemplation and the experience of transcending the mind and ascending to the Unity, that is, to unity with the one and simple Trinity. Such equal-angelic knowledge is given by the grace of the Holy Spirit at the will of the praying person to a silent way of life, in which the interaction of the mind with sensory things is limited to the minimal need for life support, and all attention is directed to contemplation and thought of God. The mind of the silent person during prayer gradually ascends to the tropos of a single contemplation of more and more general logos, starting from the acquisition of the human logos in oneself and ending with the contemplation of the highest and most primary logos of the created world. Above this state is only being God in unity with God, which no longer depends on the will of the one praying, but is given supernaturally by grace. In unity with God, the mind ceases to be a mind and ceases to think even in a single way, but acquires the bliss of the divine life of light in the Light of the Holy Trinity. 7. Theological wisdom of Maximus and the dialectical method of Plato If we briefly summarize the content of “Difficulty 41,” we can say that this treatise by Maximus is intended to indicate the path of ascent to God, which begins with the active acquisition of virtues and natural contemplation of the plurality of the visible world, moves on to the unified contemplation of the intelligible world, and ends with ascension to God. Maxim calls these three main stages active, natural and theological philosophy, constituting a single philosophy of love of God. Theological wisdom, based on unified contemplation, is most natural for a pure mind, but it remains unknown to many. The ancient philosophers Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and Christian theologians wrote about the beauty of single contemplation as the highest human activity. And the question arises, what is the reason that many modern philosophers and theologians, enlightened by faith and knowledge, leading a virtuous lifestyle and contemplating the visible world, cannot gain the experience of unified contemplation that Plotinus achieved 70 . His description of union with the first God, referred to as the One and also as the Good, reflects the experience of deification. Plotinus and reverend Christian theologians describe this experience in the same way - as a vision of light. For comparison, let us first give a description of unity with the One by Plotinus: “Like the eye, our mind, when it closes its gaze from all the objects inherent to it and is completely concentrated in itself, then it can, without seeing anything, see something - see not that reflected light that is inherent in everything located outside it (i.e., noumena), but the light only in itself and in itself in all its purity, will see him when he suddenly appears not from outside, but inside himself and illuminates him. At that very moment when our mind is illuminated by such light, it does not know where exactly this light came from, from outside or from within, and when the vision stops, it seems to the mind that the light was as if inside it, as if it was not there.” 71 We can read a similar description in the speculative and theological chapters of St. Simeon the New Theologian: “The mind, being simple, or rather, naked from all thought and completely clothed in simple divine light, covered by this light, cannot find anything other than that in which it abides, being light in light, but not light in itself. He who has reached a [high] measure of perfection, being dead and not dead, lives in God, he is blind as one who does not see by nature; he became above all natural vision, as having received new eyes, which are incomparably better than natural ones, and seeing supernaturally” 72. The coincidence of the experiences of the highest experience of deification between St. Symeon the New Theologian and Plotinus can be traced not only in words, but also in the presentation of the experience of unified contemplation and ascent up the ladder of knowledge of logoi. Many modern philosopher-theologians carefully study the works of ancient philosophers and the theological works of the holy fathers, including the hesychast fathers, lead an ascetic lifestyle, rejecting the excesses of sensual pleasures, preferring nothing, as Maxim says, to the good disposition of the soul to know God, 73 but do not suspect that it is their philosophical activity that becomes an obstacle to the knowledge of God. The problem, it seems to us, is that the mind of such a person, let’s call him a “philosopher,” is held in multiple thinking. The source of the “philosopher’s” knowledge is the rational comprehension of divine logoi in the images of the visible world, which in itself is good and gives pleasure to the mind in the illumination of truth, and the pleasure of the mind, in turn, encourages the “philosopher” to even greater rational activity of the mind in anticipation of tasting new sweet discoveries. However, the contemplative activity of such a “philosopher” only expands in the plane of comprehension of the logos of the earth, and the fruits of this activity only seem to be an increase in the knowledge of God. But in essence, rational philosophical activity is not much different from the spiritual activity of musicians and poets, who, as Plato says, “value the ears above the mind” 74 . And in the terms of Maximus, this means that active and natural wisdom must be followed by theological wisdom, but the “philosopher” values ​​natural knowledge above divine wisdom. Maxim emphasizes the special role of unified contemplation when describing the three movements of the soul - feelings, reason and mind: “The feeling, containing only simple spiritual logoi of the sensory, was raised by the saints to the mind through reason. They united the understanding, containing the logoi of the existing, with the mind in one simple and indivisible understanding. And the calmed mind, completely freed from movement in relation to all things and even from its most natural activities, they brought closer to God, and in it [the mind], completely reduced to God, they were worthy through the Spirit to mingle with God, as wholes with the whole” 75. “Simple and indivisible unified understanding” is not the fruit of the rational activity of the “philosopher,” but a unified contemplation of the logoi of beings in a state of pure prayer. And a “calm mind” is the ascension of the mind to silence in unity with God. So, the mind has the ability and is intended for uniform thinking and contemplation of the intelligible. It was this ability of the mind that Plato called dialectics: “The very tune that dialectics produces. He is intelligible, bypassing sensations, through reason alone, rushes to the essence of any object and does not retreat until, with the help of thinking itself, he comprehends the essence of good. Thus he finds himself at the very top of the intelligible” 76. “The pinnacle of the intelligible” and “comprehension of the essence of good” is achieved through uniform contemplation of the mind. Therefore, Plato’s dialectic is not limited to the intellectual activity of the modern “philosopher,” but only uses it as a preliminary preparation for the ascent of the mind to mystical contemplation and the acquisition of the wisdom of unified thinking up to unity with the Good. Plotinus defines dialectics similarly: “Dialectics uses Plato’s division to distinguish eidos both in determining what is what and in [finding] the first genera, interweaving those that arose from these first genera [with the whole of the Mind] until everything intelligible passes through; then it separates again until it reaches the beginning; after this she becomes silent; dialectic is silent while it is present There, it no longer remains multi-careful, but sees, having arisen in the One; she leaves so-called logical thinking - thinking about premises and syllogisms - to another art, just as she can leave the knowledge of spelling [to another science]. She necessarily regards some of logic as a kind of preliminary preparation” 77 . Here the Greek term ἡσυχία (hesychia), literally meaning “quietness,” is translated as “silence.” It is this term in Russian literature on mental doing that usually denotes the hesychast practice of silent prayer, which is carried out in the silence (hesychia) of the mind from all thoughts and sensory sensations with single contemplation. Likewise, Maximus in Mystagogy V speaks of “the habit of contemplating the ineffable silence,” by which the mind is brought to unforgettable and infinite knowledge and to truth. At the same time, unforgettable knowledge is acquired - as in Plato, after the mind goes through everything intelligible, and knowledge of truth and goodness in Maximus and Plotinus means unity with the One - when the mind remains in silence. Plato’s dialectical method is the method of hesychia, and dialectics is the knowledge of the logoi of beings, acquired through uniform contemplation in the tropos of confusion and position, which we examined in detail above in section 6. Plotinus calls this knowledge knowledge, which is acquired not by the opinion of reason, but by unity with the One who is above all opinion: “About the same Knowledge, Plato, who saw it, said that “it is nothing other than He in Whom it is,” but Plato left it to us to seek and discover how that Knowledge is realized, so if we are worthy of being called “Platonists,” perhaps it is best to start from here.” 78 That is, Plato's dialectic begins with the search for knowledge, which we here call unified contemplation, and Maxim - theological wisdom. From this knowledge both logical premises and methods of prudence are born. At the same time, the four logical methods of division, definition, proof and analysis, which were demonstrated by Plato in his dialogues and which “philosophers - Proclus, Ammonius (son of Hermias), Aelius, David and among Christians - John of Damascus and John Scott" 79 speak about as methods of dialectics, are for Plato a consequence of the ascent of the mind along the ladder of the knowledge of logoi (see Fig. 2) in the contemplative troposes of confusion and position. Maximus in “Difficulty 41” speaks of the knowledge of the saints (that is, those worthy of deification) that everything that exists is divided into five divisions. This same knowledge is described by Plotinus as the knowledge of dialectics. Let us consider the main divisions of Plotinus: “It [dialectics] is a science capable of speaking about each according to its logos: what it is, and how it differs from others, and what it has in common with those among whom it is, and where each of them is; and if it really exists, then what is it, and how many are there; and, again, how many non-existents are different from existing ones.” Here Plotinus speaks of the first division, separating the existent from the non-existent, since for Plotinus the uncreated is the existent, and the created is the non-existent. Further: “[dialectics] talks about the Good, about the bad, and about all those that are located below the Good, and about its opposite; it makes clear what is eternal and what is not eternal.” Here Plotinus speaks about Good and bad. Good in the teachings of Plotinus is the name for the first God, whom he also calls the One. Below the Good is the intelligible world (Mind and eidos), and opposite to the Good and Mind is the perishable sensory world of the Soul. The first world of the Mind is eternal, and the second world of the Soul is impermanent. That is, in the terminology of “Difficulties 41,” Plotinus speaks of the second division of the hypostasis of all things into the intelligible and the sensible. Further: “Having refrained from wandering around the sensible, dialectic settles down in the intelligible and there goes about its [intended task], rejecting lies and saturating the soul in what [Plato] called the fields of truth.” Here Plotinus speaks of overcoming the second division through the mixing of all things into one and the transition to the contemplation of the multiplicity of the intelligible world. Plotinus calls a lie a sensuous thing that does not have truth. Knowledge of truth is acquired in the comprehension of intelligible eidos, which in the terminology of Maximus means the comprehension of logoi. Further: “Dialectics uses Plato’s division to distinguish the eidos both in determining what is what and in [finding] the first genera, interweaving those that arose from these first genera [with the whole of the Mind] until everything intelligible passes through; then it separates again until it reaches the beginning.” Here Plotinus describes the divisions into genus and the finding of the first genus in a manner similar to Difficulty 41. Maxim calls the first genera the most general natures, by which all sensory nature is divided into heaven and earth, paradise and earth of habitation. In Plotinus, in other places, the first heaven (sun and stars) is also considered separately from the earth, as a special creation of the Soul. According to Plotinus, the soul is the sensory nature of the created world, and It, together with its creations, is divided into two states - the highest, which is directed towards God, and the lower, which is directed towards the earth of habitation. These states of soul in Difficulty 41 are called heaven and earth of habitation. In this text, Plotinus speaks of the “weaving” of the first genera into a single whole, which in “Difficulty 41” corresponds to the tropos of the mixture of all natures in the logos of a single created thing, which embraces all logoi in a single whole. And further Plotinus speaks of “separation until it reaches the beginning.” The beginning for Plotinus is the One, and “separation” is the separation of the mind of the contemplator from everything that was previously contemplated as a whole, and the striving towards the One. And further: “Dialectics is silent while it is present There (in God), it no longer remains multi-careful, but sees, having arisen in the One.” Here Plotinus speaks of dialectic as the mind of the contemplator, who, having abandoned the multiple and singular contemplation of the logoi of existence, remains in silence and vision of Light in unity with the One. That is, Platonic dialectics is a method of sequential ascent up the ladder of knowledge of logoi and ascension to the silence of the mind in the light of the Holy Trinity. From the above comparison of Platonic divisions and their overcoming, we can conclude that Platonic dialectics and the theological wisdom of Maximus, set forth in “Difficulty 41,” are a single experience of the contemplative speculations of the saints. It is the experience of hesychia and deification that is the method that allows one to judge Plato’s idea of ​​good and prove the truth not on the basis of opinion, but on the basis of the knowledge of Truth and Good, which, in the words of Maximus, “reveal God” 80. Whoever ignores hesychia as a method of dialectics is unable to gain knowledge of the idea of ​​the Good and, according to Plato, remains in dreams: “Whoever is unable to determine the idea of ​​the Good with the help of proof, isolating it from everything else; who does not go, as if on a battlefield, through all obstacles, striving for a refutation based not on opinion, but on an understanding of the essence; whoever does not move forward through all this with unshakable confidence - about him, since he is like that, you will say that he does not know either the good itself, or any good in general, and if he touches the ghost of the good in some way, it will be only with the help of opinion, and not knowledge. Such a person spends his current life in hibernation and dreams” 81. However, among modern philosophers there is an opinion that in addition to hesychia and heartfelt prayer, there is another way of ascent to God. This second path is represented as intellectual gnosis through the “ancient detachment” of the mind or the mystical “simplicity of view” 82. And at the same time, the number of such intellectuals (which is surprising!) includes the ancient Platonists and early Christians, Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor and Callistus Kataphigiot 83. This division into contemplative schools, it seems to us, was formed, on the one hand, due to the absence in the texts of contemplatives of direct descriptions of the method of hesychast, based on prayer and silence, and on the other hand, the absence of such descriptions was due to the preservation of the secret of hesychast teaching, which was transmitted only to those who were ready to accept it. Let us present some arguments to refute this idea of ​​the possibility of intellectual contemplation outside of prayer. First, Plotinus directly says that contemplation begins with silent prayer: “But how, who and what does the Mind contemplate? Before we try to answer this question, let’s turn to God, but let’s call on him not with words, but with our soul, lifting ourselves up to Him in prayer. And in this prayer we will appear before Him face to face, one on one, for He is the one and only. In order to see the First One, one must enter into the very depths of one’s own soul, as if into the inner sanctuary of a church, and, having renounced everything, having ascended above all in complete peace, silently wait until the images, as if external and reflected, appear for contemplation first, that is, the Soul and the Mind, and behind them the inner, primary, first-illuminating image - the First One” 84 . We have already written quite a lot in this article about the fact that for Maximus the Confessor pure prayer is the basis of mystical speculation. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite begins the story of the Heavenly Hierarchy with the Jesus Prayer: “So, having called on Jesus, the Father’s “Light” that exists, <...> let us contemplate as much as we can...” And it is quite surprising that Callistus Angelicud is ranked among the school of “intellectual contemplatives.” Such an idea of ​​Callistus Angelicudes (Katafigiota) can arise if we limit ourselves to the text in the 5th volume of the Philokalia “Surviving chapters of St. Callista Katafigiota, thoughtful and very lofty, about divine unity and contemplative life." In the same volume there is another text by Callistus Angelicuda, “Word XXII,” which Bishop. Theophan (The Recluse) is placed in a truncated form under the name of Callistus Tilikuda and is called “On the Silent Life.” This word is known in other publications as “Hesychast Practice” and “Hesychast Consolation”, where he directly speaks about the Jesus Prayer and the practice of mental doing. And also in his essay “On spiritual warfare and the sacred silence that accords with it”: “And those who, gloriously choosing distance from people and silence and striving with all their souls, gave themselves up to the deserts - in the mountains, in caves, in the gorges of the earth (Heb. 11:38), in seclusion, in any solitude and distance from people, spent their entire lives in silence and in no other way philosophized rather than intelligently and super-worldly about the intelligible and super-worldly divine, which is followed by unity of the mind in itself, enlightenment and unspeakable enlightenment... Therefore, one should call on our Lord Jesus Christ for help with disposition and zeal” 85. Callistus not only practiced mental activity, but also revealed its fruits in the chapters “On Divine Unity and Contemplative Life,” where he develops Plotinus’ teaching about mind and the One in the light of the Christian faith and personal experience of enlightenment with the Light of the Holy Trinity. We can say that between Plotinus and the Christian hesychasts there is unity in the main and difference in the particular. The main thing is the experience of uniform contemplation and deification, and the differences are in the interpretation of experience in the concepts that they used in their environment of communication. A question may arise regarding the lack of Christian faith in Plotinus and the fact that his student wrote treatises against Christianity. But Christianity teaches that the main thing is not faith in dogmas, but love for God, “for the Father is looking for such worshipers for Himself. God is spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:21). But true faith comes not from hearing, but from contemplating the ineffable verbs of Divine light: “Spiritual knowledge is the sensation of the unseen. And when someone senses this invisible and in many ways most excellent, then it receives from this the name of spiritual knowledge, and in its sensation another faith is born, not contrary to the first faith, but confirming that faith. They call it contemplative faith” 86. Why is solitary prayer in the silence of the mind so important? The fact is that switching the mind to unified contemplation is above human will and is given by grace. And therefore, contemplation is achieved not by rational thinking, but by prayer for God’s mercy. And until the “philosopher” understands that one silent prayer in the Spirit is higher and more important than his verbose works in the mind, and does not prefer something else to it, then instead of true dialectics he will receive a false opinion about it. For one thing generates many, but many do not generate one without denying the plurality of thinking in itself and itself in the plurality of its knowledge. The mind, constantly revolving in the circle 87 of monosyllabic prayer within itself, imitates the Gnostic properties of the angels 88 and finds, as Aristotle says, an amazing pleasure, self-sufficiency and wisdom in single contemplation, which surpasses all pleasure of those who seek knowledge through multiple thinking 89 . Much is denied not only and not so much by hermitage and seclusion, but by diligent prayer, as the great man of silence said: “Prayer is the mortification of concepts inherent in the will of carnal life. For he who prays diligently is as he who is dead to the world; and to remain patiently in prayer means for a person to deny himself. In the selflessness of the soul, God’s love is finally found” 90. But Maximus’ contemplative speculations in “Difficulty 41” are consistent not only with Plato’s dialectics, but also with Pseudo-Dionysius’ contemplative speculations about the heavenly hierarchy. The difference in positions in the heavenly hierarchy of angelic ranks is similar to the difference in positions of the mind when climbing the ladder of knowledge of universal logoi. The lower angels know the logoi of sensory things not by studying particular things, but by the state of mind in the tropos of mixing the sensory world into a simple unit. That is, angels do not feel sensory things, just as a praying person does not feel his body in pure prayer. But just as the body remains inseparably united with the mind, so the angels, with their energies, remain united with all sensory things as with a single world. The union of angels with the sensory world is manifested in the invisible perception and transmission of the radiance of the Divine light to human minds like the secondary luminaries of the invisible world. This is their enlightening ability and mission towards man. The energies of the logoi contemplated by the mind in pure prayer are perceived thanks to the mental energies of the angels. Thus, the guidance of the person praying with pure prayer can be correlated with the guidance of the angels of the lower hierarchy. Angels of higher ranks are connected with the sensory world through the knowledge of the universal logos of the single created world, which embraces the intelligible and the sensory as a whole. The knowledge of the logos of a single created world determines the tropos of the mind, in which the parts of the two worlds are not distinguished, but the entire created world is perceived uniformly as a simple unit. And at the same time, all the diversity of the logoi of existence is connected and embraced by the knowledge of the universal logos of the created world. This is the meaning of Maximus’ words about gnostic simplification: “the whole sensory world exists in the whole mental world, gnostically simplified by the mind through logoi 91.” That is, the sensory world during pure prayer is gnostically simplified to one. Also, the entire created world is gnostically simplified to one, when the praying mind of a person acquires within itself a uniform knowledge of the logos of the single created world. At the same time, any distinction by the mind between sensory things and intelligible things, including time and eternity, space and infinity, disappears. When there are no differences, then the mind has nothing to forget, and therefore Maxim calls this knowledge unforgettable: “The mind, set in motion by wisdom, comes to contemplation; through contemplation - to knowledge, through knowledge - to unforgettable knowledge, and through it - to truth... God is Truth" 92 . Unforgettable knowledge can be correlated with the knowledge of angels of the middle hierarchy. According to the Areopagite, “the middle order of heavenly minds is purified, enlightened and perfected, as stated, by the God-primary illuminations given to it a second time through the first hierarchical order, and through this middle order transmitted further.” Likewise, one who prays pure prayer of the second type feels the delightful action of grace, transforming prayer to a higher state of contemplation of the light emanating from above, but does not see it. The mind is transformed to the utmost purity and transparency of the air of contemplation, but the Light has not yet been ignited and the distinction between the contemplator and the Contemplated remains: “... the admiration of the mind with the divine and boundless light in the very impulse of prayer, when it does not feel at all either itself or anything that exists, but only One Who so illuminates it with His love” 93 . Maxim, as we have already noted, distinguishes two states of pure prayer, of which the first corresponds to an active way of life, that is, the earthly tropos in space time. In this tropos of existence, prayer is created accordingly, and images can be given that have a form, but give a semantic, uniform comprehension of them, as in the case of the Apostle Peter when baskets with various dishes descended from heaven. And the second state of pure prayer occurs among those who are silent, who renounce themselves and their minds by patiently remaining in prayer and love of God. Then unforgettable knowledge is given, in no way inferior to the angelic knowledge of dominions, powers and authorities. In this state of comprehension of the energy of the highest logos of the created world, the mind gains strength and dominates, like a ruler, over the entire created world, uniting with it into a single whole. As Plotinus says, in this highest state of mind, the world can be described as “a living transparent sphere playing with multi-colored rays, or a mass of living, transparent faces of all kinds united into one whole, and even better – a mass of pure souls, alien to any defect, forming a kind of pyramid, the top of which is occupied by the mind and from here illuminates the entire space of this intelligible world” 94 . Being at the top of the ladder of ascent to God, the mind is not capable of turning into divine nothingness at will and ascending to the divine darkness of ignorance. But the mind is capable of receiving the grace of deification and ascending to unity with God, like the highest angelic rank of thrones, cherubim and seraphim 95 . In this state of unity, all the logoi of beings are comprehended uniformly, which were previously comprehended in the form of images and likenesses of the Divine Light at different levels of contemplation: “When the soul becomes uniform and unites with itself and with God, then there will no longer be a thought left, dividing it into many things; it will crown the head with the first, one and only Logos and God, in whom, as the Creator and Creator of beings, in accordance with a single and inconceivable simplicity, all the logoi of existence uniformly exist and abide. Peering into [this] Logos, which is no longer outside it, but as the Whole within the whole, the soul itself will, in simple apprehension, know the logoi and causes of beings, thanks to which, probably, it slowly advanced through dieretic methods before its betrothal to the Logos and God. And through them [logoi] it is now carefully and harmoniously brought to Him - the Contenter and Creator of every logos and every reason” 96 . The divisions of the created world, thus, constitute a hierarchy of stages of knowledge to which a person ascends through the virtues of active purification of the heart and contemplative activity of the mind. Without such activity and contemplation, a person cannot ascend the steps of knowledge, approach God and acquire the wisdom characteristic of the highest angelic order of cherubim 97. Practitioners of smart work can be compared to angels, who, like invisible smart mirrors, are able to receive and transmit, purify and purify, enlighten and enlighten with the Divine light of knowledge of the logoi of existence, like “second lordships, servants of the first lordship” 98 . And the words of the Areopagite about the purpose of the heavenly hierarchy of angels fully relate to the purpose of man in overcoming the hierarchy of divisions described in Difficulty 41: “The purpose of the hierarchy is to become as similar as possible to God and unite with Him” 99 . Thus, Maximus’ contemplative speculations in Difficulty 41 about the divisions of the created world are combined with Platonic dialectics and the Heavenly hierarchy of the Areopagite into a single knowledge of the saints about the stages of knowledge on the path to knowledge and unity of man with God. St. Maxim the Confessor. “On various perplexities of Gregory the Theologian to John, Archbishop.” (PG91, 1061A). V.V. Petrov. “Maximus the Confessor: ontology and method in Byzantine philosophy of the 7th century”; Ross. acad. Sciences, Institute of Philosophy. M.: IFRAN, 2007 V.V. Petrov. “Transformation of ancient ontology in the work of the ps-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor.” XIX annual theological conference. PSTGU. Materials. Volume I. Pages 16–25. We are grateful to Grigory Benevich and Arkady Shufrin for discussing the terminology of St. Maximus the Confessor in "Difficulty 41". Here and below, references to “On Difficulty 41” are given in the translation by S.V. Mesyats. “About various difficult passages in Saints Gregory and Dionysius. Difficulty XLI" (fragment 1304D-1313B), in collection. Space and Soul, p. 280–286. Other collections of chapters “On the Difficulties to John” (PG91, 1061–1418) are given in the translation of Archimandrite Nektarios. – “On various perplexities among Saints Gregory and Dionysius (Ambigwa).” Translation from Greek and notes by Archimandrite Nektarios. – M.: Institute of Philosophy, Theology and History of St. Thomas, 2006. St. Maxim the Confessor. Chapters on theology and the economy of the incarnation of the Son of God. 1.48 translated by A.I. Sidorov. / Creations of St. Maximus the Confessor. Book 1. / M.: “Martis”, 1993. Fokin's translation: “The hypostasis of everything created has five divisions. According to them, the first of them is that which separates from the Uncreated nature the created nature as a whole, which received being through creation [literally “through emergence”].” /Reverend Maxim the Confessor. “ON VARIOUS DIFFICULT PLACES (APORIA).” 103rd aporia. / “Theological collection of the St. Tikhon’s Institute” (M., 2003. pp. 128–136). according to the publication: MAXIMOU TOU OMOLOGHTOU PERI DIAFORWN APORIWN / FILOKALIA TWN NHPTIKWN KAI ASKHTIKWN, 14D. QESSALONIKH, 1992. S. 424–437. Translation of the arch. Nektarios: “they say that the being (ύπόστασις) of all created things is encompassed by five differences, of which the first is called the one that separates the uncreated nature from generally [every] created thing and has received existence from creation.” // Venerable Maximus the Confessor. About various perplexities among Saints Gregory and Dionysius (Ambigwa). – M.: Institute of Philosophy, Theology and History of St. Thomas, 2006. Translation by Nicholas Constas: “the saints say that the existence of all things that have come into being is marked by five divisions. The first of these, they say, is that which divides the uncreated nature from the whole of created nature, which received its being through a process of becoming.”//On difficulties in the church fathers: The ambigua / Maximos the Confessor; edited and translated by Nicholas Constas. CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTSLONDON, ENGLAND 2014. John of Damascus: “The name “hypostasis” has two meanings: simply put, it means simply the essence, while [the word] “hypostasis” in its proper sense means an individual and a separate person” (Ioan. Damasc. Dialect. 30). St. Maxim the Confessor. Mystagogy II and VII. //Creations of St. Maximus the Confessor. Book 1: Translation by Sidorov.//Martis, 1993, V.V. Petrov. Connections and divisions of the hypostasis of the created in “On the Difficulties XLI” (PG 91, 1304D–1316A) by Maximus the Confessor. p.60 in the Collection “Space and Soul”. total Ed. P.P. Gaidenko, V.V. Petrov. – M.: Progress-Tradition, 2005. p.241. St. Maximus the Confessor: “Hypostatic union is, according to the Fathers, the descent of different essences into one hypostasis, in which each of the constituent parts in relation to the other [part] retains in the union its natural originality, authentic, unchangeable and indivisible.” Ep. 12 (PG 91, 484AC). “An equally important characteristic of a hypostasis is its independence, originality (τὸὑφεστάναι), so that a hypostasis is not just a “collection of distinctive properties,” but an independently existing thing (τὸὑφεστὼς πρᾶγμα), an individual (ὁ καθ᾿ἕκαστον), subject (ὑποκείμενον), that is, the subject possessing these distinctive properties.” A.R. Fokin. “Hypostasis” as a theological term in patristics. St. Maximus the Confessor, (PG. 91, 264B). Treatise 23. Theological and polemical works. Per. from ancient Greek YES. Chernoglazova and A.M. Shufrina; scientific ed., preface and comment. G.I. Benevich. – Holy Mount Athos; St. Petersburg: Publishing house RKhGA, 2014, p. 463. The expression “embraces all logoi” means that all others emanate from this logo and that the first logos is manifested in every created thing. The primary logos, in turn, comes from God the Logos, in whom all logos exist pre-eternally and inseparably. The division into logoi occurs in the created sphere along with the formation of created things. Plotinus: “What does not exist is not what does not exist at all, but only other than what exists [existent]. Moreover, it is not a being, not in the way that the movement and rest of a being are not the being itself, but as a likeness of a being, or, perhaps, something even more non-existent [than a likeness]. And this is precisely what everything sensible and all states of the sensible are like; These are further - all the random properties of sensory things; This is the beginning of the sensible; such is each individual of the things that fill the sensory [world].” Translation by Boroday T.Yu. / Plotinus in Russian translations. Publishing house "ALETHEYA", St. Petersburg, with the participation of the Greco-Latin Cabinet Yu.A. Shichalina, Moscow, 1995. Saint Gregory the Theologian: “God invents, firstly, angelic and heavenly powers... So, for such reasons, God created the intelligent world... Since the first creatures were pleasing to Him, He invents another world - material and visible; and this is the harmonious composition of heaven and earth... So, mind and feeling, so different from each other, became within their limits...” //Word 38. Plato. Book VI "States" Plato. Timaeus, 39 e, 50 c. A.F. Losev: “Both “eidos” and “idea” indicate a certain vision, appearance, one or another directly contemplated reality... Of course, it is impossible to fix the periphery without contemplating the immediate reality of the object, nor the latter without fixing the periphery. However, these are two different aspirations of consciousness towards an object and, consequently, two different moments in the object itself. The first point, according to my careful observations, is associated with the concept of eidos, the second - with the concept of idea. Eidos has, therefore, a differential nature, an idea has an integral nature... One concept can become instead of another, depending on the direction of the author in one place or another.” Essays on ancient symbolism and mythology. Ed. Thought. Moscow 1993. pp. 144–145. V.V. Petrov, “Transformation of ancient ontology in the works of the ps.-Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor.” XIX annual theological conference of St. Tikhon's Humanitarian University. Dionysius the Areopagite. "On Divine Names." 5:8. V.V. Petrov believes that the division of reality into three spheres was made by the Monk Maximus, and not by the Areopagite - “Although Ps.-Dionysius postulates the existence of a higher reality - the very Cause of beings, i.e. God, he does this not in order to elevate logoi over mental prototypes, but only in order to emphasize that the ideas of the Platonists are not the highest reality, which is God. On the contrary, Maximus the Confessor introduces divine uncreated logoi as a special sphere of reality that exists independently of the intelligible and sensible.” See reference 11. By “created” here we mean what arose from “nothing” by the will of the Creator, in contrast to what was born from the Father and one in essence. St. Maxim the Confessor. "Chapters on theology and the economy of the incarnation of the Son of God." 1:70. A.F. Losev: “One of the traditional falsifications of Aristotle is based on the translation of the Aristotelian term eidos not as “idea”, but as “form”. And it turns out that Aristotle does not teach at all about the ideas of things, but only about their forms.” / History of ancient aesthetics. Aristotle and the late classics. Ed. ACT, Folio, M. 2000, Page 46. St. Maximus the Confessor: “And the deuce, again, is every condensation of beings after God, since everything sensible, composed of matter and appearance, is a deuce, as well as the intelligible, [consisting] of essence and in an essential way giving it the appearance of an accident.” (PG91, 1400C). St. Maxim the Confessor. OPUSC. 23 / Theological and polemical works, p.462. / Per. from ancient Greek D. A. Chernoglazova and A.M. Shufrina; scientific ed., preface and comment. G.I. Benevich. – Holy Mount Athos; St. Petersburg: Publishing house RKhGA, 2014. St. Maxim the Confessor. OPUSC.14, ibid., p.390. St. Maximus the Confessor: “If the general has been realized in the particular, completely not accepting the logos of independent existence and realization, then it is clear to everyone that even with the destruction of the particular, the general cannot resist.” Difficulty X. 1189D. Plotinus. Ennead VI.7.3: “For as a craftsman, even if he makes things that do not differ from each other, he must comprehend their identity [i.e. e. the scheme of the thing that he makes] through logical distinction [of this scheme from other schemes, and manufactured things from this scheme], thanks to which he will make all new separate things, introducing difference into identity. This is also the case in nature, despite the fact that things in it come into being not through calculation, but only through logoi: the difference here is necessarily associated with eidos.” St. Maxim the Confessor. Mystagogy II. With this thesis we polemicize with the assumption of V.V. Petrov in his report that entities exist in God in potential form. Translated by S.V. The month “logos of the whole” is an interpretive translation of the term καθόλου, which other translators translate literally as “most general” or “universal”. V.V. Petrov writes in his book that “The idea of ​​universality, universality is conveyed [by Maxim] through καθόλου and καθολικός, although the meaning general and whole is also possible here.” In “Difficulty 41” Maxim refers to the universal logoi as the logoi of man, earth, sensory and created things. Right there. Translation by V.V. Petrova Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. "On the Heavenly Hierarchy." 13, 3. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. "Heavenly Hierarchy", 15, 4. St. Maxim the Confessor. "Questions to Thalassia." Question XVII. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. "On the Heavenly Hierarchy." 1, 3. St. Maxim the Confessor. Mystagogy II. //Creations of St. Maximus the Confessor. Book 1: Translation by Sidorov.//Martis, 1993. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. "On Divine Names." 4, 2 – 4, 6. Venerable Maxim the Confessor. "Questions to Thalassia." Question XL. St. Maxim the Confessor. "Questions and Confusions." Question 43. / Transl. from ancient Greek YES. Chernoglazova; scientific ed. G.I. Benevich; resp. ed. YES. Pospelov. - Moscow; Holy Mount Athos: Nicaea; Hermitage New Thebaid of the Athos Russian Panteleimon Monastery, 2010. The philosophers of ancient Greece distinguished between the first heaven and the heavens. Aristotle, for example, does not have a uniform use of the term “heaven.” In the treatise “On the Sky,” in some cases he refers to the sky as the upper (supralunar) spheres of the cosmos, or even just one extreme sphere on which the fixed stars are located, in others – the cosmos as a whole. St. Maxim the Confessor. "Questions and Confusions." Question L. / Transl. from ancient Greek YES. Chernoglazova; scientific ed. G.I. Benevich; resp. ed. YES. Pospelov. - Moscow; Holy Mount Athos: Nicaea; Hermitage New Thebaid of the Athos Russian Panteleimon Monastery, 2010. Works of St. Maximus the Confessor. Book 1: Chapters on the Theology and Economy of the Incarnation of the Son of God. 2:36. Ed. "Martis", 1993. Dionysius the Areopagite. “Heavenly Hierarchy”, chapter 2 scholium 7. St. Maxim the Confessor. "Questions and Confusions." Question 44. / Transl. from ancient Greek YES. Chernoglazova; scientific ed. G.I. Benevich; resp. ed. YES. Pospelov. - Moscow; Holy Mount Athos: Nicaea; Hermitage New Thebaid of the Athos Russian Panteleimon Monastery, 2010. St. Maxim the Confessor. "Questions to Thalassia." Question V St. Maximus the Confessor: “For the truly terrible and great gulf between God and men is love and affection for the body and this world” (PG91, 1172A). St. Maxim the Confessor. Mystagogy VII. //Creations of St. Maximus the Confessor. Book 1: Translation by Sidorov.//Martis, 1993. Dionysius the Areopagite. Essays. Interpretations of Maximus the Confessor. About divine names. 5:8. – St. Petersburg: Aletheia; Publishing house Oleg Abyshko, 2002. St. Maxim the Confessor. Mystagogy 5. St. Maxim the Confessor. Chapters about love 1.33 and 1.97. St. Maxim the Confessor. Mystagogy V. St. Maxim the Confessor. Chapters about love. 2.6. Right there. Translation by V.V. Petrova. St. Maxim the Confessor. Chapters about love, 1.17. St. Maxim the Confessor. Chapters on theology and the economy of the incarnation of the Son of God, 2.59. Here the term “mental” denotes unitary thinking in contemplation, distinguished from multiple discursive thinking. See below about like-minded thinking. See section 4 of this article on the concept of “sky” in Difficulty 41. In the first section on the intelligible, we clarified that the divine logoi are incomprehensible to the mind, but their created images formed by the highest angelic ranks are comprehensible. But, comprehending the images of logoi, the mind gradually ascends to a super-mental comprehension of logoi in unity with the Logos. Therefore, for simplicity of presentation, we will talk about the intelligibility of logoi. St. Maxim the Confessor. Chapters on theology and the economy of the incarnation of the Son of God, 1.82. Unknown author (presumably St. Nicodemus the Holy Mountain): “Even the most elemental sages were aware of the benefits of silence: the philosophical school of Neoplatonists, which had many famous followers under the leadership of the philosopher Plotinus, deeply developed a contemplative, inner life, achieved mainly in silence”; Candid stories of a wanderer to his spiritual father. Plotinus. Enneads V.5.7–8./ Plotinus in Russian translations. Publishing house "ALETHEIA" (St. Petersburg) with the participation of the Greco-Latin Cabinet Yu.A. Shichalina, 1995, translation by G.V. Malevansky, p. 106. St. Simeon the New Theologian. Twenty-five chapters of speculative and theological. 17–19. St. Maxim the Confessor. “Love is a good disposition of the soul, according to which it prefers nothing that exists to the knowledge of God”; Chapters about love, 1.1. Plato. State. Book 7. 531a. Venerable Maximus the Confessor. Difficulty X.8 (PG91, 1113AB). Translation by V.V. Petrova. Plato. State. Book 7. 532a. Plotinus. Enneads. 1.3.4 / “Dam. The First Ennead." Transl., intro. Art., comment. T.G. Sidasha, R.V. Svetlova. – St. Petersburg: Oleg Abyshko Publishing House, 2004. p. 144 V.V. Petrov. chapter 3.3.1 in his book. Plato. State. Book 7, 534 pp. Pierre Hadot. Plotinus, or simplicity of view. Translation by E. Shtoff. Pierre Hadot. Plotin ou la simplicite du regard. Paris, 1989. M.: Greco-Latin Cabinet Yu.A. Shichalina, 1991. (Pierre Hadot perfectly expounded Plotinus’s teaching on the need for the virtue of inner contemplation and his advice on how to achieve this, but, having no experience of smart doing, interprets Plotinus’ method as a simple look inside oneself). T.G. Sidash: “...from ancient times in the mystical-ascetic tradition of the Church there were two paths of ascension, one of which was thoroughly forgotten, and the other is still practiced to this day. The first developed in the depths of the Alexandrian school and was very close to the Platonists; Its main representatives in the East were: Clement of Alexandria, Origen, St. Gregory the Wonderworker, St. Gregory of Nyssa (to some extent also St. Gregory the Theologian), Evagrius of Pontus, Synesius of Ptolemais, St. Dionysius the Areopagite (whoever he was), Venerable. Maximus the Confessor, and of the later teachers St. Callistus Katafygiot. For all these people, what truly existed was the intelligible, and speculation was not some kind of worldly activity, but precisely the path of ascension to God. The result of comprehension of divine energies in this school was gnosis. This school is not represented at all in Russian spirituality. With a certain degree of convention, these people can be called Christian platonists or idealists. Another school, which it would be correct to call naturalistic, also formed in Egypt; Its most prominent representatives are Rev. Macarius the Great, Rev. John Climacus, Rev. Hesychius, Nikephoros the monk, Venerable. Gregory of Sinaiti, St. Gregory Palamas, St. Mark of Ephesus - placed the mind in the heart, taught about the mystical meaning of physiology, practiced the Jesus Prayer; in theory, all these people were much closer to the Peripatetics and Stoics than to the Platonists. The result of comprehension of energies here was thought to be a certain enlightened state. This school was represented in Russia by the greatest of Russian ascetics - the holy and blessed Nil of Sorsky, as well as St. Paisiy Velichkovsky, later St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) and Feofan (Vyshinsky), as well as everyone who now teaches about the “Orthodox tradition of this or that” or simply, “without any philosophies,” practices the Jesus Prayer in cities and villages. (If the first school died in the East somewhere around the 14th century, then the second, at least in Russia, greatly degenerated, losing it by the 20th century. the last remnants of ancient detachment and grandeur, which the early Christian tradition preserved to a certain extent).” / Plotinus Sixth Ennead. Treatises VI-IX / Trans. from ancient Greek and after. T. G. Sidasha. – St. Petersburg: Oleg Abyshko Publishing House, 2005, p. 373. Plotinus. Enneads VI.1.6. Plotinus in Russian translations. Publishing house "ALETHEIA" (St. Petersburg) with the participation of the Greco-Latin Cabinet Yu.A. Shichalina, 1995, translation by G.V. Malevansky, p. 59. St. Callistus Angelicud. Word XVI. About spiritual warfare and the sacred silence that goes along with it. / The path to sacred silence: Little-known creations of the holy hesychast fathers. M.: Publishing House of the Orthodox Brotherhood of St. Philaret of Moscow, 1999. pp. 100–118. St. Isaac the Syrian. Words Ascetic. Word 84. Aristotle: “There is something that is forever moving in a non-stop motion, and this is circular motion”; Metaphysics, (XII 7). St. Maximus the Confessor (or John of Scythopolis): “This movement appears circular because it is reciprocal and takes place around Him. Thus, by thinking about himself and the One who preceded him, from whom he [the mind] shone, since it was produced by God, who wanted this, it will revolve around Him, not to say around the desire and love for God, as if around the center. On the celestial hierarchy, 7.4, scholium 39. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: “They say that the divine minds move in a circle.” Scholium 49: “They move, thinking about what is superior, and they stand, being known by the weaker, as intelligible, abiding in their own identity, for they are a guard and an abode for themselves, located in themselves and concentrated in themselves, and not scattered in alien piety. After all, everything that is less is directed towards what is superior. The movements of minds and souls are circular and cyclical, as Ezekiel says, since they come out of themselves and return back to themselves without leaving themselves. This concerns the incorporeal”; On divine names, 4.8. Aristotle: “philosophy, [or wisdom], contains pleasures that are amazing in their purity and steadfastness, and, of course, spending time in [contemplation] gives more pleasure to those who have knowledge than to those who seek knowledge. And so-called self-sufficiency is primarily associated with contemplative activity, while a wise person is capable of contemplation on his own, and even more so the wiser he is”; Nicomachean Ethics, (X 7). St. Isaac the Syrian. Ascetic words. Word 43. St. Maxim the Confessor. Mystagogy II. 20–37 (PG 91, 669AB). Translation by V.V. Petrov from the report at link 11. St. Maxim the Confessor. Chapters about love. 2.6.; Translation by V.V. Petrova. Plotinus in Russian translations. Publishing house "ALETHEIA" (St. Petersburg) with the participation of the Greco-Latin Cabinet Yu.A. Shichalina, 1995, translation by G.V. Malevansky, p. 211. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: “And the first [the First Trinity rank: thrones, cherubim, seraphim], he says, always remains near God, close to Him and before others, directly, according to legend, unites with Him.” Heavenly Hierarchy, 6.2. Venerable Maximus the Confessor. Mystagogy V. Translation by V.V. Petrova Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: “The name of the cherubim is their intelligence and god-likeness, the ability to perceive the highest light and contemplate in the primordial power the beauty of the Godhead, to be filled with wise teaching and to abundantly involve the secondary in the outpouring of the bestowed wisdom.” Heavenly Hierarchy, 7.1. Saint Gregory the Theologian. Word 38. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Heavenly hierarchy, 3.2.