From Christology to the image of Christ: St. Maximus the Confessor on the Transfiguration of the Lord

For the entire Eastern Christian theological tradition, from its first flowering during the time of the martyr Irenaeus in the 2nd century to the Palamite synthesis of the 14th century and later, the mystery of the Transfiguration was central. Among the many reflections on the mystery of the Transfiguration, we find the most famous statement of the Hieromartyr Irenaeus: gloria enim Dei vivens homö vita autem hominis visio Dei‘for the glory of God is living man, and human life is the vision of God 1 . I thought often and a lot about the Transfiguration of Orige 2. In the homilies of St. Macarius the Great, the Transfiguration of the Lord is considered as a prototype of the bodily change that the saints will ultimately be granted 3. The patristic homilies for the most part show how the Transfiguration reveals the doctrine of the Trinity, the mystery of the Incarnation and predestination - both what is said about it and what it is - the mystery of the Gethsemane prayer and the Paschal mystery of death and resurrection; in addition, they view the Transfiguration as the foreshadowing of future hope - a hope that embraces both the soul and body of those who follow Christ. The attention paid to the mystery of the Transfiguration in the homilies is intended to concentrate the fullness of Christian faith and hope in a single image 4 . Depictions of the Transfiguration in spiritual art are extremely significant and striking: let us recall at least the apse of the Church of St. Apollinare (S. Apollinare in Classe) in Ravenna, where the Transfiguration is symbolically depicted as the threshold of heaven, or the austere, stunning apse of the Sinai Monastery of St. Catherine, the image of which was so colorfully interpreted by Jas Elsner as the culmination of spiritual ascent, similar to the ascent of Moses, who is represented here on both sides of the apse - standing in front of the Burning Bush and receiving the tablets of the Law in a cleft of the rock 5. Here, in the altar, which is located in the apse, the Monk John of Sinai, or the Climacus, the author of “The Spiritual Ladder,” the most significant work of the Byzantine monastic tradition, prayed. Having reached the last step of his Ladder, Saint John, it seems to me, speaks quite clearly about the Tabor Mystery (perhaps this thought was inspired by the mentioned image on the apse): "Now, after all that has been said, these three remain, all connecting and containing: faith, hope and love. Most of all is love, for God is called by it. In my understanding, faith is like a ray, hope is like light, and love is like the circle of the sun, yet they constitute one radiance and one brightness..." 6. At the turn of the millennium, the Transfiguration of the Lord became the central theme of the views of St. Simeon the New Theologian 7 and the Byzantine hesychasts, who claimed that the Uncreated Divine Light was revealed to them in prayer. The Transfiguration became for them the central symbol of the reality of this transfigured vision of the Uncreated Light, about which St. Gregory Palamas wrote 8 . This is the dominant tradition of the exegesis of the Transfiguration, rooted in the Byzantine East. You might think that this is where it ends, but everything is different; There is another interpretation of the Transfiguration, which we find in Origen’s essay “Against Celsus”: "Although Jesus was one being, yet there was much in Him, which was the result of the diversity of points of view from which He could be viewed; He did not appear to all those who saw Him in the same light and not from the same side. And that indeed, with a careful look, a plurality could be discovered, this is clear from the expressions, which are: I am the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6); I am the bread (John 6:35 ); I am the door (John 10:9), and from many other expressions. And that not everyone who saw Jesus had the same act of contemplation, but that, on the contrary, it differed depending on the state of the cognitive powers of each individual person - this will be clear if we remember that He took with him to the top of the mountain on which he was to be transfigured, not all the Apostles, but only Peter, James and John, since only these were in able then to contemplate His greatness and be able to comprehend the appearance of Moses and Elijah in their greatness, and also to listen to their verbs and the heavenly voice coming from the clouds” 9. The statement that Christ appears to different people in different guises according to their spiritual abilities corresponds to Origen's attempt to establish the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe finite manifestation of the infinite: the infinite appears in diversity, and the Transfiguration is a brilliant example of this. This means that it is impossible to capture an adequate image or icon of Christ. The proud heir to the Origen tradition, Eusebius of Caesarea, adheres to the same concept, responding to a letter to Constance Augusta, sister of Emperor Constantine, who asked for an image of Jesus. Eusebius' answer says that the variety of images in which the Lord appeared during His earthly reign belongs to the past, while the present glorious Image, revealed at the Transfiguration and so changed that the Apostles were not able to behold Him in the brilliance of ineffable glory, exceeds the capabilities of any eye or ear, and therefore cannot be captured with the help of lifeless colors and shadows 10. This letter was preserved due to the fact that it was cited by the iconoclasts of the 8th century and was thereby included in the Acts of the 7th Ecumenical Council. Archpriest Georgy Florovsky saw in this letter a continuation of the tradition of Origen, which arose in the mainstream of Greek theology and was hostile towards icons 11. However, the central figure of this work is St. Maximus the Confessor, who inherited and reconciled, in our opinion, both traditions. Until recent times, this saint was known as a confessor, an Eastern monk who, together with Pope Martin I, at the cost of his life, opposed in the 7th century the policy of monothelitism, the last Christological heresy pursued by the Empire. Over the past decades, the knowledge of Western science about St. Maximus the Confessor has been significantly enriched thanks to the works of the Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, 12 the American Benedictine Polycarp Sherwood and the Swedish Lutheran Lars Thunberg. Before entering, not without some resistance, into the field of polemical theology, St. Maximus was a monk. He was born in 580, most likely received his education in Constantinople, at the beginning of the reign of Caesar Heraclius he briefly served as a high-ranking official, at the age of thirty he took monastic vows and, without taking orders, remained a monk until the end of his days. The early works of Maximus the Confessor, written before he was involved in the dogmatic struggle, are nourished primarily by the experience of the monastic Christian life. In works created long before the dispute with the Monothelites broke out, we find the reflections of St. Maximus on the Transfiguration. In fact, the mystery of Christ, which stands at the center of the Christological writings of the Monk, is not the mystery of the Transfiguration, but the mystery of the Gethsemane prayer. St. Maximus addresses the Transfiguration three times in three works that cannot be precisely dated, but belong to the decade between the mid-20s and 30s of the 7th century; During this period, fleeing the devastating invasion of Persian troops, the Monk left his monastery on the coast of the Sea of ​​Marmara near Constantinople and settled in North Africa, where he spent about fifteen years. The first mention of the Transfiguration, to which we would like to refer, we find in the second of his “Gnostic Centurions”; Centuries is a special monastic work where theological and ascetic thoughts are collected in the form of small chapters intended for prayerful reflection. At the end of chapter II.13, St. Maximus speaks of the Transfiguration as the last appearance of God in His Divine form. Due to the fact, he continues, that those who stand before the Lord are not equal to each other, the Lord appears to everyone “according to the measure of his faith.” Mount Tabor is a symbol of spiritual life: at its foot the Lord takes the form of a slave, and at the top - the image of God, “the image in which He dwelt before the creation of the world.” The meaning of the Transfiguration is stated very briefly: the face of the Lord shines like the sun, His clothes are snow-white, “The words of the Gospel are now clearer than ever, their meaning cannot be hidden.” St. Maxim briefly explains the appearance of the prophets Moses and Elijah as witnesses of the Law and prophets, as well as the meaning of the three tabernacles, which symbolize the three steps to salvation: virtue, spiritual knowledge and theology, represented respectively by the prophet Elijah, the prophet Moses and Jesus Christ. It is quite obvious that St. Maximus owes these thoughts to Origen: attention is drawn to the emphasis placed on the duality of how the Word becomes flesh, how the clothes of Christ symbolize the Gospel, and the prophets Moses and Elijah - the Law and the Prophets 13. The three stages of perfection - virtue, knowledge and theology - are also the theme of Origen 14. In the next two attempts of St. Maximus to comprehend the mystery of the Transfiguration, we find something original that cannot be found in Byzantine authors. The influence of Origen can still be traced, but the voice of the Venerable Maximus the Confessor himself begins to be heard. The first discussion unfolds in the pages of the recently discovered “Questions and Answers” ​​(Quaestiones et Dubia, as the first publisher titled them), questions 191 and 192. The first of them, 15, begins with a mention of the divergence of the Gospel texts on the question of when the Transfiguration took place: whether in six days, as the evangelists Matthew and Mark narrate, or in eight days, as the evangelist Luke says. Six days, says St. Maximus the Confessor, indicate six days of creation, so the phrase “in six days” means a passage outside the created order, such as it was revealed to our consciousness. The “eight days” of the Evangelist Luke indicate the beginning and the end: “the first day when the Lord spoke, and the last day - the Transfiguration” 16. The Reverend takes both calculations into account in his spiritual explanation, which is as follows: “From the moment that humanity through sin found itself in its unnatural state, there is only one way for those who wish to ascend to the pinnacle of theology through the Word: to rise above that which is against nature, as it was on the first day, to overcome nature, as it was on the sixth day, and to come to a supra-natural state, which is the eighth day, which lies at the basis of time and characterizes the future state.” Here St. Maximus expresses one of the basic principles of his theology - the innocence of everything natural established by God: our ordinary state, spoiled by the Fall, is unnatural; redemption and asceticism are called upon to return us to our previous state. Reflecting on the apostles Peter, James and John, personifying the three virtues - faith, hope and love, the Monk Maxim comes to reflect on the Transfiguration itself. He writes: “The Word raises those who have faith, hope and love to the pinnacle of theology and is transformed before them; to call Him God henceforth means no longer to recognize Him as a saint, a king, and the like, but to speak of Him by means of negations, according to the fact that He is above God, above holiness, and everything said about Him is transcendental.” So, this is what St. Maximus does here, following St. Gregory of Nyssa 17 and especially the Hieromartyr Dionysius the Areopagite and his “Mystical Theology” 18: he compares the ascent to the Mount of Transfiguration, Mount Tabor, to the ascent of the Prophet Moses to Mount Sinai, which is a symbol of the ascent of the soul to God. (In this, the Saint echoes the mosaic on the apse of the church of the monastery of the Burning Bush - this is how the monastery of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine on Sinai was called in the time of the saint; although we have no reason to believe that Saint Maximus ever saw this mosaic.) Both Saint Gregory and the Hieromartyr Dionysius note that, climbing the mountain, the prophet Moses passes through the perception of images and concepts in which God reveals Himself, symbolized by the sound of trumpets and the light flashing on the top; he enters the dark cloud enveloping the peak and ceases to see - this is a symbol of the fact that now one can recognize God only by throwing away everything that the senses can perceive and the mind can comprehend. The Hieromartyr Dionysius borrowed terminology from the Neoplatonists and called the theology of affirmation cataphatic, and the theology of negation apophatic theology. St. Maximus used the language of apophatics when describing the ascent to the Mount of Transfiguration: one can talk about God, drawing from our knowledge of the created world order and divine Revelation (“He is holy, a king, and the like”) and come to the denial of images and ideas, and then to silent contemplation. In the blinding radiance of the Divinity of the transfigured Christ, revealed on Mount Tabor, the Apostles fell into silence - the silence of an apophatic confirmation of the unknowability of the Divine. Next, St. Maximus comes to the conclusion that “the face of the Word, which shone like the sun, is a property of the hiddenness of His existence.” I think we should be looking for a hint of something deeper here. The Greek word which I translated person can also be translated person; St. Maximus hints here that the radiant face of Christ reveals the divine Person that He is: “the personality of the Word is the property of the hiddenness of His existence,” that is, the existence of God. In 451, the Council of Chalcedon adopted a definition stating that in the incarnate Christ two Natures were united - Divine and human. The Fifth Ecumenical Council, held in Constantinople in 553, clarified this position by confirming the Divinity of one Person, “one of the Trinity.” I think it is characteristic of St. Maximus that the exact words he uses hint at the absolute impeccability of the Christology of the Councils. But that's not all; if the blinding radiance of the Face/Personality of the Word on the Mount of Transfiguration reveals the “property of hiddenness” of the existence of God, then apophatic theology - the theology of denial - is our recognition of the Divinity of Christ. The language of apophatic/cataphatic theology is the language of the holy martyr Dionysius, but it acquired its purpose and meaning from the Monk Maximus. According to the Hieromartyr Dionysius, apophatic and cataphatic theology interpreted the dialectic inherent in established definitions or Divine names: in our attempt to say something about God, the dialectic of affirmation and negation kept a middle path between the similar errors of anthropomorphism and agnosticism. The terminology of apophatic and cataphatic theology in St. Maximus is associated with our confession of the unity of the Divine and human nature, revealed in the Divine Person of the Incarnate Word: the recognition of the Divine radiance of the face of Christ introduces us to apophatic theology, because the blinding splendor of His face is beyond affirmation and can only be viewed in silent apophatic contemplation. The new application of the terminology of the apophatic and cataphatic theology of the holy martyr Dionysius the Areopagite, found by the Monk Maximus, is what I would call a Christological revolution. The above is confirmed when St. Maximus proceeds to reflect on the brilliant white body and clothes of Christ. The body implies the “essence of virtues,” and the clothes mean the words of Scripture or activity in the universe: the whiteness of the clothes indicates that both the Divine words of Scripture and the Divine action in the Universe become understandable to those who have soared to the contemplation of Christ, and their beauty is obvious. But seeking to understand the words of Scripture and the activities of the universe is exactly what affirmative, cataphatic theology involves. While the Face of Christ leads us to apophatic theology, His body and clothing speak of cataphatic theology. The “Christological twist” lies in the fact that the terminology of apophatics and cataphatics, formulated by the holy martyr Dionysius to describe the dialectical nature of our knowledge of God, was used by St. Maximus in order to reflect the truth of the unity of the Divine and human principles in the Divine Person of the Son. Therefore, all our knowledge of God is contained in the apostolic contemplation of the Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration. From the above, the question arises about the meaning of the three tabernacles that the Apostle Peter wanted to erect 19. In “The Centurions on Theology and the Incarnation” they symbolize the three stages of Christian life. Only in this work does St. Maximus use more traditional terminology, dating back to Abba Evagrius, an Origenist of the late 4th century and theorist of the hermit life of the Desert Fathers. The term πρακτική means life in ascetic struggle, φυσική - contemplation of the natural world order, and θεολογία - theology as the contemplation of God; so the prophet Elijah corresponds to πρακτική, the prophet Moses - φυσική, and the Lord Himself - θεολογία. Reverend Maximus does not develop the topic in detail, so it would be rash to do it for him; It is only obvious that this commentary leads to an understanding of the Transfiguration, which embraces the entire fullness of Christian life. Both issues are relatively short: only about two and a half pages are devoted to them. The influence of Origen is clearly visible here, but two other factors are also obvious: firstly, the use of the terms of the developed Byzantine Christology of the 6th century, presented in the Acts of the VI Ecumenical Council, and, secondly, taking into account the differences between apophatic and cataphatic theology in our understanding of Christ formulated by the hieromartyr Dionysius. Apophatics concerns the person of Christ: in personal relationships with the Incarnate Word, the unknowability of God is comprehended through experience. Origen reconciled the ineffability of God and His manifestation in the Incarnation, placing special emphasis on the variety of ways in which God's manifestations are comprehended. He drew the conclusion - which is then unambiguously repeated in the letter of Eusebius to Constantius quoted above - that the idea of ​​​​the inexhaustibility of God regulates every image of the Incarnate. For St. Maximus, ineffability, inexhaustibility, on the contrary, are known through personal, personal experience revealed by the Incarnation. The “Christological Revolution” transforms the theology of negation, apophatics: apophatics is the recognition of the overwhelming truth of the personality of God, the principle of negation that defines the boundaries of our recognition of images and ideas about God. Our last text was found in the largest of the Ambigvas (or perplexities, since all the questions concern complex passages from the works of St. Gregory the Theologian, with the exception of one question related to a passage from the Hieromartyr Dionysius the Areopagite). We are talking about the tenth chapter, large and delightful, in the center of which is the Transfiguration 20. The main idea that runs through the work concerns the meaning of passing (diЈbasij). St. Maximus examines the issue from a wide variety of perspectives and cites a number of examples from the Old Testament concerning the Transfiguration. At the beginning of his interpretation of Transfiguration 21, St. Maximus focuses on the Face of Christ: on what is fundamental for any icon of the Transfiguration. This topic has already been touched upon in Questions and Answers, and addressing it is not surprising. It is known that prТswpon, or the (Divine) Person of Christ, is concentrated in the image of the Face of Christ. The radiance of the Face means the Divinity of Christ, and this Divinity is amazing - it reveals and blinds at the same time. Next, St. Maximus explains why in the tenth Ambigwe he turns to the theme of the Transfiguration: this “complexity” has to do with “passing.” At the Transfiguration, the Apostles “passed” from the vision of Christ, in Whom there is neither form nor majesty (see Isa. 53:2), to the vision of Him being more beautiful than the sons of men (Ps. 44:3) - this is the theme of Origen, which we have already encountered 22. Origen interprets this as the path that runs from the understanding of Christ as the Word made flesh to the understanding of Him as the One who was in the beginning with God and was God - the path from the end of John's prologue to its beginning, so to speak. Reverend Maximus reveals the topic even deeper, as evidenced by one small hint contained in the early “Questions and Answers”. He calls this “passing” through the Word became flesh to the Word that was in the beginning and with God, the moment of apophasis, negation or refutation; and this apophasis, continues St. Maximus, was known, or, more precisely, experienced by the Apostles, contemplating the indescribable radiance of the Face of the transfigured Lord. He then proceeds to explain the whiteness of Christ's garments, which, as can be seen from the Questions and Answers, he relates to the words of Scripture and to creation. St. Maximus makes a long digression, where he sets out the parallelism of Scripture and the cosmos. The cosmos is like a book, and the Bible is like the cosmos: they consist of words, lTgoi, which, although varied, when read with understanding, form a single harmonious whole, the meaning of which is the mind of God Himself. The Reverend very strictly insists on the absolute identity of the law of Scripture and the natural law: the law of Scripture does not leave an imprint on the development of natural law, it simply reveals what was hidden through the Fall. The idea of ​​the mutual reflection of the cosmos and Scripture, of what they mean and how they should be understood, is one of the central ideas for the theology of St. Maximus; he returns to it in the opening chapter of his “Mystagogy” 23. Further, the Reverend explores the other side of the Transfiguration: what do the prophets Moses and Elijah symbolize when they appear next to the Lord 24? Seventeen reflections are devoted to this topic, the ideas of many of them are already familiar to us, such as, for example, the idea that the prophets Moses and Elijah personify the Law and the prophets. These thoughts are mysterious and magnificent, but I won’t dwell on them and leave a few questions for last. The difference between apophatic and cataphatic theology, expressed in terms of the holy martyr Dionysius, is very clear here. Then comes what has been called the “Christological turn,” where the distinction between apophatic and cataphatic theology centers on the Person of Christ; silent contemplation of apophasis is a response to the dazzling radiance of the Face of Christ. St. Maximus says that, having assumed a human form, the Word became “a symbol of Himself” in order “through such a manifestation of Himself to bring to Himself in His fullness and incomprehensible hiddenness the whole creation; and, remaining unknown in His hiddenness, a mysterious space above everything and everyone, Whom it is impossible to know and understand in any way, He, out of love for humanity, gives us His closeness through the Divine deeds done in the flesh." Let us note: that the Divine gift to man is a gift for the sake of all creation; the emphasis on the cosmic is typical of St. Maximus. Another reflection asserts the primacy of apophatic theology in Christological terms: “therefore the light emanating from the face of the Lord overcomes the human beatitude of the Apostles through the hidden apophatic theology.” The three subsequent reflections elaborate on cataphatic theology in terms of the cosmic significance of the Incarnation. In the tenth Ambigwa, St. Maximus considers the Transfiguration as the container of all Christocentric theology, a theology leading to the Person of Christ and from the Person of Christ and revealing in everything that is illuminated by the uncreated light of His radiance, the revelation of Christ in nature and in Scripture. But it is also theology expressed in the icon: both reflection on aspects of the sacrament and contemplation through the image are brought together by the central figure of Christ. At the beginning of the work it was noted that the dominant exegesis in the Eastern Christian tradition presents the Transfiguration as one of the most fundamental icons of Christ; in the Origenist interpretation, the Transfiguration acts as the main proof of the diversity of forms taken by the Incarnate Word, demonstrating that the image of Christ is impossible. When a dispute about the legality of icons and their veneration nevertheless flared up in the Byzantine world, the letter of the Origenist Eusebius to the sister of Emperor Constantine Constantia was cited by the iconoclasts as the main evidence of the patristic condemnation of icon veneration. The peculiarity of St. Maximus’s interpretation is that, without denying Origen’s approach, he considers the Transfiguration in a new context. The multiplicity of manifestations of the ineffable God belongs to the theology of affirmation, cataphatic theology: everything in Scripture and the created cosmos reveals evidence of the inexhaustibility of God. But the ineffability and inexhaustibility of the Divine nature is revealed with much greater completeness in the dazzling radiance of the Face, or the Divine Personality of Christ, when the need for speech and sight disappears and only silent contemplation remains: this is the area of ​​apophatic theology. This approach does not at all deny the veneration of icons, but, on the contrary, emphasizes the enormous importance of looking, viewing, contemplation for theology. The “Christological revolution” in this understanding influences the transition from Christology, carefully preserved by the definitions of the Ecumenical Councils, to the icon of Christ - a symbol of the meeting with Christ in the fullest sense. Considering the importance of the change that took place in the theology of St. Maximus during the transition from Christology to the icon of Christ, one can understand why Byzantine Christians attached such a deep meaning to the icon and, especially, why, having become a source of controversy, the question of the icon was primarily a subject of Christological controversy. It seems impossible to begin discussing this issue now, but let me point out two connecting links that, in our opinion, exist between the theology of St. Maximus and the icon as the main symbol of the Incarnation. Let us cite a key passage on the interpretation of the Transfiguration from the tenth Ambigva, and this time we present it in full: “For He [that is, the Word of God] deigned to be created unchanged in our form and, out of His immeasurable love for man, to become an example and symbol of Himself, and through Himself to symbolically depict Himself, and through such a manifestation of Himself to bring Himself to Himself in His fullness and incomprehensible hiddenness of all creation...” 25 . In the Incarnation the Word becomes “the pattern and symbol of Itself.” This phrase, in our opinion, echoes one of the central themes of the works of St. Theodore the Studite, who, together with the deposed Patriarch Nicephorus, was an active defender of icon veneration during the second period of iconoclasm in the first half of the 9th century. St. Theodore claims that in the Incarnation Christ becomes “the archetype of His own image,” πρωτότυπος τής αυτοῦ εἰκόvος 26. It follows from this that it is not easy to be the image of Christ, nor is it easy for an artist to capture the image of Christ through which He can be met and venerated, because Christ is revealed in the Incarnation as “the archetype of His own image”; in fact, the recognition of the Incarnation makes it necessary to create images so that the connection to the archetypes revealed in the Incarnation is not interrupted. The premise of St. Theodore’s argument was, in our opinion, the statement of St. Maximus that the Word becomes “an example and symbol of Itself.” Another hint is seen in the fact that the Reverend used ambiguity, almost a play on words, in the concept of prТswpon - ‘face’ or ‘personality’. Looking at the radiant Face of the transfigured Savior, we contemplate the Divinity: that is why the radiance is blinding, that is why when interpreting we cannot do without apophatic theology 27 . Many years ago, in his work “Der Logos am Kreuz” 28, Alois Grillmeier drew attention to the image of the crucified Christ in the Gospels (the so-called Rabbula Gospels) of the 6th century, where the Savior is depicted on the cross with open eyes. Using, among other things, the Physiologist, which mentions the legend in which the lion sleeps with his eyes open, and applying it to the idea that Christ is the lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev 5:5, cf. Gen 49:9), A. Grillmeier expressed the opinion that open eyes testify to the Divine nature of Christ, awake while human nature is subject to death 29. If the eyes form the face, then the interpretation of the Transfiguration of St. Maximus is strikingly similar to the iconography of the “Logos on the Cross.” In the attempt of St. Maximus to reveal the meaning of the Transfiguration, we observe a beautiful interweaving of spiritual, theological and philosophical themes. The spiritual theme sees the Transfiguration as a symbol of the fullest human encounter with God; the theological theme stems from the Ecumenical Councils - the radiant Face of the transfigured Lord is interpreted here in the special language of conciliar decrees, the philosophical theme is imbued with the theology of the holy martyr Dionysius the Areopagite - the difference between the theology of affirmation, cataphatic theology and the theology of negation, apophatic theology, is focused on the personality of the Incarnate. Through all these themes the icon of Christ clearly emerges, in the contemplation of which the fullness of theology is gained. Theology as a doctrine passes into theology - contemplation; Christology gives way to the contemplation of the icon, or image of Christ. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons. Creations. M., 1996. IV. 20. 7. P. 373. See Origen. Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.12. 36–43; It's him. Against Celsus.1. 48, 2. 64–65, 4. 16, 6. 68; It's him. Conversations on the Book of Genesis. 1. 7. Venerable Macarius of Egypt. Spiritual conversations. Sergiev Posad, 1994. 1. 3, 15. 38, 20. 3. S. 5, 130–131, 171. For a collection of patristic sayings on the Divine Transfiguration from the Hieromartyr Irenaeus to the Venerable John of Damascus (including Gregory Palamas in the section on the Greek Fathers), with a preface devoted mainly to the texts of the New Testament and their interpretations, but containing a short chapter on the interpretations of the Holy Fathers, see McGuckin J. A. The Transfiguration of Christ in Scripture and Tradition // Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 9, Lewiston / Queenston, 1986. Elsner J. Art and the Roman Viewer. The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity. Cambridge, 1995, pp. 99–123. A ladder leading to heaven, our venerable father John, abbot of Mount Sinai. M., 2002. Degree 30. 1. P. 243. See, for example, the autobiographical “Catechism” 22 (Krivoch – ine B., Paramelle J. Catuch-ses6–22 // Sources Chrutiennes 104. Paris, 1964. P. 364–392); perhaps the title of the book by Archbishop Vasily (Krivoshein) about the Monk Simeon will be more revealing: Krivoch – ine B. Dans la lumi-re du Christ // Collection Tumoins de l’eglise indivise 1. Gembloux, 1980 (lit. “In the light of Christ.” For the Russian translation of the book of Bishop Vasily, see Archbishop Vasily (Krivoshein). Rev. Simeon the New Theologian (949–1022). N.-Novgorod, 1996. – Ed.). Cm . Saint Gregory the Sinaite. Discourse on the Transfiguration // Theologia. 1981/83. Athens, 1983. 52.4–54.1; Gregory Palamas. Hom. 34 // PG 151, 423–436 (Russian translation, see St. Gregory Palamas. Conversations. T. 2. M., 1994. P. 83–93). Origen. Against Celsus. 2. 64. M., 1996. P. 170. For a paraphrase of Eusebius of Caesarea's letter to Constantius, see Geischer H.–J. (ed.). Der bysantinische Bilderstreit // Texte zur Kirchen- und Theologiegeschichte 9. Gutersloh, 1968. P. 15–17. Archpriest Georgy Florovsky. Origen, Eusebius and the iconoclastic dispute // Archpriest George Florovsky. Dogma and history. M., 1998. pp. 351–376. Fragments from his book “Ecumenical Liturgy: St. Maximus the Confessor” have been published; see: Alpha and Omega. 1997. No. 3(14); 1998. No. 2(16); 1999. No. 1(19); 2000. No. 1(23), 3(25). – Ed. See excerpts from Origen translated by John McGucken: McGuckin J. Decree. op. P. 151–164. See Louth A. Origins of the Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys. Oxford, 1989, pp. 57–61. Pay attention to another interpretation given by the Monk John of Damascus in his sermon on the Transfiguration of the Lord, where six is ​​the number of perfection, and eight is the prototype of the time to come (see St. John of Damascus. Homily on the Transfiguration of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ // Alpha and Omega. 1999. No. 4(22). pp. 61–76. - Ed.). See Saint Gregory of Nyssa. About the life of Moses the Lawgiver. M., 1999. pp. 63–67. Cm . Dionysius the Areopagite. On mystical theology // Dionysius the Areopagite. About divine names. About mystical theology. St. Petersburg, 1994, pp. 345–347. See: PG 91, 1105C-1205C; English translation: Louth A. Maximus the Confessor. London, 1996, pp. 96–154. Venerable Maximus the Confessor. Ambigua (Ambigua 10.17 // PG 91, 1125D-1128D). See also Origen. Against Celsus, where quotations from the prophet Isaiah refer to the Apostles' experience at the Transfiguration. Venerable Maximus the Confessor. Mystagogy // Works of St. Maximus the Confessor. M., 1993. pp. 154–157. Venerable Maximus the Confessor. Ambigva 10.31 // PG 91, 1160V-1169V. Venerable Maximus the Confessor. Ambigva 10.31s // PG 91, 1165D. Antirrheticus 2, 3 // PG 99, 356A; 428C (we translate prwtТtupoj as 'archetype', since the word 'prototype' has a different meaning in English). The author owes this reference to his student, priest Gary Thorne. See interpretation of Questions 191 and Ambigwa 10.17 above. Grillmeier A. Der Logos am Kreuz. Munchen, 1956. See also Uthermann K. -H. Christ’s Image versus Christology: Thoughts on the Justinianic Era as the Threshold of an Epoch // Allen P., Jeffreys E. M. (edd.). The Sixth Century – End of Beginning? (Bysantine Australiensia 10. Brisbane, 1996). P. 197–223, esp. 216–220.