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Part I. Christological and polemical treatises The treatise “Against the Manichaeans” stands somewhat apart from other polemical works of St. John of Damascus, included in this volume, if only because it does not touch on the most pressing issues of Christology for that time. At the same time, it is closely related to the treatise “On the Properties of Two Natures,” since in both of these works St. John develops his ethical views and doctrine of free will. In order to correctly understand the purpose that St. John pursued in the treatise “Against the Manichaeans”, it is necessary to keep in mind the following. Manichaeism was founded by the Persian preacher Mani in the 3rd century AD. and was considered either a Christian or Zoroastrian heresy, depending on where it spread. Modern scientists are inclined to consider it a separate religion, which very willingly accepted individual elements of other faiths (often perverting them beyond recognition). Apparently, St. held the same view. John: in his treatise there is not a single reference to any general authority, which would be inevitable if the author saw in his opponents erring brothers in faith (as in the case of the Monophysites and Nestorians), Christian polemicists who wrote against the Manichaeans faced an extremely difficult task. The fact is that the Manichaean doctrine consisted, as it were, of two layers: on the surface lay a bizarre mythology, generated by the most violent and perverted fantasy, which was very difficult to argue against both because the people intoxicated by it were very weakly susceptible to any reasonable arguments, and because these myths themselves were fluid and unstable and could easily change depending on place and time. For example, the Manichaeans in Central Asia (where they were numerous back in the 8th-9th centuries) almost did not use Christian images and ideas, while in the Roman Empire of the 4th-5th centuries the version of Manichaeism that we know from the works of St. Serapion of Tmuite, St. Epiphany of Cyprus, St. Ephraim the Syrian and others, was replete with reinterpreted and distorted teachings borrowed from Christians (which prompted many to consider Manichaeism a Christian heresy). However, underneath these changeable and impermanent layers lay the core of the Manichaean worldview: the belief in the existence of two principles of the world, good and evil, the struggle between which determines everything that happens in this world. Hatred of the material world, perhaps, did not reach such strength in any previous dualistic sect. The natural consequence of this hatred was, by the way, that the Manichaeans became an extremely dangerous and destructive element for society: that is why the laws against them were particularly severe in almost all states where this religion spread. The structure of the Manichaean doctrine described above ensured its exceptional vitality. By the 7th century, references to the Manichaeans as such almost disappeared from Byzantine sources - but the end of the same century saw the emergence of Paulicianism, a dualistic heresy that the Byzantine emperors had to fight with force of arms. Although it is impossible to trace a formal connection between the Manichaeans and the Paulicians, the continuity of basic ideas is quite obvious. Over the following centuries, Paulicianism spread to the Balkans, where it was known as Bogomilism, and then to Western Europe in the form of the Waldensian and Cathar sects, which the papal Inquisition, despite all its cruelty, could not cope with for several centuries. All these circumstances explain both the very fact of the appearance of the treatise and the peculiarities of its content. By the 7th century, Manichaeism in its former form hardly existed in Syria and Palestine: but its destructive potential retained its strength, being reborn under new names and in a new guise. That is why, instead of dwelling on the particulars of the mythological system of the Manichaeans, for example, on the doctrine of Christ or the Holy Spirit, on soteriology or morality, St. John subjects the very center of the Manichaean worldview to devastating criticism: the doctrine of two principles and the creation of the world. And since Manichaeism is still alive today (one of the varieties is the so-called anthroposophy), the brilliant argumentation of St. John remains a powerful means of combating this most dangerous error. Conversation between a Saracen and a Christian Compared to the treatise against the Manichaeans, “Conversation between a Saracen and a Christian” represents the other side of the polemical talent of St. John of Damascus. Despite the fact that its authorship is not in dispute, since the manuscripts do not contain the name of the author, except for one, which attributes the work to a certain grammarian Sisinnius, all scholars agree that the main ideas of the treatise go back to St. John. And if “Against the Manichaeans” is aimed at the deepest ideological foundations of this religion, without being distracted by unnecessary details, then the “Conversation” examines precisely those specific issues around which the most fierce struggle was waged in early Islamic theology. As D. Sahas showed (Sahas D. J. John of Damascus on Islam. The “Heresy of the Ismaelites.” Leiden, 1972), the author of the treatise shows amazing awareness of Islam in general and in contemporary Muslim ideological movements in particular. Here are just two examples: The Christian proves that God is not the cause of evil, and the Saracen is forced to accept his arguments: it was at this time that the Qadarite sect arose in Islam, who denied one of the fundamental tenets of Islam - that evil, like good, occurs by the will of Allah. At the end of ch. 5 there is the following passage: “Christian: ...I will ask you this: “Before God created the Spirit and the Word, He had neither the Spirit nor the Word?” And he will run away from you, not having anything to answer you - after all, such people are heretics for a Saracen, and very disgusting and outcast - and if you want to divulge about him to the rest of the Saracens, he will be very afraid of you.” We are talking here about the Islamic sects of the Mu'tazilites and Jahmits, who taught about the creation of the Koran (i.e., the “Word of Allah” in the Muslim understanding) and for this were often subjected to severe persecution. It should be borne in mind that a dispute about faith with a Muslim was a dangerous thing for a Christian subject of the Caliphate: Therefore, in order to provide his co-religionists with a reliable polemical arsenal, St. John shows how they can exploit internal divisions in Islamic theology. In addition, the genre he chose did not allow St. John has to express everything he thinks about Islam, so “Conversation between a Saracen and a Christian” is best read with chapter 100 of his treatise “On Heresies” in mind, where you can find a comprehensive and systematic criticism of this religion. Publishing this small treatise in Russian for the first time by St. John of Damascus, we would like to draw the attention of readers not so much to the natural scientific views of the Holy Father, which, of course, bear the stamp of his era and are interesting primarily to historians of science, but to the very methodology of his thinking, to his consistent sobriety in assessing the phenomena of the surrounding world, strikingly contrasting with the boundless mysticism, the search for the mysterious, characteristic of false religiosity. Translation was carried out according to the publication: Patrologiae cursus completus. Series graeca (PG), vol. 96, 1600–1604. Words for the Mother of God holidays The following editions of the works of St. were used in the translation. John of Damascus: a) Patrologiae cursus completus. Series graeca (PG), vol. 96, 661–680, 700–761. This publication is a reproduction of the first two-volume edition of the works of Damascus, which was carried out by M. Lequien in 1712 in Paris. b)S. Jean Damascene. Homélies sur la Nativité et la Dormition SC 80, texte gres., intr, traduction et notes par P. Voulet. Paris, 1961. c) Ἀγίου Ἰ ωάννου Δαμασκηνοῦ. Ἡ Θεοτόκος. Τέσσερεις Θεομητορικὲς ὁμίλιες. Κείμενο – Εἰσαγωγή – Σχόλια. Ἰ ερομόναχος Ἀθανάσιος Γιέβτιτς. Αθῆναι, 1970. Unfortunately, the latest critical edition of the works of Damascus, prepared by the Byzantine Benedictine Institute in Germany: Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskas, remains beyond our reach. Hrsg. von Byzantinischen Institut der Abtei Scheyern. Besorgt von P. B. Kotter, O.S.B.B., 1969–1975, Bd. 1–3. The basis for the translation was the Athens edition, which takes into account the largest number of manuscripts and the most profound from the point of view of patristic theology, regarding the choice of conjectures. The most significant differences between the options accepted by Hierarch. Afanasy Yevtich and Catholic publishers, indicated in the comments. The Russian translation (anonymous) of the Word for the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was first published in 1828 in “Christian Reading”, part XXI, and then reprinted twice (Selected words of the Holy Fathers in honor and glory of the Blessed Virgin Mary. M., 1886, pp. 14–27; Church sermon on the Twelfth Feasts. Compiled by P. Smirnov, Part I, Kiev, 1904, pp. 641–651). The first Eulogy on the Dormition was translated with some lacunae in Christian Reading, 1844, volume III (republished in the anthology of P. Smirnov, pp. 504–517). Fragments from the Second Eulogy for the Dormition were published in Church Gazette for 1900, No. 33, p. 1305–1311 (in the anthology of P. Smirnov, pp. 518–527). The Third Homily on the Dormition was translated in Christian Reading, 1836, vol. III (reprints: Selected Words... pp. 113–120; Anthology of P. Smirnov, pp. 528–533). As can be seen from the list above, three of the four Words were translated in the first half of the 19th century, and their Russian language looks very outdated. In addition, these translations, in our opinion, have two more significant shortcomings: 1) their theological language is terminologically inaccurate, or rather, at that time Russian-language theological terminology had not yet fully taken shape; and also 2) they are not focused on conveying the homiletical features of the original, such as the rhythmic construction of phrases, wordplay, end consonances, etc. Naturally, all these translations were made according to Min’s edition, which is by no means the best today. The translation of 1900 is largely free of these shortcomings, but, unfortunately, it contains only fragments (somewhat less than half) of II Homily on the Dormition. It remains to add that in the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate” Nos. 8, 9 for 1987, a translation of the Third Homily on the Assumption was published, carried out by the author of this work, but without the knowledge or consent of the translator, an editorial edit was made to it, changing, or even directly distorting, the meaning of the original (especially in Chapter 4). The patristic quotations given in the commentary were translated from Greek by the author of the work, except for those for which the Russian translations indicated in the notes were used, as well as those quotations from the “Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith”, which are given in the translation by the teacher of the St. Petersburg Theological Seminary A. Bronzov (An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. The Work of St. John of Damascus. Translation from Greek by A. Bronzov. St. Petersburg, 1894). Quotations from the Holy Scriptures are translated according to the Synodal Translation, except for those cases when the text of the Sentuagint quoted by Damascus differs markedly from the Hebrew Masoretic, according to which the Russian Synodal translation of the Old Testament was carried out. When compiling the commentary, the scholia of Hierom were used. Afanasy Yevtich in the Athens edition, the introductory article by R. Voulet in the “Sources Chrétiennes” series, A. Bronzov’s notes to the edition of the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith and other sources indicated in the bibliography.