| Разумеем орфизм, который, как уже сказали мы, шел на помощь скудному содержанием богословию гомерической эпохи. Был ли этот орфизм действительно плодом углубления религиозной мысли в древнее предание, за что он выдавал себя, жило ли это воззрение вместе с гомерическим и только в эту позднейшую эпоху получило особенное значение, явившись в новой форме, или оно есть разбившаяся после эпохи Гомера смесь преданий Азии и востока с греческими верованиями, положительно решить трудно, но последнее гораздо вероятнее, как и говорили мы. Орфики были своего рода новаторы в греческой религии, хотя сами они стояли под влиянием от древности известных религиозных преданий востока и хотя их новые воззрения не исключали собой верований гомерического периода. Известно ли было это богословие в Греции до времен развития орфической литературы, или нет, принадлежало ли оно прежде к тайным культам, и стало только открытым у орфиков, или вновь выработано ими, во всяком случае оно было сравнительно новой формой религиозного воззрения в Греции, новой теософией. Впрочем орфическое воззрение может быть названо и древним по своим началам т. е. в том смысле, что оно обращало греческий антропоморфизм к тому прежнему натурализму, из которого он развился, своеобразно осмыслив натуралистические верования. Орфическое богословие проповедовало пантеистический монизм, не уничтожавший политеизма. Орфические гимны оставляют по прежнему все множество гомерических богов и всех демонов, небесных, водных, земных и преисподних 1921 , а равно и судьбу, которая над всеми властвует 1922 ; но все эти боги в Зевсе имеют уже не только свой центр, как у Гомера, но и свое общее единое начало. Несамобытность гомерических богов исчезает, но вместе с этим и антропоморфизм принимает формы пантеизма. Зевс царь есть начало и конец всего ( ρχ πντων κα τελεοτ) 1923 ; через его голову все открылось, все из него родилось, как из своей субстанции ( Ζες πρτος γνετο. Δις δ’ κ πντα ττυκται) 1924 ; он один божество мира в собственном и строгом смысле слова, как источник и начало всякой жизни: один бог, одна сила во всем, что существует ( ε ς δαμων γνετο πντων ’ αρχιγνεθλος 1925 , ε ς θες ν πντεσι) 1926 . |
| III. Two Energies, Two Wills The definitions of Chalcedon are not directed only against Nestorianism and Monophysitism, but, when they specify that Christ as perfect man is composed of a rational soul and of a body, against another heresy: Apoilinarianism. Apollinarius of Laodicea lived in the fourth century, and the great Cappadocians fought against him. He was a typical representative of the school of Alexandria, where the unity of Christ was affirmed before all else. Eighty years before Monophysitism, and while its thought was still in preparation, he was asking how to reconcile this unity with the duality therein of the divine and the human. It could not be a matter, he thought, of two perfect natures, for according to Hellenistic thought, of which he was here a captive, “two perfects cannot become one,” two perfect principles could not unite to form a third nature, also perfect. Either these two natures are not perfect, or their unity is only juxtaposition. In short, Apollinarius hypostasized the two natures, thereby refuting Nestorianism from the start, for it is quite obvious that two persons cannot cancel themselves into a third by their union. Since Christ’s unity is perfect, one must therefore suppose that one of His constituents was not. Divinity here not being under attack, Apollinarius concluded that Christ’s humanity, to make place for His divinity, must be imperfect. Man becomes perfect by intellect: it therefore seemed obvious to Apollinarius that Christ had no human vouq, and to seal His unity the human spirit in Him gave way to the divine Logos. The Word thus joins divinity to incomplete humanity, for divinity completed humanity. Thus the Christ of Apollinarius was less the God– man than an animal plus God. It was already the germ of Monophysitism, which will not cease to bring to the subject of the Christ the idea of incomplete humanity, thereby completed, and indeed absorbed, by the Logos. In the last analysis the whole construction of Apollinarius is based on an identification of the human person and vouq: the great temptation for metaphysicians is thus to reduce the mystery of personhood to the best part of nature, the intellect, the one that is most familiar to them – and not without a disdainful note for sentiment and the body. |
| And all his capacities and components do so. Everything acquires its theanthropic eternity through (the) victory over death, sin and the devil.” 51 And finally, according to Fr. Justin, and with this we will finish with this brief presentation of his understanding of ecumenism; though much remains to be said, that goes far beyond the limits of this presentation. 52 “God-manhood is the fundamental catholicity of the Church (=ecumenicity, the same as the relation between the atom and the planet 53 ): to the Trinity: but by the God-man who introduces and unites with the Holy Trinity who is the ideal and the reality of the perfect catholicity (=ecumenism): the ideal society and the ideal person: everything is perichoresis : everything perfectly united and preserved in that perfect catholicity. Every man is a living image—an icon of the Holy Trinity=therefore the Church as the ‘body of the Holy Trinity’ is everything and all for him and his trinitarization (being filled with the Holy Trinity)’ represents ‘human perfection’—in the God-man. That is why the Church is the most perfect workshop for making a perfect man. Everything else apart from the God-man: pseudosociety and pseudopersonalities are an illusory humanistic mixture of everything. Only Christ is everything and everyone.” 54 As we can see, the life path of Bishop Nikolai was a dramatic one; it was a path of organic maturation. His life experience and the experience of Fr. Justin Popovic were in their depths the same; nonetheless, the journey of Fr. Justin was different from the journey of his teacher Bishop Nikolai. It is possible that Fr. Justin’s journey was different precisely because Bishop Nikolai’s preceded it. Bishop Nikolai was the first to tackle his drama and the existential crucifixions of himself and his time; he suffered through and experienced, in his own skin, the tragedy, doubt, and divisions of his era, for the sake of Fr. Justin and for many of his other contemporaries. That is why Fr. Justin, even from his first writings, showed a stable and unwavering faith, and why he was crystal clear in bearing witness and giving testimony, and remained so to the end of his life. |
| John 15:14–15 And once more: You are My friends, if you do whatever I command you. John 15:13 You see then that there are different stages of perfection, and that we are called by the Lord from high things to still higher in such a way that he who has become blessed and perfect in the fear of God; going as it is written from strength to strength, and from one perfection to another, i.e., mounting with keenness of soul from fear to hope, is summoned in the end to that still more blessed stage, which, is love, and he who has been a faithful and wise servant Matthew 24:45 will pass to the companionship of friendship and to the adoption of sons. So then our saying also must be understood according to this meaning: not that we say that the consideration of that enduring punishment or of that blessed recompense which is promised to the saints is of no value, but because, though they are useful and introduce those who pursue them to the first beginning of blessedness, yet again love, wherein is already fuller confidence, and a lasting joy, will remove them from servile fear and mercenary hope to the love of God, and carry them on to the adoption of sons, and somehow make them from being perfect still more perfect. For the Saviour says that in His Father " s house are many mansions, John 14:2 and although all the stars seem to be in the sky, yet there is a mighty difference between the brightness of the sun and of the moon, and between that of the morning star and the rest of the stars. And therefore the blessed Apostle prefers it not only above fear and hope but also above all gifts which are counted great and wonderful, and shows the way of love still more excellent than all. For when after finishing his list of spiritual gifts of virtues he wanted to describe its members, he began as follows: And yet I show unto you a still more excellent way. Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and though I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I can remove mountains, and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. You see then that nothing more precious, nothing more perfect, nothing more sublime, and, if I may say so, nothing more enduring can be found than love. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Logos Theology JUSTIN M. LASSER The meaning of the Greek term Logos is intimately related to what it means to be human and what it means to contemplate a significant and meaningful world. Logos carries a plethora of uses, but takes its origin from the notion of speech and language. The early Greeks intuited that speech was closely, if not inalienably, connected to thought. In this sense speech became something more – it symbolized thought itself. As language moved beyond ostensive definition it acquired the capacity to name things that existed outside empirically demonstrative categories (such as “The Good”). It is uncertain how this potential within language was realized but, in reference to later Logos theology, mathematics had a seminal role to play. With the advent of ethereal mathematical entities (such as the Pythagorean theorem), two very important uses of the term Logos emerged in the philosophical vocabulary: first, as connoting the method of logical discourse or rationale of proof and, second, to evoke the apparent existence of pure forms existing beyond the present world. The theologian philosophers among the ancient Greeks (especially Plato and his school, but also Pythagoras and the Stoics) intended to intuit these ethereal entities. In this manner the earliest Logos theology, if it could be called such, assumed that forms and principles were discovered, not invented. Furthermore, these forms that existed beyond this world also informed the form of the material world. However, the division of the material from the formal created a chasm between the perfect heavenly realm and the material world below. Plato in his Timaeus resolved this issue by introducing the notion of a demiourgos or “demi-god” that formed the world according to the perfect formal principles (the logoi) but managed to do so imperfectly. In this vein the duty of the philosopher was to contemplate the world in order to intuit the more perfect logoi or principles of the perfect (or Ideal Platonic) realm. Among the later Christians this aspect of Logos theology survived to become a major aspect of the ascetical mystical tradition, especially visible in Evagrios Pontike, Maximos the Confessor, and the later Byzantine ascetics. Evagrius used Logos theology in the service of his theology of prayer (Kephalaia Gnostica), in which he instructed his disciples to begin by contemplating the natural logoi and to progress toward the contemplation of the supreme Logos. |
| Much more might be said about the perfection of the number seven, but this book is already too long, and I fear lest I should seem to catch at an opportunity of airing my little smattering of science more childishly than profitably. I must speak, therefore, in moderation and with dignity, lest, in too keenly following number, I be accused of forgetting weight and measure. Suffice it here to say, that three is the first whole number that is odd, four the first that is even, and of these two, seven is composed. On this account it is often put for all numbers together, as, A just man falls seven times, and rises up again, Proverbs 24:16 – that is, let him fall never so often, he will not perish (and this was meant to be understood not of sins, but of afflictions conducing to lowliness). Again, Seven times a day will I praise You, Psalm 119:164 which elsewhere is expressed thus, I will bless the Lord at all times. And many such instances are found in the divine authorities, in which the number seven is, as I said, commonly used to express the whole, or the completeness of anything. And so the Holy Spirit, of whom the Lord says, He will teach you all truth, John 16:13 is signified by this number. In it is the rest of God, the rest His people find in Him. For rest is in the whole, i.e., in perfect completeness, while in the part there is labor. And thus we labor as long as we know in part; but when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part shall be done away. It is even with toil we search into the Scripturesthemselves. But the holy angels, towards whose society and assembly we sigh while in this our toilsome pilgrimage, as they already abide in their eternal home, so do they enjoy perfect facility of knowledge and felicity of rest. It is without difficulty that they help us; for their spiritual movements, pure and free, cost them no effort. Chapter 32.– Of the Opinion that the Angels Were Created Before the World. But if some one oppose our opinion, and say that the holy angels are not referred to when it is said, Let there be light, and there was light; if he suppose or teach that some material light, then first created, was meant, and that the angels were created, not only before the firmament dividing the waters and named the heaven, but also before the time signified in the words, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; if he allege that this phrase, In the beginning, does not mean that nothing was made before (for the angels were), but that God made all things by His Wisdom or Word, who is named in Scripture the Beginning, as He Himself, in the gospel, replied to the Jews when they asked Him who He was, that He was the Beginning; – I will not contest the point, chiefly because it gives me the liveliest satisfaction to find the Trinity celebrated in the very beginning of the book of Genesis. |
| All these words and presuppositions, obviously, are insufficient and inexact. They all have the character of negations and prohibitions, and not of direct and positive definitions; but they are necessary for the testimony to that experience of faith in which the mystery of Divine freedom is revealed. With a tolerable inexactitude, one could say that God is able to permit and tolerate the absence of anything outside of Himself. By such a presumption the whole immeasurability of the Divine love is not diminished, but on the contrary is thrown into relief. God creates out of the absolute superabundance of His mercies and goodness, and herein His good pleasure and freedom are manifest. And in this sense, one could say that the world is a kind of a surplus. And further, it is a surplus which in no way enriches the Divine fullness; it is, as it were, something «supererogatory» and superadded, something which also could not have existed, and which exists only through the sovereign and all-perfect freedom and unspeakable good pleasure and love of God. This means that the world is created and is «the work of» God’s will, ϑελσεως ργον. No outward revelation whatever belongs to the «necessity» of the Divine nature, to the necessary structure of the intra-Divine life. And creative revelation is not something imposed upon God by His goodness. It is executed in perfect freedom, though in eternity also. Therefore it cannot be said that God began to create, or «became» Creator, even though «to be Creator» does not belong to those definitions of Divine nature which includes the Trinity of Hypostases. In the everlasting immutability of God’s Being there is no origination whatsoever, nor any becoming, nor any sequence. And nevertheless there is a kind of all-perfect harmonic order which is partially knowable and expressible on the level of the Divine names. In this sense St. Athanasius the Great used to say that «to create, for God, is secondary; and to beget, primary» that «what is of nature [essence]» is antecedent to «what is of volition.» 37 One has to admit distinctions within the very co-eternity and immutability of the Divine Being. |
| 1F. Authority for Forgiveness (20:23) Immediately after breathing on them and announcing the Spirit, Jesus grants them the authority of representative forgiveness. 10720 It is anachronistic to read into this passage the later Catholic doctrine of penance or others» views about admission to baptism; 10721 it is likewise anachronistic to read into it Protestant polemic against the Catholic interpretation of the passage. Read on its own terms, the passage makes good sense as it stands. Because the Spirit would continue among them (20:22), they would be able to carry on Jesus» work (cf. 16:7–11); 10722 given the backdrop of 16:7–11, which explains the meaning of the Spirit " s coming here, the disciples announce both righteousness and judgment based on peoplés response to Christ (cf. 14:6). 10723 Although the promise is given directly to those present at the time (20:19), it will no more exclude later generations of Christians (such as John " s audience, 17:20–22) than it would Thomas once he believes (20:24). If the Spirit is for later Johannine Christians as well as for the first ones (3:5; 1 John 2:20, 27), then they, too, will bear witness (15:26–27) and be recipients of the Spirit (16:7), who prosecutes the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment (16:8–11). 10724 The passive is a divine passive; forgiveness comes from God; further, in John " s perspective, only Jesus» sacrifice takes away sin (1:29). In the perspective of Johannine Christians, however, believers can play a role in other believers» forgiveness, at least by prayer (1 John 5:16–17); 10725 the present passage speaks of believers» ministry to nonbelievers, mediating God " s forgiveness through the word they bring (20:21; 16:8–11). 10726 (We mean «word» in its Johannine sense; by proclaiming the message of Jesus, to whom the Spirit testifies, believers proclaim Jesus the word himself, who is revealed by the Spirit to unbelievers.) In the Synoptics, the disciples had already exercised such discretion based on evidence of repentance ( Mark 6:11 ; Matt 10:14; Luke 9:5); John has, however, omitted that preresurrection ministry of the disciples, probably to avoid playing down the full role of Christ before the resurrection and the full role of the Spirit and believers after 20:19–23. 10727 Some take the perfect tense as meaning that «the apostolic sentence is forthwith confirmed–is effective as soon as spoken.» 10728 Others suggest that the perfect tense here, like the future perfect in Matt 16:19; 18:18, may be intended literally, that is, that those who pronounce forgiveness are merely confirming what has already taken place from God " s perspective. 10729 |
| Heidegger stresses in particular ‘Nietzsche " s acute opposition to Descartes, 22 who is perhaps the crowning example of the historical western temptation to secure God " s existence in terms of rational demonstration. In the famous fourth chapter of the Discourse on Method (1637), the existence of God is proved by the exclusive use of intellectual capacity of the subject. From the conceptual viewpoint of my own finite existence and intellect, I deduce the idea of a single perfect existence and intellect – of a single being that comprises all the perfections of existence – and intellect. And since intellectual apprehension is the sole means of ascertaining the truth, we demonstrate the existence of God by conceiving the idea of God. With the intellect we conceive of God as a perfect being, consequently his existence is comprised in that idea in the same way as there is comprised in the idea of a. triangle the truth that the sum of its angles equals two right angles, if not more evidently. Consequently, the fact that God, who is a perfect a being, exists or has being, has the same kind of certainty as a geometrical truth. In applying this deductive reasoning to establish God’s existence, Descartes follows faithfully the scholastic tradition based on Augustine: he follows Campanella, Anselm of Canterbury, Hugh of Saint-Victor, Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas. 23 While the total work of each of the above figures differs in many respects from the work of the others, there nevertheless exists among them a common denominator, an underlying assumption shared by all alike, and pushed by Descartes to its ultimate consequences: it is the radical reversal of the. Greek understanding of logos – ‘the interpretation of logos as the means of reference and relation, the means of verifying knowledge through experienced relationship or the common potentiality of relationships (the Heraltleitian ‘common logos’). The Scholastics and Descartes introduce into human history the interpretation of logos as ratio, and ratio as a self-reliant, subjective capacity, the capacity of individual reasoning (facultas rationis), which is competent to define the truth exhaustively, being as it is but a miniature of the divine mind. |
| In indicating the attributes of God, we do not thereby give a “definition” of the concept of God Such a definition is essentially impossible, because every definition is an indication of” finiteness” (In Russian, Father Michael is indicating here the derivation of the word opredeleniye (“definition”) from predel (“limit” or “boundary”). In English the same thing is true: “definition” derives from the Latin finis, “limit.”) and signifies, incompleteness. However, in God there are no limits, and therefore there cannot be a definition of the concept of the Divinity: “For a concept is itself a form of limitation” (St. Gregory the Theologian, Homily 28, his Second Theological Oration). Our reason demands the acknowledgement in God of a whole series of essential attributes. Reason tells us that God has a rational, free, and personal existence. If in the imperfect world we see free and rational personal beings, we cannot fail to recognize a free and rational personal existence in God Himself, who is the Source, Cause, and Creator of all life Reason tells us that God is a most perfect Being. Every lack and imperfection are incompatible with the concept of “God.” Reason tells us that the most perfect Being can be only singular: God is One. There cannot be two perfect beings, since one would limit the other. Reason tells us that God is a self-existing Being, since nothing can be the cause or condition of the existence of God. Sacred Scripture concerning the attributes of God. The attributes of God, taken directly from the Word of God, are set forth in Metropolitan Philaret " " s Longer Christian Catechism of the Orthodox Church (English translation (reprinted from the 1901 translation) in The Catechism of the Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Books, Willits, California, 1971, p. 19). Here we read “Question: What idea of the essence and essential attributes of God may be derived from Divine revelation? Answer: That God is a Spirit, eternal, all-good, omniscient, righteous, almighty, omnipresent, unchangeable, all sufficing to Himself, all-blessed.” Let us stop to think about these attributes set forth in the catechism. |
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