| The Johannine works are clearly directed in part against a popular docetism, i.e., the notion that Christ’s flesh or humanity was a mere seeming or phantom. In the 2nd c. dualism was very prevalent in the ancient world, whether in the sophisticated version of Plato’s (q.v.) divide between sensible and intelligible worlds or in the popular equation of matter with evil and the immaterial with good (which would show up with especial force in 3rd-c. Manichaeism). Dualism took shape in the gnostic movement. The dualistic portrait of Christ as the manifestation, in the appearance of flesh, of the realm of pure spirit found vigorous opponents in, among others, Irenaeus of Lyons and Tertullian of Carthage (qq.v.). Irenaeus insisted upon the full reality of the Word’s coming in the flesh, his incarnation, and thus that Jesus, as the second Adam and model-as divine Son-of the first, accomplished the recapitulation of all creation and its redemption from the powers of sin (q.v.) and death. This triumph, he continued, would become manifest at the Second Coming or Parousia. (See Millennialism.) The 3rd c. saw the Church Fathers (q.v.) struggling with adoptionism, a doctrine associated particularly with Bishop Paul of Samosata, and modalism, linked especially with the Roman presbyters, Praxeas and Sabellius. Adoptionists argued that the man, Jesus, had been adopted by God (q.v.) the Father at the moment of the former’s baptism (cf. Mk 1:9–12 ). Modalists saw the three persons of the Trinity (q.v.) as three moments in the revelation of the one divine person. On occasion both adoptionism and modalism were combined, as in the case of Paul of Samosata. Tertullian wrote extensively, particularly in his Against Praxeas, in answer to the modalists, while Dionysius of Alexandria chaired a local synod at Antioch (qq.v.) in 261 that deposed Paul of Samosata. Of note for the future was the latter council’s explicit condemnation of the term “homoousios” (of the same substance), which Paul had used in order to explain that the Word of God, as a mere aspect or power of the Father and not as a separate person in his own right, had been bestowed upon Jesus of Nazareth at his messianic anointing. |
| Dicunt quidam iuxta voluntatem generationem et iuxta actionem33. Est autem ista duo hoc idem accipere voluntatem et actionem magis in deo. Simul enim velie et agere est deo. Atta-men est et differentia, etsi, in eo quod est velie, et actus est deo. Etenim velie, et in eo quod est velie, causa est actionis, actio d autem effectio voluntatis. Aliud ergo voluntas ab actione. Et ubi est prius et posterius, inpossibile ibi ambo idem. Deo igitur pri-mum voluntas, posterius actio, non iuxta tempus dico, sed iuxta, ut sit, causam alii esse. Voluntas igitur in confesso est quoniam substantia non est neque actio. Deinde aliud quid est a volúntate et ab actione ipsum opus. Opus enim operantis opus, non tarnen ipse operator opus. Opus igitur non consubstantiale operanti et non generatio, sed quod effectum genitum est. Quoniam ergo a deo quod genitum est, et opus non generatio, neque filietas nec 1018a filius neque unigenitus neque consubstantiale, magis, cum necdum sit ipsa substantia, antequam deus velit generare aliquid. Effectum namque dei est omnis substantia. Deus igitur non est substantia34. Per deum enim substantia. Quomodo igitur, posterius cum sit substantia, deum substantiam dicimus? Si enim dicimus deum substantiam esse, cogit nos ratio et in istud, ut con-fiteamur substantiam priorem esse a deo. Etenim vere substantia subiectum quiddam est. Quod autem subiectum est, simplex non est. Simul enim intellectus accipit aliud quid esse in subiecto, cum subiectum audierit. Sed enim simplum deus est. Insubstan-tialis ergo deus. Si autem insubstantialis, nullum ergo consubstantiale cum deo est, etiamsi a deo aut appareat aut natum sit35. b Dicunt quidam generationem esse a deo iuxta nominatum typum36. Deus enim spiritus est. Spiritus autem naturam suam nunc intendit, nunc in semet ipsum residit. Istius modi motum typum nominant. Quid deinde vero? Ab istius modi motione repente erumpit filietas quaedam et haec est generatio a deo. Quo-modo igitur? Ut effluentum an ut emissio an ut refulgentia an aliud quid horum? Quid deinde rursus? Ut pars a toto an totum? Quorum quodcumque est, aut inperfectus est, si partem effundit, et diminutio efficitur, patris pars cum sit filius, aut vana generatio, si |
| Эти три Лица Божественной Троицы, определяемые у бл. Августина именем отношений или действий, по общему смыслу всего церковного учения нашего древнехристианского писателя, суть образы существования (τρποι πρξεως, μορφα πρξεως) или модусы проявления (modi essendi, modi subsistendi) одной и той же сущности Божией (essentia, quam Graeci οσα vocant) и потому не вносят в нее никакого разделения. 921 Но с другой стороны, они не допускают в Боге никакого слияния или смешения и не отрицают собою реальности личного различия в Нем. 922 Указанные образы или модусы Божественного Бытия или, по терминологии Августина, отношения respective деятельности с их характеристическими признаками для богословского сознания западного отца не простые только имена, не абстрактные атрибуты или акциденции, не безличные моменты Божественного Бытия, сливающиеся с Его сущностью и не только не разделимые, но и не различимые от последней. Означенные выше отношения или особые деятельности в Боге для нашего Иппонского богослова суть не что иное, как лежащие в основе этих «образов» или «модусов» Божественного Существа три особые средоточные пункта или самосознательные центры в имманентной жизни духовно-личного Божества, «от вечности являющегося в первом из них как бытие нерожденное и производительное, и в двух последних, как бытие производное, – рождаемое и исходящее». 923 Божественные Лица бл. Августин, как сказано, характеризует в своем спекулятивно-богословском умозрении тринитарного догмата философскими определениями «отношений», «функций» 924 и пр. Но это у Августина в его церковном сознании суть ипостазированные вечные и неизменные отношения или действия, происходящие в одном и том же (численно едином) существе Божием 925 и раскрывающие в себе духовно-личную жизнь Единого Триипостасного Божества. 926 А потому общее учение бл. Августина о Св. Троице или о Боге, едином в Своем существе и троичном в Своих Ипостасях, по его основному духу, общему содержанию и конечным задачам, должно быть названо не только теистическим, но и ортодоксальным (церковно-православным). |
| Ergo et pater in filio et filius in patre. Etenim conficiens confecti conficiens et confectum conficiente confectum. Ergo una substantia, non una duobus et in una duo, sed quia in qua deus, in eadem filius, id est eius modi: ut enim vivit deus, ita vivit et filius, in quali substantia pater, in tali filius. 14. Sed, si vivit, inquiunt, pater, vivit et filius, et idcirco eadem tali que substantia ambo, substantia autem istius vivit, cum utrumque sit vivit, utrumque sine ortu est, utrumque sempiternum. Sed hoc excluditur evangelistae sacratis verbis, loquente ipso filio domino nostro Iesu Christo: vivit pater; hic fons sine ortu est. At ubi aliunde principium? Et ego, inquit, vivo propter patrem. Si ergo propter patrem, a patre accepit, et si accepit, genitus ab ingenito, et si vivit exsistentia certa est vis que substantiae in utroque, cum isto unius modi vivit, eadem patri et filio, sed filio a patre substantia est. Quod enim de spiritu nascitur, spiritus est. Ergo de tali patris substantia, talis filii substantia. Atque ut ostendatur magis et a patre data et substantia et eadem una que substantia, dictum quod vivit ac vita substantia est. Ergo eadem deo et a deo Christo filio, substantia, hoc dicente evangelista: ut enim deus habet ex se vitam, ita et filio dedit ex se habere vitam. g-homoousios ergo Christus cum deo, id est consubstantialis, quod est eiusdem substantiae, id est primae, principalis, universalis, unde omnia quae sunt et vivunt, vitam habentia g-epakton, id est inlatam, non a se genitam, neque quo sit ipsorum vivere quod est dei et filii, tantum quippe omnibus est ceteris ex vita quantum largitur Christus. In deo vero vivere ut principale conficiens est vitam, uno atque eodem exsistentiae fonte, nullo priore vel tempore vel potestate, dumtaxat circa substantiam. Unde, sive hoc accipiamus esse g-homoousion quod eadem sit substantia, nulla dubitatio est eandem esse, quia et qui vivit iam vita est, quod est deus, et qui vita est vivit, quod est Christus, et utrisque a se vita est, sicuti dictum est: ut habet ex se vitam pater, ita et filio dedit ex se habere vitam. |
| Its most perfect expression was in the third century, the modalism of Sabellius, where the very notion of person-hood disappeared. For Sabeliius indeed, God is an impersonal essence which manifests itself diversely to the universe. The three persons are then no longer anything but three successive modes of action, three appearances to the world of the same monad always simple in itself. Through creation God takes on the shape of Father. The Father is thus the aspect of a first phase of divine manifestation linked with the genesis and the paradisiacal state. But sin modified the relation between God and man; the era of the Father finished and God took another aspect, that of the Son, whose complete manifestation corresponded to the Incarnation. With the Ascension, the filial mode of divinity was once more absorbed into the essential mdistinction and a new mode appeared, that of the Spirit. At the Final Judgement, when the universe will be divinized, everything will enter into the indivisible monad. This successive Trinity remains thus a pure appearance and in no way concerns the reality itself of God: here, nature completely absorbs the persons. The opposite heresy, pure Tritheism, has never been expressed. But if the absurdity of a divergent Trinity cannot be formulated, one often observes a certain weakening of the trinitarian reciprocity: a Trinity without equality and finally relinquished. Before Nicaea subordinationistic tendencies were powerful in Christian thought, particularly with Origen. Under the influence of Neo-Platonism, the Father was identified with supreme unity, so that one could not thereafter distinguished the Son except by subordinating Him. Divinity did not properly belong to Him; He only participated in the divine nature of the Father. The Logos thus became the instrument of the One, and the Holy Spirit in its turn served as an instrument for the Son with which to sanctify on behalf of the Father. With Arius this tendency became a heresy which broke the trinitarian unity. |
| The Cappadocian Fathers made some fundamental contributions to the doctrine of God. The first of these was to provide a more appropriate conceptuality, brought about through a change in terminology. They shifted the sense of ‘hypostasis’ from its original sense of ‘essence’, and transferred it to the person, making ‘person’ a fundamental category. The word ‘hypostasis’ implies that something or someone actually exists, for whatever has no actual hypostasis has no real existence. We Greeks still use hypostasis in this sense, for instance in an expression such as ‘these rumours are without hypostasis’, when we want to say that there is no truth in them. By calling hypostases ‘persons’, the Cappadocians attributed full ontological reality to each of the persons of God. They rejected the view that they are simply different roles enacted by the one and the same being. Then the Cappadocians attributed the cause of God’s existence to the Father, so the existence of God became a matter of personal freedom. These new terminological and conceptual tools allowed the Fathers to employ analogies in which the persons were clearly complete beings, and so to stay faithful to the tradition they had received. Sabellius viewed God as a being that extended into three separate offshoots each with its separate role, but the assumption was that this plurality would finally contract back into the one again. The belief that God’s being has three extensions is termed ‘modalism’. The concern aroused by the threat of modalism produced very mixed reactions to Nicaea’s ruling for the term ‘homoousion’. Following Athanasius, Nicaea stressed that the Son is born of the essence of the Father: the Son is not an extension of the Father’s essence, but a complete and independent entity. The Cappadocians insisted that these three persons are indeed three complete entities. They made an important characteristic alteration to one familiar analogy. In the phrase ‘light from light’ the Creed uses the analogy of light to represent the unity of the Father and the Son; just as light emanates rays that cannot be separated from their source, the Son is inseparably one with the Father. The Cappadocian Fathers found that this analogy needs clarification, because just as rays of light could he construed as the extension of the light source, so the Son could thus be construed as the necessary outworking of God. So rather than repeating ‘light of light’, the Cappadocians spoke of three suns or three torches. |
| This early condemnation of homoousios would play a significant role in the controversy of the 4th c. regarding the Alexandrian presbyter, Arius, and the struggle over the Nicene Creed (qq.v.). Arius had proposed that the Word of God incarnate in Christ was less than divine, a creature of the one God and Father. His understanding of salvation seems in consequence to have been based upon a “heroic” model of Christ as trailblazer and exemplar. Against this view, first Alexander and then Athanasius of Alexandria (q.v.) championed the teaching of Irenaeus: that God himself had taken on humanity in order to make his creatures participants in his divinity. The First Ecumenical Council (q.v.) at Nicaea in 325 endorsed a creed that incorporated the word homoousios in order to underline the Word’s co-divinity or consubstantiality with the Father and so retain the traditional doctrine of theosis. Due to the term’s prior association with modalism, however, it was not accepted readily by the Eastern bishops. Athanasius was quite wrong to brand all of his opponents with the label, “Arians.” Most of the educated, Greek-speaking episcopacy were theological followers of Origen (q.v.) and embraced the latter’s use of hypostasis (usually translated now as “person,” but more literally meaning something closer to “substance”) for the three persons of the Trinity. In consequence, though, they were obliged to assume Origen’s subordinationism as well, that is, the notion that Son and Spirit stand in a lesser, subordinate relationship to God the Father. It was this tendency in Origen’s thought that contributed substantially to Arius’s initial success in persuading some-scarcely all-of the Eastern bishops to approve his program. Most disliked both him and Athanasius, and with some justice. It required the singular genius of the Cappadocian Fathers (q.v.) to find a solution incorporating both Athanasius’s insistence on the full divinity of the Son and Origen’s terminology, an accomplishment sealed by the endorsement of the expanded Nicene Creed at the Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople (q.v.) in 381. |
| Photius offered the first open Greek refutation in 866, when he saw in the interpolated creed not only an alteration by some Frankish «barbarians» in the distant West, but also a weapon of anti-Byzantine propaganda among the nearby Bulgarians, who had recently been converted to Christianity by the Greeks and for whom the Byzantine patriarch considered himself directly responsible. In his encyclical to the Eastern patriarchs (866), Photius considers the Filioque as the «crown of evils» introduced by the Frankish missionaries in Bulgaria. 131 We have already seen that his major theological objection to the interpolation was that it presupposed a confusion of the hypostatic characters of the Persons of the Trinity and was, therefore, a new form of modalism, or «semi-Sabellianism.» After the Council of 879–880, which solemnly confirmed the original text of the creed and formally anathematized anyone who would either «compose another confession of faith» or corrupt the creed with «illegitimate words, or additions, or subtractions,» 132 Photius considered himself fully satisfied. To celebrate what he considered a final victory of Orthodoxy, he composed a detailed refutation of the doctrine of the «double procession " " his famous Mystagogyin which he also praised Pope John VIII for having made the triumph possible. 133 After the final adoption of the Filioque in Rome and throughout the West, the issue was bound to be raised at every encounter, polemical or friendly, between Greeks and Latins. Byzantine literature on the subject is extremely voluminous and has been reviewed in reference works by Martin Jugie, Hans-Georg Beck, and others. The arguments raised by Photius " the Filioque is an illegitimate interpolation,» «it destroys the monarchy of the Father» and «relativizes the reality of personal, or hypostatic existence, in the Trinity " remained at the center of the discussion. But often, the controversy was reduced to an interminable enumeration by both sides of patristic texts collected in favor of the respective positions of the Greeks and of the Latins. |
| Sed Christus totum omne inrigat et visibilia et invisibilia, flumine vitae omnem eorum quae sunt substantiam rigat. In quo autem vita, est Christus, in quo rigat, sanctus spiritus, in quo potentia est vitalitatis, pater et deus, totum autem unus deus. Confitemur ergo et sanctum spiritum ex deo patre omnia habentem, g-mYi g-logYi hoc est Iesu Christo tradente illi omnia, quae Christus habet a patre. Et isto huius modi modo et simul confitemur esse haec tria et isto quod unum et unum deum et g-homoousia ista et semper simul et patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum, ineffabili potentia et ineloquibili generatione filium dei Iesum Christum, g-logos qui sit ad deum, et imaginem et formam et characterem et refulgentiam patris et virtutem et sapientiam dei, per quae appareat et declaratur deus in potentia omnium et exsistens et manens et agens omnia secundum actionem filii, id est g-tou g-logou Iesu Christi, quem incarnatum et crucifixum et resurgentem a mortuis et ascendentem in caelos et sedentem ad dexteram patris et iudicem futurum venire et viventium et mortuorum, patrem omnis creaturae et salvatorem et voce et toto corde confitemur semper. g-AmUn. Gratia et pax a deo patre et filio eius Iesu Christo domino nostro, sic ista confitenti in omnia saecula saeculorum. . [ADVERSUS ARIUM LIBRI PRIMI ]. 48 . Spiritus, g-logos, g-nous, sapientia, substantia, utrum idem omnia an altera a se invicem? Et si idem, communione quadam an universitate? Si communione quadam, quid primum, quid ex alio et qua communione? Si universitate, et ista et quae differentia et quae communio? Si a se invicem altera, omnimodo altera, an alia ut subiectum, alia ut accidens, an iuxta alium alterum modum? Si igitur omnimodis altera, et g-hemerYnuma et alterius substantiae. Sed nihil omnimodis alterius substantiae. Eorum enim quae sunt g-on genus et magis genus in eo quod esse. Sed quoniam esse dupliciter et ipsum g-to g-on dupliciter. Est enim vere esse. Est et solum esse. Si igitur g-to g-on vere g-on et solum g-on, sed vere g-on ad omnia g-onta vere et solum g-on ad solum g-onta, sive g-sunYnumYs sive g-homYnumYs dicuntur, non omnimodis altera sunt. |
| Epistula 52: Ad Nepotianem. 54.5 Hospitiolum tuum aut raro aut numquam mulierum pedes terant. Omnes puellas et uirgines Christi aut aequaliter ignora aut aequaliter dilige. Ne sub eodem tecto manseris; ne in praeterita castitate confidas. Nec Dauid sanctior nec Salomone potes esse sapientior; memento semper, quod paradisi colonum de possessione sua mulier eiecerit. Aegrotanti tibi sanctus quilibet frater adsistat et germana uel mater aut probatae quaelibet apud omnes fidei. Quodsi huiusce modi non fuerint consanguinitatis castimoniae que personae, multas anus nutrit ecclesia, quae et officium praebeant. Et beneficium accipiant ministrando, ut infirmitas quoque tua fructum habeat elemosynae. Scio quosdam conualuisse corpore et animo aegrotare coepisse. Periculose tibi ministrat, cuius uultum frequenter adtendis. Si propter officium clericatus aut uidua tibi uisitatur aut uirgo, numquam domum solus introeas tales que habeto socios, quorum contubernio non infameris. Si lector, si acolythus, si psaltes te sequitur, non ornentur uestibus, sed moribus, nec calamistro crispent comas, sed pudicitiam habitu polliceantur. Solus cum sola secreto et absque arbitre non sedeas. Si familiarius est aliquid loquendum, habet nutricem, maiorem domus uirginem, uiduam, maritatam; non est tam inhumana, ut nullum praeter te habeat, cui se audeat credere. Письмо 52: К Непоциану. 54. 5 В гостиной твоей пусть редко или вовсе никогда не ступает нога женщины. Всех девочек и дев Христовых или одинаково не знай, или одинаково люби. Не бывай часто под их кровлей. Не надейся на свою прежнюю непорочность. Ты не святее Давида, не мудрее Соломона. Помни всегда, что райского обитателя женщина изгнала из его прежних владений. Во время твоей болезни пусть прислуживает тебе святой брат и родственница, или мать, или какие-нибудь женщины, пользующиеся общим одобрением и доверием. Если же не найдется таких родственных и непорочных людей, то имей в виду, что церковь питает многих стариц, которые могут оказать тебе услугу, и получишь награду за свое служение, так что сама болезнь твоя принесет плод милостыни. Я знаю, что некоторые выздоравливали телом и заболевали духом. Небезопасно пользоваться услугами той, лик которой ты часто видишь. Если по обязанности клирика ты посещаешь вдову или деву, то никогда не вступай в ее дом один. Имей таких спутников, общество которых не было бы для тебя бесславно. Если за тобой следует чтец, или аколуф, или псалмопевец, то пусть они украшаются не одеянием, а нравами: пустъ не завивают волос щипцами, но самым своим внешним видом обещают скромность. Не сиди один с одной втайне без посредника или свидетеля. Если нужно сказать что-нибудь по секрету, то пусть будет при этом кормилица, старшая в доме дева, вдова или замужняя: твоя собеседница не настолько же нечеловечна, чтобы никому не смела довериться, кроме тебя. |
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