INTRODUCTION
We know that the essence of God is inaccessible to human knowledge and, therefore, the content of this teaching is not the essence of the Divine, but the properties of the essence of God. And not just the properties of God, but the essential properties of God.
What are essential properties? These are the properties that belong to the very essence of God and distinguish Him from all other beings, that is, properties common to all Persons of the Holy Trinity. Essential properties should be distinguished from personal or hypostatic properties.
In Ex. 3:14 The Lord reveals His name as "Existing", in Slavic "Syy". Here is how Saint Gregory the Theologian interprets the meaning of this name (this quote is found in two words of Saint Gregory, 38 and 45):
“By this name,” writes St. Gregory, - He (God) calls Himself, talking with Moses on the mountain, because He concentrates in Himself the whole being, which did not begin and will not end. "
From these words we conclude that God, firstly, is a Person and, secondly, contains in Himself the infinite fullness of being. These two truths determine the division of divine properties into two large groups:
the first group of properties is due to the fact that God has the fullness of being, has an absolute essence. Properties that relate to the perfections of His being in modern Orthodox theology are called apophatic. In pre-revolutionary textbooks and manuals they are usually called ontological (apophatic);
the second group of properties is due to the fact that God is a spiritually intelligent being, or a Person who deigns to reveal Himself to people. The properties that characterize God as a Personality, as a spiritually intelligent being, are called kataphatic, or, again, in somewhat outdated terminology, spiritual properties (kataphatic).
APOPHATIC THEOLOGY
The concept of "apophatic theology"
Apophatic (negative, from the Greek Apophatikos - negative) theology is a method of knowledge of God inextricably linked with the Orthodox ascetic practice, proceeding from the understanding of God as a Being transcendent to the created world.
Apophatic theology is one of the two paths of Orthodox knowledge of God. As the “path of denial” of the created qualities that are not characteristic of God, this path is complemented by the “way of affirmations” or cataphatic theology. The latter applies to God all perfection conceivable in the created world. In the traditional understanding of the Orthodox theological consciousness, apophatic theology is part of theology as a doctrine of "God in Himself", while kataphatic theology is associated with "economy", dealing with issues of Divine economy and revelation. The antinomy of cataphatic and apophatic theology, according to St. Gregory Palamas, has its real foundation in God. It reveals to the human mind the mysterious difference between the unknowable and unnameable essence of God and His actions available for cognition and description (Divine energies).
The concept of "Apophatic theology" in the Christian sense was first applied in the Areopagitics. Introducing this term into the Christian theological lexicon, St. Dionysius strove to emphasize the immeasurable superiority of the uncreated Deity over the world created by Him, wanted to point out the pre-existence and super-being as a feature of the Divine life. Following St. Dionysius, true knowledge of God includes the "path of negation" or "knowledge of God through ignorance", since the inexhaustible fullness of Divine life cannot be fully expressed in the language of created categories and images. As a result, the theologian must apply the method of excluding all created attributes and analogies to reveal the divine life that is superior to the created mind, and also use superlatives in the categories used (eg, "super-being", "super-goodness").
According to St. Dionysius, being above all created being, God is inaccessible not only for sensory, but also for mental knowledge. Rising above every created essence, He "exists pre-existently."
First of all, God is removed from the spatio-temporal metric of the created world. He is formless and ugly. Being the Cause of everything sensuously cognizable, the Most Holy Trinity is not a body, “has no image, no kind, no quality, or quantity, or magnitude; does not reside in some place, is invisible, has no sensory touch; does not perceive and is not perceived. " The qualities of matter are not inherent in the three-hypostatic God, He has “no change, no corruption, no separation, no deprivation, no outpouring, and nothing else of the senses”.
But God is also incomparable with the intelligible world created by Himself. He is not a created soul or mind, devoid of human thought or word, "not a number, and not an order, not a magnitude and not a smallness, not an equality and not an inequality, not a similarity and not a difference ...". Neither affirmation nor negation can be applied to God; in the proper sense, one cannot even assert that He exists. As abiding beyond the limits of all created essence and being, He, in the final analysis, is nameless and is “non-being itself”.
The apophaticity of God in the Areopagitics does not at all lead to pessimism. If God is unknowable by sensory perception or speculative thinking, then He is knowable mystically. This requires an ascetic path of purification, expressed in "detachment" from all that exists. The Christian must distract himself from all knowledge, overcome sensory and mental images. In the process of inner concentration and “entering into oneself”, the Christian ascetic enters into the sacred darkness of “ignorance” and “silence”. Moreover, his apophatic ignorance of God does not at all become a lack of knowledge. It is transformed into perfect knowledge, incommensurable with any partial knowledge. This knowledge is a direct mystical knowledge of the Divine, in which the soul of a Christian is touched by Divine grace, the Christian ascetic “perceives the Divine,” contemplates the uncreated Light. Uniting with God, the Christian achieves DEVELOPMENT, which is the true knowledge of God, realized without human words and concepts by the action of the Divine Himself.
The teaching of St. Dionysius about the unknowability of God has analogues and further development in St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Gregory Palamas and other saints of Orthodoxy. At the same time, the great Cappadocians clarify the concepts of St. Dionysius, correlating his doctrine of an absolutely unknowable God-in-Himself with the doctrine of an unknowable Divine essence.
apophatic theology holiness goodness
APOPHATIC THEOLOGY(from the Greek ἀποφατικός - negative) - one of two (along with cataphatic theology ) the ways of knowing God, which consists in a consistent ascent from the created world to the Creator, which, on the one hand, presupposes the consideration of ever more perfect creations and properties, and on the other hand, a statement of the incommensurability of each of them with God, with the divine essence. Since all knowledge is knowledge about created things, the possession of them binds a person to the world; liberation from the power of the created world and its images presupposes a detachment from everything that is not God, a refusal to apply to God concepts and concepts derived from the consideration of finite things, since with their help it is impossible to achieve positive knowledge about God. At the same time, in apophatic theology for the purpose of knowledge of God, any concepts and ideas can be used, but provided that they are radically different in their content from the divine essence. In this case, the images of finite things accessible to knowledge seem to themselves refer to that which is outside the created world and is inaccessible to rational knowledge - to God. Apophatic theology denies the possibility of attributing any intelligible attributes to God; consistently revealing the inadequacy of not only sensory images, but also the most lofty concepts, such as "goodness", "love", "wisdom" for the knowledge of the divine essence, apophatic theology demonstrates the absolute transcendence of God the Creator. The apophatic path of knowledge of God assumes that a person has the ability to both rational knowledge and go beyond it. Going beyond the boundaries of rational knowledge cannot be the result of purely intellectual efforts, this requires spiritual experience; the path of apophatic is the path of asceticism. A clear distinction between the two paths of knowledge of God - cataphatic and apophatic - was first introduced Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite , although the basic ideas of apophatic theology have already been formulated Cappadocians , and some elements are contained in the earlier Church Fathers. The path of denial is described by Dionysius as requiring the purification of the mind and heart: it is necessary to abandon “both sensory and mental activity, and in general everything sensible and speculative, everything that does not exist and that is, and strive with all his might to unite with the One who is above all essence and knowledge "(" On mystical theology. "- see. Dionysius the Areopagite . About divine names. About mystical theology. SPb., 1994, p. 341-343). This is the path of gaining a mystical experience leading to something that surpasses all understanding. God, according to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, is cognized in the darkness of ignorance; it is revealed to the one who himself, “being outside of everything”, having renounced all knowledge, unites with the Unknown, “understanding the superintelligent nothing-knowledge” (ibid., p. 349). In ecstatic and ineffable union with the Divine, it is claimed Gregory of Nyssa and Maxim the Confessor , God is cognized not by individual actions or energies, but by essence. At the same time, the essence of God continues to remain inaccessible to rational knowledge; for the mind, the mystical experience of knowledge of God appears as purely negative, apophatic in the narrow sense of the word.
Medieval scholasticism seeks ways to rationally reflect the apophatic experience. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the logical structure of statements in which certain signs are attributed to God. Starting with Boethius, scholastic theologians point to a fundamental difference between judgments about God and judgments about created things: all predicates attributed to God coincide, and therefore none of them is attributed to him in a positive sense, as having a special content that is different from the content of others. predicates. At the conceptual-logical level, therefore, the apophatic doctrine of the ineffability of God is reproduced. Rational apophaticism in scholasticism acquires an independent meaning; it is essentially seen as the initial stage of gaining one's own mystical experience. Before denying the legitimacy of attributing one or another attribute to God, the scholastics consider it necessary first to formulate as accurately as possible and logically substantiate what is to be denied. The most striking example is the apophatic conclusion about the unknowability of God and his existence, which comes Anselm of Canterbury after completing the ontological proof in Proslogion.
In contrast to the Catholic tradition in Orthodoxy, the rational elements of apophatic theology perform purely auxiliary functions; Orthodox apophaticism is always subordinated to the solution of spiritual and practical problems. Apophatic denial is a condition for a person's personal meeting with God. In mystical experience, God is cognized not as an Essence, but as a Personality, or rather, as three inseparable Persons, unknowable in their essence. God is at the same time God, to whom every Christian says “You,” who, within the framework of cataphatic theology, reveals himself as having positive definitions.
An apophatic approach to the realities of mystical experience is also inherent in other religions - the prohibition of the image of God in Judaism and Islam, the concept of the highest spiritual principle of all things (Brahman) in Hinduism, etc. Thus, Brahman is outside time, space and cause-and-effect relations, free from qualities and actions and outside the manifested (phenomenal) world, is inexpressible in positive terms and is most often defined purely negatively - as inconceivable, invisible, inaudible, unknowable, unchangeable, unmanifested, unborn , devoid of an image, beginningless, endless, “not this, not this” (na iti, na iti), etc. Not comprehended by ordinary consciousness or various rational-speculative constructions, Brahman is cognized only by the highest religious intuition underlying the integral experience ...
(23 votes: 4.6 out of 5)Apophatic theology(from the Greek. ).
In addition to its significance for theoretical knowledge of God, apophatic theology is extremely important for the Orthodox prayer-contemplative ascetic practice, which requires the ascetic maximum detachment not only from all vain, worldly, but also from subjective, figurative ideas about God.
Apophatic theology is one of the two paths of Orthodox knowledge of God. As the “path of denial” of the creature qualities uncharacteristic of God, this path is complemented by the “way of affirmations” or. The latter applies to God all perfection conceivable in the created world.
In the traditional understanding of the Orthodox theological consciousness, apophatic theology is part of theology as a doctrine of "God in Himself", while kataphatic theology is associated with "economy", dealing with issues of divine economy and revelation. The antinomy of cataphatic and apophatic theology, according to St. , has its real foundation in God. It reveals to the human mind the mysterious difference between the unknowable and unnameable God and His actions available for knowledge and description ().
The concept of "Apophatic theology" in the Christian sense was first applied in "". Introducing this term into the Christian theological lexicon, St. Dionysius strove to emphasize the incommensurable superiority of the uncreated Deity over the world created by Him, wanted to point out and as a feature of the Divine life. Following St. Dionysius, true knowledge of God includes the "path of negation" or "knowledge of God through ignorance", since the inexhaustible fullness of Divine life cannot be fully expressed in the language of created categories and images. As a result, the theologian must apply the method of excluding all created attributes and analogies to reveal the divine life that is superior to the created mind, and also use superlatives in the categories used (eg, "super-being", "super-goodness").
According to St. Dionysius, being above all created being, God is inaccessible not only for sensory, but also for mental knowledge. Rising above every created essence, He "exists pre-existently."
First of all, God is removed from the spatio-temporal metric of the created world. He is formless and ugly. Being the Cause of everything sensuously cognizable, the Most Holy Trinity is not a body, “has no image, no kind, no quality, or quantity, or magnitude; does not reside in some place, is invisible, has no sensory touch; does not perceive and is not perceived. " The qualities of matter are not inherent in the three-hypostatic God, He has “no change, no corruption, no separation, no deprivation, no outpouring, and nothing else of the senses”.
But God is also incomparable with the intelligible world created by Himself. He is not a created soul or mind, devoid of human thought or word, "not a number, and not an order, not a magnitude and not a smallness, not an equality and not an inequality, not a similarity and not a difference ...". Neither affirmation nor negation can be applied to God; in the proper sense, one cannot even assert that He exists. As abiding beyond the limits of all created essence and being, He, in the final analysis, is nameless and is “non-being itself”.
The apophaticity of God in the Areopagitics does not at all lead to pessimism. If God is unknowable by sensory perception or speculative thinking, then He is knowable. This requires an ascetic path of purification, expressed in "detachment" from all that exists. The Christian must distract himself from all knowledge, overcome sensory and mental images. In the process of inner concentration and "entering into oneself" the Christian ascetic enters into the sacred darkness of "ignorance" and "silence" (see). Moreover, his apophatic ignorance of God does not at all become a lack of knowledge. It is transformed into perfect knowledge, incommensurable with any partial knowledge. This knowledge is direct mystical knowledge of the Divine, in which the soul of a Christian is touched by the Divine
Zero goddess, knowledge of the Divine Nothing. In theological modernism, zero theology is taught in zero language. Apophatic theology is characteristic of representatives of negative Christianity and right-wing modernism.
definition
In an attempt to comprehend the essence without the properties of apophatic, they naturally come to nothing:
I would gladly ask them about the earth on which they stand and from which they were created. // ... what is the essence of the earth and what is the method of comprehension? Let them answer us, did the word open it or the feeling? If they say: feeling, then by what sense is this essence comprehensible? Is it vision? But it takes impressions of flowers. Or touch? But it distinguishes between liquid or softness, warmth or cold, and the like, and no one will call anything of this essence ... ... it remains for them to say that the essence of the earth is revealed by the word. What is the word? Where is it in the Scripture? Which of the saints is betrayed? He who told us about creation only teaches us that, "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; the earth was formless and empty" (Gen. 1: 1-2). He considered it sufficient to proclaim who created and adorned the earth, and what is its essence, he refused to enter the study, as a matter of vain and useless for the listeners. So, if the knowledge of this essence is not confirmed either by the evidence of feeling, or by the teaching of the word, then where else, they will say, did they comprehend the essence? For what is perceived in the earth by feeling is either color, or volume, or heaviness, or lightness, or coherence, or flowability, or persistence, or softness, or coldness, or warmth, or qualities in moisture, or differences in shape. But none of this will be called an essence, and they themselves, although they are ready to assert everything. Again, there is no speculation about her in any word of wise and blessed men. So what other way of knowing remains? (Basil the Great 1911 Vol. 1, 472-473)
The apophatic method, transferred to the knowledge of God, gives rise to two troubles at once: first, a person tries to cognize the Divine essence itself, and not knowing it, comes to nothing. Whereas “the comprehension of the essence of God is higher not only for humans, but also for any rational nature. By rational nature I mean now created nature. For only the Son and the Holy Spirit know the Father, because “no one knows the Father except the Son” (Matt. 11:27). And: “The Spirit permeates everything, and the depths of God. For who of men, it is said, knows what is in a man, besides the human spirit that lives in him? Likewise, no one knows God, except the Spirit of God "(1 Cor. 2: 10-11) ... The very essence is inconceivable to anyone except the Only Begotten and the Holy Spirit, and we, who are erected by the works of God, and from the creatures comprehending the Creator, acquire knowledge about Him goodness and wisdom. This is “what one can know about God” (Rom. 1:19), which “God revealed” to all people ... Therefore, leaving inquisitive research about the essence, as an inaccessible matter, one must submit to the simple admonition of the Apostle, who says: first of all, “ it is necessary that he who comes to God should believe that He is, and reward those who seek Him ”(Heb. 11: 6). For it is not the study of what God is that leads us to salvation, but the confession that God is ”: 474-475.
Apophaticism teaches about the unknowability of both grace and the properties of God, transferring apophaticism to the House-building and thereby approaching anonymous Christianity.
Apophaticism is associated not only with irrationalism and anti-formalism, but also with immoralism, since the written commandment, as well as dogma, does not give apophatics access to the truth.
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V. Lossky
APOPHATIC THEOLOGY
In the teachings of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite
Apophatic (negative) theology from early times appears in patristic thought in the form of two different currents. One of them sharply denies the possibility of any knowledge about God, incomprehensible by nature. We can comprehend God not in the fact that He is, but in the fact that He is not 1, distracting all definitions and names from Him. This is the teaching of Clement of Alexandria. The names denoting God: One, Good, Reason, Existing, God, Creator, Lord, do not have the meaning of names when applied to Him and are used only to avoid other designations that further degrade absolute Incomprehensibility 2. The very knowledge of the incomprehensibility of the Unknown God (Acts 17:23) is given only by grace - "God-given wisdom, which is the power of the Father" 3. Moses and the Apostle Paul, who received it, experienced the impossibility of knowing God, the first - by entering into darkness, which is the incomprehensibility of the Divine, the second - after hearing "ineffable words", which mean His inexpressibility 4. Another trend, which entered the sphere of Christian theology through Origen, who studied simultaneously with Plotinus at the school of Ammonius Saccas, is associated with Neoplatonic philosophy. God is incomprehensible not by nature, but only because of the weakness of our mind, darkened by the flesh and associated with sensory images and plurality. Origen's apophatic theology is intellectualistic; it is reduced to the denial in God of everything that relates to matter and plurality, in order to know Him in absolute simplicity, excluding any complexity - the "purest Spirit", "intelligent Nature", Monad or Unit 5. Origen is close to the teachings of Plotinus and his school about the knowledge of absolute Unity by abstraction from all that exists and from oneself, so that in a state of ecstasy, having become “above the essence,” the contemplator does not oppose the Beholding, but one Divine Unity would remain 6. This apophatic is reduced to the denial of everything that hinders the knowledge of the Divine Nature, positively defined as the One.
The great Cappadocians: Saints Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, or the Theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa, brought up on the works of Origen, fluctuate between two currents on the issue of apophatic theology. Opposing Eunomius, who affirmed the cognizability of the Divine Essence in concepts, Saint Gregory of Nyssa resolutely defends the incomprehensibility of God, comes to the denial of any reality of names, seeing in them only artificial designations. Such polemical extremes, however, do not correspond to the spirit of the teachings of the great Cappadocians. Already Basil the Great, affirming the incomprehensibility of the Essence, distinguishes from It the "actions" of God, which descend to us and into which
rykh He is known 8. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, denying the possibility of knowing the "first" and "incommunicable" Nature, recognizes the comprehensibility of the "last", "reaching us"; this is what Moses saw, "the back of God", "splendor" that appears in the creations, "after God gives the knowledge of God" 9. Gregory of Nyssa, along with assertions about the complete incomprehensibility of God, leading to nominalism in the question of Divine names, develops the teachings of St. Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzus about theophany (the manifestation of God), approaching the elimination of the contradiction of the incomprehensible Essence and the names of God that have real meaning 10. However, he was not destined to distinguish between negative and positive theology. This task fell to the lot of the mysterious author of "Areopagitic Creations", who combined in his theology both trends we have noted.
Unlike the Neoplatonists and Origen, for whom negative theology is not opposed to positive, serving as a path to union with the One, which, as a Unity, can still be positively determined, the author of the Areopagiticus denies any determinability of God, even the nature of the subject of knowledge or ignorance. On the other hand, unlike Clement of Alexandria and partly from the great Cappadocians, he insists on the real meaning of the divine names, substantiating positive theology.
The opposition of negative and positive theology does not mean that one of these paths is unreliable; it has a real basis in the distinction between Divine conjunctions (henoseis) and divisions (diakriseis), between the innermost Essence (hyparxis, ousia) and revealing lineages (proodoi). Divine connections are "secret and not appearing outside the foundation of more than unspeakable and unknowable Being" 11; it is the super-essential Nature of God, covered with the darkness of ignorance (about Divine darkness, see below), which does not appear to anyone, Divine Peace (Hesychia), Silence (Sige), Silence (Aphthenxia) of God, who does not manifest Himself by any procession. Divine divisions, on the other hand, are divine origins (proodoi) and revelations (ekphanseis), since God is revealed in them and can be known 12.
First of all, the Divine divisions denote the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity; They are divisions in the depths of the very super-essential Divine union (henosis), origins, dwelling within the very Essence 13, at the same time both Divine connections and Divine divisions 14. Therefore, the revelation of the Holy Trinity, being the pinnacle of kataphatic theology, belongs equally to apophatic 15. “Such are the unions and divisions in the unspeakable Unification and Essence,” concludes Dionysius in his short and not entirely clear essay on Divine divisions in the Most Holy Trinity.
Another division is that by which God proceeds outside. This is “the Origin of the Divine Union, which multiplies and diversifies itself over-united” 16. The Good Cause of all that exists proceeds in the Forces (dynameis), creating everything and manifesting in everything; surrendering in Her gifts, She becomes cognizable, since everything that exists in one way or another participates in the Divine Forces 17. When we say “God”, “Wisdom”, “Life”, “Existing”, we mean the Forces deifying, wise, life-giving, existing 18. These and other Divine
The names revealed in the Holy Scriptures denote various Powers, or "Providence" (pronoiai ekphantorikai), as Dionysius also calls them, thus denoting the relationship of God to creatures. The name "Goodness" (agathonymia) is the fullest expression of Providence at its root 19; the rest of the names express only partial Providence 20. Everything that exists is called to partake of the Divine Forces, from which it receives its being and perfection, to the extent intended for each creation. The various images of communion with the Powers, foretold for each creature, are Divine ideas (paradeigmata) - “the existent words (logoi) of things, collectively pre-existing in God”, “predestinations” (proorismoi), “good wills” (theia kai agatha thelemata), by which God designed and created all that exists ”22. The variety of ideas exists as a whole (eniaios) in the Divine Forces, without violating their simplicity, and for the first time appears as much in the creatures that partake of the Forces; in the same way, every number is contained in the unity and multiplies, leaving it, all the radii are one in the center and are numerous on the circumference 23. The Divine Forces themselves are simple and do not participate in anything, although everything participates in them 24. Dionysius often calls them "a super-essential Ray (hyperousios aktis), in which the summits of all knowledge inexpressibly pre-exist" 25, "the Ray of Divine Darkness" 26. The use of the plural - dynameis, then the singular - aktis corresponds to the definition of the Forces as "the Origin of the Divine Union, which multiplies itself more than one" 27. In His Origin (proodos), the Divine is not diminished: the Divine Forces, the Ray descending to the creature, is the true and unimpeded whole Divine, not being, however, the Nature of God (hyparxis, ousia), Who is unknowable and dwells in the Unapproachable Darkness from the excess pouring out of His Light 28. At the same time, “hidden” by 29 outgoing Rays and revealed through them in creations, the Divine “is unitedly divided, multiplied together and multiplied, without leaving the unity” 30. Every Power emanating to the creature, every Ray is the whole of God, inseparably, for "in the Divine, the connections exceed divisions, precede them and remain no less one after the simple division that does not leave the unity" 31.
With his teaching on "Divine connections and divisions", on the "Super-essential Nature" of God and His "Origin", or "Forces", the unknown author of "Areopagitic Creations", who lived on the verge of the 5th and 6th centuries 32, completes the searches of the great Cappadocians and at the same time the teachings gnostics and neoplatonists. Distinguishing Essence and Forces, he affirms the reality of the Divine Names and the possibility of knowing God, without violating the unknowability of the Essence, which the Cappadocians only approached in the teachings of theophany. On the other hand, teaching about the “indivisibility of Divine division”, that God is whole and indivisible in every Power emanating outside, Dionysius renders harmless the Neoplatonic teachings about emanations 33 - partial and diminished origins from the Divine Origin.
Having completed and brought together both traditions, Saint Dionysius the Areopagite opens a new era in theology and, in this sense, can be called the father of Byzantine theology. Saint Maximus the Confessor, Saint John Damascene, Saint Theodore the Studite, Saint Simeon the New Theologian, Michael Psellus, Pachimer, and finally Saint Gregory
16 5
Palamas consistently develop the doctrine of the difference between Essence, Forces and Actions and the apophatic theology associated with it 34.
The doctrine of negative knowledge of God was developed by Dionysius the Areopagite in his treatise On Mystical Theology and in two Epistles (I and V) that serve as explanations to it. In addition, special attention is paid to the negative method in the treatises On Divine Names, (Ch. I, §§ 4, 5 and 6; Ch. VII, §§ I and 3 and Ch. XIII, § 3) and On Heavenly hierarchy "(Ch. I, §3).
All knowledge refers to existence and is limited to it. God, who transcends all essence, is not existent and, therefore, cannot be known 35. Unrecognizable in His Nature, God is cognized, however, by us “from the order of everything that exists, produced by God and containing images and likeness of Divine ideas, since we ascend in a special way and follow to the One who transcends everything, perceiving Him in abstraction from everything, in superiority, as the Cause total ”36. Thus, we can cognize God in creatures, since they are images and likenesses that reveal His ideas, and ascend to Him as the transcendental Cause of existence. Hence, there are two methods in theology: positive (cataphatic), which follows the path of affirmations and leads to some knowledge about God, since He is revealed in creation, and negative (apophatic), which follows the path of negations and leads to complete ignorance in relation to the One who is beyond. of existence. “Thus, God is known in everything and outside of everything; God is cognized in knowledge, cognized in ignorance, there is understanding about Him, and word, and knowledge, touch and feeling, opinion and representation, name and everything else, and at the same time He is not comprehended, remains ineffable, is not named; God is not something that exists and is not known in anything that exists; He is everything in everything and is not anything in anything; is known by all of everything, and by none of anything; we rightly say this about God - He is glorified from all that exists, through the conformity of all things, of which He is the Cause. But nevertheless the highest knowledge of God is that which is achieved through ignorance, by means of a union that exceeds the mind, when the mind, having separated from everything that exists and then leaving itself, unites with the rays shining for the mountain, from where and where it is enlightened in the incomprehensible abyss of Wisdom ”37 ...
Negative knowledge of God is opposed to positive, as more perfect; ignorance (agnosia), to which it leads, is placed above knowledge as "the unwise God", which has become "wiser than men" (1 Cor. 1:25) 38. “You should know that our mind has the ability to cognize, thanks to which it contemplates the intelligible; the connection through which he joins that which is higher than him, transcends the nature of reason. Through this union, the Divine is not comprehended by our powers, but we ourselves completely leave ourselves and become God's, for it is better to belong to God than to ourselves; thus, the Divine will be bestowed on those who have become one with God. This wordless, mindless, non-wise Wisdom, praising exaltedly, let us say that She is the Cause of every reason and word, of all wisdom and comprehension ”39.
From the cited texts, we see that apophatic theology, by denying all knowledge that is necessary only for existence, by detaching the knower from himself, leads to God-
Indigenous Wisdom, which for people is “ignorance” (agnosia); a mysterious "union" (henosis) with the Divine Rays takes place - the goal of negative knowledge of God. Obviously, negative theology is not knowledge: all knowledge refers to existence, but God is not existing and can be comprehended only by ignorance 40. The goal of the negative path is a union with God beyond reason; to achieve it, one needs to go beyond the limits of knowledge and beyond the limits of existence, to which all knowledge is relative. Thus, the negative path in theology is procession, that is, literally, ecstasy (hextasis).
The treatise On Mystical Theology is devoted to the negative method. The title itself shows that for the author, negative knowledge of God is a mystical experience 41. Dionysius begins his treatise on Timothy with a prayer appeal to the Most Holy Trinity, asking him to direct him "to the highest peak of secret words", where simple, perfect and unchanging secrets "are revealed in the shining Darkness of secretly teaching silence", filling "minds that have closed their eyes" with light. Then the Areopagite calls Timothy to "mystical contemplations": he must renounce feelings and mental actions, from everything sensible and intelligible, from non-existent and existent, in order to achieve union with That which transcends all essence and knowledge in ignorance; “In a perfect procession from himself and from all that exists, he must ascend to the supra-essence Ray of Divine Darkness” 42. The “Good Cause of All Things” is both verbose and wordless. In its true form, without veils, She can appear only to those who, “having passed all the unclean and pure, surpassing all the sacred peaks in ascent, leaving all Divine lights, sounds and Heavenly words, will enter the Darkness, where, as the Scripture says, truly dwells the One who is outside of everything ”43.
Dionysius confirms everything said by the description of the ascent of Moses to Sinai to meet God, which he explains as ecstasy (Ex., Ch. 19). First of all, Moses is cleansed and separated from the unclean; then he “hears out many-sounding trumpets and sees many lights shining with pure and abundant rays; then he separates from everyone and hurries with the chosen priests to the summit of the Divine ascent; however, even here it does not yet communicate with God Himself and contemplates not Him (for He is not contemplated), but the place where He dwells. This means, as I believe, that the highest and most Divine of all that is visible and contemplated are the fundamental words of things subject to the One who transcends all; through them the presence of the One who transcends all thought is revealed, resting on the intelligible heights of His most sacred places. Finally, [Moses] leaves the contemplated and contemplative and enters the truly mystical darkness of ignorance, where, closing his eyes to all mental perceptions, he approaches the completely Intangible and Invisible, completely belonging to the One Who is outside of everything, and nothing to himself or to anyone else, being in to a greater extent connected with the completely Unknowable, with the inaction of any knowledge, and thus that he does not know anything, knowing above reason ”44.
In the second chapter, the path of detachment from everything that exists, leading to the Divine Darkness, is compared with the art of a sculptor who, removing everything that hides a statue in a lump of material, reveals its innermost beauty only by means of "detachment". The path of "renunciation"
(aphaireseis) should be an ascent from the lowest to the highest, in which, having renounced everything, "they unconcealedly cognize the Unknowable, hidden by everything that can be known in everything that exists." This path is the opposite of the path of "positions" (theseis), which is the descent from the higher levels of being to the lower 45.
In the third chapter, Dionysius lists his works related to "affirmative theology", of which many have not come down to us, and arranges them in the order of "verbosity" that increases with the descent from the higher theophanies to the lower ones. "Mystical theology", which is an ascent, is the shortest of all treatises, for it leads to "wordlessness" 46.
Chapters IV and V list a number of attributes and properties of a sensual and intelligible character, denying their inherent in God. “There can be neither affirmation nor denial about the Cause of everything; affirming or denying what is below Her, we do not affirm about Her and do not deny, for above any affirmation is the Perfect and One Cause of all things, and above any denial is the Exaltation of the one who has completely renounced everything, which is outside of all things. " These words conclude the treatise On Mystical Theology.
The constant naming of God "Cause" (aitia) must be explained from the doctrine of causality peculiar to Dionysius and more definitely expressed by Saint Maximus the Confessor in his "Scholias" to the creations of the Areopagite 48. The relation of the cause to the inflicted is a phenomenon (ekphansis): invisible and hidden (aorata kai mystika) causes appear as visible and knowable in the inflicted. God appears in creatures (theophaneia). The relation of the inflicted to its cause is participation (methexis) or imitation (mimesis), through which the inflicted becomes the image (eikon) of the cause. Imitation of God (theomimesis) —participation in God, inherent in all creatures; through him they receive their image and likeness to God. Perfect participation in the Creator, which is possible for a creature, is deification (theosis).
The difference between positive and negative theology is reflected in the very opposite of their directions. The affirmative path corresponds to the Divine descent, the discovery of the Divine Cause in the inflicted: about the creatures their theophanic character is affirmed, to the extent of their analogy to the unknowable Cause 49; they become "heralds of Divine Silence", "shining lights indicating the presence of the Dweller in unapproachable places." The negative path following the opposite direction corresponds to the ascent of the creature to God - from the known and knowable inflicted to the unknown and unknowable Cause; about God, everything that is knowable is denied and, therefore, everything that exists, from the lowest to the highest definitions 51. This path, in contrast to positive theology, is not the knowledge of the Cause that is revealed in the inflicted, but the procession from the inflicted, that is, from everything created, to the hidden Cause, which is beyond its manifestations, the mystical experience of God outside of creation, outside of His theophanies, attainable only by the ecstasy anticipating theosis.
In describing the "ecstasy" of Moses, which, as we have seen, is an example of negative knowledge of God for Dionysius, it should be noted
Titus, that, having reached the "peak of ascent", Moses does not yet communicate with God, but contemplates only (as mentioned above) "the place where God is." This is the highest of all that can be known, the "fundamental words" of all creation, through which the presence of God is revealed 52. It is not difficult to be convinced, elsewhere, that hypothetikoi logoi denote Divine ideas, defined as “the existent words of things, collectively pre-existing in God” 53. The ideas, according to which the Divine Forces manifest themselves in various ways in the world, are the foundations of theophanies; in this sense, they are “the highest of all that is visible and contemplated” 54, “something with God that exists and is cognized” 55. Having renounced them also, Moses "enters into the darkness of ignorance" and attains "a union that is above reason" with the super-essential Ray.
The apophatic path does not lead to the Divine Nature, but to union with the Forces. As divided, the Divine Forces are cognized in positive theology through knowledge, since everything that exists participates in them to varying degrees. But “in the Divine, unions exceed divisions,” and the same Forces can be comprehended as united and not leaving simple unity, in negative theology, by way of ecstasy. The divided forces are recognized in creations by the separating, discursive mind, "the spiraling movement of the soul," as the Areopagite says, echoing the expression of the Neoplatonists 56. United in the very division and abiding outside the creatures, despite the descent to them, the Divine Ray is perceived in a mysterious union, in an angelic "circular motion" 57.
Achievable only the path of ecstasy and "ignorance", the union with the super-essential Ray is the anticipation of the eternal bliss of the angels and the sons of God, the "sons of resurrection" 58. Deification, the lot of the righteous, is likeness to God and union, made in the Church by the action of the Holy Spirit. 59 In an indivisible, but also non-merged union with the Divine rays, creation is likened to the Creator, the inflicted becomes similar to the Cause, manifesting It to the extent of its analogy, “performing with grace and God-given power that which belongs to the Divine by nature and beyond measure” 60.
"The cause of all and all that fills is the Deity of Jesus." Veiled. The reason was fully revealed in the Incarnation: "In the humanity of Christ, the Super-essential appeared in human essence, but It remained hidden even after its discovery, or, speaking more gloriously, in His very discovery" 62. As the fullness of Theophany and the pinnacle of all theophanies in creation 63, and therefore the foundation of an affirmative theology, the Incarnate Word remains, however, unknowable, and "statements about the humanity of Jesus have the power of transcendent denial." Thus, both paths refer to the God-man at the same time. The affirmative path corresponds to the descent of the Divine, in which It Himself reveals itself, becoming “all things in everything,” while the negative corresponds to the ascent of the creature to its Cause, that is, deification accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the first way, the Divine testifies to Himself comprehensibly, in the second, the creatures, filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, testify to the incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature.
Deification accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit in the Church can be anticipated in a state of ecstasy. Like deification, ecstasy cannot be achieved by one's own effort. "The union above reason" with the Divine Ray, which is accomplished in ignorance and departure from all that exists, presupposes "unifying power" (henopoios dynamis) 65, thanks to which the mind unites with that which transcends its nature, and cognizes the Divine, leaving itself and becoming God 66.
Dionysius says that the apostle Paul exclaimed: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20), becoming a partaker of the “ecstatic Power” (dynamis extatike) of Divine Love, which requires that those who love do not belong to themselves, but to those who are loved 67. With love, God proceeds from His Essence in the Forces, creating the world; as the Cause of love, He moves everything created to Himself, forcing it to proceed from Himself to God 68. Divine Love appears as an "eternal circle" 69, descending to the extreme limits of existence and from there again returning through all that exists, "from Itself, through Itself, circulating in Itself and always turning to Itself in the same way" 70.
This "hymn of love", assimilated by Dionysius to his teacher, Saint Hierotheos, involuntarily takes the thought away from church theology into the world of Neoplatonic philosophy, which was widely used by the author of The Areopagiticus. However, this similarity will appear to us only external if we correlate with the circular path of Divine Love two paths in theology - the affirmative, corresponding to the descent of the Divine in the Forces and the manifestation of Him to the world through Jesus Christ (theophaneia), and the negative, corresponding to the ascent of creations to deification (theosis) , or their rapture, performed in ecstasy, as well as theosis, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The affirmative and negative paths, simultaneously testifying to the God-manhood of Jesus Christ, lead the "sons of resurrection" to contemplate the Light of the Divine with bodily eyes. The deified creatures attain a “Christlike and blessed destiny, in which, according to the word of Scripture, we will always be with the Lord, performed in pure contemplation by His visible Theophany, which will enlighten us with shining radiance, like the disciples during the Divine Transfiguration, and at the same time participating in the passionless and the immaterial mind of His clever Light and connection above reason in unknown and blissful aspirations of more than bright rays, divinely becoming like the heavenly spirits, for, according to the true word of Scripture, we will be equal to angels and sons of God, being sons of resurrection ”71.
NOTES
1 Clemens Alexandrinus... Stromata, 1. V, with ... XI. Auftrage der Kirchenvater Kommisson der Konigl. Preuss. Akad. der Wissensch. Leipzig, 1906, II Bd & S. 374.
2 Ibid., P. XI, p. 380 s.
3 Ibid .. p. XIII, p. 381.
4 Ibid .. p. XII, p. 377-381.
5 Migne... Patrologia graeca, t. XI. - "About the beginnings". I, 1, § 5, p. 124. Ibid, § 6, p. 124— 125.
6 Plotinus... Enneas VI, I, IX, end of § 9 and §§ 10 and 11. - Ed. Teubner, p. 522 s.
7 For ancillary analysis of the dispute with Eunomos, see V. Nesmelova: Dogmatic system of Gregory of Nyssa, Kazan, 1887.
8 Epistola CCXXXIV, ad Amphilochium.— Migne... Patrologia, t. 32, col. 869.- Cm. See also Ep. CCXXXIII and CCXXXV related to the Eunomian controversies.
9 Oratio theologica secunda. - Migne... Patrologia, t. XXXVI, col. 28-29.
10 On the system of Gregory of Nyssa see: V. Nesmelov. Decree. op. For apophatic theology, of particular interest are: Dt vita Moysis. - Migne. Patrologia, t. XLIV, col. 298-430, VI oratio. De beatitudinibus. - Ibid., Col. 1264-1277.
11 De Divinis nominibus, II, 4.- Migne, t. 3, col. 640.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., § 5, col. 641.
14 Ibid., § 4, col. 641.
15 Ibid., § 7, col. 645.
16 Ibid., § 5, col. 644.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., § 7, col. 645.
19 Ibid., II, 1, col. 636; IV, 1-4, col. 693-700.
20 Ibid., V, 2, col. 817.
21 De coelesti hierarchia. - Ibid., IV, 1, col. 177.
22 De Div. nom. - Ibid., V, 8, col. 824
23 Ibid., V, 6, col 820 s.
24 Ibid., II, 5, cof. 644.
25 Ibid., I, 4, col. 592.
26 De mystica theologia. - Ibid., 1, 1, col. 1000.
27 De Div. nom. - Ibid., II, 5, col. 643.
28 Epistola. - Ibid., V, col. 1073.
29 Ep. - Ibid., I, col. 1065; Ep. - Ibid., V, col. 1073 s.
30 De Div. nom. - Ibid., II, 11, col. 649.
31 Ibid., Col. 652.
32 Stiglmayr, S. I. Das Aufkommen der areopagitischen Schriften, 1895 ( For a summary and criticism of various opinions about the time of the appearance of "Areopagitic" and about their author, see. in the introduction to labor Durental'a“S. Thomas et le pseudo-Denys ", Paris, 1919).
33 On the connection between the terminology of Dionysius and Neoplatonic philosophy and pagan Jir, see: N. Koch. Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita in seinen Beziehungen zum Neoplatonismus und Mysterienwesen (Forschungen zur christlichen Litteratur und Dogmen-geschichte. T. 86, Bd. 1, Hefte 1 u. 2), Mainz , 1900; H. F. Muller... Dionysios, Proclos, Plotinos (Beitrage z. Gesch. Der Philosophie d. Mittelalters, Bd. XX, Hf. 3-4). Munster, 1918. Both authors overestimate Neoplatonic influences, completely ignoring the very foundation of the Areopagite theology. For them, he is only an unsuccessful imitator of Proclus and Plotinus.
34 This distinction has always been a matter of misunderstanding for Western theologians, who noted only one point of difference between henoseis and diakriseis, referring to the Essence and Persons of the Most Holy Trinity. Modern historians usually follow their example and, passing by the very core of Dionysian theology, are unable to see anything in the Areopagitics except neo-Platonic metaphysics. Under these conditions, the usual statements about "pantheism" or "emanatism" of Dionysius are quite understandable. Siebert(Die Methaphysik und Ethik des pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita. Jena, 1894) attributes to Dionysius “dynamische Pantheismus”, repeating the expression Zeller "a, rightly referred to the Plotinus system. Weertz(Die Gotteslehre des ps. D. Areop. U. Ihre Einwirkung auf Thomas v. Aquin. Κöln, 1908) rejects this opinion, but, passing by the doctrine of henoseis and diakriseis, falls into errors of the same order: thus, following Niemeyer's(Dionysii Areopagitae doctrinae. Halle, 1869), believing that agathonymia is a definition of the Divine Nature Itself, he ascribes to Dionysius the doctrine of the necessity of a creative act, contained in the very Essence of Godhead, a thought characteristic of Neoplatonic teachings.
35 De Div. nom, I, 4, col. 593.
36 Ibid., VII, 3, col. 869 et 872.
37 Ibid., VII, 3, col. 872.
38 Ibid., VII, 1, col. 865 et 868.
39 Ibid., VII, 1, col. 868.
40 Epistola I, col. 1065.
41 The adjective μυστικός is usually used by Dionysius to denote a special experience that exceeds understanding; first of all, in this sense, it should be noted that the place for the essay "On Divine Names" (II, 9), where Dionysius speaks of his teacher, who received theological knowledge in part from his predecessors.
kov, partly exploring Scripture, partly not learning the Divine, but testing it, achieving "mystical unity."
42 De myst. theol., I, 1, col. 997-1000.
43 Ibid., I, 3, col. 1000.
44 Ibid., Col. 1000-1001. It is interesting to compare this text with De vita Moysis and De beatitudinibus, VI oratio, of St. Gregory of Nyssa, which speaks of "ignorance that transcends all knowledge."
45 Ibid., II, col. 1025.
46 Ibid., Ill, col. 1032 s.
47 Ibid., V, col. 1048.
48 See, for example, Scholia in Eccl. Hier., C ... Ill, § III, 2. Apo ton aitiaton.- Migne. Patrologia, t. IV, col. 137.
49 On "analogies" and, in connection with them, on the positive theology of the Areopagnus, see our article "La notion des analogies chez Denys le pseudo-Areopagite" in volume V Archives d "histoire doctrinale et litteraire du moyen age. P., 1930.
50 De Div. nom., IV, 2, col. 696.
51 Cf. IV and V chap. "Mystical Theology".
52 Ibid. See quote note. 44.
53 De Div. nom., V, 2, col. 817.
54 See note. 44.
55 Ep. I, col. 1065.
56 De Div. nom., IV, 9, col. 705.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid., I, 4, col. 592 s.
59 Eccl. Hier., I, 3-4, col. 376.
60 Ibid., III. 3, col. 168.
61 De Div. nom., II, 9, col. 648.
62 Ep. III, col. 1069.
63 De Coel. Hier., VII, 2, col. 208.
64 Er. IV, col. 1072.
65 De Coel. Hier., I, 1, col. 120.
66 De Div. nom., VII, 1, col. 865 s .; XI, 2, col. 949.
67 Ibid., IV, 13, col. 712.
68 Ibid., IV, 13-14, col. 712.
69 Ibid., $ 14, col. 712 s.
70 Ibid., § 17, col. 713.
71 Ibid., I, 4, col. 592.
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