Oleg Davydenkov - dogmatic theology. The relationship between Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. Reasons for the emergence of dogmas

[dogmatics], a section of theology aimed at revealing, justifying and systematically presenting Christ. dogmas. As an independent theological science and academic discipline, D. b. arose in the XVII-XVIII centuries. in the West as a result of the differentiation of theology, which occurred in line with the general specialization of knowledge. At the same time, the term “D.” itself arose. b." Since in various Christians. In confessions, the volume of dogmas, their content and interpretation do not always coincide; corresponding epithets are used to indicate the confessional features of dogma, for example: Orthodox. D. b., Catholic. D. b., Lutheran. D. b. etc. In Protestantism D. b. often also called systematic theology. The main sections of D. b. are triadology, anthropology, amartology, christology, soteriology, pneumatology, ecclesiology, sacramentology and eschatology.

History of Orthodox D. b.

Dogmas, according to Orthodoxy. teaching, there are revealed truths. Accordingly, the only infallible source of Orthodoxy. D. b. Divine Revelation expressed in the Holy Scriptures is recognized. Scripture and Holy Legends. The tradition is considered in the Orthodox Church. traditions in 2 inseparable aspects: “vertical” and “horizontal”, i.e., on the one hand, as the direct enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit in the Church and, on the other hand, as the historical transmission in it of the “law of faith” and “law of prayer” " The “horizontal” aspect of Tradition has never been subject to special codification in Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify a certain list of church-historical sources that have Orthodox. t.zr. unconditional doctrinal authority and serving as the foundation for the Orthodox Church. D. b. This is, first of all, the Nicene-Constantinople Creed and the dogmatic decrees (oros) of the 7 Ecumenical Councils, as well as the dogmatic definitions of the Polish Councils of 879-880, 1156-1157 and 1341-1351.

Along with dogmatic definitions stands the liturgical Tradition of the Church. “It can be said without exaggeration that the anaphora of the liturgies of St. Basil the Great and St. John Chrysostom in its theological and dogmatic authority is in no way inferior to the dogmatic decrees of the Ecumenical Councils" ( Vasily (Krivoshein). 2003. P. 84).

An authoritative source of Orthodoxy. D. b. is also the patristic heritage as a whole. But, taking into account the large number, diversity and unevenness of what was written by the fathers, Church Tradition never attempted to codify the c.-l. a certain corpus of patristic works, which would fully correspond to the principle of consensus patrum. Nevertheless, in Orthodoxy the conviction is generally accepted that only on the basis of patristic thought can Christ be correctly understood. creed in all its integrity and completeness. “The Ecumenical Councils began their dogmatic decrees with the words “Following the holy fathers,” thereby expressing their conviction that faithfulness to them in spirit is the main sign of Orthodox theology” (Ibid. p. 85).

Unlike Western Christians. Orthodox denominations The Church does not attach decisive dogmatic significance to the following doctrinal monuments of antiquity: the so-called. The Apostles' Creed, the Athanasian Creed and the Creed of St. Gregory the Wonderworker, - preserving their historical significance (see art. Doctrine).

Question about Orthodox sources. D. b. associated with the problem of the so-called symbolic books of Orthodoxy. Churches, to which in Russian pre-revolutionary academic theology it was customary to include “The Orthodox Confession of Faith of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of the East” (1662) and “The Message of the Patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Church on the Orthodox Faith” (1723). However, according to the remark of Prof. N.N. Glubokovsky, “essentially, in Orthodoxy there are no “symbolic books” in the technical sense of the word. All talk about them is extremely conditional and corresponds only to Western religious schemes, in contradiction with the history and nature of Orthodoxy" (Glubokovsky N. N. Orthodoxy in its essence // Orthodoxy: Pro et contra. St. Petersburg, 2001. P. 182-198) . The emergence of these confessions dates back to the period of the decline of Orthodoxy. theology, when it “was forced to arm itself with Western scholastic theological weapons and... this, in turn, led to a new and dangerous influence on Orthodox theology not only of theological terms that were not characteristic of it, but also of theological and spiritual ideas” ( Vasily (Krivoshein). 2003. P. 46). Therefore, along with other confessions of faith and dogmatic decrees of the 16th and subsequent centuries, these texts cannot be considered as generally binding sources of Orthodoxy. D. b., “as not having a general church character in their origin, as usually low in the level of theological thought, and often divorced from patristic and liturgical tradition and as bearing traces of the formal and sometimes significant influence of Roman Catholic theology” (There same. pp. 82-83).

Tasks, method and structure of Orthodox D. b.

In Orthodox tradition, the dogmatic teaching of the Church is not considered as abstract, purely theoretical knowledge. The Church does not theologize for the sake of theology itself, does not create doctrinal systems for the sake of the systems themselves. “Christian theology, in the final analysis, is always only a means, only a certain body of knowledge that must serve that goal that surpasses all knowledge. This ultimate goal is union with God or deification, which the Eastern fathers talk about” (V. Lossky. Mystical theology. P. 10).

At the same time, the Orthodox faith presupposes the dual unity of a person’s dogmatic consciousness and his spiritual life. True dogmatics is always ascetic and is born after. true spiritual achievement, leading to the heights of knowledge of God. In turn, asceticism is dogmatic, that is, it is built in accordance with the theological experience of the Church, dogmatically expressed by St. secret viewers. The slightest damage to one of the aspects of this duality inevitably affects the other. A false dogmatic attitude, when strictly followed, leads to distortions in the field of spiritual life. False, delusional spiritual experiences become the source of false theological conclusions.

Thus, according to its purpose, D. b. is a sign system that gives a person the right perspective on the path to salvation, understood in Orthodoxy. traditions as deification. The most important characteristic of Orthodoxy. D. b. is its soteriological orientation. D. b. is built on a priori accepted divinely revealed truths and dogmas. However, the totality of dogmas is not given in Revelation in the form of a specific list of theses. Therefore, the primary task of the Bible is to identify the actual dogmas from the many contained in the Holy Scriptures. Scripture and Holy Tradition of non-dogmatic (spiritual-moral, liturgical, church-historical, canonical, etc.) provisions, then interpret them in the spirit of the uninterrupted church tradition and, finally, point out their soteriological significance.

In their content, dogmas are unchanged - in the process of church history, only changes in their terminological expression and clarification occurred in accordance with changes in rational assimilation and the nature of the heresy that arose, which necessitated a response. Therefore, for D. b. it is important to show the historical context in which the dogmas were comprehended and formulated in the language of concepts (see Art. Determination of Faith).

D. b. was formed on the basis of the Creed, a more or less complete and detailed interpretation of which is the majority of ancient dogmatic-systematic works. In the XVII-XVIII centuries. first a Protestant. and Catholic, and then Orthodox. in theological science, dogmatics acquired a clear structure and began to be built in accordance with 2 main sections: “About God in Himself” (De Deo ad intra) and “About God outside” (De Deo ad extra), each of which was divided into subsections , containing the relevant chapters. The section “About God in Himself” was divided into 2 subsections: “About the One God in Essence” and “About the Trinity God in Persons.” The section “About God in the Outside” included subsections: “About God the Creator”, “About God the Provider”, “About God the Savior”, “About God the Sanctifier”, “About God the Judge and Rewarder”. Despite the adjustments made to this scheme by certain dogmatists, in general it was generally accepted in Orthodoxy. D. b. XVIII - beginning XX century The exception was attempts at a conceptual presentation of dogmas, when the principle of systematization was not a specific structure for constructing dogma, but dogmatic idea accepted as key, e.g. the idea of ​​the Kingdom of God in the dogmatic-apologetic lectures of Archbishop. Innokenty (Borisova), the idea of ​​God's love from prof. A.D. Belyaeva, the idea of ​​the Sacrifice of Christ as an expression of His love by Archpriest. Pavel Svetlova.

Attitude D. b. to other theological sciences

D. b. is inextricably linked with other church-scientific disciplines. Exegesis, Church history, patrolology, liturgics, based on the dogmatic consciousness of the Church, help in identifying the sources of biblical literature. and contribute to their correct interpretation. Asceticism, pastoral theology, moral theology, homiletics, and church law point to the practical application of substantiated d.b. truths and their vitality. Comparative (accusatory) theology and apologetics, considering the doctrine of the Orthodox Church. Church in comparison, on the one hand, with heterodox dogma and, on the other, with non-Christ. worldviews, rely on D. b. and at the same time they give him material for a more detailed understanding and interpretation of dogmas. In addition, in D. b. individual achievements of secular sciences, especially philosophy, are also used. terms and concepts of which found their application in Christ. theology.

Systematization of Christian doctrine in the ancient Church. Historical review

Attempts to systematically present and interpret revealed dogmas were made already in the first centuries of church history. Elements of systematization are present in the works of early Christians. teachers - sschmch. Justin the Philosopher, Athenagoras, sschmch. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Theophilus of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and others.

The first systematic exposition of Christ. creed appeared op. Origen (late 2nd-3rd century) “De principiis” (On the principles), in which the sources of the doctrine of the Church are indicated - Holy. Scripture and Holy Tradition, and then the main dogmas are sequentially considered - about the Most Rev. The Trinity, about rational created beings, their primitive state and fall, about the incarnation of God the Word, about the actions of the Holy Spirit, about the resurrection of the dead and the final Judgment. As presented by Christ. doctrine, Origen did not avoid a number of significant errors: the recognition of the pre-existence of souls and the inevitable final restoration of all rational beings, including the devil, to their original sinless state.

The next systematic exposition of the doctrine of the Church in time (IV century) is “Catecheses” (Catechetical Teachings) and “Catecheses mystagogicae quinque” (Sacramental Teachings) of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. The “catechumen teachings” are a dogmatic interpretation of the creed of the Jerusalem Church addressed to the catechumens; the “secret teachings” introduce the newly enlightened to the Orthodox Church. the doctrine of basic church sacraments ah - Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist. However, this work is more catechetical than dogmatic-theological in nature. “Oratio catechetica magna” (Great Catechetical Word) by St. Gregory of Nyssa is of great value in this regard. This presentation of the main Christians. dogmas are characterized by theological depth and philosophical persuasiveness. “Expositio rectae confessionis” (Exposition of Divine Dogmas) Blessed. Theodoret of Cyrus (IV-V centuries) clearly and concisely conveys the church teaching about the Holy One. The Trinity and the Divine Names, then sequentially examines the entire history of God's economy - from the Creation of the world to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

In the West The Church's first experiments in the systematic presentation of Christ. creeds were undertaken by the blj. Augustine (IV-V centuries) in the works “Enchiridion” (Guide to Lawrence, or On Faith, Hope and Love), “De doctrina christiana” (On Christian Teaching), “De civitate Dei” (On the City of God). The treatises “De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus” (On church dogmas) by Gennadius of Marseille (5th century) and “De fide” (On faith, or On the rule of faith) by Fulgentius of Ruspia (5th-6th centuries) are also systematic.

All R. VIII century a voluminous work by St. John of Damascus' Expositio fidei orthodoxa (An Accurate Statement of the Orthodox Faith), which is a synthesis of patristic theology on key dogmatic issues. He is distinguished by harmony and consistency in the presentation of doctrinal truths, precision of formulation and utmost fidelity to the Holy Scriptures. Scripture and Holy Tradition. The “accurate presentation” was in the Orthodox Church. The Church was the main dogmatic leadership (until the New Age) and had an impact on the development of Orthodoxy. theology has a significant influence. All later (XII-XV centuries) Byzantine. systematic expositions of church doctrine are inferior in depth to the work of St. John of Damascus and are of a compilative nature. These include: “Panoplia Dogmatica” (Dogmatic armor of the Orthodox faith) mon. Euthymius Zigabena, “Thesaurus Orthodoxae Fidei” (Treasury of Orthodoxy) Nikita Choniates, “Dialogus adversus omnes haereses” (Dialogues of church bishops against atheists, pagans, Jews and all heresies about the one faith of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ) Archbishop. Simeon of Thessalonica.

History of D. b. in the Roman Catholic Church

In the 9th century. in the West Church (the main example in discussions about adoption, predestination, the Eucharist) a scholastic direction in theology began to take shape (Alcuin, Gottschalk, Rabanus the Maurus, Paschasius Radbert, Prudentius, Remigius, John Scotus Eriugena, Ginkmar of Rheims, Ratramnus of Corby, etc.) , some in the 11th century. was developed in the works of Berengar of Tours, Lanfranc of Bec and others and finally, as a special method, formalized by Anselm of Canterbury and P. Abelard. In the 12th century. the scholastic method was developed by Gilbert of Porretan, partly by Hugh of Saint-Victor, and William of Champeaux. A distinctive feature of the theology of the scholastics was the desire to conceptualize dogmas and their detailed analysis using the categories of rational thinking. Derived from revealed sources, a dogma was first established as an initial thesis, then subjected to critical evaluation, so that ultimately a new theological “discovery” was made through intelligent interpretation. A logical connection was established between various dogmas, uniting them into a formally consistent system. This approach involved identifying the implicit truths of faith, which, when revealed through the intellect, were called theological conclusions. Thus, theology began to be perceived no longer as an experimental knowledge of God, the fruit of spiritual contemplation, but as one of the scientific disciplines, although the first among others (see: Meyendorff. 2005. pp. 107-112), - in this meaning the word “theology” began to be used starting with Abelard.

In formation Catholic. D. b. the first important result of the scholastic method was Op. “Quatuor libri sententiarum” (Four Books of Sentences) by Peter of Lombardy (12th century), which is a clearly ordered presentation of the main themes of Christ. doctrines from the doctrine of God to the doctrine of the end of the world. Initially, a number of theological conclusions of Peter of Lombardy were subjected to sharp criticism, but at the IV Lateran Council (1215) they were completely freed from suspicion of heresy; his “Sentences” became the main textbook on theology in the Catholic Church. un-tah until the Reformation.

Scholasticism reached its highest flowering in the 13th century. XIV century This was facilitated by 2 factors - the appearance of high fur boots and the revival in the West. Europe's interest in Aristotle's philosophy. All R. XIII century a new form of scientific and theological systematization arose - summa theologiae. The University of Paris became the main center of scholastic theology. The most significant theologians of this period were representatives of the 2 largest monastic orders, Franciscan and Dominican. Franciscan theologians (Bonaventura and others) gravitated towards ch. arr. to traditional for the early Middle Ages. zap. theology to Platonic-Augustinian concepts. Dominicans (Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas) - to the newly discovered Aristotelianism. A new direction in the West is associated with the name of Thomas Aquinas. theology - “Thomism”; a whole series of Thomist theological developments received in the Catholic Church. Church dogmatic status. A peculiar synthesis of Augustinianism and Aristotelianism was created by the Franciscan John Duns Scotus.

All R. XIV century in university theology, the dominant direction was based on the philosophical concept of nominalism (William of Ockham, Gregory of Rimini, Pierre d'Ailly, etc.). The most influential theologian was Ockham, who abandoned the principle of justification of faith through reason and thereby subjected to a radical revaluation of the foundations of previous scholastic systems. In addition, Ockham revived the discussion on one of the most key problems of Western theology - the question of the relationship between free will and grace, emphasizing the essential necessity of human merit for salvation. A number of theologians responded to Occamism by turning to strict Augustinianism. The most famous of Among them is Thomas Bradwardine, who in the polemical treatise “De Causa Dei contra Pelagium” (On the Divine Cause, Against Pelagius) defended the absolute sovereignty of God, and consequently, the idea of ​​predestination. Ockham’s soteriology, recognized in the Catholic Church as semi-Pelagianism, reached logical conclusion in the works of G. Biel (XV century).

The later Middle Ages became a time of development in the West. The churches of the mystical movement (Meister Eckhart, G. Suso, I. Tauler, J. van Ruysbroeck, etc.), which arose as a reaction to the extreme rationalism of scholasticism and gave impetus to the theological movement, which was called “new piety” (devotio moderna; G. Groote, Thomas a à Kempis, J. Gerson, etc.).

Despite criticism from various quarters, Thomistic theology did not completely lose its position either in the late Middle Ages or in the Renaissance. On the eve of the Reformation, it was represented by a number of theologians (Antony of Florence, Peter of Bergamo, Konrad Köllin), the most authoritative of whom was Italian. Dominican Thomas de Vio, known as Card. Cajetan (XVI century).

The impetus for the development of the Roman Catholic The Reformation gave dogmatism. Some theologians saw the reasons for the intellectual crisis that befell the Catholic Church. The Church, in the dominance of scholasticism and, starting from it, tried to create a new scientific and theological method, which would be built not on a rational-philosophical, but on an exegetical and church-historical basis (M. Cano, I. Maldonat). However, the dominant one in Catholicism. theology XVI - 1st half. XVII century became a contrarian direction, which saw its task in the precise formulation of Rome. doctrines as opposed to the new Protestants. teachings (I. Eck, I. Emser, I. Cochleus, K. Vimpina, I. Dietenberger, A. Pigge, G. Witzel, I. Fabri, P. Canisius, card. Gasparo Contarini, G. Seripando, etc.) . The presentation of dogmas here was polemical in nature, emphasis was placed on the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. Within this approach, Catholic. doctrine was determined at the Council of Trent (1545-1563). The card is recognized as the largest representative of contrarian theology. Robert Bellarmine, who wrote the lengthy Op. “Disputationes de controversiis fidei christianae adversus hujus temporis haereticos” (Discourses on controversial issues of the Christian faith, against the heretics of our time). At the same time, in the same period in Catholic. In the Church there was a galaxy of theologians, mostly Spanish, who strove for a positive disclosure of dogmas and were guided by the classical scholastic systems. This movement was called the second scholasticism (D. Bañez, L. Molina, F. Suarez, G. Vazquez, etc.).

All R. XVII century A new attempt to overcome scholastic methods in theology was made by Dionysius Petavius. His op. “De theologicis dogmatibus” (On dogmatic theology) contains 10 treatises: on God and His properties; about the Trinity; about angels; about the creation of the world; about the Incarnation; about the sacraments; about laws; about grace; about faith, hope, love and other virtues; about sin, which are combined in 2 main sections - “About God in Himself” and “About God in His actions.” To substantiate dogmas, Dionysius does not use abstract rational arguments, but the authority of the Holy Father. Scriptures and Holy Legends. Initially, the dogmatic method of Dionysius gained only a few. weak imitators (A. Natalis and others), while the majority are Catholic. theologians still adhered to traditions. scholastic approach (C. Frassen, J. B. Gonet, card. Ludovico Vincenzo Gotti, etc.). However, in the beginning XVIII century "De theologicis dogmatibus" is beginning to attract close attention from a wide circle of Catholics. dogmatists and influence them.

In the 18th century Catholic D. b. finally stands out as a special scientific and theological discipline (in Dionysius it is not yet separated from moral theology). Dogmatic systems are now built in accordance with a clearly developed thematic structure on the basis of the biblical-exegetical and church-historical method, which involves turning to the primary sources of doctrine - the Holy. Scripture, ancient creeds and conciliar decisions, patristics, definitions of church magisterium. The presentation of the material itself is no longer so much dialectical as confessional and apologetic in nature. The disclosure of doctrinal provisions begins not with the formulation of a question, as in scholasticism, but with a precise dogmatic formulation accepted as a fundamental thesis; then various authoritative evidence is given to substantiate the thesis and, finally, a theological conclusion is drawn. In accordance with this method, the dogmatic works of F. A. Gervaise, C. Vista, B. Stattler and others were written.

In the 19th century a number of Catholic theologians refuse to use Aristotelian-Thomistic categories and attempt to reveal Christ. creeds based on philosophical movements of the New Age (K. F. Zimmer, F. K. Baader, A. Günther, G. Hermes, G. Klee, F. von Brenner, F. K. Dieringer, F. A. Staudenmaier, etc. .). This direction, called “liberal theology,” turned out to be in conflict with the official. the position of the Roman throne in the person of Popes Pius IX and Leo XIII, who in their conservative doctrinal policy relied on the theology of the ultramontanists who adhered to the neo-scholastic direction (G. Perrone, F. J. Clemens, B. Jungmann, etc.). In 1879, Pope Leo XIII, with his encyclical “Aeterni patris,” proclaimed official Thomism. Catholic system theology and ordered education to be built on its basis.

In the 1st half. XX century Catholic theology developed under the sign of the opposition of the church magisterium to new ideological trends, primarily the major movement, which was called “Catholic modernism.” Representatives of modernism (A. F. Loisy, E. Leroy, M. Blondel, etc.), based, on the one hand, on the developments of the Protestant. Biblical criticism, and on the other hand, from new natural science concepts, took the position of anti-dogmatism and anthropocentrism. In response, the Vatican continued to defend and consolidate Catholicism. doctrine established by the Council of Trent and Vatican Council I. The result of this policy was the new Roman Catholic. the dogma of the taking of the Virgin Mary into Heavenly Glory with soul and body, proclaimed by Pope Pius XII in the apostolic constitution “Munificentissimus Deus” (1950), which was based on the Mariological developments of M. Jugis. In general, the 20th century was marked by Catholicism. D. b. the search for new approaches in the interpretation and disclosure of dogmas (the so-called new theology in the works of K. Adam, E. Krebs, E. Przywara, M. Schmaus, A. de Lubac, card. Iva Kongara, M. D. Chenu, Zh. Danielou, K. Rahner, H. W. von Balthasar, etc.). Adam, relying on historical and theological research, tried to bring dogmatics closer to the personal experience of God, interpreting it in accordance with modern times. trends in philosophy, psychology, phenomenology of religion. Rahner built his theological concept on the basis of the so-called. open or theocentric anthropology. De Lubac, card. Yves Congard, Danielou, von Balthasar resorted to the creative use of Eastern Patristic ideas in their developments. A number of provisions developed by representatives of the “new theology” formed the basis for the decisions of the Vatican II Council.

Protestant D. b.

Initially, Protestantism, which proclaimed the principle of sola Scriptura, was characterized by a sharply critical attitude towards the total systematization of theology, characteristic of the Middle Ages. Catholicism. The early Protestants contrasted the dialectical sophistication of scholasticism with deliberate simplicity and laconicism in the presentation of their own teaching. Biblical Revelation, according to their approach, is not subject to rationalization, it must be reverently experienced by the heart. This is the character of the first Protestant. generalizing theological op. "Loci communes theologici" (1521), written by F. Melanchthon. In his opinion, to perceive the truths of St. The Scriptures should be guided only by spiritual experience (judicio spiritus) and avoid judgments of reason (judicio rationes).

However, the process of fragmentation that began in the Reformation movement was promoted by Protestants. theologians to greater dogmatic precision. Various currents of Protestantism in accordance with the specifics of their own interpretation of the Holy. The Scriptures were gradually formalized into special confessions, the doctrinal basis of which became the so-called. symbolic books - detailed confessions of faith or catechisms that fulfill their role. But soon the need arose for theological clarification of the provisions contained in the symbolic books themselves, which prompted the Protestants. theologians to create voluminous works of a dogmatic nature, in which the doctrine they professed was substantiated and consolidated in increasingly strict forms.

This tendency manifested itself in the 2nd (1535) and especially in the 3rd (1543) editions of Melanchthon’s “Loci communes theologici”, in which the element of rationalization and systematization increased significantly. All major Lutherans. theologians of the 2nd half. XVI century (W. Striegel, N. Sellnecker, A. Chemnitz) were already confidently following the path outlined by Melanchthon. In the 17th century The process of dogmatization of the teachings of the Reformation was completed in the Protestants. orthodoxy, whose representatives, based on formulations taken from symbolic books and accepted as doctrinal premises, built detailed dogmatic systems using scholastic methodology. The most significant of them are “Compendium locorum theologicorum” (1610) by L. Hutter, a 20-volume op. “Loci theologici” (Jena, 1610-1622) by I. Gerhard, “Theologia didactico-polemica” (1685) by I. A. Quenstedt, “Institutiones theologicae dogmaticae” (1723) by I. Buddea.

Reformed philosophy, the first experience of which is the work of J. Calvin “Institutio christianae religionis,” generally developed in the same direction. The most outstanding Reformed dogmatists of the 16th century are T. Beza, R. Heerbout, F. Turretini; their dogmatic systems represent characteristic examples of Protestants. scholastics.

In con. XVII - early XVIII century a reaction to the extreme rationalism of the orthodox trend was pietism, whose ideologists (F. Ya. Spener, A. G. Franke) called for a return to the origins of the evangelical faith, as they understood it, and emphasized religion. feeling, personal piety, contemplative perception of the Holy. Scriptures. The Pietists did not create any works that could be attributed directly to the field of religious philosophy; nevertheless, they influenced the further development of Protestants. theology.

In con. XVIII century mainstream Protestantism. theology becomes rationalism. In accordance with the spirit of the era, theologians of this trend (W. A. ​​Teller, E. L. T. Henke, J. K. R. Eckermann) considered the individual human mind as the highest criterion in assessing and revealing biblical truths. Christ was perceived by them only as the greatest of the teachers of humanity, Christianity was relegated to the level of natural religion. Rationalism was criticized by representatives of the so-called. supranaturalistic movement (S.F.N. Morus, G.K. Storr), who defended the supernatural principle of Christ. faith and the super-rational character of Christ. creeds. However, among Protestants. theologians of the 1st half. XIX century There were also supporters of a compromise between these trends, who believed that the supernatural truths of faith do not contradict human reason and, moreover, can be deduced from it (F. W. F. von Ammon, K. G. Brettschneider).

In the XIX - early XX century Protestantism was dominated by liberal theology, the characteristic features of which are a non-confessional interpretation of the doctrine, its rethinking in the spirit of the German. classical philosophy (I. Kant, J. G. Fichte, F. W. J. Schelling, G. W. F. Hegel, F. Jacobi, L. Feuerbach), adogmatism, moralism, natural science explanation of supernatural biblical facts, criticism of the historical Christianity, etc. Within the framework of this movement, a tradition of biblical criticism was formed (New Tübingen theological school). F. Schleiermacher is considered to be the founder of liberal theology, who systematically outlined his views in the book. "Christian Faith" (1821). Adjacent to this direction are such diverse theologians as K. Daub, F. K. Marheineke, F. Bauer, D. F. Strauss, A. Ritschl, A. von Harnack and others. In contrast to liberal theology, the Neo-Lutheran direction arose (I Martensen, K.E. Luthardt), whose representatives professed strict confessionalism and adhered to dogmatic precision. The most significant Reformed dogmatists of the same time were A. Ebrard and A. Schweitzer. In addition, a number of large Lutherans. It is quite difficult to correlate dogmatists with k.-l. direction or school (I. A. V. Neander, D. Schenkel, H. Kremer, I. H. Dorner, A. Köhler, etc.).

All R. XX century dominant position in the Protestant. theology took the so-called neo-orthodoxy, which, however, did not represent a single theological movement; rather, it was a tendency inherent in a number of major theologians who belonged to various Protestants. denominations. All of them were united by the rejection not only of liberal theology with its historical-critical method, but also of scholasticism. The book of the doorman is considered to be a kind of manifesto of neo-orthodox Protestantism. Reformed K. Barth “Epistle to the Romans” (1919). The principles of neo-orthodoxy were shared to one degree or another by F. Gogarten, E. Thurneysen, C. H. Dodd, E. K. Hoskins, A. T. S. Nygren, G. E. Brunner, R. Bultmann and others. With this The Protestant tradition is also connected with the direction. existentialism (Bultmann, P. Tillich), based on the ideas of S. Kierkegaard, M. Heidegger and others.

From Protestant. dogmatic works of the 20th century. the most famous are the 13-volume “Church Dogmatics” by Barth, “Systematic Theology” by Tillich, “Dogmatics” by Brunner, “Systematic Theology” by L. Berkoff, as well as the works of W. Pannenberg, J. Moltmann, O. Weber, H. Thielicke, D. Blesha, A. Keiper, G. Bavinka, G. K. Berkauwer, C. Hoxha and others.

Orthodox D. b. New times

Becoming Orthodox. Church science is associated with the founding in 1631 of Metropolitan. Peter (Mogila) 1st in the Orthodox Church. Churches of the scientific and theological school in modern times. meaning (since 1632 college, since 1701 academy). D. b. at this time it had not yet been singled out as a special academic discipline and until 1711 it was taught by studying individual theological and polemical treatises written in Latin. language based on the characteristic Catholic. dogmatic works of the XV-XVI centuries. scholastic method, in accordance with the Crimea, revealed truths were considered as abstract concepts, split into many particular provisions and subjected to detailed analysis with the help of real and imaginary objections, and then confirmed by dialectical arguments. The most significant theologians of the Kiev-Mogila school, along with Peter (Mogila), were Metropolitan. Sylvester (Kossov), abbot. Isaiah (Kozlovsky), archbishop. Lazar (Baranovich), archimandrite. Ioannikiy (Galjatovsky). There are 2 theology courses preserved in manuscript from this period: the 1st, compiled according to Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, taught in 1642-1656; The 2nd belongs to Joasaph Krokovsky, who read it in 1693-1697.

In the 18th century method of teaching theology in Russian. Theological schools were changed in accordance with the character of the new Protestants. and Catholic. dogmatic systems. The first experience of this kind was the lectures on theology by Archbishop. Feofan (Prokopovich), read by him at the Kyiv Academy (1711-1716). Having divided theology into dogmatic and moral, he laid the foundation for Orthodoxy. dogmatics as an independent church science. Based on his lectures, he created the 1st Orthodox Church. Church system D. b. Finish writing it by Archbishop. Theophanes did not have time - this was done by his successors, Archimandrites David (Nashchinsky), Nikodim (Pankratyev), Cassian (Lekhnitsky) and Metropolitan. Samuel (Mislavsky), after she was in the 2nd half. XVIII century was accepted as the main leadership at the Kyiv Academy; published by Metropolitan Samuel (Mislavsky) in 1782. Focused on the dogmatic writings of the Lutherans. theologians of the 17th century, primarily on Gerhard’s “Loci theologici”, the dogmatic system of Feofan (Prokopovich) is divided into 2 parts - “About God in Himself” and “About God in the Outside”. The 1st part sets out the doctrine of God, one in essence and trinity in persons, in the 2nd - about God the Creator of the visible and invisible world and about the Providence of God, general (in relation to all creation) and private (in relation to fallen man ). This structure of dividing dogma, despite the fact that individual Orthodox. theologians (Archbishop Gideon (Vishnevsky), Bishop Kirill (Florinsky), Christopher (Charnutsky), etc.) still continued to follow the methodology of the 17th century, which became Russian. dogmatic science c con. XVIII and before the beginning. XX century generally accepted. The closest successors in time were Archbishop. Feofan were archim. Joakinf (Karpinsky), archbishop. Sylvester (Lebedinsky), archbishop. George (Konissky), bishop. Theophylact (Gorsky) (his course on D.B. served as a teaching guide at the MDA in the last quarter of the 18th century) and bishop. Irenaeus (Falkovsky) (in 1802, an abbreviated version of the dogmatic system of Feofan (Prokopovich) was published under the name “Theologiae christianae compendium”, which served as a textbook in the early 19th century).

In the 2nd half. XVIII century Russian becomes the language of scientific theology for the first time. The first experience was the composition of Met. Plato (Levshin) “Orthodox Teaching, or Abridged Christian Theology” (1765); written based on the lessons taught to the heir to the throne, bud. imp. Paul I, is distinguished by conciseness, clear language, and the absence of excessive formalism. Works of Archimandrite Macarius (Petrovich) “Eastern Orthodox Church Teaching” (1763) and Hierom. Juvenal (Medvedsky) “Christian Theology” (1806) are introductory, catechetical in nature and do not meet all the requirements of dogmatic-theological systematization.

In the 19th century direction of development D. b. in Russia was determined by a number of officials. church documents (Consect of Theological Sciences (1812), Charter of Academies and Seminaries (1814), Rules for Teaching Seminary Sciences (1838)), adopted with the aim of reforming the system of theological education. According to the requirements contained therein, teaching D. b. should have been conducted in Russian. language in accordance with a unified plan, method and direction. As a result, several were developed. educational courses (most of them remained in manuscript), the most significant of which are “Dogmatic Theology” by Archpriest. Peter of Ternavsky (1838), “Dogmatic theology of the Orthodox Catholic Eastern Church, with the addition of a general introduction to the course of theological sciences” Archbishop. Anthony (Amphiteatrova) (1848, had 7 reprints and for 20 years was the standard textbook on biblical biology for seminaries), “Guide to the study of Christian Orthodox dogmatic theology” by Met. Makaria (Bulgakov) (1869). Along with these brief dogmatic manuals, during the same period, 3 voluminous systems of dogmatics appeared in Russia: “Orthodox- dogmatic theology» Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov) (5 volumes, published in 1849-1853), “Orthodox dogmatic theology” by Archbishop. Philaret (Gumilevsky) (2 volumes, published in 1864) and “The Experience of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology with a Historical Presentation of Dogmas” by Bishop. Sylvester (Malevansky) (1878-1891).

“Orthodox-Dogmatic Theology” Met. Makaria became the first in Russia. theology is an attempt at scientific classification and mutual unification of accumulated dogmatic material (Glubokovsky, 2002, p. 7). It is distinguished by a clear structure, logical order and clarity of presentation. Method of Metr. Macarius is close to the orthodox or church-apologetic method of the West. dogmatic systems of the 17th century. As a thesis, “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology” uses a brief formulation of dogma, in most cases taken from the “Confession of the Orthodox Faith” by Metropolitan. Peter (Tombs) or “Messages of the Patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Church on the Orthodox Faith.” Then the thesis is confirmed by biblical and patristic quotations and justified by arguments from reason.

The dogmatic system of the archbishop. Philaret (Gumilevsky) was built in accordance with the rational-philosophical method of Western Christ. early dogmatists XIX century - in particular, the influence of Catholicism is noticeable here. dogmatic systems of G. Klee and F. von Brenner (Malinovsky N., prot. 1910. P. 124). “Written in a philosophical-critical spirit, [it] devotes a lot of space to apologetic-rational explanation and justification of dogmas” (Justin (Popovich). 2006. P. 57). At the same time, the archbishop. Philaret has a desire for historical illumination of dogmas.

Ep. Sylvester (Malevansky) was entirely guided by the historical-dogmatic method, preference was given to it in the new “Charter of Theological Academies” (1869). He traced how dogmas, being immutable revealed truths in their internal content, develop from the formal side and are refined in a historical perspective.

In the beginning. XX century the 4-volume “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology” appears, Rev. Nikolai Malinovsky (1910); the work did not contribute anything significantly new to the development of Russian. dogmatic science, because it was focused on the dogmatic systems already existing in Russia and was of a compilative nature.

Individual dogmatic topics were developed by Metropolitan. Anthony (Khrapovitsky), Archbishop. (afterwards Patriarch) Sergius (Stragorodsky), archimandrite. (afterwards archbishop) Hilarion (Troitsky), prof. A. I. Vvedensky, prot. Pavel Svetlov, Rev. Ioann Orfanitsky, P. P. Ponomarev, A. D. Belyaev Florovsky Rosis, H. Androutsos, K. Diovuniotis, I. Karmiris, P. Trembelas. In the Serbian Church in the beginning. XX century The dogmatic manuals of Archpriest were widespread. Savva Teodorovich, L. Raich, prot. Milos Andzhelkovic, Rev. S. M. Veselinovich; in the present time general recognition in the Orthodox Church. world received the 3-volume “Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church” by Archimandrite. Justin (Popovich). The largest Romanians. 20th century theologian is prot. Dumitru Staniloae, author of the dogmatic codes “Orthodox Christian Teaching” (1952) and “Textbook on Dogmatic and Symbolic Theology” (1958).

Lit.: Anthony (Amphitheaters), Archbishop. Dogmatic theology of the Orthodox Catholic Eastern Church, with the addition of a general introduction to the course of theological sciences. St. Petersburg, 18628; Filaret (Gumilevsky), Archbishop. Orthodox dogmatic theology. Chernigov, 1864. Parts 1-2; aka. Review; Macarius (Bulgakov), Metropolitan. Orthodox dogmatic theology. St. Petersburg, 1868; aka. A guide to the study of Christian Orthodox dogmatic theology. M., 1898; Belyaev A. D. Divine Love: The Experience of Revealing the Most Important Christs. dogmas from the beginning of Divine love. M., 1880; aka. Dogmatic theology // PBE. 1903. T. 4. P. 1126-1150; Vvedensky A. AND . Comparative assessment of the dogmatic systems of Metropolitan. Macarius (Bulgakov) and Bishop. Sylvester (Malevansky) // CHOLDP. 1886. Book. 2/4. pp. 127-352; aka. On the issue of methodological reform of Orthodoxy. Dogmatists // BV. 1904. No. 6. P. 179-208; Sylvester (Malevansky), bishop. Theology. 1892. T. 1. P. 1-172; Hall F. J. Introduction to Dogmatic Theology. N. Y., 1907; Malinovsky N. P., prot. Orthodox dogmatic theology. Serg. P., 1910. T. 1; aka. Essay on Orthodox dogmatic theology. Serg. P., 1912; Hilarion (Troitsky), archbishop. Comments, amendments and additions to “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology” by Archpriest. N. P. Malinovsky. Serg. P., 1914; aka. Theology and freedom of the Church: (On the tasks of the liberation war in the field of theology) // BV. 1915. No. 3. P. 98-134; Florovsky. Paths of Russian theology; Congar Y. A History of Theology. Garden City (N.Y.), 1968; Lossky V. Mystical theology. 1991; aka. Dogmatic theology. 1991; McGrath A. Theological thought of the Reformation: Trans. from English Od., 1994; Muller D. T . Christian dogmatics: Trans. from English Duncanville, (Tech.), 1998; Felmy K. X . Introduction to modern Orthodox theology: Trans. with him. M., 1999; Lortz J. History of the Church, considered in connection with the history of ideas: Trans. with him. M., 2000. T. 1-2; Meyendorff I., protopr. Byzantine theology: Trans. from English Minsk, 2001; aka. Rome, Constantinople, Moscow: Ist. and theologian. research M., 2005; Glubokovsky. 2002. pp. 6-19; Lisova N. N. Review of the main directions of Russian theology. academic science in the XIX - early XX century // BT. 2002. Sat. 37. P. 6-127; Gnedich P., prot. The dogma of atonement in Russian theology. science of the last 50th anniversary (1st half of the XX century) // Ibid. pp. 128-151; Vasily (Krivoshein), archbishop. Symbolic texts in the Orthodox Church. Kaluga, 2003; Justin (Popovich), St. Collection creations. M., 2006. T. 2: Dogmatics Orthodox. Churches.

A. A. Zaitsev

DOGMATIC THEOLOGY or dogmatics for short, is also called “Christian doctrine.” To indicate which church or which confession the doctrine is being expounded, the name of the church or confession is added. Hence the names: Orthodox dogmatic theology, Orthodox dogma; dogmatic theology or doctrine of Catholic, Lutheran, Evangelical, Reformed and others. These names have become commonly used in the last two centuries, but before this science had other and, moreover, different names, as will be seen below from the review of its history.

Dogmatic theology as a science . Expounding the dogmas of the Christian faith, Christian doctrine, dogmatics is a systematic and scientific presentation of the entire totality of Christian dogmas. Dogmatics, like moral, polemical and apologetic or basic theology, is a systematic science and, together with these three sciences, constitutes one group of theological sciences, called systematic theology, and many theologians combined moral theology into one system with dogmatic, others - apologetic, others - polemical , and sometimes all these types of theology were presented together. Schleiermacher, having divided all theology into three types: systematic, historical and practical, classified dogmatics as historical theology on the basis that each time has its own dogmatics. The base is not solid. Let dogmatics develop and change with each era, but the same happens with all other sciences; However, can all sciences be considered historical? Dogmatics, in comparison with other sciences, is even the least susceptible to change, because its objective content - dogmas as drawn from the unchanged Holy Scripture, is always the same. The changes and destinies of dogmatics are set forth in a special science - the “history of dogmatics”. As for the historical presentation of the dogmas themselves, it constitutes only a part of dogma, and in modern times it has even become a special science, separate from dogmas - the “history of dogmas.” With few exceptions, all theologians - ancient, medieval, modern, Orthodox, Roman Latin, Protestant - presented dogmatics systematically. But the systematic presentation of dogmas should not mean the derivation of all of them from one dogmatic fundamental principle, as in philosophy sometimes the entire content of an entire system is deduced from one principle, but the unification of all particular dogmas around one or several basic dogmas. Such fundamental principles in dogmatics are the doctrine of the triune God, the doctrine of the person and work of Christ. The doctrine of the triune God is a unifying principle in the creed, in Orthodox and Roman-Latin dogmatics and in many Protestant ones; and the doctrine of the person and work of Christ is accepted as a central dogma in some Protestant dogmas, for example. at Thomasius's. The content of dogma can be grouped and combined around other dogmatic principles. So, for example, in our book “Divine Love” the most important Christian dogmas are revealed from the beginning of God’s love. The famous Protestant theologian Ritschl based his dogmatic system on the idea of ​​the kingdom of God, and in this matter he had predecessors in German theology. Even in Russian theology, Innokenty (Borisov) warned him of this, who based his dogmatic-apologetic lectures on the idea of ​​the kingdom of God. And even in ancient times, apologetic-historical, and partly dogmatic, material united the idea of ​​the kingdom of God in Blessed Augustine in his extensive work “On the City of God.” There were also experiments in the deductive, purely philosophical construction of dogma from one beginning. Thus, Schleiermacher, in his dogmatics, tried to derive the entire Christian doctrine from the complete sense of man’s dependence on God. But his experience shows that it is impossible to derive with logical necessity the entire dogmatic content of Christianity from one beginning. His anthropological principle of dogma turned out to be too narrow for it to be possible to derive all Christian dogmas from it, and his dogma is incomplete. By its very nature, purely inferential dogmatics will be religious philosophy itself, the philosophy of faith, the general thing of religion, and not dogmatics. It is difficult and even impossible to expect and hope that such a religious philosophy or purely rational dogmatics will coincide in its content and spirit with positive dogmatics, which draws its content not from reason, but from Revelation. True, the laws of reason are given to us by God, and therefore natural or natural theology (theologia naturalis), as the fruit of reason, should not be in conflict with positive or supernatural Revelation, also given from God. But the powers and abilities of our spirit are limited, and in addition, they are weakened, perverted and damaged by sin. Meanwhile, in positive Revelation, there are such truths, called the mysteries of faith, which reason not only cannot conceive of on its own, but cannot fully understand them even after they have been generalized to it by God in positive Revelation. And these truths are the most basic dogmas of Christianity, such as the doctrine of the Trinity, the incarnation of the Son of God in the person of Christ, His redemption of the human race, and grace. Given the incomprehensibility of the basic dogmas of the Christian faith, reason will be powerless to derive the entire dogmatic content of Christianity from one beginning, even if the theologian does not lose sight of the revealed doctrine, and even tries not to diverge from it.

Not only the objective principles or material foundations of his science, but even the particular ones that make up the content of its truth, the dogmatist does not seek and discover, but takes ready-made ones from Revelation through the dogmatic teaching of his church. In this way, dogmatics, like all theology in general, differs significantly from philosophy and all secular sciences. True, both in philosophy and in secular sciences, the objects of knowledge are also given. They are the same here as in theology - God, world, man. In human cognitive abilities, organs are given and ways and means of cognition of these objects are indicated, and the process of cognition itself is predetermined; but the results of knowledge are not predetermined. A person has a desire for truth, but when realizing this desire in knowledge, a person encounters many difficulties and often accepts a lie as the truth, and rejects the truth as a lie. Be that as it may, the discovery of truth is the main task of philosophy and all secular sciences. But for a dogmatist this task in the strict sense of the word does not exist, because dogmatic truths are given in Revelation and in church teaching, and a dogmatist does not need or even have the opportunity to find and discover them. The so-called discoveries that happen in natural science, philosophy and historical sciences cannot happen in dogmatics. However, in the field of dogma there can be and have been errors, and even serious ones, such as heretical teachings; and on the other side there appeared creations filled with pure and sublime truth. Thus, a dogmatist, no less than any other scientist, must be animated by the desire for truth, and he must make efforts to achieve the truth. But achieving it for him consists not in discovery, but in revealing the truth. For example, we already know the truth from Revelation that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the human race; it is impossible and unnecessary to reveal this truth. The task of the dogmatist in relation to it is to firmly believe in it and overcome doubts if they began to creep into the soul, to fully perceive it, to understand it correctly and as deeply as possible, to fully and comprehensively reveal it and determine its relationship to other dogmas . And such a task is immeasurable, so that not only one person, even a genius, but even all of humanity will never exhaust it to the end, will never achieve a perfect understanding of the dogma of salvation; It’s already good if humanity moves closer and closer to it, as an unattainable ideal. In connection with this positive task, there is a negative one - the exposure and refutation of incorrect teachings about dogma. This task is the subject of another science; its successful implementation is impossible without an excellent knowledge and understanding of positive creed. And how much work the fight against heresies cost the church is known from the history of these latter. So, the main and fundamental task of dogmatics is to extract dogmatic material as fully as possible from the Holy Scriptures and church teaching, to correctly and deeply understand and evaluate, to comprehensively recognize and clearly recognize the content contained in this material; and for this you need to bring your entire spirit closer together, to akin to this content, to make the biblical-church teaching of faith your faith, your thought, to experience it as the thought and feeling of your spirit, to have a deep conviction in its truth and divinity. The second task of the dogmatist is to present scientifically what has been perceived and assimilated by the spirit, that is, to apply to the dogmatic content all the best and most reliable scientific techniques that are generally used when processing material by scientists, in accordance with those special requirements that are caused by the processing the actual dogmatic material, namely, to present the doctrine systematically, reasonably, completely, in accordance with the content and spirit of the primary sources of Christian doctrine. For purely scientific purposes, it is not only possible, but also necessary, to study the best dogmatism of other confessions, because heterodox theologians also apply scientific techniques with care and skill. For example, the philological and historical study of the Bible has been brought to a high degree of perfection in the West, and the history of heresies, confessions and churches, especially Western and ancient, has been just as widely developed there. Therefore, we, Orthodox theologians, can learn a lot from Western dogmatists. But slavish admiration for them is harmful even from a scientific point of view. The third task of a dogmatist is to present dogmas in the spirit of the Orthodox Church, in accordance with its teachings, for which one must be an Orthodox Christian himself, filially love his church, firmly believe in the truth of its teachings and imprint its spirit in his theology.

The success of both the study of the Christian faith and the scientific construction of dogma is harmed by one-sidedness: 1) mysticism, which attaches excessive importance to feeling to the detriment of cognitive activity itself, which attributes too much value to the internal direct perception of the content of faith and neglects the external means of knowledge of God - the teaching of the church and even the teaching of the divine Revelations; 2) excessive and one-sided rationality, weakening immediate religiosity and piety, drying up the feeling of faith, cooling its warmth, predisposing to disbelief in the miracles and mysteries of faith and leading to a perverted understanding of Christian dogmas, and then to their denial, to semi-rationalism and rationalism.

Previously, moral, polemical and apological theologies were expounded in conjunction with dogmatic theology. But at present, each of these sciences has grown so much and they have become so isolated from each other that it is difficult to present them together or jointly in one system. Let dogmatics be the basis of moral theology, since Christian moral teaching has its roots in Christian dogmas; and apologetic theology, since it is precisely Christian dogmas that have to be substantiated and defended; and polemical theology, since the latter expounds and exposes the perversions of Christian dogmas; nevertheless, for the purposes of scientific completeness and thoroughness, each of these sciences must be presented separately, although, of course, the moralist, apologist, and polemicist, whether in the research of particular subjects, or in constructing the whole edifice of their sciences, must constantly keep in mind Orthodox dogmas , as the fundamental basis of his works. In the same way, although a dogmatist can defend dogmas from attacks from non-believers, he can also draw moral conclusions from dogmas, or touch on the dogmatic perversions of heterodox churches and confessions, but he should touch on all this only in passing. Otherwise, on the one hand, he will deviate too much from his direct task - the positive disclosure of Christian dogmas, and on the other hand, he will go too far into the field of other sciences, which are developed by special specialists, and will unnecessarily burden and overcrowd his science with subjects that only relate to it. an indirect relationship, which, moreover, is considered in more detail in other sciences. For a dogmatist, his own task is sufficient - the positive disclosure in an integral system of the entire totality of Christian dogmas. When we say this, we mean dogmatics as a science, as a system. And in works devoted to the study of individual subjects of his science, a dogmatist, of course, is free to reveal dogmas not only positively, but also to clarify their moral meaning, or to defend them through a thorough, specially scientific refutation of the opinions of non-believers and rationalists, or, finally, to explain in detail and refute incorrect views on the dogmas of theologians of other churches and confessions. The question of the relationship between moral theology and dogmatic theology requires further special comment. Even after the fragmentation of theology into specialties, the Latins, and more often the Protestants, had experiences of combining moral theology with dogmatic theology. At the present time, there has even appeared a need to revive dogmatics by merging moral theology with it. We, however, believe that a book of purely dogmatic content, whether it covers a whole system of science, or reveals any department of it, or concludes a study of its particulars, will not be devoid of warmth of feeling and will have a fruitful influence on readers if the person who wrote it has deep faith in the truth of Christian dogmas, if he is a true Christian and a religious person. The sincerity of his conviction, the strength of faith, the warmth and vitality of feeling will themselves be communicated to his writing, whether it be purely dogmatic or otherwise. And without these conditions for the fruitfulness of any theological work in general, the merging of moral teaching with religious teaching will not enhance the vitality of this latter.

History of dogmatic theology. The history of dogmatic theology is divided into three periods: ancient or patristic, medieval or scholastic and modern times. The seed of dogmatic systems were the creeds that appeared from the earliest times of Christianity in private churches - Jerusalem, Rome, Cyprus and others. Similar in content and presentation, they were a detailed disclosure of the baptismal formula commanded by Jesus Christ and contained a brief confession of faith in the triune God - creator and savior.

History of dogmatics as a science . The first extensive and scientific dogmatic system appeared two centuries after the beginning of Christianity, in 228 - 230. This is Origen’s work “On the Elements”, which has come down to us not in the Greek original, but in a free translation into Latin, made in 397-398 Mr. Rufin. It was recently translated into Russian by N. Petrov and published by the Kazan Theological Academy. Origen's work consists of four books; but its dogmatic system is set out in the first three books, and the fourth book sets out the rules for the interpretation of Holy Scripture. Origen's work is dogmatic-philosophical; revealing church teaching, Origen also exposes his private dogmatic opinions, bearing the imprint of Neoplatonic philosophy. In the 4th century, “18 catechetical and 5 secret teachings” of St. appeared. Cyril of Jerusalem. This is the same as today's catechetical conversations. In the catechumen teachings the teaching of the symbol of the Jerusalem church is explained, and in the sacramental teachings the teaching about the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and communion is revealed. Those and other teachings can be called popular preaching dogmatics. The “Great Catechetical Discourse” of Gregory of Nyssa is somewhat more scientific and philosophical in nature than these teachings. In its forty chapters, the dogmatic-apologetic Christian doctrine is briefly presented. In the West, a work reminiscent of the current catechisms appeared in the 5th century. This is the “Enchiridion, or Manual Book to Lawrence” by St. Augustine. In the 5th century, the “Abridged Exposition of Divine Dogmas” appeared by Blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus. The first 23 chapters of this work are dogmatic, and the last 6 are of moralizing and polemical content. This short but meaningful work constitutes the fifth book of Theodoret’s extensive work entitled “A Brief Exposition of the Malicious Heretical Teaching.” In the first four books of this work, heretical teachings are refuted. In the arrangement of dogmatic material, Theodoret apparently imitated St. John of Damascus. His dogmatics under the title “An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” appeared in the 8th century. and constitutes the crown of dogmatic science of the fatherly period. Damascene composed his dogma from sayings and thoughts borrowed from the writings of the famous fathers of the East; He borrowed especially much from the works of Gregory the Theologian and Maximus the Confessor. The author himself divided it into 100 chapters, and the students of Peter Lombard divided it into 4 more books, modeled on the dogmatic system of their teacher. The dogmatics of Damascus have always been highly respected in the Greek and Russian churches and have been translated into Slavic and Russian many times. It was translated into Slavic in the 12th century. John Exarch of Bulgaria, freely, but purely and clearly, translated only 48 chapters; in the 16th century Prince Andrei Kurbsky (Rumyants. Bible No. 193, Collected by the director of Count Uvarov No. 216); in the 17th century Epiphany Slavinetsky, literally, but dark; in the 18th century Archbishop of Moscow Ambrose Zertis-Kamensky, from Latin. In the 19th century it has been translated several times into Russian. An incomplete translation of it at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy was published in Christian Reading for 1839, 1840 and 1841. In Moscow it was translated in 1834. Its translation at the Moscow Theological Academy was published in 1844, and in 1855. The 4th edition has already been published. A new translation of it was recently made by Professor Bronzov.

The medieval or scholastic period of dogmatics begins several centuries later than the medieval era in world history, namely from the 11th century. Famous medieval scholastic dogmatic theologians in the West were: Anselm of Canterbury, Hugo-a-Saint-Victor, Peter Lombard, Abelard, Alexander Gales, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scott, Durand, William of Ockham and others. Theologians who adhered to the direction of Thomas Aquinas were called Thomists. The followers of Duns Scott formed the school of Scottists. There were other less common schools. The most famous of the scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages was Thomas Aquinas. His theology has not been forgotten to this day. Pope Leo XIII ordered the teaching of Thomas' theology in seminaries. Therefore, in recent years, a lot of alterations and expositions of either the whole theology of Thomas, or sections of it, have appeared, adapted to the needs of modern education. The theological systems of the scholastics were called sums of theology or sums of opinions. In spirit, structure and method of processing, medieval scholastic dogmatics was a combination of theology with philosophy, either Platonic or Aristotelian. The influence of Aristotle's philosophy was especially strong at that time. The characteristic features of Western medieval theology are the following: strict systematization of dogmatic material, internal development of dogmatic truth according to categories of thinking (reality, possibility, necessity, being, causality, modality), abstraction of thought, formalism, fragmentation and punctuality in presentation, passion for sophisticated research and witty solutions to insoluble questions, neglect to study the primary sources of dogma - the Holy Scriptures and patristic works (scholastic theologians valued and knew almost only Augustine), preference for the word of thought, abstract thought over concrete content, formal coherence and validity over factual truth. Scholastic theology was a refined logomachy or philosophical dialectic, a purely rational science; it moved closer to formal logic and pure mathematics; was school science, dry and lifeless. But in school, scholastic theology dominated not only in the Middle Ages, but continued to exist, and sometimes even prevail, in modern times, and not only in the West, but also penetrated into the East and was a school science here for several centuries. Along with scholastic theology, mystical theology also flourished in the Middle Ages. It is in many ways the opposite of scholastic theology: scholasticism wanted to know revealed truth through reason, demonstratively, dialectically, and mysticism - through pious feeling, direct vision, and inner conviction; scholasticism was subordinate to Aristotle, and mysticism to Plato; scholastics have nominalism, mystics have realism; in the matter of knowledge of God, scholasticism exaggerated the importance of reason, syllogisms, formal proofs, dialectics, and as a result achieved a one-sided, external and formal understanding of Christianity, and not a complete and vital one; mysticism, on the contrary, belittled the importance of rational knowledge, sought to bring the entire spirit closer to religious truth, demanded moral purification of the spirit and recognized the mystical contemplation of God as the highest level of knowledge of God. However, scholasticism and mysticism sometimes became so close that the same theologians wrote both scholastic and mystical works, for example. quizzers. In mysticism itself in the Middle Ages there were two directions, the moral-practical one, adjacent to Augustine, and the contemplative one, which had its roots in the writings that at that time were attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite. In their writings, mystics discussed the relationship of faith to knowledge, freedom and natural powers to grace, love, and mystical contemplation as the highest path of knowledge and life. The mystical path of life came closer to asceticism, so widespread in the Middle Ages, and the mystical path of knowledge consisted primarily of self-deepening, direct contemplation and inner feeling, unity with God. Both in content and in presentation, mystical writings are completely different from scholastic ones. Gerson distinguished three types of theology: symbolic, proper and mystical, and recognized the latter as the most perfect. The most famous of the medieval mystical theologians were the following: Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugo-a-saint-Victor, Richard-a-saint-Victor, Bonaventure, Ruisbroeck, Suso, Tauler, Thomas a à Kempis, John Gerson (he owns the theory of mystical theology), Henry Eckart (pantheist), unknown author of the book: “German Theology”. The names of Bernard, Bonaventure, and Gerson are well known; but Thomas a à Kempis gained truly worldwide fame with his essay: “On Following Christ.” This book has been translated into all the languages ​​of educated peoples and has been sold in thousands of editions. It was translated into Russian by Count Speransky, K.P. Pobedonostsev and an as yet unknown translator.

In the Middle Ages, Western scholasticism did not penetrate into the East, neither into the Greek nor into the Russian Church. But, on the other hand, independent theology did not flourish here either. The development of science and education was not favored by the political situation and civil life Christian peoples of the East. The Byzantine Empire was losing internal strength and external power, and by the modern era it was conquered by the Turks and lost its independence. In the Middle Ages, the following dogmatic systems appeared in Greece: “The Dogmatic Armory of the Orthodox Faith” by Euthymius Zigaben; “Treasure of the Orthodox Faith” by Niketas Choniates; “Church conversations about the one true faith of Christ” St. Simeon of Thessalonica. These books are dogmatic and polemical in content and character. And later, the dogmatic writings of the Greeks were combined with polemics directed primarily against the Latins.

The Russian people accepted the faith from the Greeks and from them they adopted the creations of the famous fathers of the East, for example. Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Athanasius of Alexandria, John of Damascus, which, translated into Slavic, replaced independent works on theology. These latter could not exist for many centuries, since there were neither higher schools nor learned people, and the Mongol pogrom and yoke suppressed for a long time the sprouts of spiritual enlightenment and theological learning that had begun.

The great era of modern times began with a terrible pogrom, which was carried out by Luther's reform in the Latin Church. Having hitherto indivisibly and completely ruled the peoples of the West, this church split into two hostile parts: one remained faithful to the traditions of its church and its head - the pope, the other separated from it and formed a special confession - the Protestant. In church government, discipline and worship, Protestantism took a path directly opposite to the structure of the Latin Church. It deviated less from it in its doctrine, as can be seen from the fact that it retained the Niceno-Constantinopolitan symbol as a symbol of faith; nevertheless, the doctrine of the Protestant confession differs significantly from the Roman Latin one. Protestant dogmatics is completely different from the dogmatics of the Roman-Latin Church, and has its own special history. Therefore, in the modern era, in addition to the history of dogmatics of the Latin Church and the history of dogmatics of the Orthodox Church, we also have the history of Protestant dogmatics, which in turn has ramifications, since Protestantism split into several confessions or sects. The Reformation brought about increased activity on the part of the Latin Church and its learned theologians. The Council of Trent had a significant influence on the fate of Latin theology. At many of its meetings, dogmatic issues were discussed and resolved, mainly those in which the Lutherans disagreed with the papists. At the same council it was decided to compile the Roman Catechism, published later, under Pope Pius V. Of the dogmatists of the 16th century. the most famous was Cardinal Bellarmin with his learned and skillfully composed extensive dogmatic-polemical work: Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei adversus nostri temporis haereticos. Then the works of other Latin theologians were necessarily turned into polemics against Protestants. In Spain, purely scholastic theology flourished in Latin in the persons of Bannetz, Vasquez, Svarez and others. After the decline of theology in the 18th century, it appeared in the 19th century. there are many extensive and brief systems of dogma. These are the dogmatics of Penck, Perrone, Kleutgen (unfinished), Jungmann, Kachthaler, Pesch, Einig, Jansen in Latin; in German by Klee, Brenner, Staudenmaier, Berlage, Drey, Kuhn (unfinished), Schaeben, Oswald, Ziemar, Heinrich, Schell, Bautz; in French by Lamotte, in English by Gunter. The scholastic attitude is maintained in the Ultramontane dogmatists, written in Latin. Among the Roman-Latin theologians there were also freethinkers who were condemned by their church. These are: Munich professor Hermes, convicted in 1835, and Gunther, convicted in 1857.

The father of the Protestant confession was a translator of Holy Scripture into German, a preacher, and a polemicist; He also compiled the catechisms of his confession. But he did not write the dogmatic system of his confession. The first experience of Protestant dogmatics was made by another head of Lutheranism, Melanchthon, under the title Loci communes theologici (1521). Loci - theses, principles. This book was compiled from lessons on the interpretation of the Apostle Paul's Epistle to the Romans. It most fully reveals the doctrine of salvation with the addition of dogmatic and moral teaching. Subsequently, Melanchthon significantly expanded his dogmatics. Luther approved of it, and it became a model for subsequent Lutheran dogmatists. Of these, the most famous are the following: Chemnitz (Loci theologici 1591); Hutter (Compendium theologiae 1610), nicknamed “the reborn Luther”; his disciple John Gorard, with his unusually extensive, 20-volume, system (Loci theologici 1610 - 1621), replete with materials and scholarship and moderate in polemics, its publication was repeated; Kalov (Systema locorum theologicorium 1655 - 1677), Quenstedt (Theologia didactico-polemica 1685); Bayer (Compendium theologiae positivae 1686); Gollazius (Examen theologiae acroamaticae 1707); Budday (Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae 1723). All these dogmatists are of a scholastic nature and are held in great esteem by Lutherans of the church orientation.

A counterbalance to scholastic dryness, formalism and lifelessness of dogma of the 17th century. appeared in the first half of the 18th century. in pietism, a mystical direction. The Pietists (Count Zinzendorf, Spener, Breithaupt, Rambach, Lange, etc.) attached importance to feeling, not reason, piety, not learning; their works are imbued with warmth of feeling, but they do not have scientific rigor and, in general, their scientific significance is insignificant. In the 18th century, especially in the second half of it, materialism and atheism in France, deism in England and rationalism in Germany dealt a heavy blow to Christianity and delayed for a long time the development of theology in general, dogmatics in particular. Deists and rationalists retained in Christianity only the moral side of it, and among the dogmas - only the truths of natural theology: the truth of the existence of God, the immortality of the soul and some others. The miracle was rejected by them, and at the same time almost all purely Christian dogmas were rejected or deeply distorted, such as: the doctrine of the inspiration of Holy Scripture, the doctrine of the trinity of persons in God, the divinity of Christ, the atonement, grace, sacraments, about supernatural conception, about the resurrection and ascension of Christ, about the primitive innocent state of the first parents and about their fall, about the existence of good and evil spirits, about the general resurrection and retribution. There were also semi-rationalists at that time who did not clearly break ties with church doctrine, but gave dogmas a predominantly moral meaning. These were the theologians: those who adhered to the philosophy of Kant.

In the 19th century, the Lutheran confession was enriched with many systems of dogma. Based on their direction, they can be divided into several categories. The dogmatists of the church or orthodox direction may include the following: at the beginning of the century, the dogmatists of Knapp, Hahn, and Steudel; Karla Gase “Hut. redivivus, or dogmatics of the Evangelical Lutheran Church" (1st ed. in 1828, and in 1883 12th ed.), his own "Evangelical Protestant Dogmatics" (1826 1st ed. , in 1860, 5th ed.); Danish dogmatics of Bishop Martensen, translated into German in 1850; Thomasia's The Person and Works of Christ (1st ed. in 1850s, 2nd in 1860s); Friedrich Philippi “Church Doctrine”, 1854 - 1879; Luthardt's "The Reduction of Dogmatics" - from 1854 to 1900. ten editions were published; Kanisa “Lutheran Dogmatics Explained Genetically” (1st ed. 1861 - 1868, 2nd 1874); Schöberlein's "Principle and System of Dogmatics" 1881; Heinrich Schmid “Dogmatics of the Evangelical Lutheran Church” (1st ed. in 1843, 7th in 1893). The dogmatists of the biblical school, Beck and Kübel, can also be included here. It should be noted that even among the dogmatists of the church there are opinions that disagree with the symbolic teaching of the Lutheran confession. Free-thinking or rationalist theologians fall into several schools, mostly according to the philosophies to which they adhere. Thus, Schelling's philosophy was reflected in Daub's writings. Adjoining Hegel, on his right side, are Marageinike, Biederman, Pfleiderer, and on his left are Strauss and the Tübingen school with Baur at the head. Theologians are Hegelians of the left - extreme rationalists. Kant, whose followers in the 18th century were Tieftrunk, Genke, Eckermann, also had followers at the beginning of the 19th century in the person of Ammon, Wegscheider, De-Wette, Reynard and others (the dogmatists of Ammon, De-Wette and especially Wegscheider had many publications). And at the end of the 19th century, he gained new followers in the form of the Novokantians. Albrecht Ritschl belongs here, also adjacent to Schleiermacher and Lotze. His dogmatic system, entitled: “On Justification and Reconciliation,” 1-3 volumes, went through three editions. Ritschl has a whole school of followers, such as Schultz, Kaftan, Tiketger, Hermann and others. Lincius also belongs to the Novo-Kantians (his dogmatics had two editions, in 1876 and 1893). There is also a numerous and difficult to define school of theologians intermediate direction standing in the middle between ecclesiastical and rationalistic theology and trying to reconcile ecclesiasticalism with rationalism. The founder of mediate theology was Schleiermacher, whose “Christian Doctrine” was published from the twenties to the sixties in five editions. Schleiermacher’s attempt to put the feeling of man’s dependence on God at the basis of religion and theology did not find imitators, but the task he set for himself to reconcile church theology with rationalism was accepted sympathetically by many theologians, who began to be called theologians of the intermediate direction. These include Twesten, Karl Nitsch, Voigt, Rothe, Schenkel, Plitt, Kremer, Dorner, Köhler, Friedrich Nitsch, Frank, W. Schmidt, Ettingen and others. Some of these theologians are closer to church teaching, others are closer to rationalism. It must be confessed that it is very difficult to classify Lutheran dogmatists into groups and to precisely limit one group from another. A church theologian may turn out to be a rationalist in particular points of theology; one and the same dogmatist can be, if not a follower of two philosophical directions, then, at least, an inconsistent adherent of one of them, etc. For example, Karl Gase can be classified as a church theologian, but he can also be recognized as a Kantian.

Side by side with the Lutheran, without fighting it, the dogmatics of the Reformed confession developed. The father of the dogmatics of this confession was Calvin. He published his dogmatic system Institutio christianae religionis in 1536, but until 1559 he revised it several times. In the 18th century, in the Socinian sect of the Reformed confession, the so-called biblical theology arose, the father of which is recognized as the Arminian theologian Cocceus with his Summa theologiae ex scripturis repelita of 1769. The most prominent dogmatists were the reformers of the 19th century. essence I. Lange, Ebrard, Schweitzer etc.

Dogmatics in the Orthodox Easte. In the East, in the Orthodox Church, dogma in the modern era developed partly depending on Western theology, partly independently. All countries in which the churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople, and Alexandria once flourished fell under the rule of the Turks and hitherto almost all are under their yoke, and theology here is in decline even to this day. Theological activity appeared here only occasionally in fragmentary works. So, in Greece in the middle of the 18th century. The theology of Vincent Damodos, which remained in the manuscript, appeared, influencing the theological systems of Athanasius of Paria and Theocritus. Eugene Bulgaris also used it when teaching theology at the academy he founded in 1753 on Mount Athos and soon became deserted. In 1865, the dogmatic-polemical system of Nikolai Damal appeared under the title “On the Beginnings.” Previously, Greeks received higher education in the West; and since 1837 they have had their own university in Athens with a theological faculty. But the latter does not shine with either professors or the number of students, and its departments remain empty for many years. The yoke of an uneducated, heterodox and fanatical people, poverty and some kind of centuries-old stagnation of life hinder both the spread of general education and the growth of theology in the churches of the East.

Much happier than them in all respects is their younger sister - the Russian Church. Not even three centuries had passed since the interregnum, when there were no schools in Rus', but the teaching of all sciences had long been established on solid foundations and their development was ensured. The first theological schools appeared first in Kyiv, and then in Moscow in the 17th century, and in the same century they grew to the level of higher schools and at the same time the systems of theology taught in them appeared. Thus, the system of dogmatics, read at the Kyiv Academy from 1642 to 1656 and compiled according to the theology of Thomas Aquinas, and the system of Joasaph of Krakow, taught there from 1693 to 1697, have come down to us in manuscript. Both systems consist of separate dogmatic and polemical treatises . In the 17th century Prominent theologians in Kievan Rus were Epiphany Slavinetsky, Kirill Tranquillion, Zecharia Kopystensky, Isaiah Kozlovsky, Peter Mogila, Ioannikiy Golyatovsky and others, and in Moscow Rus Simeon of Polotsk and his disciple Sylvester Medvedev, not alien to papist errors, representatives of Western education, Greek brothers Ioannikis and Sophronius Likhud, representatives of the Greek enlightenment. The influence of both on the direction of school scholarship in Moscow did not last long.

In the 18th century famous theologians who came out of the Kyiv Academy were St. Demetrius of Rostov, who, however, did not compile dogmatism, Feofan Prokopovich, Stefan Yavorsky, Georgy Konissky, Sylvester Kulyabka, Samuil Mislavsky, Irinei Falkovsky, and others. As dogmatists, the most famous of them are Feofan Prokopovich and Stefan Yavorsky. F. Prokopovich was inclined towards Protestantism. In addition to many other diverse works, he compiled dogmatics in Latin from his lectures at the academy. It was based on the dogmatics of Gerard. He only managed to compile the first half of the system; and since it was adopted at the Kyiv Academy in the second half of the 18th century. into the leadership, then many rectors of the academy were busy with the work of finishing his system according to his plan, namely David Nashchinsky, Nikodim Pankratiev, Cassian Lekhnitsky and Samuil Mislavsky, who published it with his addition in 1782, and it was also published in 1792 It was published in an abbreviated form by Bishop Falkovsky of Chigirin under the title Theologiae christianae compendium in two volumes (in 1802, 1810, 1812 and 1827). Falkowski's theology served as a guide at the beginning of the 19th century.

In contrast to Theophanes, Stefan Yavorsky leaned towards Roman Catholicism. His most important work is “The Stone of Faith,” which is dogmatic and polemical in content, scholastic in nature, written under the influence of Bellarmine’s work. Under the influence of Stefan Yavorsky, the Moscow Academy from the very beginning of the 18th century. They began to call scientists from the Kyiv Academy. They brought with them scholastic theology. The theological systems of Theophylact Lopatinsky, Kirill Florinsky and some other rectors of the academy have reached us in manuscripts. All of them are of a scholastic structure and character: they consist of unrelated dogmatic-polemical treatises; they discuss sometimes insoluble issues; there is noticeable artificiality in the formulation and solution of questions; divisions are fractional; the method of presentation is syllogistic.

However, even in the 18th century. We had theologians who not only did not imitate scholastic models, but also directly condemned scholasticism. Thus, the works of Dmitry of Rostov are completely free from scholasticism; Feofan Prokopovich did not like scholasticism and his works were alien to scholasticism; Kirill Florinsky recognized many of the sophistications of scholasticism as empty, strange and unnecessary ranting; The dogmatic system of Theophylact of Gorsky, which served as a teaching guide in the Moscow Academy in the last quarter of the 18th century, was distinguished by its harmony and elaboration of the plan and strict consistency in the presentation of the material, and this distinguished it favorably from scholastic systems.

Metropolitan Plato especially contributed greatly to the weakening of scholasticism in theology and in its teaching. He directly stated that the theological systems taught in schools smell of school and human wisdom, while the theology of Christ does not consist in pretentious words and not in human wisdom, but in the manifestation of spirit and power. He put an end to the challenge of scientists from Kyiv and eliminated their systems, which had previously been models for Moscow theologians. Since his time, some subjects began to be taught at the academy in Russian, essays began to be written in it and used in debates. Not without his instructions, the Holy Synod in 1798 introduced the teaching of many new theological sciences in the academy, namely hermeneutics, moral theology, church history and church jurisprudence, whereas previously all theology consisted only of dogma with the addition of elements from moral, polemical and apologetic theology. Plato attached great importance to the study of Holy Scripture and even wrote instructions for teaching it himself. Thus, the opportunity was given for a thorough study of the primary source of dogma, and this latter was placed on a real and solid foundation. By making these orders, which tended to eliminate scholasticism that was alien and unnecessary to us, to strengthen the teaching of the Russian language, to simplify and, at the same time, to expand and improve theology, Plato in his own theology also gave a model for how theology should be taught and written. Although his “Orthodox Teaching or Abbreviated Christian Theology”, both in its small volume and in its very composition, is more of a catechism than a scientific system of dogmatics, and it was compiled from the lessons taught by Plato to the heir to the throne, Pavel Petrovich; however, it was a new and remarkable work in Russian theology. It was written in Russian, generally understandable, concise, without scholastic formalism, in beautiful, clear language. In the 1st part, natural theology is presented, in the 2nd - Christian doctrine, in the 3rd - the commandments. Plato's Theology was published in 1765 and again in 1780. It was translated into Latin in 1774, French in 1776 and Greek in 1782.

In the 19th century scholasticism still remained in theology and its teaching. Thus, in the first decades it was taught in academies and seminaries in Latin and still had scholastic features in its content and presentation; but it was already a remnant of the past, a relic of antiquity. At the beginning of the 19th century. Theological schools were transformed according to the charter of Count Speransky and were divided into three categories: lower - theological schools, middle - seminaries, higher - theological academies. Both in academies and seminaries they began to teach as full a range of theological sciences as possible, and dogmatics was completely separated from the sciences related to it, still retaining first place among all theological sciences, why its teaching, right up to the new transformation of theological schools into in the sixties, was the privilege of the rectors of seminaries and academies. In the 19th century, the theologians who wrote the dogmatic system or influenced it with their works were the following. Filaret, Metropolitan of Moscow. He compiled the “Orthodox Catechism,” which had two editions, was approved in a revised form by the Holy Synod and the Ecumenical Patriarchs and became a textbook on the Law of God in all Russian schools. In addition, the dogmatic teaching was revealed by Philaret in many of his sermons. Gorodkov compiled “Dogmatic Theology Based on the Writings of Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow,” 1887. The distinctive features of Philaret’s theology are independence and power of thought, sharpness of analysis, accuracy and originality of language. Innocent (Borisov), Archbishop of Kherson. He is famous as a church speaker, as a talented, original and prolific theologian. His apologetic-dogmatic lectures, given by him at the Kyiv Academy, are not particularly rich in scholarship, but they are fresh and independent in thought, lively and brilliant in presentation. The complete collection of his works has now been republished by Wolf. A professor of theology at Moscow University, Archpriest Pyotr Ternovsky compiled “Dogmatic Theology”..., published in 1838, 1839 and 1844 and now a bibliographic rarity. Anthony (Amphiteatrov), Archbishop of Kazan, compiled “Dogmatic theology of the Orthodox Catholic Eastern Church, with the addition of a general introduction to the course of theological sciences.” It was a textbook in seminaries for twenty years (1st edition in 1848, 8th in 1862). Macarius (Bulgakov), Metropolitan of Moscow, compiled “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology”, in 5 volumes; (1st edition in 1849 - 53. , 2nd in 1850 - 1856, last in 1895). Macarius’ method of revealing dogmas is as follows: first, the connection of the revealed dogma with the previous one is indicated; then sometimes a brief history of the dogma is given; then church teaching is presented, most often according to the “Orthodox Confession” of Peter Mogila; after this, the foundations or proofs of the dogma are given from the Holy Scriptures, then from the works of the fathers and teachers of the church, and finally from reason, borrowed either from the works of the fathers or from secular sciences, and rationalistic opinions that disagree with the dogma are also refuted; it concludes with a moral application. The system pays more attention to the external argumentation of dogmas than to the internal disclosure of their thoughts. Such processing of an object imparts strict definiteness to both the entire system and its parts, but at the same time introduces into it stereotyped monotony, dry formalism, and fragmentation of objects into parts, often connected to each other in an external way. But in the abundance of references to sources, this dogmatics far surpasses all other Russian dogmatics. The same author’s “Guide to the Study of Christian Orthodox Dogmatic Theology” is an abbreviation of his system of dogmatics and has served as a textbook in theological seminaries since the late sixties. Filaret (Gumilevsky), Archbishop of Chernigov, published “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology” in two volumes (published in 1864, 1865, 1882). It is compiled from his lectures, which he gave at the Moscow Theological Academy in the thirties and which were written under the influence of the Roman-Latin dogmatists of Klee and Brenner. This dogmatics is free from scholastic artificiality, but is not processed with such care as the system of Macarius. Archpriest Favorov, a professor at Kyiv University, compiled “Essays on Dogmatic Orthodox Christian Teaching,” which was published in several editions. Like Ternovsky’s theology once upon a time, these essays were intended to aid university students in their study of theology. For the same purpose, Sidonsky, a professor of theology at St. Petersburg University, published “A Genetic Introduction to Orthodox Theology.” Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy A. Belyaev wrote the book “Divine Love. The experience of revealing the most important Christian dogmas from the beginning of God’s love,” which had two editions in 1880 and 1884. Bishop of Smolensk John (Sokolov) gave lectures on dogmatics at the academy orally, and they were published from the notes of student listeners many years after the death of John . Bishop Sylvester (Malevansky), rector of the Kyiv Academy, compiled from his academic lectures “The Experience of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology with a Historical Presentation of Dogmas”, in five volumes, from 1878 to 1891 (there is also a 2nd edition). The main difference between this system and other Russian dogmas is that it devotes a lot of space to the history of dogmas. In the dogmatic departments, special attention is paid to the internal disclosure of dogmas, as well as to the disclosure and refutation of incorrect opinions. Only classical passages of Holy Scripture are given in full with proper explanations; others are only indicated. In the second half of the 19th century. In Russia, conditions have developed that are quite favorable for the development of theology in general, dogmatics in particular: the former excessive severity of censorship has been limited, literacy and enlightenment have spread, and since the sixties the number of spiritual journals has increased; The requirement of the academic regulations, issued at the end of the sixties, that not only doctoral, but also master's works be published, increased the number of scientific studies in all branches of theology. It remains to be wished that in the coming 20th century, theological works in Russia, while multiplying quantitatively, improve qualitatively, and that Orthodox theology develops independently, gradually liberating itself from subordination to Western heterodox theology.

To conclude our review of the history of dogmatics, let us make a remark about the language of this science. It is noteworthy that a huge number of works on this science are written in Latin, namely: all the works of Western fathers and teachers of the church; all medieval systems of dogma, both scholastic and mystical; almost all Roman Catholic systems of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. and Ultramontane 19th centuries; almost all Protestant dogmatists of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries; almost all, finally, Russian theological systems of the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries. But now only Ultramontane dogmatists are published in Latin, while remaining strictly scholastic.

* Alexander Dmitrievich Belyaev,
Doctor of Theology, Professor
Moscow Theological Academy

Text source: Orthodox theological encyclopedia. Volume 4, column. 1126. Petrograd edition. Supplement to the spiritual magazine "Wanderer" for 1903. Modern spelling.

Other materials

Dogmatic theology as a science.

1. The concept of dogmatic theology.

1.1. Subject of dogmatic theology. The concept of dogma

Orthodox dogmatic theology is a science that systematically reveals the content of the basic Christian doctrinal truths (dogmas) accepted by the entirety of the Orthodox Church.

Let us consider the evolution of the very concept of dogma. The word “dogma” itself comes from the Greek verb δοκείν, which in the infinitive sounds like “dokein” or “dokin”, depending on the transcription of ancient Greek words according to Reuchlin or Erasmus of Rotterdam. The word “dokin” literally means “to think”, “to consider”, “to believe”, it can also mean to believe, and the word “dogma” comes from the perfect of the verb (“δεδόγμη”), which can be translated into Russian as “determined”, “decided”, “set”, “established”.

The term “dogma” itself has a pre-Christian history; it was used in ancient Greek philosophy, where the concept of “dogma” meant philosophical axioms, that is, postulates that do not require proof, on which a philosophical system is built.

Naturally, different philosophical schools had different dogmas. For example, Plato, in his famous work called “The State,” calls dogmas the rules and norms that relate to human concepts of justice and beauty. Seneca used the same term to designate the foundations of the moral law that every person must follow. And, finally, since this term contains a certain connotation of obligation, it was used to designate decisions of the highest state authority.

In the New Testament we find the word “dogma” used in two senses. Firstly, it can be understood as some kind of decree, in particular, in the Gospel of Luke, the word “dogma” refers to the decree of Caesar Augustus Octavian on conducting a census in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire (Luke 2: 1), and in the book of Acts the Decree of the first Jerusalem of the Apostolic Council are called “τά δόγματα”, i.e. the plural of “το δόγμα” (Acts 16:4).

In the Apostle Paul, in his letters to the Colossians (Col. 2:14) and Ephesians (Eph. 2:15), the word “dogma” is used in the meaning of Christian teaching in its entirety.

It was precisely this understanding of dogma that was characteristic of the Christian Church of the 2nd, 3rd and early 4th centuries. It is in this Pauline sense of the word that this term was used by the Hieromartyr Ignatius of Antioch, the Hieromartyr Justin the Philosopher, Clement of Alexandria and Origen.

A change in the meaning of this term occurs in the 4th century, when some fathers, seeking to systematize Christian teaching, began to distinguish between doctrinal and moral truths. As a result, the term “dogma” is assigned to doctrinal truths. In the 4th century we find this difference in St. Cyril of Jerusalem, at St. Gregory of Nyssa and at the turn of the 4th-5th centuries. at St. John Chrysostom. All of them called dogma only that in Revelation that relates to the area of ​​​​faith, and not morality.

Subsequently, the scope of this concept was further reduced, and in subsequent centuries, dogmas began to be understood exclusively as those doctrinal truths that were discussed at the Ecumenical Councils and approved by the Ecumenical Councils.

1.2. Properties of dogmas.

1.2.1. Theology (doctrinality).

So, the first property of dogmas is Theological (“creed”). This is a property of dogmas in content.

It means that the dogma contains the doctrine of God and His economy, i.e. the main object about which the dogma tells us is God, and all other objects that are present in the content of the dogma, i.e. man or the world, they find a place here only insofar as they have a relationship with God.

This is precisely what distinguishes dogmas from other truths of Christianity, i.e., moral, liturgical, canonical truths, etc. Dogmas are truths of faith that stand above human experience and exceed the cognitive abilities of the human mind, therefore give them firm support and erect them only Divine Revelation can achieve a degree of undoubted certainty.

1.2.2. Godly revelation.

Therefore, the next property of dogmas is Divine revelation, which is a property of dogmas according to the method of their receipt, i.e. dogma is not the fruit of the activity of the natural human mind, but the result of Divine Revelation.

This is precisely why dogmas differ in principle from any scientific or philosophical truths. Because philosophical and scientific truths are based on premises that are the product of the work of the cognitive human mind. All dogmas are based on divinely revealed premises, which are drawn from Divine Revelation. This is precisely why dogmatic theology as a science differs from philosophy, metaphysics and various sciences about nature and man.

The Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians (Gal. 1:11-12) says this:

“I declare to you, brethren, that the gospel which I preached is not man’s, for I also received it and learned it, not from man, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Therefore, any scientific and philosophical truths are, to a greater or lesser extent, relative and, as human knowledge develops, they can either be rejected altogether, or be changed or supplemented in some way. In contrast, dogmas, as based on Divine Revelation, are absolute and unchangeable.

Since the property of a dogma is Divine revelation, only such doctrinal truth can be revered as a dogma, which was directly taught by Jesus Christ and was preached by his apostles. Thus, an opinion expressed by even a very respected father of the church cannot in itself be elevated to the level of a dogma of faith.

1.2.3. Churchness.

The number of doctrinal truths is very large, while at the same time the doctrinal truths that we call dogmas are not so many. What is this connected with? This is connected with the third property of dogmas, namely, the ecclesiastical nature of dogmas. We can say that churchliness is a property of dogmas by the way they exist.

It means that only the Universal Church at its Councils can recognize dogmatic authority and significance for this or that Christian truth of the faith.

In fact, there cannot be dogmas outside the Church, because dogmas are based on premises borrowed from Revelation, and Revelation was not given to some private individuals, but was given to the Church. It is the Church, through Tradition, as a way of preserving and disseminating Revelation, that contains the revealed truth.

Therefore, the Apostle Paul calls the Church “the pillar and ground of the truth.” And therefore, only the Church, as the guardian of Tradition, is capable of correct interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, only she can unmistakably establish behind this or that truth of Revelation the meaning of the unchangeable rule of faith, i.e. dogma.

From this it follows that dogmas cannot exist outside the Church. Therefore, in Protestant communities where apostolic succession has been stopped and there is no divinely established church hierarchy, it is impossible to talk about any dogmas in the strict sense of the word.

Although the revealed truth is contained in Revelation and is in itself divine, without a special church act it cannot rise to the level of truth or dogma indisputable for everyone. Therefore, if there were no Church with God-given rights and the means necessary to impart dogmatic sanction to the truths of faith, there would be no dogmas.

1.2.4. Legal binding (generally binding).

This property characterizes a Christian’s attitude to dogmas and their content. Legality can be understood in two senses. Firstly, as a formal legality. The Church in its earthly aspect is a certain organization, a certain human community, which is governed in accordance with certain rules and norms, without recognizing which one cannot be a member of the Church.

Therefore, the formal legality of dogmas is manifested in the fact that recognition of the truth of dogmas is the responsibility of all members of the Church. For example, when a person enters the Church, that is, receives Baptism, he pronounces the Creed three times, which, of course, is a doctrinal document of a dogmatic nature. Thus, recognition of the truth of dogmas is an element of Church discipline. There is some analogy here between the Church as human community and various secular societies and organizations.

The Apostle Paul (Titus 3:10-11) says: “Turn away the heretic after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a one has become corrupt and sins, being self-condemned.”

Particular attention should be paid to the word “self-condemned”; below we will focus our attention on this word.

In reality, the Church has always had a condescending attitude towards human weakness, the Church has long tolerated human sins, and has been condescending to the weaknesses of human nature, but nevertheless the Church has always been extremely harsh towards those who deliberately seek to distort Church teaching.

This undoubtedly demonstrates the Church’s concern for its members. Such concern of the Church for its members would be incomprehensible if the legality of dogmas were purely formal. But the formal legality of dogmas is conditioned by their soteriological legality, that is, dogmas are directly related to human salvation, they are necessary for salvation, this is, as it were, the foundation on which the spiritual life of a Christian is built.

That is why the Apostle Paul says that the heretic is not “condemned,” that is, he is not simply excommunicated from the Church by a decision, a decree of some church body, but “self-condemned.” A person who perverts dogmas, in one way or another, brings himself under condemnation, that is, he excommunicates himself to a greater or lesser extent from God, because dogmas are nothing more than those norms and rules that allow a person to religiously correctly organize his spiritual life. life.

Here is how Vladimir Lossky writes about the soteriological necessity of dogmas:

“The entire complex struggle for dogma, which the Church has waged over the centuries, appears to us, if we look at it from a spiritual point of view, primarily by the tireless care of the Church in every historical era to provide Christians with the opportunity to achieve fullness ... union with God.”

St. Silouan of Athos said: “Dogmatic consciousness is organically connected with the entire course of inner spiritual life. Change anything in your dogmatic consciousness and your spiritual appearance and, in general, the image of your spiritual existence will invariably change to the corresponding extent.”

After all four properties of dogmas have been considered, let us define what a dogma is. Dogma is a theological, revealed truth, defined and taught by the Church as an indisputable and obligatory rule of faith for all believers.

1.3. Doctrines and theological opinions

It should be noted that the Church has never dogmatized just for the sake of dogmatizing something, at least the Orthodox Church. Catholics have the opposite tendency - to dogmatize everything that can be dogmatized. Orthodoxy has always been characterized by the opposite approach - to dogmatize only the most necessary, the most essential for our salvation.

However, in addition to dogmas, Divine Revelation contains much that is mysterious and not entirely clear. The presence of this area of ​​the mysterious in Divine Revelation determines the existence of so-called theological opinions.

Theological opinion is judgments on issues of faith that can be expressed either by some church body, for example, a Council, or by some individual theologian, or by a group of theologians, i.e. judgments on issues of faith that do not have general church recognition.

However, this should not be understood in the sense that arbitrariness and irresponsible fantasy are possible in dogmatic theology. Theological opinion is strictly controlled by Church Tradition.

In relation to theological opinions, the following criteria are applied: the criterion of the truth of theological opinions, which means agreement with the Holy Tradition, and the criterion of the admissibility of theological opinion, i.e. non-contradiction with the Holy Tradition. In principle, dogmatic theology can tolerate any theological opinion that does not contradict Holy Tradition.

There are many examples of theological opinions, including the question of the composition of human nature (dichotomists and trichotomists, i.e. those who believe that man, human nature is composed of two components - soul and body, and trichotomists who consider the spirit to be an independent principle , an independent substance in man, which is different from the soul and no less radically different than the soul is different from the body).

We can also include questions related, for example, to the incorporeality of angels and human souls, that is, are angels purely incorporeal beings, or do they have some special subtle angelic corporeality.

Also the question of the origin of the human soul, on the one hand, the creationist approach, according to which every soul in certain moment created by God out of nothing; on the other hand, the opinion about birth, according to which the soul of every person coming into the world comes in some mysterious way from the souls of his parents, etc.

Basically, these are mysterious questions of ontology, which are unlikely to receive final resolution in this century and which are not essential for human salvation.

It is necessary to distinguish from theological opinions some doctrinal truths that are recognized by the entirety of the Orthodox Church, but which in the strict sense are not dogmas, since they were never discussed or approved by the Ecumenical Councils, but have a meaning no less than the dogmas that were discussed at the Councils. They were not discussed, as a rule, for the simple reason that there were never any serious disputes in the Church regarding these truths; it would be pointless to convene an Ecumenical Council about them.

What are these truths? For example, God’s creation of the world “out of nothing,” the creatureliness and immortality of the human soul, the divine establishment of church sacraments, etc. All these are doctrinal truths, which, undoubtedly, are recognized by the entirety of the Church, and their significance is no lower than dogmas.

In theological literature you can find such expressions as, for example, “dogma of the resurrection”, “dogma of the atonement”, “dogma of the Church”. In principle, these are correct and valid expressions.

It is necessary to distinguish from private theological opinions that are found among certain theologians the false theological opinions that can be found not only among ordinary theologians, but also among the holy fathers, since the mere name of one or another teacher as the Father of the Church does not guarantee that that this person could not have erroneous opinions on this or that issue.

Why is this possible? St. Barsanuphius the Great tries to explain in the following way the fact that even holy men have erroneous opinions. He writes the following:

“Do not think that people, even saints, can completely comprehend all the depths of God, for the Apostle says, “meaning the Apostle Paul: “... We know in part and we prophesy in part” (1 Cor. 13:9). The Saints, having received confirmation from above, set forth a new (their) teaching, but at the same time they retained what they had received from their former teachers, that is, an incorrect teaching... They (the Saints) did not pray to God that He would reveal to them regarding their first teachers: Was it inspired by the Holy Spirit that they were taught, but, considering them wise and reasonable, they did not examine their words; and thus the opinions of their teachers were mixed with their own teaching...” (Quoted by).

Indeed, often the false opinions expressed by one or another respected Father of the Church are not the product of his own theological work, but uncritical borrowing from some teacher of the past.

Now let's look at some definitions and look at some basic concepts that we will need to study the course of dogmatic theology.

1.4. Dogmas and dogmatic formulas and theological terms

When we talk about dogmas, we must clearly distinguish the dogma itself by its content from the dogmatic formula.

Dogma itself is the content, the ontological truth itself, which is contained in the dogma, and the dogmatic formula is the verbal expression of the ontological, doctrinal truth, as it were, the linguistic flesh in which the truth is clothed. Although the dogma itself is not subject to any change in its content, dogmatic formulas, in principle, can be changed.

For example, the Second Ecumenical Council supplemented and revised the Symbol that was adopted at the First Ecumenical Council; the very content of the dogma of the Holy Trinity, naturally, did not change, but a new dogmatic formula was communicated, a new way of expressing doctrinal truth.

Therefore, when we say that dogmas are unchangeable, we must understand that the dogmatic formulas themselves, depending on conditions and circumstances, can change in one way or another.

In addition, we must keep in mind that when we study dogma, dogmatic theology, we must always clearly understand that the mere study of dogmatic formulations, their memorization, cannot in any way be identified with comprehension of the very content of dogma. For example, if a person has memorized the dogmatic formulation of the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity from the Catechism of Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, it does not at all follow from this that he has learned what the Most Holy Trinity is.

Theological terms (theological terminology)

When the holy fathers of the Church fought for the purity of the Orthodox faith, they were forced to develop specific terminology. Often these terms are not found on the pages of Scripture, are not borrowed from inspired books, but nevertheless they make it possible to clearly express the revealed truth through words.

There are quite a few such terms that can be cited. The most common is the “Trinity” (Τριάς), a term introduced by St. Theophilus of Antioch in the second half of the 2nd century, this is also the term “consubstantial” (όμοούσιος), introduced by the First Ecumenical Council, and many other terms: Mother of God (Θεοτόκος), God-man (θεάνθρωπος) terms of the IV Ecumenical Council, describing the mode of union of two natures in the one person of our Lord Jesus Christ, etc.

In other words, theological terms are artificially distributed concepts with completely precise content that allow us to clearly express the revealed truth by means of human language.

The modern Greek author Yannaras writes interestingly about this. He draws an analogy between the feat of the Most Holy Theotokos, who offered her flesh for God the Word, with the feat of the holy fathers.

“Just as the Most Pure Virgin offered Her flesh so that the Divine Word could become human, so the great fathers, in holiness and purity of thoughts, brought their intellectual gift to the truth of Revelation, which thanks to them was clothed in the historical “flesh” of human language.”

1.5. Dogmatic systems (historical review)

It is a mode of presentation in which all individual truths and propositions are parts connected into a whole. The following requirements are imposed on dogmatic systems.

Firstly, the absence of internal contradictions (a dogmatic system should not be internally contradictory, there should not be mutually exclusive provisions).

Secondly, drawing a clear boundary in the process of presentation between the actual dogmas and theological opinions. This does not mean that when presenting a dogmatic system one cannot rely in one way or another on theological opinions; they can be cited, but it must be emphasized that this is precisely the theological opinion of one or another father of the Church.

In addition, it is assumed that the dogmatic system should be not just a set of patristic and biblical quotations on one or another dogmatic issue, but also an author’s text, a specific commentary in which the author tries to comprehend the content of dogmatic truths. A shortened system of dogmatic theology is called a catechism.

In the history of Christian thought, the first attempt to build a dogmatic system was the work of the famous didascal of the Alexandrian catechetical school - Clement of Alexandria (late 2nd century), a work called “Stromata”. But Stromats are still nothing more than an attempt to build a system, and not a system in the full sense of the word.

It was precisely the system of dogmatic theology of the Christian faith that was first able to build in its entirety by the successor and continuer of Clement’s work, Origen.

His work “On the Beginnings” (Περί αρχών) is, in essence, the first complete system of Christian theology. There is no need to say that this system turned out to be imperfect, since many of the postulates and premises on which Origen was based turned out to be false and even subsequently fell under the anathemas of the Fifth Ecumenical Council. Despite this, Origen had a huge influence on the development of subsequent theology, and for several centuries Origen's system remained essentially the only coherent system of Christian theology. The same Cappadocian fathers learned from Origen's system, although they avoided the extremes contained in Origen's texts.

Of the ancient fathers, theologians of what is called the “great style,” who tried to build systems of dogmatic theology, one should also note St. Cyril of Jerusalem, his famous “Catechetical Words”. This is a detailed work, but its disadvantage is its low theological level, since this work was addressed not to theologians, but to the catechumens, that is, those people who have not even entered the Church yet.

Then you can point to the “Great Catechetical Word” by St. Gregory of Nyssa (IV century) to the “Abridgement of the Divine Dogmas” by Blessed Theodoret of Cyrrhus (first half of the 5th century).

The most perfect work, representing the pinnacle of systematization of patristic theological thought, should be recognized as the work of St. John of Damascus "The Source of Knowledge", consisting of three parts. From the point of view of dogmatic theology, the third part of this work, which is known as “An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith,” is of particular importance. This book has not lost its relevance to this day; in the Christian East it was a textbook of theology for many centuries, until modern times, when Western scholasticism began to penetrate the Orthodox East.

Now a few words about the domestic tradition of dogmatists. In the history of Russian theological thought there were several authors who undertook the construction of dogmatic systems. The first, of course, should be named Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov), his “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology”.

A most thorough work, but somewhat scholastic. What is scholasticism essentially? Scholasticism is a method of theology that is based on the conviction that any doctrinal truth can be justified in a logical, rational way, and even proven.

This explains the somewhat dry, frankly, boring presentation of the material. Of course, this work is not completely independent, it is strongly influenced by Western dogmas, but, on the whole, it is a good work, an excellent theological reference book in which you can find on many dogmatic issues good selection biblical and patristic quotes.

The next work - “Dogmatic Theology” by Archbishop Philaret of Chernigov (Gumilevsky) - is an attempt to overcome the scholastic influence that we see in Metropolitan Macarius, but this work was not widely disseminated.

Then - “An Experience in Dogmatic Theology” by Bishop Sylvester (Malevansky) of Kanevsky. A voluminous work in five volumes, it was published in 1892. Bishop Sylvester proposed a historical method of presenting dogmas, that is, he made an attempt to show how the dogmatic teaching of the Church developed from a historical perspective. This, of course, is his great merit.

“Dogmatic Theology” by Archpriest Nikolai Malinovsky is also a large work in volume and quite interestingly written, but somewhat uneven, there are both strong and weak points, that is, it must be treated with some caution, because Malinovsky sought to use in his work as many possible sources as possible and often approached them uncritically.

After 1917, in the Russian theological tradition there were no attempts to build an integral system of dogmatic theology, although, for example, there is “Dogmatic Theology” by Vladimir Nikolaevich Lossky, but in essence this is nothing more than a course of brilliant, of course, lectures on dogmatic theology. However, this cannot be called a dogmatic system in the full sense of the word.

But Orthodox dogmatic theology also developed in the 20th century, and new attempts to build dogmatic systems appeared, mainly among the Greeks. There were several Greek authors whose works were published already in the second half of the 20th century, in particular, professors Skouteris, Trembelos, Theodora.

There is an attempt to build a dogmatic system in the Serbian Orthodox Church. This is the three-volume work of Archimandrite Justin (Popovich) “Dogmatika”. This work is interesting rather because of the personality of the author himself. Archimandrite Justin is one of the greatest ascetics of our time, but his work, for all its merits, is not completely independent and reveals its obvious dependence on Russian dogmatists of the pre-revolutionary time.

What principles underlie the construction of dogmatic systems? Most dogmatists adhere to the following principle of presentation, the following principle of constructing dogmatic systems: about God in Himself (Deus in intra), and about God in His manifestation as creatures (Deus ad extra). It is this principle that underlies the systems of Metropolitan Macarius, Bishop Sylvester, Archbishop Philaret and other authors. All attempts to build a system of dogmatic theology differently were not very successful. For example, Archpriest Svetloy tried to build an entire system of dogma around the doctrine of salvation, Archpriest Leporsky - around the dogma of the Incarnation, but these attempts did not receive recognition: Therefore, in our presentation we will adhere to the traditional method, first about God in Himself, i.e. about the unity of God’s being and about the Trinity of the Divine, and then about God as Creator, Provider, Redeemer, Sanctifier and Rewarder.

1.6. Reasons for the emergence of dogmas

When and for what reason do dogmas appear? They appear due to the emergence of heresies in order to protect church teaching from heretical distortions. The very meaning of the word, which in the era of the Ecumenical Councils denoted conciliar definitions of faith, the Greek word “Oros” (όρος) and the corresponding Latin “terminus” (terminus), literally mean “border”, i.e. dogmas are those borders and limits which the Church sets for the human mind so that, having gone beyond these boundaries, it does not deviate from correct worship of God, limits that separate the truth from heretical distortions and show the human mind how it should think about God.

1.7. Basic principles for revealing the content of dogmatic truths

The next question is the problem of interpretation of dogmas. It is clear that dogmas must be comprehended by a person in one way or another. Dogma is not a magic formula, repeating which you can achieve some fruits in your spiritual life. The essence of this interpretation is to reveal the content of the dogma without changing or distorting the doctrinal truth itself.

Blzh. Augustine formulated the task of interpreting dogmas this way: “to know in the light of reason what has already been previously accepted by faith” (Quoted by).

The interpretation of dogmas presupposes some internal work of a person, and on this path certain rules are necessary that a person must follow so as not to make mistakes.

What are the basic principles for revealing the content of dogmatic truths? These principles are very simple, they are best expressed in the first words of Oros of the IV Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon: “Following the Divine Fathers.” This is exactly how, following the Divine Fathers, one must strive to reveal the content of dogmatic truths.

St. Vincent of Lirinsky in the period between the III and IV Ecumenical Councils said the following about this:

“In the Universal Church itself, special care must be taken to maintain what has been believed everywhere, always and by everyone. It is absolutely necessary that the thread of interpretation of the prophetic and apostolic writings should be directed according to the norm of ancient and universal understanding” (Quoted in).

Thus, when interpreting divine dogmas, one must use the same methods that are applied to the interpretation of Holy Scripture, that is, their understanding must be in the context of the Holy Tradition of the Church.

1.8. Purpose of doctrinals.

Here are two quotes on this issue.

The first is A. Kartashev: the “oros” of the Ecumenical Councils are not tombstones rolled against the doors of a sealed coffin of forever crystallized and petrified truth. On the contrary, these are milestones on which are inscribed guiding, unmistakable instructions on where and how living Christian thought, individual and collective, should confidently and safely go in its unstoppable and boundless search for answers to theoretical-theological and applied life-practical questions.”

“Theological systems ... can be considered in their most direct relation to the life goal, the achievement of which they should ... contribute, in other words, promote union with God.”

1.9. The assimilation of dogmatic truths by human consciousness

There cannot be a rational comprehension of dogma by the human mind; Metropolitan (later Patriarch) Sergius (Stragorodsky) spoke well on this matter:

“Every dogma is therefore an object of faith, and not knowledge, because not everything in a dogma is accessible to our human understanding. When a dogma becomes too clear, then there is every reason to suspect that the content of the dogma has been replaced by something, that the dogma is not taken in all its divine depth” (Quoted from).

It is no coincidence that Father Pavel Florensky called Christian dogmas “a cross for the mind,” because the fallen human mind acts based on the premise that there are no barriers to its cognitive abilities, that everything that exists in the world can be rationally comprehended in one way or another.

Dogma is an obstacle to reason. Trying to comprehend a dogma, a person must perform the feat of self-denial, renunciation of his mind, i.e., renounce the claim to omniscience, to comprehend everything and everyone in this God-created world, thus, the comprehension of dogmas is always associated with a certain ascetic effort, an act of renunciation your mind.

Saint Philaret of Moscow said: “It is necessary that we should not consider any, even secretly hidden wisdom, alien to us and not belonging to us, and with humility arrange the mind for Divine contemplation and the heart for heavenly sensations.”

In other words, we must not adapt dogma to our way of perception, but, on the contrary, try to bring our cognitive abilities, mind and heart to a state that allows us to understand the meaning of dogma.

V. N. Lossky says that dogma “must be experienced by us in such a process in which, instead of adapting it to our mode of perception, we, on the contrary, must force ourselves to a deep change in our mind, to its internal transformation, and such way to become capable of gaining mystical experience."

In the process of assimilation of dogmas by human consciousness, three successive stages can be distinguished:

Stage one, when dogma is the subject of simple confidence or rational conviction, but there is no living and internal attitude to the content of the dogma, that is, the content of doctrinal truth is not felt or experienced by a person. Dogma remains for a person precisely a certain external, legally binding truth, which must be confessed only in order to be able to be a member of the Church and begin, when there is such a desire, the sacraments. In other words, there is no connection between dogma and a person’s spiritual life.

Most often, the cause of this state is human sinfulness, a state that in traditional ascetic language is called petrified insensibility. At the same time, the human heart remains without any sympathy for the content of dogmas.

The second stage is a state when the attitude towards doctrinal truth begins to be filled with life and moves from the realm of the mind to the realm of feeling, i.e. doctrinal truth begins to be felt and experienced by a person as not just a mandatory external rule, but as a saving truth and dogma becomes for a person’s consciousness like a source of light that enlightens his dark sinful depths, a new life principle that brings new true life into his nature. In other words, a person begins to establish a connection between his spiritual life, the salvation he expects, and the content of dogmas.

For example, the dogma of the Holy Trinity begins to be experienced by man as a revelation of Divine love, of love as the fundamental and only true relationship between people, because just as in God there are three Persons in the unity of nature, so people should strive to realize this ideal: a plurality of persons in the unity of nature.

A person begins to understand that the Incarnation of God is not just an event intended to amaze the human imagination, or to communicate to a person the true teaching, but that this is the very sacrament of our salvation, that the Incarnation opens a path for man to a real union with God, because God became man for so that a person has the opportunity to be deified.

The same can be said about other dogmas. For example, a person begins to feel that the Church is not only some kind of institution, institution, not a “spiritual services center” in which one can satisfy one’s religious needs, but the Body of Christ, in which we really unite with Christ or with each other in the sacraments.

And finally, the third stage is the highest, blessed state, when dogmatic truths are contemplated.

Contemplation is a person’s experience of the content of a dogma that leads a person to direct communication with God and union with Him. For the holy fathers, the experience of the content of the dogma really raised the mind and soul to direct union with God, that is, for them there seemed to be no distance between the dogma of the Trinity and the Most Holy Trinity itself, between the dogma of the Incarnation and the God-Man himself. Dogma directly elevates, elevates their soul, their mind to the highest, being, as it were, a kind of verbal icon, from which, as from an image, one can ascend to the prototype.

Saint Philaret of Moscow speaks of such contemplation in relation to the dogma of the Resurrection of Christ:

“The Church is already responding to our desire and not only promises us the vision of the Risen One as possible, but also proclaims it as already real. She sings “Having seen the Resurrection of Christ, let us worship the Holy Lord Jesus.” If we see the resurrection, then we have also seen the Risen One: because the resurrection is visible only in the Risen One Himself. If, let us assume that the Mother Church primarily has in mind her worthy and perfect children, and in their person she speaks so affirmatively: we have seen the resurrection; then for us, imperfect and unworthy, there remains at least the hope that we too can be vouchsafed the same if we are jealous and strive to become worthy and perfect... From this it is clear... that every true believer can be vouchsafed the gift of spiritual contemplation.”

2. Development of dogmatic science

2.1. The Completeness of New Testament Revelation and the Development of Dogmatic Science

Divine Revelation is “that which God Himself revealed to men, so that they could rightly and savingly believe in him and worthily honor him.”

It is from Divine Revelation that all the teaching of the Orthodox Church is drawn. And Divine Revelation is not a one-time act, but a process. In the Old Testament, God gradually revealed to people some knowledge of Himself, adapting to the perceptual abilities of pre-Christian humanity.

In the New Testament we have the completion and fulfillment of the Old Testament Revelation in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul begins his letter to the Hebrews this way (Heb. 1:1-2): “God, who spoke of old to the fathers in the prophets at many times and in various ways, has in the last days spoken to us in the Son...”, i.e. Christ revealed to us everything we need for salvation. In the Old Testament, Revelation was fragmentary, since each author of the Holy Books, each of the prophets reported only a certain facet of knowledge about God, which was personally revealed to him. Moreover, this knowledge was indirect, since each of the prophets spoke about what he, as a person, knew about God.

In Christ we have the completion of Revelation, in Christ Revelation is not fragmentary, but complete, because Christ is not just someone who knows something about God, but God Himself. Here it is no longer people testifying to their experience, but God Himself revealing the truth about Himself. Therefore, in Christ we have the fullness of Divine Revelation.

Holy Scripture directly says that the Lord Jesus Christ revealed to the Church the fullness of the truth, at least the fullness that man is able to comprehend. The Gospel of John (John 15:15) says that the Lord told the disciples “... all that I had heard from the Father...”.

From the same Gospel we know that the Holy Spirit, who descended on the disciples on the Day of Pentecost, did not bring any new revelation, any new teaching, He only reminded the disciples of what Christ taught. The Lord himself, during his farewell conversation with his disciples, says about the Holy Spirit that he “... will take of what is mine and tell it to you” (John 16:14). According to the interpretation of most exegetes, “He will take from Mine” means: “he will take from My teaching.”

All this fullness of truth is preserved in Christ’s Church. Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyons says:

“The apostles, like a rich man in a treasury, completely put into the Church everything that relates to the truth, and entrusted it to the bishops.”

The Holy Scripture also says that the apostles proclaimed the entirety of the truth received from Christ to the Church (Acts 20:27); they proclaimed to the Church “The Whole Will of God,” and not just a certain part of it.

It is precisely because of the completeness of the New Testament Revelation, which is confirmed by the identity of the experience of the saints of all eras and all peoples, that there can be no new revelations, no new doctrinal truths, no new covenants, and therefore any such phenomena fall under the anathema of the Apostle Paul (Gal. 1, 8): “...even if we or an angel from heaven preached to you a gospel other than what we preached to you, let him be anathema.”

2.2. The theory of "dogmatic development"

How, then, should we relate to the emergence of dogmas? Is the very fact that new dogmas appear in the Church evidence of the emergence of new doctrinal truths in the Church?

In Western theology, starting from the middle of the last century, the so-called “theory of dogmatic development”, authored by the Catholic theologian Cardinal Newman, has become widespread.

The meaning of this theory is as follows: the Church possesses the fullness of revealed truth, but for the conciliar consciousness of the Church this truth is hidden, or at least very implicitly felt and experienced until theological thought reaches a certain development and makes this hidden knowledge is obvious to the conciliar church consciousness.

This theory is very convenient for Western Christians from the point of view that it easily allows one to justify all sorts of arbitrary dogmatic innovations of both the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant denominations.

On the one hand, this theory seems quite logical, but, on the other hand, it leads to paradoxical conclusions. Let's say, in this case, we have to admit that the Church of the times of the apostles, even the holy apostles themselves, knew incomparably less about God than any modern Christian who has taken a course in dogmatics.

2.3. Orthodox view for the development of dogmatic science

Naturally, one cannot agree with such a formulation of the question. However, it is obvious that dogmatic science is indeed developing. But in what sense is it developing? The development of dogmatic science is an ever more precise expression in the word of the known Truth. The truth has already been revealed to us once and for all by Jesus Christ, it is given in Revelation, and its more and more accurate expression in the word is the actual work of the theologian.

Archpriest Georgy Florovsky says about it this way: “Dogma is by no means a new revelation. Dogma is only evidence. The whole point of dogmatic definitions comes down to witnessing the eternal truth that was revealed in Revelation and preserved from the beginning.” That is, the Church only formulates dogmas, gives them verbal form, putting the thought of Revelation into precise formulations that do not allow arbitrary interpretations.

From the very beginning of its existence, the Church had no doubt that God is one in essence and threefold in Persons. However, the key term that made it possible to verbally express this faith, this undoubted conviction of the Church, appeared only in the 4th century (the term “consubstantial”).

We will see the same thing if we consider the Christological teaching of the Church. The Church has never doubted that Christ is true God and true man. But only in the 5th century, when heated Christological disputes arose, the Church formulated the Christological dogma and indicated those apophatic definitions that allow us to correctly think about the image of the hypostatic union of two natures in Christ.

Here is what Vikenty Lirinsky said about this:

“The tradition, says the Apostle, preserve, that is, preserve the talent of the universal faith intact and undamaged, so that what has been entrusted to you, let it remain with you, then you pass it on. You received gold, give gold back. I don’t want you to give me something else instead of one, I don’t want you to brazenly supply me with lead or, fraudulently, copper instead of gold. If the gift of God has made you capable in mind, in education, in learning, then be the Bezalel of the spiritual Tabernacle. Polish the precious stones of the Divine dogma, give them shine, grace and charm, try so that, as a result of your clear presentation, they understand more clearly what they believed in less clearly. Achieve that posterity will glorify with knowledge what antiquity previously honored unconsciously. Teach what you have been taught, and when saying something new, do not say something new. But perhaps someone will say: and so in the Church of Christ there should be no advancement of religions. Everything, of course, must be, and, moreover, the greatest. Only this success must really be prosperity, and not a change of faith. Progress is when this or that object improves in itself, and change is when something ceases to be what it is and turns into something else. So, let the understanding, understanding, and wisdom of each individual Christian, as well as all together, both of one person and of the entire Church, grow and succeed to the highest degree over the years and centuries, but only in the same kind, i.e. the same dogma, in the same sense, in the same understanding. The ancient dogmas of heavenly philosophy should be strengthened, smoothed, and cleaned over time, but they should not be changed, they should not be cut off, they should not be disfigured. The Church of Christ, a caring and cautious guardian of dogmas, never changes anything in them, does not reduce anything, does not add anything, does not cut off what is necessary, does not attach what is superfluous, does not lose its own and does not appropriate someone else’s, but with all diligence it tries only to ensure that reasoning about the ancient truthfully and wisely, if something was destined or founded in ancient times, then complete and finish it, if something has already been explained and interpreted, then strengthen and confirm, if something has already been confirmed and defined, then preserve it. Finally, she always tried to achieve something else with the Council’s definitions. Isn’t it just that they should later believe with prudence the same thing that they previously believed in simplicity? I do not hesitate to say and will always say that the Universal Church, prompted by the innovations of the heretics, through the definition of its Councils did nothing else than precisely what it had previously received from its ancestors according to one Tradition, and then confirmed for posterity” (Cit. By ).

2.4. Tasks and method of theological dogmatic science

The task of what is called strategic, dogmatic science is to serve the unity of man with God, to introduce man to eternity.

The second, no less important, tactical task of dogmatic science is a purely historical task, the task of evidence. Each era poses its own problems to the church consciousness, and each generation of theologians must give a definite answer to these questions, and certainly in accordance with the Orthodox tradition.

As for the scientific method of dogma, it consists in the systematic disclosure of the basic Orthodox religious truths. This method is as follows: indicate the basis of dogmas in the Holy Scriptures and give the fundamental provisions of patristic thought on certain dogmatic issues.

Literature

1. Lossky V. N. Essay on the mystical theology of the Eastern Church. Dogmatic theology. M., 1991.

2. Jerome. Sophrony. Elder Silouan. Paris, 1952.

3. Archim. Alicy (Kastalsky-Borozdin), archimandrite. Isaiah (Belov). Dogmatic theology: A course of lectures. Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, 1994.

4. Yannaras X. Faith of the Church. M., 1992 (Translated from modern Greek).

5. Priest Boris Levshenko. Dogmatic theology. Lecture course. PSTBI, 1996.

6. Kartashev A.V. Ecumenical Councils. M., 1994.

7. Met. Moscow Filaret. Words and speeches. M., 1882, vol. 4.

8. Met. Filaret. Long Christian Catechism of the Orthodox Catholic Eastern Church. Bialystok, 1990.

9. St. Irenaeus of Lyons. Against heresies, book. 5, ch. 20, §1. Essays. St. Petersburg, 1990.

10. Prot. G. Florovsky. Theological passages. Bulletin of the RSHD. Paris, 1981, no. 105-108.

Sacred Tradition

1. Holy Scripture about Holy Tradition

Sacred Tradition is the general form of preservation and dissemination by the Church of its teachings. Or another formulation - the preservation and dissemination of Divine Revelation. This very form of preservation and dissemination, as well as the term “Tradition,” is undoubtedly sanctified by the authority of Holy Scripture.

In the books of the New Testament we can find a number of places that indicate the importance of Tradition in the life of the Church. Let's remember these verses.

First, this is 2 Thess. 2:15: “...stand and hold to the traditions which you were taught either by our word or by our message.”

1 Cor. 11:2: “I praise you, brothers, because you remember everything I have and keep the tradition as I handed it down to you.”

1 Tim. 6, 20: “Oh, Timothy! keep what is devoted to you”... Or the Slavic text, more consistent with the Greek original: “Oh, Timothy! Keep the tradition."

2. The concept of Sacred Tradition

Tradition (παράδοδις). Literally, this Greek word means successive transmission, for example, inheritance, as well as the very mechanism of transmission from one person to another, from one generation of people to another.

St. Vincent of Lirinsky asks the question: “What is tradition? - and he himself answers it, “What has been entrusted to you, and not what you have invented, - what you have accepted, and not what you have invented”...

Such a mechanism for the successive dissemination of Divine Revelation also has its basis in the Holy Scriptures, which says that this is exactly how Divine Revelation should be preserved and spread in the world.

1 Cor. 11, 23: “For I have received from the Lord Himself what I also conveyed to you”...

In. 17:8. The Lord Himself speaks about this form of preserving the truth: “For the words that You gave Me, I delivered to them, and they received and understood”...

We see a certain chain: gave, passed on, received.

Tertullian, an apologist from the late 2nd - early 3rd centuries, says: “we preserve the rule of faith that the Church received from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, Christ from God.” Thus, in the New Testament and in the understanding of the early fathers of the Church, Sacred Tradition is a continuous chain of transmissions of revealed truth from one person to another, or from one generation of people to another, and the initial link of this chain turns out to be, as we see from the words of the Savior, in God .

This is a very important point that should be noted; this is precisely why Sacred Tradition differs from other traditions, for example, cultural ones. Protestants, for example, may have great respect for the Tradition of Orthodoxy, they may agree that all this is good and useful, but at the same time they declare that it is from people, and therefore, although useful, it is not necessary.

However, with this understanding of Sacred Tradition, which is given in the New Testament, a break with Tradition is not just a break with some human tradition. Since the initial link of Tradition is in God, a break with Tradition is not just a departure from the tradition of the Eastern Church, but, in essence, a falling away from God.

Why is not all Divine Revelation given to the Church in the form of Scripture? Why was not everything included in the Scriptures, not everything was written down?

Obviously, everything could not be written down due to the fact that the Tradition includes many things that, in principle, cannot be written down at all. When we talk about the mechanism of Tradition, the question arises: what is conveyed in Tradition? Firstly, some knowledge is transmitted, some monuments in which this knowledge is recorded are transmitted: books, icons, rites, canonical rules, various kinds of regulations, etc.

However, Tradition is more than just the transmission of information. Since Tradition tells us about God and the knowledge of God, and like, as is known, is known by like, then in order to understand what is conveyed in Tradition, it is first necessary to have some idea of ​​both God and the knowledge of God. In other words, it is necessary to have some experience, personal experience of communion with God, since spiritual life is, first of all, a way of life, and not a way of thinking.

Protopresbyter John Meyendorff writes about this as follows: “...tradition is a continuous sequence of not only ideas, but also experience. It presupposes not only intellectual coherence, but also lively communication on the path to comprehending the truth.”

Essentially the same thought was expressed two thousand years earlier by the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 4:16): “... imitate me, as I imitate Christ.”

However, Tradition is not limited to this, because Christ not only taught His disciples the teaching, not only showed them the example of His life, not only communicated some experience of life in God, but He also commanded them to receive the Holy Spirit, “the channel of grace that alone opens the path to knowledge of Divine truth. Only in the light of grace is the teaching of Christ comprehended, and the experience of life in Christ itself is, of course, a grace-filled experience.

The Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 12:3) states that: “...no one can call Jesus Christ Lord except by the Holy Spirit,” that is, only one whose heart has already been influenced in one way or another can confess Christ as Lord Holy Spirit.

Therefore, Saint Philaret of Moscow notes that “Holy Tradition is not only the visible and verbal transmission of rules and regulations, but also the invisible and effective message of grace and sanctification.”

Thus, the Holy Tradition includes, as it were, three levels: the lowest, first level is, in fact, the transfer of knowledge and historical monuments that are associated with this knowledge, secondly, it is the transfer of the experience of spiritual life, and thirdly, this is the transmission of grace-filled sanctification.

2.1. The relationship between Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition

If we look at pre-revolutionary textbooks of dogmatic theology or catechisms, we will see that in them Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition are usually opposed.

For example, the Catechism of St. Philareta calls Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition two different ways of disseminating and preserving Divine Revelation.

Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov) says that “under the name of Sacred Tradition we mean the Word of God, not contained in writing by the inspired writers themselves, but orally transmitted to the Church and since then continuously preserved in it.”

We see approximately the same thing in the textbook on dogmatic theology of Archpriest Mikhail Pomazansky, where it is directly stated that Tradition and Scripture are two sources of dogma, or two sources of dogma.

In all these definitions, Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition are contrasted with each other. Scripture is seen as something external to Tradition. This is connected, of course, with the Latin influence on Orthodox theology, which began during the period of decline in education in the Christian East. This Latin scholastic influence in this case is manifested in the characteristic tendency of Latin thought to codify Tradition in historical documents, monuments, in other words, to consider Tradition almost exclusively as a certain sum of information about God, about spiritual life, while for the Eastern fathers Tradition is it is always not only knowledge, not so much information, but rather the living experience of knowledge of God, the experience of a three-dimensional vision of the revealed truth, without which true knowledge turns out to be impossible. The overcoming of such an understanding in Orthodox theology began only at the beginning of the 20th century. What is the essence of the Latin view of the relationship between Tradition and Scripture?

Catholic teaching about Sacred Tradition and the relationship between Tradition and Scripture arose during the Reformation in Western Europe, and arises on a specific occasion. When Luther questioned the Catholic dogma of papal primacy, Catholic theologians arrived from the Vatican in Germany and entered into an argument with Luther. They could not justify the primacy of the pope and referred to the fact that they needed to go to the Vatican, look up archives, work in the library in order to provide sufficient evidence in their favor.

And then Luther solemnly announced that, unlike Catholic theologians, he did not need to go anywhere and he could fully substantiate and derive all his teaching from Holy Scripture alone.

This polemical technique, which once proved successful, subsequently became widely used, and turned into a kind of principle on which Protestant teaching was built.

In the fight against Protestants, who deny the authority of Holy Tradition as a source of doctrine, Catholics were forced to build their own doctrine. Its essence is that Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition are two different parallel sources of doctrine.

There may be different accents here. These two sources can be understood as equal in dignity, they can be understood as unequal in dignity, say, Holy Scripture can be understood as a certain semantic core, and Tradition - as a certain, albeit necessary, but still secondary addition to Scripture.

Be that as it may, firstly, Scripture and Tradition are considered as something complementary, and, secondly, it is argued that both Scripture and Tradition separately do not contain all of the revealed truth, but only some part of it.

This understanding of the relationship between Tradition and Scripture does not agree with the patristic understanding. Let's say for sshm. Irenaeus of Lyons (2nd century AD) Sacred Tradition in its content is not something different from Holy Scripture, but, on the contrary, Tradition in content is identical to the New Testament.

And in other Fathers of the Church we can find the statement that the Holy Scripture itself contains everything necessary for piety, that is, it contains not part of the revealed truth, but the whole truth in its fullness.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a gradual overcoming of the scholastic view of the relationship between Holy Scripture and Tradition began. The famous church historian Mikhail Posnov wrote in 1906 on the pages of the magazine “Christian Reading” (M. Posnov. Chr. Read., 1906, Vol. 2, p. 773): The Church expressed one of the Gospels received from Christ with the Creed... another Church enshrined in the sacraments... others were set out in the Holy Scriptures, as containing an indication of the historical facts of salvation... the Church expressed others in Divine services, hymns and prayers; finally, she embodied something else in the Christian structure of life, in church-canonical government, in rituals, customs, etc.”

What positive aspects can we note in this definition? There is no opposition here between Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition; Holy Scripture as a whole is considered in the context of Tradition. The negative point is that all of the above components of the Holy Tradition are conceived precisely as parts, each of which contains only a part of Revelation.

A certain revolution in views on the relationship between Scripture and Tradition has begun since the middle of our century, largely thanks to the work of Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), a student of the Venerable Elder Silouan of Athos. Archimandrite Sophrony did not set out his teaching, but expressed his view on the question of the relationship between Scripture and the Tradition of the Venerable himself. Silouana.

Arch. Sophrony writes that “... Tradition embraces the entire life of the Church so much that Holy Scripture itself is only one of its forms.”

Thus, Scripture is considered not as part of Tradition, but as a qualitatively different form of church life. Elsewhere, Archimandrite Sophrony conveys the words of his reverend teacher:

“The Holy Scripture is not deeper and no more important than the Holy Tradition, as stated above, one of its forms: this form is the most valuable both for the convenience of preserving it and for the convenience of using it; but removed from the flow of Sacred Tradition, Scripture cannot be understood as it should be by any scientific research.”

Back in the 19th century, Saint Philaret of Moscow called Scripture “a strengthened form of Tradition” and on this occasion said the following (Metropolitan Philaret. Words and Speeches, part 4, p. 96):

“Since the Christian teaching was enshrined in the Holy Books, the Holy Church, for the faithful and unchanging preservation of this teaching, has the custom and rule of affirming not only the thoughts of this teaching on the immutable testimony of God-inspired Scripture, but also the very words and expressions to mean the most important objects and parts to be borrowed from the same pure source of Scripture.”

So, when we talk about the relationship between Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, we must avoid two temptations: firstly, the danger of contrasting Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition and, secondly, the danger of reducing Holy Tradition to the sum of some knowledge, to a set of certain monuments, which contains this knowledge.

2.2. Understanding Sacred Tradition in Modern Orthodox Theology

First, understanding in the sense of the very mechanism of transmission of revealed truth.

The second is Sacred Tradition as a source of doctrine. This view of Holy Tradition is completely justified, however, provided that Tradition is not opposed to Scripture, and Scripture and Tradition are not considered in isolation. Because otherwise, if we contrast Scripture and Tradition, we will find ourselves in a theological dead end. Indeed, how should the Holy Scriptures be interpreted? Naturally, in accordance with Tradition. Which Tradition should be recognized as true and which as false? According to Scripture. It turns out to be a vicious circle.

Western faiths have resolved this issue in different ways. Protestants simply rejected the authority of Tradition in favor of Scripture. Catholics get out of the situation by appealing to the infallible opinion of the Pope, who can in any case accurately indicate how to interpret Scripture and which Tradition should be accepted.

What position do the Orthodox find themselves in, who do not have a Pope and do not reject Tradition? For Orthodoxy, this very opposition between Scripture and Tradition seems completely far-fetched and unfounded.

Here is what the second member of the Message of the Eastern Patriarchs on the Orthodox Faith says about this:

“We believe that the testimony of the Catholic Church is no less valid than the Divine Scriptures. Since the author of both is one and the same Holy Spirit, it makes no difference whether one learns from Scripture or from the Universal Church... Living and studying in the Church, in which oral apostolic preaching continues successively, a person can study the dogmas of the Christian faith from the Universal Church, and this is because the Church itself does not derive its dogmas from Scripture, but has them ready, and if, when discussing some dogma, it cites certain passages in the Bible, then this is not to derive its dogmas, but only to confirm them, and whoever bases his faith on Scripture alone has not achieved complete faith and does not know its properties.”

In other words, in the Tradition of the Church all dogmas are present as if in totality, which is not present in individual books of Scripture. This understanding of the relationship between Tradition and Scripture gives rise to the third level of understanding of Sacred Tradition in modern theology: Sacred Tradition as the testimony of the Universal Church about the truth handed to it by God.

In this understanding, Sacred Tradition practically coincides with the concept of Divine Revelation, and by it one can understand the entire Christian doctrine in all its integrity and completeness. This testimony of the Universal Church is true. Naturally, one can ask the question: why is it true?

Bishop Sylvester (Malevansky) explains this as follows: because in the Church “the same religious consciousness, which lay at the basis of the life of Christians of the primal Church, continuously lives in its essence, just as the spirit of faith with which they were imbued and guided in understanding is not interrupted.” truths of faith."

Mikhail Posnov calls this spirit of faith “the elusive spirit of the church, the mysterious consciousness, the Christian understanding, which the Church inherited from Christ and, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, keeps faithfully, intact and passes on from generation to generation.”

The Message of the Eastern Patriarchs on the Orthodox Faith (12th term) says that the Holy Spirit “always acting through the faithfully serving fathers and teachers of the Church, protects it from all error.”

From here follows the fourth level of understanding of what Holy Tradition is, namely: Tradition as the living memory of the Church, self-consciousness living in the Church since the day of Pentecost. If we draw some analogy between the life of the Church and the life of the human person, then we can easily see that Tradition, in principle, performs in the Church the same function that memory performs in a person.

Tradition is the ever-living memory of the Church, thanks to which the self-identity of the Church is established in history, because the forms of church life can vary greatly. For example, the Jerusalem Apostolic Community of the first years of the historical existence of the Christian Church and the modern Orthodox Ecumenical Church outwardly have little in common, yet they are one and the same Church, and its self-identity is established precisely thanks to the continuity of Church Tradition, the continuity of Church memory.

V. N. Lossky says this about Holy Tradition: this is “the only way to perceive the Truth... we can give precise definition Tradition, saying that it is the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church, life that imparts to every believer the ability to hear, accept, and know the truth in its inherent Light, and not in the natural light of the human mind.”

Let's summarize. In what sense is the very concept of Sacred Tradition used in modern theology?

1. The actual mechanism of successive transmission of revealed truth in all its forms.

2. Sacred Tradition as a source of doctrine.

3. Sacred Tradition as the testimony of the Universal Church about the truth handed to it; in this sense, Tradition turns out to be almost indistinguishable from Divine Revelation.

4. Sacred Tradition as the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church, as the self-consciousness and memory of the Church, continuous from the day of the historical existence of the Church, that is, from the day of Pentecost.

Who in the Church is the bearer of Tradition, and what should be the attitude towards Tradition of every conscious Orthodox believer?

Archpriest Georgy Florovsky says (Archpriest G. Florovsky. Theological excerpts // Bulletin, Paris, 1981-1982, No. 105-108, pp. 193-194):

“The living bearer and custodian of Tradition is the entire Church in its catholic fullness; and one must abide or live in the Church in its fullness in order to understand the Tradition in order to master it. This means that the bearer and custodian of Tradition is the entire Church - as the catholic body of Tradition.”

Consequently, the knowledge of Tradition is not a rational Process; it is impossible to turn the study of Tradition into a science built on the models of secular sciences. Sacred Tradition can only be known experientially, that is, Tradition can only be known by entering into Tradition. Only the one who himself has become a living bearer of Tradition can say that he has at least begun to study Tradition. In other words, the goal of every Christian is to become a link in this continuous chain of transmission of divinely revealed truth.

2.3. Formal tradition

One of the forms of Holy Tradition is Holy Scripture, but Tradition is not limited to Holy Scripture and includes other forms.

There is a term that can be found in theological literature: formal tradition is all historical sources and methods of true knowledge of the Christian Revelation, except for biblical books.

What forms can we identify?

1) ancient symbols and confessions of faith;

2) ancient rules, Apostolic Rules, for example, and canons;

3) definitions and rules of the Ecumenical Councils and some local councils, which were accepted by the entirety of the Ecumenical Church;

4) liturgical practice of the Church, church art. This includes iconography, music, hymnography, architecture, etc.;

5) acts of martyrdom and lives of saints;

6) ancient church histories. For example, the church history of Eusebius of Caesarea, the works of such historians of the Ancient Church as Socrates, Evagrius, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, etc.

7) the works of the holy fathers and teachers of the Church;

8) ancient church practice, i.e. various kinds of statutes, laws that relate, for example, to fasting, various liturgical rules, pious customs and traditions, and so on.

Let's take a look at those forms that are of particular importance to us.

2.3.1. Ancient Symbols and Confessions of Faith

Since ancient times, Baptism in the Church has not been performed without the person being baptized confessing his faith. This faith was confessed by means of some symbol. For us, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, compiled at the I and II Ecumenical Councils, is of particular importance, but this does not mean that other ancient creeds do not also belong to the Holy Tradition.

In ancient times there were many symbols of faith; in fact, each local Church had its own Symbol of Faith, which was read before Baptism, which was studied during the announcement. Obviously, the same or similar symbol in content had to be confessed by those ordained to the priesthood, etc.

For example, Eusebius of Caesarea, a famous church historian, when presenting his draft creed at the First Ecumenical Council, said the following: “As we received from the bishops who preceded us both at the first catechumen and at the first reception of baptism, as we learned from the divine scriptures, as we believed and taught in the presbytery and in the bishopric itself; This is how we believe now, and we present to you your faith”...

It can be assumed with a high degree of probability that all ancient symbols are based on some common confession that goes back to the apostles themselves.

Traces can be given that such a confession, a rule of faith, existed in ancient times. Tertullian says that the Church preserves the rule of faith, which was received directly from Christ.

In the New Testament we can also find indications that such a confession existed. In Heb. 4:14 the Apostle Paul calls: “let us hold fast our confession.”

And in 1 Tim. 6, 12 says this: “...hold fast eternal life, to which you were called, and made a good confession before many witnesses.” Apparently, this refers to the confession that Timothy confessed either before Baptism or before consecration.

Ultimately, we can say that our Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which is especially important for us, also has its roots in this apostolic confession.

A few words about the so-called Apostolic Creed. The confession we have just discussed must be distinguished from the so-called Apostles' Creed, which was widespread and popular in the West. This Creed, as has been irrefutably proven by modern theological and church historical science, has nothing to do with the authentic apostolic confession.

In fact, this Creed is nothing more than a reworking of the baptismal symbol of the Roman Church of the 3rd-5th centuries. Its modern edition dates back to the 6th-8th centuries and in the Orthodox East until the Ferrara-Florence Council of the 15th century, this symbol was practically unknown.

A confession of faith is a confession made by a specific person or group of people. If a symbol is something that takes shape in a local Church, and as if the entire local Church can be considered as the author of this Symbol, then confession always has a specific author or authors.

The differences between confessions and symbols can be indicated as follows:

1) usually more extensive than symbols;

2) very often have a polemical orientation;

3) have never been used in the liturgical life of the Church.

What are the oldest confessions we know? The oldest is the confession of St. Gregory of Neocaesarea. It was compiled approximately between 260-265. according to R.H. This confession deals primarily with the question of the Holy Trinity. Approved by the VI Ecumenical Council.

St. Basil the Great (Against the Arians, 4th century)

St. Anastasia Sinaita (VI century), short catechism.

St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem (VII century) About the Holy Trinity, the two wills of Christ, approved by the VI Ecumenical Council.

Confession of St. Gregory Palamas, 1351. This confession briefly expresses the general church teaching on all major theological issues, in particular, on issues relating to disputes regarding the nature of the Tabor light and the question of the boundaries of the knowledge of God; approved by the Council of Constantinople 1351

Confession of Saint Mark of Ephesus at the Ferraro-Florence Council of 1439-1440. Detailed presentation Orthodox teaching, especially on issues controversial with Catholics, such as the primacy of the pope, filioque, etc.

Confession of the Patriarch of Constantinople Gennady Scollarius in the 15th century, which was after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. Patriarch Gennady Schollari introduced Mohammed II to the Turkish Sultan.

The confession of faith, which is known under the name of the confession of St. Athanasius of Alexandria, in fact, as modern science testifies, does not belong to St. Athanasius.

This is a rather late confession, which arose in France no earlier than the 6th-7th centuries. It contains the teaching about Christ, about the Trinity, and precisely in the Latin, Augustinian spirit, with filioque. In Russia it was well known in the last century. But, naturally, in Russia it was without filioque.

2.3.2. Conciliar definitions of faith.

There are only four definitions of faith that were adopted at the Ecumenical Councils.

III Ecumenical Council - do not make changes or additions to the existing Creed;

The IV Ecumenical Council spoke about the mode of union of two natures in Christ;

VI Ecumenical Council - presentation of the doctrine of two wills and two energies in Christ;

VII Ecumenical Council - definition of faith on icon veneration.

Resolutions of other councils. They are, as a rule, more extensive, less precise and relate not to global, but to more specific issues.

The second rule of the Fifth Sixth, the so-called Trullo Council of 691-692, approved the dogmatic texts that are contained in the rules of the Holy Apostles, in the rules of the Holy Fathers and in the rules of the 9 Local Councils.

The rules of the Council of Carthage are of particular importance (if we take the numbering given by the Book of Rules - rules 109-116, where the doctrine of original sin, grace, etc. is discussed).

In addition, the councils of Constantinople are of great dogmatic importance. Of course, it cannot be said that they historically replaced the Ecumenical Councils after the VII Ecumenical Council, but for the Orthodox world, for Eastern Christianity, the significance of the resolutions of these Councils was very great.

Council of Constantinople 879-880 under the Holy Patriarch Photius of Constantinople. The council was ecumenical in composition. Why is this Council important? He confirmed the immutability of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, and condemned those who make changes to it. Of course, this rule of the Council was directly directed against the practice of introducing filioque into the Creed, which was spreading at that time in the West. The Council does not directly say filioque, but from the context it is quite clear.

Council of Constantinople 1076, the so-called Council of the philosopher John Italus. In the 11th century in Byzantium, interest in the pagan past, in ancient culture arose, and among some philosophers and theologians this interest became not entirely critical. At this Council, in addition to John Italus himself, some provisions of Platonist philosophy were condemned. Italus himself was condemned for attempting to construct a system of Christian metaphysics independent of Divine Revelation.

Council of Constantinople 1117. It examined the errors of the monk Nile and Metropolitan Eustathius of Nicaea. They entered into a Christological dispute with the Armenian Monophysites. This dispute concerned the following question: how to consider the deification of human nature in Christ? There were two alternative terms: deification by adoption ("θέσι") and deification by nature ("φύσι").

The Armenians, as Monophysites, insisted on deification by nature, and Nilus and Eustathius - by adoption. Thus, they essentially fell into the Nestorian heresy; from their position it logically followed that the deification of humanity in Christ is, in principle, no different from the deification by grace of every believer who is saved in Christ.

The Council came to the conclusion that both of these terms are unacceptable for expressing the mystery of the deification of human nature in the Person of the Lord, since in Christ humanity and the Divine are united in a special, unique hypostatic way.

Cathedral 1156-1157 examined the errors of Archdeacon Soterich Pantevgen, named Patriarch of Antioch. The dispute concerned his teaching on the Eucharist, in particular, the interpretation of the words of the liturgical prayer “For you art the one who offers and the one offered and the one who receives and the one who is distributed”...

It is obvious that Soterich Pantevgen came to a mixture of hypostatic and natural properties in the Trinity. He was inclined to consider the “offering” of the sacrifice and the “acceptance” of the sacrifice as hypostatic properties of the Father and the Son, i.e., along with unbornness, birth and procession, additional hypostatic properties were introduced. The Council condemned this teaching as a heresy and approved the doctrine according to which the atoning sacrifice is offered by Christ according to humanity, and it is offered not to the Father, but to the entire Holy Trinity.

Cathedral 1166-1170 (it took place in two stages: in 1166 and 1170 the same issue was considered). The dispute concerned the interpretation of the verse from the Gospel of John (John 14:28) “...My Father is greater than I.” The question was: Does this verse have anything to do with Christology? The fact that these words can be understood in the Trinitarian sense, that Christ calls His Father greater than Himself, since the Father is the hypostatic cause of the Son, was well known to the participants of the Council.

The accused party at the Council were Archimandrite John Irinikos and Metropolitan Constantine of Kerkyra. They believed that humanity in Christ was deified to such an extent that it should be revered together with His Divinity, that it was completely indistinguishable from the Divinity, and talking about the distinction between humanity and Divinity in Christ after the Ascension can only be “by imagination.” Essentially, this was nothing more than a fall into the Monophysite heresy.

The Council decided that in Christ, even after complete deification, the fullness of true humanity takes place, and even at the heights of deification, the qualitative difference between Divinity and Humanity is preserved.

In addition, it was pointed out that the question was generally incorrectly posed, since Orthodoxy has never considered the divine nature as an object of religious worship. The object of worship is the Face, the Personality, and not the impersonal nature.

Councils of Constantinople of the 14th century. 1341, 1347, 1351 were devoted to disputes about the nature of the Tabor light.

At these Councils, the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas about two modes of existence of the Divine was approved: in an unknowable essence and in communicated energies. It was recognized that these energies are uncreated, and therefore, the so-called Tabor light, the vision of which the hesychast ascetics were honored with, is a real contemplation of Divine energies.

The Council of Jerusalem in 1672 was held against the Patriarch of Constantinople, Cyril Lucaris, who revealed a strong influence of Calvinism in his theology.

The teaching of Cyril Lucaris was condemned, the Council approved the confession of Dositheos, Patriarch of Jerusalem. Dosifei's confession formed the basis of the Message of the Eastern Patriarchs of 1672.

It should also be noted that the Council of Constantinople in 1872 regarding the so-called “Bulgarian schism”, it condemned the heresy of “phyletism,” that is, the introduction of unjustified divisions into the Church on ethnic grounds.

2.3.3. Creations of the Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church

The Fifth Sixth Council, with its 19th canon, establishes the following approach to the interpretation of the Holy Books: “if the word of Scripture is examined, then let it not be explained otherwise than as the luminaries and teachers of the Church have expounded in their writings.”

Of course, we can say that this rule is largely determined by historical circumstances: the end of the 7th century in Byzantium is a time of some decline in church education, and that is why this rule was established. However, it can be argued that this rule is a guide to the approach to understanding the books of Holy Scripture at all times.

So, who are called the fathers of the Church, and what distinguishes the fathers of the Church from other theologians and church writers? Formally, three principles can be distinguished by which one or another theologian is considered the father of the Church:

1) Sanctitas vitae - holiness of life;

2) Sanitas doctrinae - soundness of teaching, truth, fidelity of teaching;

3) Ecclesial declaratio - testimony of the Church. Why does holiness of life underlie the recognition of a particular theologian as a holy father and teacher? For the reason that holiness expands a person’s cognitive abilities. The Apostle Paul writes about this in 1 Cor. 2, 15: “...he who is spiritual judges all things”...

The Holy Father of the 3rd century, Saint Methodius of Patara, develops the thought of the Apostle Paul as follows (Creations, 1905, p. 52): “Those who are most perfect in the degree of success constitute, as it were, one person and the body of the Church. And truly, better and more clearly those who have grasped the truth, as those who have been delivered from carnal lusts through the most perfect purification and faith, become the Church... so that, having accepted the pure and fruitful seed of teaching, they can usefully contribute to preaching for the salvation of others.”

The connection between the purity of the teaching of a particular father and Church Tradition is established through the testimony of the Church, ecclesial declaratio. It is the testimony of the Church that confirms the dignity of the theological thought of this or that father.

Naturally, questions may arise: how to distinguish the genuine teaching of the fathers, which has authority, from the private opinions of certain fathers, including erroneous ones?

There is a special concept for this: consensus patrum, agreement of the fathers. In patristic teaching, that part of it is accepted on which there is a unanimous opinion of all, or a significant majority of the holy fathers. As a rule, according to the most important issues The fathers have no dogmatic differences in their interpretations. These discrepancies occur mainly on secondary issues.

St. John of Damascus explains the existence of such agreement in the following way: “The Father does not oppose the fathers, for they were all partakers of the One Holy Spirit.” Therefore, for everyone who is engaged in theology and tries to assert the truth of this or that theological opinion, it is always necessary to cite as confirmation the opinion of many fathers, and not the opinion of any one father.

It should be borne in mind that the agreement of the fathers on this or that issue represents a theologum that must be taken into account if you want to remain faithful to Tradition. St. Augustine says: “Whoever departs from the unanimous consent of the fathers departs from the whole Church.”

If the agreement of the fathers can be declared on the main dogmatic issues, then on secondary issues there is no such agreement and one should not assume that the holy fathers can find unambiguous answers to any question of a dogmatic nature.

There are various issues on which we do not find such agreement. On the question, for example, about the image and likeness of God in man. At the same time, there is such agreement on other issues. As an example, we can cite the attitude of the ancient Fathers to the dogma of papal primacy, adopted in the Roman Catholic Church.

In the last century, the Anglican theologian Kendrick conducted a detailed study and collected the interpretations of 44 fathers of the period of the Ecumenical Councils, that is, up to and including the 8th century, who had interpretations on Matthew. 16, 18: “...you are Peter (the rock), and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

According to the Anglican theologian, 36 fathers, both Eastern and Western, unambiguously interpret these words of the Savior in accordance with the Tradition of the Eastern Church, i.e. the stone on which the Church will be founded is precisely the confession of Peter, and not the personality of the Apostle Peter, as successor of Christ.

And only 8 out of 44 fathers understood these words of the Savior in the Roman Catholic sense. If we take into account that all these fathers were Western, and most of them were Popes themselves, then it can be argued that the fathers of the ancient Church had a very definite opinion on this matter, and the opinion of those fathers who gave an interpretation that did not correspond to Tradition, we has the right to regard it as their private erroneous opinion.

2.3.4. Liturgical practice of the Church

Archpriest Georgy Florovsky makes an accurate remark about the nature of Christian worship: “Christian worship from the beginning has a dogmatic rather than lyrical character... From the human side, worship is, first of all, a confession - a testimony of faith, not only an outpouring of feelings.”

Indeed, Christian worship was initially filled with dogmatic content. It is no coincidence that already in the Christological disputes of the end of the 2nd century. evidence from liturgical tradition receives the force of a theological argument. And in the middle of the 3rd century, Pope Celestine put forward a general principle: ut legem credendi statuit lex supplicandi, that is, literally “the law of faith is determined by the law of prayer.”

For us, this principle sounds somewhat unexpected, since we are accustomed to thinking that it is true dogmatic teaching that determines the correctness of spiritual life, but here, on the contrary, correctly organized spiritual life is declared to be the guarantee of the purity of dogmatic teaching.

These two truths are obviously interrelated. Of course, damage to religious doctrine and errors in the field of dogma have an impact on spiritual life, but the opposite is also true: errors in spiritual life can have very serious dogmatic consequences.

According to Evagrius of Pontus: “a true theologian is one who prays correctly; a correct spiritual life, as it were, guarantees the purity of the doctrine. Practice shows that mistakes in spiritual life entail distortion of teaching.

This, by the way, is one of the reasons why the Orthodox Church actively resists modernist tendencies to reform worship. Any attempts to thoughtlessly change liturgical and liturgical practice, introducing into it elements that are questionable from a spiritual point of view, are not only a liturgical issue; this will inevitably be followed by a distortion of the doctrine.

At one time, Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov very subtly noted that “in religion, only that which is truly serious is what has become part of the cult.” In fact, the lungs and heart of church life are worship and the sacraments; it is in worship and the sacraments that the Church is what she essentially is.

It is obvious that the Church must be sought not in academies, not in theological institutes, not in spiritual consistories and not at conferences and congresses, but in the temple, in worship and in the sacraments. And what the Church allowed to enter into worship entered, as it were, into the very core of church life and became its integral element.

There are quite a lot of historical examples of this. For example, the division of the Churches in 1054, or, to put it dogmatically more correctly, the falling away of the Roman Church from Ecumenical Orthodoxy. There have been several divisions, that is, breaks in communication for one reason or another between the Roman Church and the Christian East, Constantinople and other Eastern Local Churches, in the history of the Church.

Some of them were quite long-lasting, lasting several decades, for example, at the beginning of the 6th century, under Emperor Anastasius I Dyrrachites, there was a thirty-year schism with the Western Church, then under Patriarch Photius, clashes took place, which also led to a break in communication. But nevertheless, all these divisions between East and West were able to be healed.

But the division of 1054, which was caused by accident, could not be healed.

In Southern Italy there were Greek dioceses that were under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, where services were performed according to the Greek rite. The Latin hierarchy tried to take control of these dioceses and introduce the Latin rite there. This led to a collision.

Of course, there were other reasons, two strong, not devoid of ambition personalities, Cardinal Humbert and Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerularius, collided.

But the question arises: why were much more serious schisms managed to be healed, but the division of 1054 continues to this day? The reason is that at the beginning of the 11th century one very important event took place in the liturgical life of the Roman Church, namely: under the influence of Western emperors, the popes were forced to introduce the filioque into the rite of the Roman Mass.

Before this time, the filioque had already been widespread in the West for many centuries. various countries, but in Rome the popes resisted this innovation in every possible way. And not even because they themselves did not share the doctrine of the filioque, but simply because of healthy Roman conservatism they understood that it was unacceptable for sole authority to make changes to the Creed, which was adopted by the Ecumenical Councils and which the Ecumenical Councils forbade modifying.

In the 11th century, however, the popes were forced to take this step. And after this, all talk about the union of the Churches inevitably has, among other things, a dogmatic aspect.

What, ultimately, does the introduction of the filioque into the rite of the Roman Mass mean? If earlier this teaching could be treated simply as a very widespread, but still private theological opinion held by the Western Church, then after it is included in the rite of the Mass, the filioque automatically becomes a dogma of the Roman Church. Therefore, after this event, all talk about the union of the Churches inevitably presupposed, from the point of view of Rome, the obligatory acceptance by the Orthodox of the doctrine of the double procession of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, one can completely agree with V.N. Lossky and other theologians that it is the filioque that is the main dogmatic reason for the division of the Churches.

The fact that liturgical life is the core of Church Tradition is clear from the epistles of the holy Apostle Paul. This can be seen from 1 Cor. 11, 23-25. For the apostle

liturgy, the Eucharist - this is essentially the main content of Tradition. In Tradition, the Lord betrays Himself to the faithful. And this giving of Himself by Christ to His disciples is carried out precisely in the liturgy of the Eucharist.

We see the special significance of divine services for the Church precisely from the point of view of preserving Tradition from the words of St. Basil the Great (28th letter to Amphilochius of Iconium on the Holy Spirit):

“Of the dogmas and sermons observed in the Church, some we have from written instruction, and some we have received from apostolic tradition, by succession in secret.”

Usually these words of St. Basil the Great are interpreted in the sense of contrasting Tradition and Scripture, i.e. in the sense that there was originally a certain written Scripture, and in addition to Scripture there were secondary truths that were transmitted orally.

Archpriest George Florovsky, who applied to this message of St. Basil the methods of liturgical theology developed by Father Alexander Schmemann, came to the conclusion that the translation of this passage is not entirely accurate, and that it would be correct to translate it as follows: not “from the apostolic Tradition by succession in secret ”, and “they accepted the apostolic tradition successively through the sacraments,” i.e. Tradition in the ancient Church was preserved precisely through the sacraments, Tradition itself was rooted in rites, prayers and rituals.

Not only the sacraments, but also prayers, daily services, and chants are of great importance in liturgical life. The Message of the Eastern Patriarchs speaks about their significance as follows (we are talking about liturgical books of the Orthodox Church in general):

“All these books contain sound and true theology and consist of songs either selected from the Holy Scriptures or compiled by the inspiration of the Spirit, so that in our songs only the words are different from those in Scripture, and in fact we sing the same as in Scripture, only in other words".

Absolutely clear evidence that liturgical life is not part of Tradition, but precisely one of its forms, along with Holy Scripture and other forms.

2.3.5. "Symbolic books" of Orthodoxy.

What are “symbolic books” anyway? These are lengthy creeds that emerge in the West during the Reformation.

The very appearance of these books testified to the loss of Western denominations from Church Tradition. During the era of the Reformation, many different Protestant movements emerged, which do not always understand how they actually differ from each other. And so, in order to somehow identify themselves, to express their own faith, such doctrinal books, called “symbolic books,” appear in various Protestant denominations.

In Orthodoxy, where the Tradition has never been interrupted, the basis for the emergence of such books simply does not exist, therefore the very name “symbolic books” of Orthodoxy is very arbitrary; it penetrates into Orthodoxy, of course, under the influence of Western theology.

What books are usually classified as doctrinal books? Firstly, this is the “Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of the East.” It was compiled in the 30s of the 17th century by the famous church figure, Metropolitan of Kyiv Peter Mogila. Peter Mohyla presented his confession for discussion first at the Kiev Council in 1640, and two years later, in 1642, at the Council in the city of Iasi.

Already at these Councils, fierce disputes broke out regarding the merits of this work. To many of the participants in the Councils, it seemed too imbued with the Latin spirit, although Peter Mogila himself was an active fighter against Catholic expansion in Western Russian lands. This work was first published in Latin in Holland in 1667, and in 1695 in Leipzig. Under Patriarch Andrian, a Slavic translation was made in 1696, and a Russian translation in 1837.

Father Georgy Florovsky speaks about this work in “Ways of Russian Theology” as follows (Ways of Russian Theology, 3rd ed., Paris, 1983, p. 50):

“...The “Confession” was compiled according to Latin books and diagrams... (It) is only, as it were, an “adaptation” or “adaptation” of Latin material and presentation”

Another “symbolic book” is the Epistle of the Patriarchs of the Orthodox Catholic Church on the “Orthodox Faith.” This Epistle was approved by four Eastern Patriarchs: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem at the Council of Constantinople in 1725.

It is based on the confession of Dositheus, Patriarch of Jerusalem. Its content is generally Orthodox, but it also contains Latin opinions on a number of particular issues. What is the assertion that it is unacceptable for the laity to read the Holy Scriptures on their own?

About the confession of Peter Mogila and the Message of the Eastern Patriarchs, Archbishop Vasily (Krivoshey) of Brussels and Belgium, one of the prominent theologians of the Russian Church of the 20th century, wrote the following (Symbolic texts in the Orthodox Church, 5 vols., M., 1968, Sat. 4, p. . 18):

“Orthodox theology armed itself with Western scholastic theological weapons... which... in turn led to a new and dangerous influence on Orthodox theology not only of theological terms unusual for it, but also of theological and spiritual ideas.”

These two works are sometimes given unduly dogmatic significance.

Archbishop Macarius (Bulgakov), in his “Dogmatic Theology,” also includes the “Catechism of the Orthodox Eastern Catholic Church,” compiled by St. Philaret of Moscow, among the symbolic books of Orthodoxy.

This work was compiled in 1823, in 1824 a new edition was made, all quotations of the Holy Scriptures, which were originally given in Russian, were replaced with Slavic quotations.

Then there was the 1827-28 edition, and the last edition we use now is the 1839 edition. In this edition, the Catechism of St. Philaret was revised towards greater Latinization under the influence of the then chief prosecutor Holy Synod Count Pratasov.

This especially affected the doctrine of the Atonement, which is presented in a legal spirit. Atonement is defined as "the satisfaction of God's justice." Unlike the first two books of the Catechism of St. Filareta is different for the better.

Section III

The concept of knowledge of God and its boundaries

1. Knowledge of God in the life of a Christian. Natural and supernatural path to knowledge of God

There are a large number of different branches of knowledge, the names of which include the words “knowledge” or “knowledge”: linguistics, jurisprudence, etc.

It is obvious that knowledge of God or knowledge of God cannot be put on a par with these areas of knowledge, since to know something in any science, to be a specialist, means, first of all, to have perfect information on one or another issue.

However, in theology everything is completely different. According to the Holy Scriptures, to know means to experience something personally, to become involved. Therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ essentially equates the knowledge of God with salvation, that is, the acquisition of eternal life.

“This is eternal life, that they may know You alone true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).

According to the Holy Scriptures, the goal of human life is knowledge of God, which is achieved through communication with God. The Apostle Paul (Acts 17:26-28) says that God:

“From one blood... he produced the whole human race... so that they would seek God, if they would feel Him and find Him, although He is not far from each of us: for in Him we live and move and have our being”...

There is no need to prove that the knowledge of God is not a one-time act, but a process, and a process that involves not only the movement of thought, but above all a change in lifestyle. Knowledge of God is impossible without Divine Revelation.

A person knows God as much as God Himself is revealed to him, but a person must somehow be prepared to perceive Divine Revelation. Natural knowledge of God is such an aid to knowing God from Revelation.

St. Petersburg speaks well about how natural knowledge of God and revealed, supernatural knowledge of God relate to each other. Theodore the Studite (The Speculative Word, ch. 9-10. Philokalia, 1992, vol. 3, p. 349):

“Of the local earthly knowledge, some are by nature, and others are supernatural. What this second is will clearly be from the first. We call natural knowledge that which the soul can obtain through research and search, using natural methods and forces...

And supernatural knowledge is that which comes into the mind in a way that exceeds its natural ways and powers, or in which what is known comparatively exceeds the mind... It comes from the one God when He finds the mind cleansed of all material attachments and embraced by Divine love.”

1.1. Natural knowledge of God (natural Revelation)

For the Christian who believes that the whole world was created by the creative Divine Word, the universe is revealed as the Revelation of eternal divine ideas. Consequently, it is possible to know God through beauty, harmony, and expediency dissolved in the world. In general, this is nothing more than a natural reaction of the human soul, which, according to Tertullian, is by nature “Christian.”

There is much evidence in the Holy Scriptures that God can be known through His creations. For example, Ps. 18:2: “The heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands”; Prem. 13, 1-2: “all people are truly vain by nature, who had no knowledge of God, who from visible perfections could not know the Existence and, looking at deeds, did not know the Author”; Rome. 1:20: “His eternal power and Godhead have been visible from the creation of the world through the consideration of creation.”

St. John of Damascus in the first book of “An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” says: “and the very creation of the world, its preservation and management proclaim the greatness of the Divine” “... and the very composition, preservation and management of creatures shows us that there is a God who created all this , contains and takes care of everything.”

Saint Basil the Great, in his first conversation on the Sixth Day, states that “not to know the Creator from contemplating the world is not to see anything on a clear noon.” Such knowledge of God through consideration of creations is called the path of cosmological inference, when a person, through contemplation and knowledge of the created cosmos, ascends to the understanding that this world has a Creator and Provider.

However, a person can come to a conclusion about the existence of God not only through the study of nature. This can also be done through self-knowledge. St. John of Damascus asserts that “the knowledge that God exists, He Himself planted in everyone’s nature”...

All three basic forces of the human soul testify to us about the existence of God.

The human mind has an innate thought about a most perfect and infinite Being. As for the will, it is the voice of conscience in a person and the moral law that a person feels within himself. In the area of ​​heart life, or in feelings, this is an innate desire for bliss.

Moreover, a sound mind and the moral law tell a person that bliss can only be a consequence of a virtuous life, while sinners are worthy of condemnation.

Saint Basil the Great in his interpretation of the words of the book of Deuteronomy (Deut. 15:9) “Take heed to yourself”... says (Creations part 4 Ser. Lev, 1892, p. 43): “If you pay heed to yourself, you will not have the need to seek traces of the Creator in the structure of the universe, but in yourself, as if in some small world, you will see the great wisdom of your Creator.”

In addition to these two paths, i.e., cosmological inference and self-knowledge, one more path can be indicated - this is the study of human history. The study of the history of peoples and states also indicates that divine Providence operates in history, which controls the historical process.

However, natural knowledge of God and natural revelation represent only an initial and very limited way of knowing God. Such knowledge of God can only lead us to the most general and vague ideas about God as the Creator and Provider of the universe.

In addition, after the Fall, natural knowledge of God is also burdened by the fact that the relationship between man and the world around him has become distorted, and man does not always contemplate beauty and harmony in the world; moreover, man’s cognitive abilities themselves have weakened and darkened after the Fall.

The next stage of knowledge of God after natural revelation is knowledge from the Holy Scriptures and the works of the Holy Fathers. This type of knowledge of God occupies an intermediate position between natural knowledge and supernatural knowledge.

By its source, this is supernatural knowledge, because the Holy Scripture is the Word of God, but by the method of assimilation it is natural, and therefore, the knowledge that we acquire through the study of the Holy Scriptures or the works of the holy fathers remains natural and limited. From the Holy Scriptures we acquire knowledge about God, but knowledge about God and knowledge of God are far from clear-cut things.

The Venerable Simeon the New Theologian denounces those “who say and think that they know the Real Truth, God Himself, from external wisdom and from the writings studied, and that by these means they acquire knowledge of the hidden mysteries of God, which are revealed only by the Spirit.”

1.2. Supernatural knowledge of God

Genuine knowledge of God, or knowledge of God in the true sense of the word, can only be called supernatural knowledge of God. It is given to a person only through experience, through the direct influx of the Holy Spirit. All the truths of the Christian faith in the Holy Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church are only slightly revealed to us, and in full they are known only in the experience of a grace-filled life.

The Holy Fathers see two successive stages in the supernatural knowledge of God. The first stage is characteristic of the Old Testament, “pre-Christian” humanity. This is Revelation in some external images, for example, images such as the “Burning Bush”, the ladder that Patriarch Jacob saw in a vision, etc. These images have educational significance for a person.

For the first time in Christian theology, the question of the nature and boundaries of the knowledge of God was posed in the context of the Trinitarian disputes of the 4th century.

In 356, Aetius (Aetius) preached “anomaeism” in Alexandria (anomaeism literally means “unlikeness”). The Anomeans were extreme Arians who denied not only the Orthodox doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, but even the moderate, compromise doctrine between Orthodoxy and Arianism about the likeness of the Son to the Father.

Then Aetius moved to Antioch, where he began his preaching. The church historian Sozomen tells us about Aetius that he “was strong in the art of inference and experienced in word debate.” Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus writes about Aetius: “From morning to evening he sat at his studies, trying to draw up definitions about God through geometric figures.”

Thus, dogmatics turned for Aetius into a kind of game and dialectic of concepts, and he, in his vanity, went so far as to claim that he “knows God as well as he does not know himself.”

2.1.1. Eunomian doctrine

Aetius had students, among whom was a certain Eunomius, a Cappadocian by birth, who occupied the episcopal see in Cyzicus. It was Eunomius who gave the dialectic of Aetius logical harmony and completeness.

He argued that “the true goal of man and the only content of faith ... lies in the knowledge of God, and, moreover, a purely theoretical one.”

In the context of the Trinitarian disputes of the late 4th century, a very important and fundamental theological question was posed: “How is knowledge of God possible at all?”

For the Orthodox, answering this question was not very difficult, since the Orthodox theory of knowledge of God is based on the idea of ​​consubstantiality; let us remember the words of the Apostle Philip at the Last Supper: “Lord! Show us the Father, and that is enough for us.” And the Lord answers him: “I have been with you for so long, and you do not know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father... Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me” (John 14:8-10).

Thus, for the Orthodox, the fullness of knowledge of God is possible in Christ due to the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. Naturally, the Anomeans, who were extreme Arians, could not accept such epistemology and were forced to create their own theory of knowledge. Eunomius set about developing this Arian theory of knowledge in detail.

Eunomius's theory is called the "theory of names." He argued that all the concepts that people use can be divided into two classes. The first are concepts named by people or concepts “by imagination”. From the point of view of Eunomius, these concepts are some kind of logical fictions that only conditionally indicate things; in essence, these are some nicknames of things that say nothing about the nature of objects and do not contain any objective knowledge.

Eunomius contrasts “subject” names with these logical fictions. These names indicate the very essence of a thing. They are inextricably linked with things and are, as it were, the energies of things. In these names the wisdom of God is revealed, accordingly and incrementally adapting the names of each created object. It is these objective or sophia names that can be decomposed into concepts and signs; they give us objective knowledge about the world.

Here is the teaching of Eunomius as presented by L.P. Karsavin: “God... manifests Himself in this world by the fruits of His activity, testifying to Him... God created the relationship, the action and the correspondence of things to each other; He agreed the name (name) with each of the named things in accordance with their laws,” that is, with their essence. Thus, the basic concepts, Aristotelian categories, “names” are given to us; and our knowledge, consisting of concepts, is not our invention, but knowledge in its origin is revealed. When, for example, God commanded the earth to arise from nothing, he pronounced the name earth, and the earth appeared as the realization of this name. God planted it in our souls. Therefore, based on names or concepts, it is possible to construct a logically expressible system and achieve complete clarity.”

In other words, the theory of names presupposes an initial agreement, established by God, between the world of things and the structure of the human cognitive mind. All things are created in accordance with certain categories, and these same categories are innate to the human mind. The purpose of knowledge is only to establish a correspondence between the concepts of the objective world and the human mind.

Naturally, Eunomius does not stop there, since disputes about the methods and boundaries of knowledge in the 4th century were primarily related to the question of knowledge of God.

Along with the names of sensory things, there are also names of intelligible things, which also contain the most accurate reproduction of what is named. In particular, there are names of God, and if this is so, then one can know God no worse than He knows Himself.

We need to keep in mind that some textbooks on this subject say that Eunomius argued that the Divine essence is knowable, but this is not entirely true, in fact, Eunomius does not hold that the Divine essence is knowable. He talks about names that most fully and adequately express the essence, but does not talk about knowledge of the essence as such.

According to Eunomius, the goal of man as a subject of knowledge is to find from the entire multitude of Divine names a name that would most closely correspond to the nature of the Divine. Repeating his teacher Aetius, Eunomius says that a name that is applicable only to God and inapplicable to creatures is the name “unborn.” This word is the most complete expression of the Divine essence.

2.1.2. The doctrine of the knowledge of God by the great Cappadocians and St. John Chrysostom

Criticism of the Eunomian theory of names and a positive disclosure of the Orthodox teaching on knowledge belong to the great Cappadocians Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, as well as St. John Chrysostom. First of all, the Cappadocian fathers rejected, as unacceptable anthropomorphism, the idea of ​​Eunomius that God named the essence of objects in any pronounced names.

In contrast to Eunomius, they argued that God creates by His omnipotent will and does not, like man, need any audible words. In this sense, the naming of things, that is, the combination of sounds by which this or that thing is signified, is a product of reason and has a random character.

At the same time, the holy fathers argued that there is no such concept that could most accurately express the divine essence. We cannot reduce our knowledge of God to any one concept. Saint Gregory the Theologian wrote (Sermon 38 // Creative Part 3, p. 196):

“The Divine nature is, as it were, a sea of ​​Essence, indefinite and infinite, extending beyond any concept of time and nature.”

The most profound criticism of Eunomianism was given by St. Basil the Great. Saint Basil rejected the division of names or concepts into ontologically significant and empty ones. In fact, all the concepts and names that people use exist for a reason; they are created by people for a specific purpose.

If these concepts allow a person to somehow cognize the world around him, to navigate in this world, if they allow a person to analyze the surrounding reality (and this is indeed the case - without concepts we cannot logically rationally express our experience), then these concepts are not empty, they carry a certain semantic load, and because of this, no absolutely empty concepts that would not give us any knowledge simply do not exist. Just as there are no empty, meaningless concepts, it is impossible to accept the theory of the so-called Sophia names, that is, some concepts that would contain the most accurate expression of the essence of things.

In essence, as St. Basil rightly notes, the teaching of Eunomius leads to the denial of human activity in the matter of knowledge, including the knowledge of God. It turns out that cognition is a passive process, which consists solely in establishing a correspondence between the eternal names-concepts that are initially implanted in the human soul, and the things surrounding a person.

The teaching of Eunomius completely ignores experience. In essence, Eunomius does not say anything about the fact that all knowledge presupposes personal experience, especially this is true in relation to the knowledge of God.

On the one hand, our experience can be significant for us only if it is rationally expressed through concepts, but, on the other hand, the concepts themselves presuppose experience and are possible only through experience and in experience.

In fact, if you tell a person about some thing that he has never seen and has never heard anything about, then the very name of the thing will remain an empty phrase for the person; it will not impart any knowledge to him, since all human concepts arise from experience and experience assume. However, experience cannot in any way be reduced to concepts. Analysis of reality presupposes contemplation, but contemplation is never exhaustive.

There always remains in our experience some irrational residue that cannot be decomposed into signs. This means that things, including created things, in their ultimate essence are incomprehensible to us. Moreover, this is true in relation to Divine reality. Saint Basil says that:

“There is not a single name that would embrace the entire nature of God and would be sufficient to express it completely.”

Moreover, names do not exist by themselves. Names are always associated with the knower, that is, associated with the subject of knowledge, and they do not speak about things in general - they speak about the subject of knowledge, i.e. they speak about the knowable for the knower.

Names, as it were, establish the standard of our judgments about objects, and in this sense, names are always “after things”, i.e.; they will follow things logically. When applied to God, this means that God is known insofar as He reveals Himself in the world.

Saint Gregory the Theologian says: “To imagine oneself knowing that God exists is a corruption of the mind.” God is known not by considering what is in Himself, but what is around Him”...

In 28 “Sermon on Theology” (Sermon 28, On Theology, Part III, p. 27, 1846), St. Gregory explains why it is impossible to “know that God exists?”

“The Divinity,” says St. Gregory, “will necessarily be limited if It is comprehended by thought. For this concept is also a type of limitation.”

In fact, conceptual cognition is always associated with limitation; to define something always means to bring something specific to a common denominator, to unify it, discarding the individual qualities and properties of the object.

However, if Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Saint Basil the Great gave a brilliant critique of Eunomianism, then the positive development of the Orthodox teaching on the knowledge of God belongs for the most part to Saint Gregory of Nyssa.

St. Gregory of Nyssa notes that for Eunomius, knowledge is the “art of words”; Eunomius turned theology itself into a logical and philosophical analysis of the concepts expressed. However, the Divinity, according to St. Gregory, is “where the concept does not ascend.”

Therefore, the attempts of Eunomius seem to St. Gregory not only theoretically untenable, but also spiritually harmful. He sees in Eunomius’s constructions a kind of intellectual idolatry:

“Every concept compiled by natural understanding and assumption, in accordance with some intelligible idea, creates an idol of God, and does not proclaim God himself,” since “the indefinable nature cannot be embraced by any name.”

God is so superior to every concept, so superior to everything created, that knowledge of Him is inaccessible not only to man, but also to intellectual forces, that is, to the angelic world.

“God cannot be captured by a name, or a concept, or any other “comprehensible power of the mind... He is above all not only human, but even angelic and supermundane comprehension.”

However, for St. Gregory of Nyssa, as well as for all Cappadocians, the incomprehensibility of the Divine essence does not at all mean the impossibility or inaccessibility of knowledge of God:

“What is invisible by nature becomes visible in actions seen in something that is around Him.”

This doctrine of the knowledge of God is called the doctrine of the unknowability of the Divine essence and the knowability of God in His actions or energies.

The essence of this teaching is accurately conveyed in the following words of St. Basil the Great:

“We claim that we know our God by actions, but we do not promise to get closer to the essence itself. His actions descend to us, but His essence remains inaccessible.”

However, the doctrine of the unknowability of the Divine essence, from the point of view of the Cappadocians, does not at all mean that human knowledge of God is defective. Of course, no one except God can know God in all its fullness, but nevertheless, even with the knowledge of God in his actions or energies, we are quite capable of obtaining knowledge about Him sufficient for salvation, for the correct organization of spiritual life.

Here are the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa (Against Eunomius, book XII, chapter 2, part VI, pp. 304-305):

“The nature of God, in itself, in its essence, is above all comprehending thinking: it is inaccessible and elusive to any rational methods of thought, and no power has yet been discovered in people capable of comprehending the incomprehensible, and no means have been invented to understand the inexplicable.” But at the same time, “The Divinity, as completely incomprehensible and incomparable with anything, is known by activity alone. There is no doubt that the mind cannot penetrate into the essence of God, but it will comprehend the activity of God and, on the basis of this activity, receives such knowledge of God that is quite sufficient for its weak powers.”

The incomprehensibility of the divine essence does not place any limits on the knowledge of God. The knowledge of God is also unlimited, just as the path of man’s ascent to spiritual perfection is unlimited, that is, the knowledge of God is as endless as God Himself.

The last point in the polemic with Eunomianism was put by Saint John Chrysostom, who polemicized not so much with Eunomius himself (this was already at the turn of the 4th-5th centuries), but with his followers.

An example of how the thought of St. John Chrysostom moves is his words from the third Discourse against the Anomeans, which is an interpretation of 1 Tim. 6, 16. This verse reads as follows:

“The One who has immortality, Who dwells in the unapproachable light, Whom no man has seen and cannot see.”

These are the words of St. John Chrysostom (Against the Anomeans. Demon. 111.2):

“Note the precision of Paul’s expression. He did not say “who is in an inaccessible light,” but: “in the light he lives more impregnable,” so that you would know that if a dwelling is inaccessible, then God who lives in it is much more so... Moreover, he did not say: “he lives in an incomprehensible light,” but “inapproachable.” , which is much more incomprehensible. Incomprehensible is that which, even though explored and found, remains incomprehensible to those who seek it, and inaccessible is that which does not allow even the beginning of research, to which no one can approach.”

Like most Western theologians of that time, Barlaam was strongly influenced by St. Augustine. St. Augustine was the first theologian who refused to distinguish between essence and energy in God. He believed that this contradicts the doctrine of simplicity, unity, and integrity of the divine essence.

In this respect, Augustine turned out to be even lower than his pagan teachers, from whom he studied philosophy, such as, say, Plotinus, who made such a division in the Divinity between essence and energies.

From this, Varlaam concluded that the Divine essence is incommunicable, completely unknowable, in this he agreed with the Eastern fathers, however, since he denied in God the distinction between essence and energy, he argued that the energies of the Divine are certain created divine forces.

The reason for the clash was a hesychast dispute. Varlaam visited Athos and became acquainted with the practice of the Athonite monks, who in mental visions contemplated the uncreated, as they were sure, Divine Light. Varlaam considered this a manifestation of ignorance and ridiculed the Athonite ascetics in his pamphlets. Saint Gregory Palamas stood up to defend the authenticity of the experience of Orthodox ascetics.

This dispute, which began in the middle of the 14th century, was, as it were, a logical continuation of the dispute of a thousand years ago, because in the 4th century the holy fathers perfectly developed the doctrine of the unknowability of God in essence and of His knowability in energies, but nevertheless, this doctrine was not one very important aspect is determined, namely: what is the nature of the energies in which God is known. It was this question that lay at the heart of the dispute in the 14th century.

Since the Athonite monks claimed that they contemplated the uncreated divine light, identical to the light that Christ’s disciples Peter, James and John saw on Mount Tabor, these disputes are often called disputes about the nature of the Tabor light.

From Varlaam’s point of view, the Tabor light is a kind of atmospheric phenomenon, nothing more. He believed that all the theophanies that the Holy Scripture speaks of are nothing more than created symbols that God creates in order to communicate with man through them.

From the premises of Varlaam’s teaching it followed that genuine communion with God is impossible for man. Deification as the goal of human life is also unrealistic; one can know God only through created things.

Thus, Barlaam, following Eunomius, denied the importance of experience in the matter of knowledge of God, and for him theology is a kind of theoretical reasoning based on divinely revealed premises drawn from the Holy Scriptures.

In its essence, the error of Barlaam is the exact opposite of the error of Eunomius. Eunomius was too optimistic about human cognitive abilities and believed that a person with his mind can achieve adequate and full knowledge about God, that the Divine can know as well as God knows Himself.

Varlaam fell to the opposite extreme and believed that there could be no real knowledge of God at all, that it was impossible to personally come into contact with God, that God tells us something about Himself only through created symbols specially created for this purpose.

2.2.2. The teaching of St. Gregory Palamas on the difference in God's essence and energy

Saint Gregory Palamas subjected Barlaam's teaching to thorough criticism.

Firstly, Saint Gregory proceeds from the fact that God cannot be identified with the philosophical concept of “essence.” At the same time, Saint Gregory refers to Ex. 3, 14. God, revealing Himself to Moses, says “I am who I am,” and I who am is He who is greater than essence. The Existent is the One to whom the essence belongs. Therefore, God is not just an entity, but a Person.

Further, Saint Gregory substantiates the eternity of divine energies. His reasoning is structured as follows: if God did not have energies (by energies St. Gregory means knowledge, wisdom, creativity, glory, light, etc.), then he would not be God. In fact, all created beings have certain energies in which they manifest themselves. Is there any reason to deny these energies to God? If God did not have these energies, then He would not be God. If God acquired these energies only over time, for example, after the creation of the world, then we should conclude that until that moment God was imperfect, which contradicts the teaching of God as an absolute being.

St. Maximus the Confessor, to whom St. Gregory referred, wrote that “being, and life, and holiness, and power are the actions of God, not acquired over time.” And since created beings also have natural actions, then, of course, God must also have natural actions. Therefore God was never without action and life.

Saint Gregory also refers to the texts of Holy Scripture. The High Priestly Prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ (John 17:5) speaks of the glory that the Son of God had with the Father before the world was. Consequently, glory, as one of the Divine energies, is eternal.

He also refers to 2 Pet. 1:4, where the apostle says that we must “become partakers of the divine nature.” These words in the East have always been used as a biblical justification for the possibility of true deification, that is, the real union of man with God.

Thus, the polemic of St. Gregory Palamas against Barlaam is not theoretical, but purely practical. Saint Gregory first of all set himself the goal of protecting spiritual experience, and not even only his own experience or the experience of the Athonite monks, but the experience that permeates the entire ascetic tradition of the Eastern Church.

The teaching of St. Gregory Palamas received the name of the doctrine of the unknowability of the Divine essence and the knowability of God in uncreated energies.

This doctrine can be reduced to the following basic principles:

1. There is a “God-worthy difference” between essence and energy. Essence is the cause of energy. Essence does not allow involvement, energy does. One can speak about the essence of the Divine only in the singular, and about energy - in the plural. The essence of the Divine is not named (that is, it cannot be expressed by any name, it can only be spoken of in negative formulas), while energy is named.

2. Energy is uncreated Divine grace (i.e., not created). It comes from the essence, but in its emanation it is not separated from the essence.

3. The distinction in God between essence and energy does not contradict the simplicity of the Deity. We encounter similar examples in the created world. For example, according to St. Gregory, the human mind can serve as such an example, because, on the one hand, in the human mind we can distinguish the essence, and on the other, the various actions and abilities that are inherent in the mind. However, despite this difference, no one will argue that the human mind is something complex and composed of elements.

4. Energy can be called “God”. Energy is God Himself, or, more correctly, a special way of being of God outside of one’s own essence.

5. Participation in God is participation in His energies, and not in any way in essence.

The teaching of St. Gregory, which was shared by subsequent fathers (Nicholas Cabasilas, St. Mark of Ephesus, etc.), undoubtedly has a basis in the Holy Scriptures, where one can find two types of statements about the possibility for a person to know God.

Some talk about the inaccessibility of God to our knowledge. For example, the words of 1 Tim. 6:16 that God “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see.” Or Job. 36:26, when one of Job’s friends, Elihu, says: “God is great, and we cannot know Him”...

However, there are at least no fewer statements that talk about the possibility of knowing God, about the possibility of direct vision, contemplation of the Divine. For example, the prophet Isaiah had his famous vision in the temple (Is. 6:5): “my eyes saw the King, the Lord of hosts.” The Lord Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:8), says that “blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

Thus, there are two groups of statements that at first glance contradict each other. According to the teachings of St. Gregory, all texts of Holy Scripture that speak about the unknowability of the Divine should be attributed to the unknowable divine essence, and those that, on the contrary, speak about the possibility of knowing God, about the possibility of direct vision of Him, should be attributed to divine energies.

The words of the Apostle Paul from 1 Cor. relate to the unknowable divine essence. 2:11 “No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.” Here, of course, the divine essence is meant.

3. The concept of apophatic and cataphatic theology

According to Orthodox teaching, God is both transcendent and immanent. V. N. Lossky has such beautiful words: “in the immanence of Revelation, God affirms Himself as transcendent to creation,” that is, by revealing Himself in energies, God thereby affirms that He is essentially unapproachable.

Because of this, there are two closely interrelated ways of knowing God. Even pre-Christian authors, in particular the Neoplatonists, knew that the attempt to think of God in Himself ultimately plunges a person into silence; all verbal expressions and concepts, which, by defining, inevitably limit the subject of knowledge, cannot allow us to embrace the infinite.

In other words, the experience of knowledge of God is inexplicable at its limit. And, therefore, the path of negation is legal, the apophatic path, that is, the desire to know God not in what He is, that is, not in accordance with our created experience, but in what He is not.

The path of apophatic theology is, first of all, a practical path. The goal of apophatic theology is personal union with the Living God. This path of ascent to God presupposes the consistent denial by the ascetic of God of all properties and qualities that are in one way or another inherent in created nature. For his ascent, a person must eliminate from his mind the idea of ​​all created things, not only the material, but also the spiritual, and renounce the most sublime concepts, such as love, wisdom and even existence itself!

The path of apophatic ascent to God is an ascetic path, which presupposes purification on the part of man and allows one to achieve a mysterious union with the Personal God in a state of ecstasy.

Knowledge obtained in a state of ecstasy is apophatic in the full sense. A person, reaching an ineffable state of unity with God, actually receives some knowledge about God, as if directly seeing Him, but when he comes out of this state, it is discovered that there are no means in human language that would allow him to express this experience. And one can only talk about this experience purely negatively, as the Apostle Paul did when he said, of course, meaning himself, that he knew a man who was caught up to the third heaven and saw there what the eye had not seen, heard what the ear did not hear, and felt something that did not come to the person’s heart.

God is not only a certain essence, as non-Christian mystics think of God, but also a Person who reveals Himself to man in His actions or energies.

The Holy Scripture, in accordance with these energies of the Divine, forms the names that we use when we talk about God: goodness, love, wisdom, life, truth, etc. These names, neither each individually nor all together, are not exhaust the Divine essence, they speak only of what relates to the essence. If we assume the opposite, that God is defined by His attributes, His properties and qualities, then we must admit that God is not an absolute Person, but is defined through the characteristics of His own nature.

There is a close connection between the two paths of knowledge of God, apophatic and cataphatic. Cataphatic theology is the support of apophatic ascent. In His actions, God reveals Himself to man and thereby makes knowledge of God possible, but each step that is achieved in this ascent is not the last step; behind it new opportunities open up for further ascent.

Thus, cataphatic theology has practical significance for apophatic ascent; it is like a kind of ladder along the steps of which a person makes his ascent. Also, apophatic theology has a certain significance for cataphatic theology. V. N. Lossky explains this idea as follows: “Constant remembrance of the apophatic path should purify our concepts and not allow them to become isolated in their limited meanings.”

Introduction

Before embarking on a course in dogmatic theology, it is useful to ask the question: what is theology? How do Holy Scripture and the Church Fathers understand the essence and purpose of theology?

The words “theologian”, “theology”, “theologize” - are they found in the text of Holy Scripture? - No. A remarkable fact: on the one hand, we say that the source of our doctrine is the Holy Scripture, and at the same time these terms themselves - “theologian”, “theology”, “to theologize” - are not found either in the Old Testament or in the Testament New.

The term “theology” itself is an ancient Greek term; the Greeks called those who taught about the gods theologians.

In Christianity, the term “theology” can be interpreted in two ways. Firstly, theology can be understood as God’s word about Himself, as well as about the world He created. In this case, theology turns out to be identical in content to Divine Revelation. The second, more common, meaning of this word is the teaching of the Church or of some individual theologian about God. Essentially, such a teaching is nothing more than evidence of the understanding of Divine Revelation by one or another author.

In the ancient Church, theology itself was called the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The remaining parts of the doctrine (about the creation of the world, about the incarnation of God the Word, about salvation, about the Church, about the Second Coming, etc.) belonged to the field of Divine economy or Divine economy (οίκονομία) in Greek. - the art of home management; οίκος - house, νόμος - law), i.e., the activity of God in creation, Providence and salvation of the world.

Today, theology is understood as a set of religious sciences, among which there are basic, comparative moral, and pastoral sciences, but theology in the proper sense of the word is dogmatic theology.

A few words about the term “theologian.” How honorable the title of “theologian” was in ancient times is evidenced by the fact that among the host of saints of the Orthodox Church, only three saints of God were awarded this high title. Firstly, this is John the Theologian, the author of the fourth Gospel, who laid the foundations for the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and was the link that connects Divine Revelation with patristic theology. Secondly, this is Saint Gregory the Theologian, who defended the Orthodox teaching of the Holy Trinity during the fierce trinitarian disputes of the 4th century and sang the Most Holy Trinity in his poetic works. And, finally, Simeon the New Theologian, an ascetic who lived at the turn of the 10th-11th centuries, who, based on personal experience, sang in his “Divine Hymns” the union of man with the Triune Divinity.

So there are not too many theologians in theology. The word “theology” itself does not appear immediately in the Christian lexicon. Even the apostolic men and apologists of the second century were wary of it, since it reminded them of the philosophical speculations of pagan thinkers. The word “theology” was first introduced into the Christian lexicon by the apologist of the second half of the 2nd century, Athenagoras of Athens. With this term he designated the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. This word finally gained a foothold in the Christian dictionary somewhat later, mainly thanks to the Alexandrian theological school, such representatives as Clement of Alexandria and, in particular, Origen (1, 1).

However, the holy fathers, when using the term “theology,” often used it in a meaning noticeably different from the one in which we understand it today. For example, Evagrius of Pontus, an author of the 4th century, writes: “If you are a theologian, then you will pray truly, and if you pray truly, then you are a theologian.”

Saint Diadochos of Photikis (5th century) said that theology “conveys the greatest of gifts to the soul, uniting it with God in an indestructible union.”

In some of the holy fathers one can find real hymns to theology, for example, Peter of Damascus calls theology the highest of the eight degrees of spiritual contemplation, the eschatological reality of the future age, which allows us to come out of ourselves in ecstatic admiration.

Thus, theology means something more to the Holy Fathers than it means to us. Although the holy fathers were not alien to the modern understanding of this word, that is, the understanding of theology as a systematic presentation of Christian doctrine using the abilities of the human mind, since reason is a gift of God and should not be denied, such an understanding was secondary.

First of all, theology was understood as a vision of the God of the Trinity, which presupposes not only the work of the human mind, but also the full participation of the human person. Consequently, it must include both the ability of intuitive spiritual comprehension, what in patristic language is called by the Greek word “νοΰς” (“mind”), and the participation of the human heart (καρδία), naturally, in the biblical and patristic, and not in the anatomical sense of this words. We can say that among the holy fathers, “theology” (θεολογία) is practically synonymous with the word “theory” (θεωρία), contemplation, which presupposes direct communication with the living God, and, therefore, an inextricable connection with prayer.

Another essential point of the patristic teaching on theology: theology must necessarily be an integral part of a person’s total service to God. Genuine theology is not speculative schemes and textbooks, genuine theology is always alive, therefore it is always liturgical, mystical, doxological.

“This is a gift of God, the fruit of the inner purity of a Christian’s spiritual life. Theology is identified with the vision of God, with the direct vision of the personal God, the personal experience of the transformation of creation by uncreated grace. Theology is not a theory of the world, a metaphysical system, but an expression and formulation of the experience of the Church, not an intellectual discipline, but experiential communication, communion” (Quoted by).

Although the word “theology” does not appear in Holy Scripture, we can nevertheless find many places in the Bible where the nature of theology is spoken of. Let us dwell on five biblical texts that allow us to partially understand what the essence of theology is.

1. In. 1, 18: “No one has ever seen God; The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed.”

Introduction

PART ONE. INTRODUCTION TO DOGMATIC THEOLOGY
Section I. Dogmatic theology as a science
Chapter 1. The concept of dogmatic theology
1.1. Subject of dogmatic theology. The concept of dogma
1.2. Properties of dogmas
1.2.1. Theology (doctrinality)
1.2.2. Godly revelation
1.2.3. Churchness
1.2.4. Generally binding (legally binding)
1.3. Dogmas and theological opinions. Heresy
1.4. Dogmas, dogmatic formulas and theological terms
1.5. Dogmatic systems
1.6. Reasons for the emergence of dogmas
1.7. Basic principles for revealing the content of dogmatic truths
1.8. Purpose of dogmas
1.9. The assimilation of dogmatic truths by human consciousness
Chapter 2. Development of dogmatic science
2.1. The Completeness of New Testament Revelation and the Development of Dogmatic Science
2.2. The theory of "dogmatic development"
2.3. Orthodox view on the development of dogmatic science
2.4. Tasks and method of theological dogmatic science
Section II. Sacred Tradition
Chapter 1. Sacred Tradition in the Orthodox Faith
1.1. The concept of Sacred Tradition
1.2. The relationship between Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition: Holy Scripture as a form of Holy Tradition
1.3. Modern Orthodox theology on Sacred Tradition
Chapter 2. Forms of Tradition
2.1. Rule of Faith
2.1.1. Articles of Faith and Confessions of Faith
2.1.2. Conciliar definitions of faith
2.1.3. Symbolic books
2.2. Liturgical tradition
2.3. Creations of St. fathers and teachers of the Church
2.3.1. Sanctity of life
2.3.2. Soundness, or truth, of teachings
2.3.3. Church Testimony
2.4. Other forms of Sacred Tradition
Section III. Knowledge of God and its boundaries
Chapter 1. Knowledge of God in the life of a Christian. Natural and supernatural ways of knowing God
1.1. Natural knowledge of God (knowledge of God based on natural Revelation)
1.2. Knowledge of God based on the Holy Scriptures and the works of the saints. fathers
1.3. Supernatural knowledge of God
Chapter 2. The nature and boundaries of knowledge of God
2.1. Disputes about the nature and boundaries of knowledge of God in the 4th century.
2.1.1. Eunomian doctrine
2.1.2. The doctrine of the knowledge of God of the Great Cappadocians and Saints. John Chrysostom
2.2. Disputes about the nature and boundaries of knowledge of God in the 14th century.
2.2.1. Doctrine of Barlaam of Calabria
2.2.2. The teaching is holy. Gregory Palamas on the difference between essence and energy in God
Chapter 3. The concept of apophatic and cataphatic theology

PART TWO. ABOUT GOD IN HIMSELF
Section I. Being, essence and properties of God
Chapter 1. The concept of the apophatic properties of God
1.2. Immutability
1.3. Eternity
1.4. Immeasurability and Omnipresence
Chapter 2. The concept of cataphatic properties of God
2.1. The relationship of the cataphatic properties of God to God Himself and the truth of our ideas about God
2.1.1. On the ontological status of Divine properties
2.1.2. On the reliability of our knowledge of God
2.2. Cataphatic properties of God
2.2.1. Reason, wisdom and omniscience
2.2.2. Holiness
2.2.3. Omnipotence
2.2.4. All-bliss (supreme bliss)
2.2.5. Goodness, love and mercy
2.2.6. God's Truth
2.2.7. The goodness and truth of God in their relationship
2.3. Anthropomorphisms of Holy Scripture

Section II. About God, Trinity in Persons
Chapter 1. Testimonies of Divine Revelation about the Trinity
1.1. Dogma of the Holy Trinity
1.1.1. The Dogma of the Holy Trinity - the foundation of the Christian religion
1.1.2. The Holy Trinity and analogies of the trinity from the created world
1.2. Evidence from Revelation of the Trinity of Persons in God
1.2.1. Evidence of the Trinity in the Old Testament
1.2.2. New Testament Evidence
1.2.3. The belief of the ancient Church in the Trinity of the Godhead
1.3. Revelation's Evidence of the Divine Dignity and Equality of the Divine Persons
1.3.1. Divine Dignity of God the Father
1.3.2. Evidence from Revelation of the Divine Dignity of the Son and His Equality with the Father
1.3.3. Evidence from Revelation of the Divine Dignity of the Holy Spirit and His Equality with the Father and the Son
Chapter 2. Brief history of the dogma of the Holy Trinity
2.1. Pre-Nicene period in the history of Trinity theology
2.1.1. The teaching of the apologists
2.1.2. Monarchianism
2.1.3. Origen's doctrine of the Trinity
2.2. Trinitarian disputes of the 4th century
2.2.1. Prerequisites for the emergence of Arianism. Lucian of Samosatsky
2.2.2. Doctrine of Arius
2.2.3. Controversy with Arianism in the 4th century. Triadology of the saints. Athanasius the Great
2.2.4. Doukhoborism (πνευματομαχία)
2.3. Trinitarian errors after the Second Ecumenical Council
Chapter 3. Triadology of the Great Cappadocians
3.1. Trinity terminology
3.1.1. The terms "essence" and "nature"
3.1.2. The terms “hypostasis” and “person”
3.2. Conceptual and terminological system of Cappadocian triadology
Chapter 4. Consubstantial Persons of the Most Holy Trinity and Their Difference in Hypostatic Properties
4.1. Evidence of Revelation about the Relationship of Divine Persons
4.2. Personal (hypostatic) properties
4.3. The Trinity of Divine Persons and the category of number (quantity)
4.4. How to correctly think about the relationships of Divine Persons?
The image of the pre-eternal birth and the pre-eternal procession
4.5. Doctrine of the Monarchy of the Father
4.6. Roman Catholic doctrine of the Filioque
4.7. Consubstantial Persons of the Most Holy Trinity
4.8. Image of the Revelation of the Holy Trinity in the world

PART THREE. ABOUT GOD IN HIS RELATION TO THE WORLD AND MAN
Section I. God as Creator and Provider of the world
Chapter 1. God as Creator of the World
1.1. Non-Christian concepts of the origin of the world
1.1.1. Dualism
1.1.2. Pantheism
1.2. Christian doctrine of the origin of the world
1.3. The main objections to the doctrine of the creation of the world out of nothing
1.4. Image of God's creation of the world
1.5. Creation and time
1.6. Participation of all Persons of the Holy Trinity in the work of creation
1.7. The motive and purpose of creation
1.8. Perfection of creation
Chapter 2. God as the Provider of the world
2.1. The concept of God's Providence
2.2. The Reality of God's Providence
2.3. The main objections to the reality of Providence
2.4. False teachings about Providence
2.5. Actions of Divine Providence
2.6. Items of Divine Providence and types of Providence
2.7. Images of Divine providence for the world
2.8. Participation of the Persons of the Holy Trinity in the work of Providence
2.9. On the possibility of knowledge of God's Providence by man
Chapter 3. The spiritual world, or angelic
3.1. Angels in Scripture
3.2. Objections to the existence of angels
3.3. Creation of Angels by God
3.4. Time of creation of angels
3.5. The Nature of Angels
3.6. Properties of Angelic Nature
3.6.1. Spirituality and disembodiment
3.6.2. The relationship of angels to space and time
3.6.3. Immortality
3.7. Perfection of Angelic Nature
3.8. Number of angels
3.9. Heavenly hierarchy
3.10. Archangels
3.11. On the prayerful veneration of angels
3.12. God's providence for the spiritual world
3.12.1. God's providence for good angels
3.12.2. God's providence regarding evil spirits and the origin of evil

Section II. Orthodox teaching about man
Chapter 1. The Creation of Man
1.1. Creation of man by God
1.2. Marriage. God-established method of human reproduction
1.3. The origin of the entire human race from Adam and Eve. Pre-Adamism and Polygenism
Chapter 2. Origin and properties of the human soul
2.1. The Composition of Human Nature: Dichotomy and Trichotomy
2.2. The importance of the body in the composition of human nature
2.3. Origin of human souls
2.3.1. Opinion about the pre-existence of human souls
2.3.2. Opinion on the creation of human souls
2.3.3. Opinion about the birth of human souls
2.4. Properties of the human soul
2.5. The difference between the human soul and the souls of animals
Chapter 3. The image and likeness of God in man
3.1. General concept about the image of God in man
3.2. The likeness of God, the relationship between image and likeness
3.3. Personalistic understanding of the image of God in modern Orthodox theology
Chapter 4. Appointment of a person
4.1. The purpose of man in relation to God
4.2. A person's purpose in relation to himself
4.3. The purpose of man in relation to the rest of creation
Chapter 5. The State of Man Before the Fall
5.1. Perfection of human nature before the Fall
5.2. God's care for man before the Fall
5.3. Was Adam immortal before the Fall?
5.4. Did Adam distinguish between good and evil before the Fall?

Section III. About God the Savior and His special relationship to the human race
Chapter 1. The Fall and its consequences
1.1. The Essence of the Fall
1.2. Consequences of the Fall
1.2.1. Consequences of the Fall in the relationship between God and man
1.2.2. Consequences of the Fall in human nature
1.2.3. Consequences of the Fall in relationships between people
1.2.4. Consequences of the Fall in the external world and in the relationship between the world and man
1.3. Orthodox teaching on the spread of sin in the world
1.3.1. Concept of sin
1.3.2. The universality of sin and the way it spreads throughout the human race
1.3.3. Original sin
1.4. Imputation of original sin
Chapter 2. Teaching of the Church about the Face of Christ the Savior
2.1. The Eternal Council of the Most Holy Trinity for the salvation of the human race. Participation of the Persons of the Holy Trinity in the salvation of man
2.2. The Lord Jesus Christ is the true God
2.3. The Lord Jesus Christ is a true man
2.3.1. Revelation Evidence of the Humanity of Jesus Christ
2.3.2. Misconceptions about the humanity of Jesus Christ
2.3.3. Differences between Jesus Christ and us in humanity
2.4. Orthodox teaching about the Person of the Redeemer
2.4.1. A Brief History of Dogma
2.4.2. Orthodox teaching on the hypostatic essence and the complex hypostasis
2.4.3. The image of the hypostatic union of two natures in Christ
2.4.4. Consequences of the hypostatic union of two natures in Jesus Christ in relation to Himself
2.4.5. Consequences of the hypostatic union of two natures in Jesus Christ in relation to the Most Holy Trinity
2.4.6. Consequences of the hypostatic union of two natures in Jesus Christ in relation to the Virgin Mary

Section IV. The doctrine of the accomplishment of our salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ, or the sacrament of atonement
Chapter 1. The concept of salvation and redemption in the light of Holy Scripture
1.1. Etymology of the word "redemption"
1.2. Purpose of Redemption
1.3. Biblical and patristic images of the salvation accomplished by Christ
Chapter 2. Theories of the Atonement
2.1. Legal theory of atonement
2.2. Positive aspects of legal theory
2.3. Disadvantages of legal theory
2.4. Moral theory of the atonement
2.5. Pros and cons of the moral theory of the atonement
2.6. Attempts to comprehend the patristic teaching on atonement in the works of modern Orthodox theologians
Chapter 3. The Work of Redemption and Its Components
3.1. Why is the work of redemption accomplished by Christ the Savior associated with the greatest feat for Him?
3.2. How to reconcile the doctrine of Divine mercy with the idea of ​​Divine truth and justice?
3.3. Ingredients of Redemption
3.3.1. Incarnation
3.3.2. Teachings of Our Lord Jesus Christ
3.3.3. Prophecies of Jesus Christ
3.3.4. Miracles of the Savior. The purposes for which Jesus Christ performed miracles
3.3.5. death on the cross
3.3.6. The Descent of Jesus Christ into Hell and Victory over Hell
3.3.7. Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ
3.3.8. The Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ into Heaven
3.3.9. Eternal reign of Jesus Christ after Ascension into heaven
3.4. The saving fruits of the redemptive feat of Jesus Christ

PART FOUR. ABOUT GOD AS SANCTIFYER, JUDGE AND WINNER
Section I. The Teaching of the Church About God the Sanctifier
Chapter 1. The need for Divine help for people to assimilate salvation
Chapter 2. The doctrine of grace as a power that sanctifies us
2.1. The concept of grace in the light of Holy Scripture
2.2. Participation of the Persons of the Holy Trinity in the distribution of grace
2.3. Types of Grace
2.3.1. Universal Grace
2.3.2. Actually church grace
2.4. The Relation of Grace to Freedom
2.4.1. False Teachings About the Relation of Grace to Freedom
2.4.2. Orthodox teaching on the relationship of grace to freedom
2.4.3. The importance of faith and good works in the dispensation of salvation

Section II. About the Church as an instrument through which the Lord accomplishes our salvation
Chapter 1. The concept of the Church of Christ
1.1. About the Church as a mediator in the work of sanctification
1.2. The concept of the Church of Christ
1.3. The concept of the Church of Christ on earth
1.4. Founding of the Church by the Lord Jesus Christ
1.5. Purpose and purpose of the Church
1.6. The Necessity of Belonging to the Church for Salvation
Chapter 2. Christological and pneumatological aspects of the Church
2.1. Lord Jesus Christ - Head of the Church
2.2. The Holy Spirit in the life of the Church
2.2.1. Christological aspect of the Church
2.2.2. The Pneumatological Aspect of the Church
2.2.3. Christological and pneumatological aspects of the Church in their unity
Chapter 3. Essential properties of the true Church of Christ
3.1. Unity of the Church
3.2. Holiness of the Church
3.3. Conciliarity, or catholicity, of the Church
3.4. Apostleship of the Church
Chapter 4. God-established church hierarchy
4.1. Apostles
4.2. Bishops
4.3. Elders
4.4. Deacons
Chapter 5. Union between the earthly Church and the heavenly Church
5.1. Intercessions of the saints for believers living on earth
5.2. Veneration of the Saints
5.3. Veneration of the relics of the holy saints of God
5.4. Veneration of holy icons

Section III. The concept of the sacraments as a means of human sanctification
Chapter 1. Orthodox teaching on the sacraments (sacramentology)
1.1. The concept of the sacraments. The difference between the sacraments and other sacred rites
1.2. The reality of the sacraments. Conditions for the validity of the sacraments
1.3. The effectiveness of the sacraments
1.4. The main differences between the Orthodox teaching on the sacraments and the Roman Catholic one
Chapter 2. The Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation
2.1. Sacrament of Baptism
2.2. Sacrament of Confirmation
Chapter 3. The Sacrament of the Eucharist
3.1. Eucharist as a sacrament
3.2. Offering of bread and wine in the sacrament of the Eucharist
3.3. Image of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Gifts
3.4. Relation of the Eucharist to the Sacrifice of Calvary
3.5. Eucharist as sacrifice
3.6. Liturgical Conclusions
3.7. The necessity and salvific value of communion of the Holy Mysteries
Chapter 4. Other Sacraments
4.1. Sacrament of Repentance
4.2. Sacrament of the Priesthood
4.3. Sacrament of marriage
4.4. The Sacrament of Anointing

Section IV. About God as Judge and Rewarder
Chapter 1. About God as a Judge and Rewarder for every person
1.1. Corporeal death and immortality of the soul
1.2. Private court
1.3. Retribution after a private trial
1.3.1. The state of the souls of the righteous after private judgment
1.3.2. The state of the souls of sinners after a private trial
1.4. Prayers of the Church for the departed
1.5. The afterlife of babies
1.6. Roman Catholic teaching on purgatory
Chapter 2. About God as Judge and Rewarder for the entire human race
2.1. The unknown time of the Second Coming
2.2. Signs of the Second Coming
2.3. Antichrist and the time of his coming
2.3.1. The idea of ​​the Antichrist in the light of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition
2.3.2. Warfare of the Antichrist with the Kingdom of Christ
2.4. The Second Coming of Christ, its reality and image
2.5. Resurrection of the Dead
2.5.1. The Reality of the Resurrection of the Dead
2.5.2. The universality and simultaneity of the resurrection of the dead
2.5.3. Change of the living at the resurrection of the dead
2.5.4. Identity of resurrected bodies with living bodies
2.5.5. Properties of resurrected bodies
2.6. General Court
2.6.1. Validity of universal judgment
2.6.2. The image and content of the general court
2.6.3. Related circumstances of the general trial
2.7. The false doctrine of chiliasm
2.8. Retribution after the General Judgment
2.8.1. Retribution for sinners, eternity and degrees of torment of sinners
2.8.2. Reward to the righteous, eternity and degrees of BLESS OF THE RIGHTEOUS
2.8.3. False doctrine of universal salvation (apokatastasis)