The historical reality of Christ.

Another author who mentions Christ is Pliny the Younger, who was a ruler in Asia Minor in 110-113. About him and his messages, the learned historian rightly concludes: “Here we are on solid ground.” The authenticity of the letters of Pliny the Younger (to the Emperor Trajan) is not disputed by anyone, but those passages that refer to Christians are considered by many to be inauthentic - but again without any reason, or, more accurately, out of a desire to eliminate all historical evidence about Christ!

This is what Pliny the Younger imp writes. Trajan. Pliny asks him: “Should Christians be punished for this very name - regardless of whether they have committed dishonor, or whether their very name is already dishonored?” Although Pliny raised this question, he still persecuted those who did not want to renounce Christianity (“curse Christ”); however, he immediately adds that actually nothing bad has been noticed about Christians, that they “sing a hymn (carmen in Latin) to Christ as to God.” Pliny has absolutely no reason to suspect these passages - especially since Trajan’s answer to Pliny has also been preserved, where Christians are also mentioned and an answer to Pliny’s questions is given (in a rather mild form).

The next mention of Christians is found in the famous Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote in the same years as Pliny. Tacitus writes that Nero, in order to transfer the blame for the fire he started onto other people, brought to trial people “hated” because of their “vile deeds,” “whom the people called Christians. The one by whose name they called themselves, Christ, was put to death during the reign of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate.”

There is absolutely no reason to suspect the authenticity of this passage in Tacitus (as Soviet authors, in particular Prof. Wipper, whom we have already mentioned, do especially without evidence). If the passages in Pliny and Tacitus were later insertions, then the question arises: why are they so scarce and few in number? Those who would dare to insert (and why? After all, at that time there was no doubt about the historical reality of Christ!) into the texts of Pliny and Tacitus to mention Christ, why didn’t they make these inserts more meaningful, with more details? Only tendentious historians can seriously suspect the authenticity of the places we have cited.

Why is there so little historical evidence for Christ?

And yet these Roman testimonies about Christ are too few. But should this be surprising? Not only “outsiders,” that is, the whole world outside Israel, did not recognize their Savior in Christ, but Israel, for the most part, did not recognize Him either. According to Ap. John the Theologian: “He came to his own and his own did not receive Him” (). The “work” of Christ, for which He came, was, of course, connected with history (Christ came to save people), but this “work” of Christ concerned not the surface of history, but its innermost meaning. On the surface of history, various external processes went on and developed, but death, which entered the world through, still reigned in the world. Just as already at the Incarnation the world, which contained the Son of God, trembled and became different in the depths, for the Lord entered into it in the flesh, so the whole “work” of Christ, His suffering, death, resurrection - all this concerned the depth of life, not its surface . Even the apostles, who so often felt God in Christ, after His resurrection asked Him: “Is it not at this time, Lord, that you are restoring the Kingdom to Israel.” From these words it is clear that even to them (before Pentecost) the true meaning of the “work” of Christ was not clear.

It is not surprising that the outside world did not notice Christ. When he noticed the Christians, he became wary - and the further he went, the more intensely he peered at the Christians. But we have already said that paganism only became concerned about Christianity in the 2nd century AD. It is not surprising, therefore, that there are so few references to Christ in the writings of early Christianity. But we must not forget that history has left another, grandiose monument to the reality of Christ - Christianity itself.

Christianity as a Testimony to the Reality of Christ

Indeed, Christianity very early began to spread, first within the then huge Roman Empire, and after a short time it spread beyond its borders. Nowadays Christianity is spread throughout the world - and its internal integrity and strength determine its conquering power; in this vitality of Christianity, in the endless manifestations of persistent devotion to Christ, one cannot help but see evidence of the enormous historical power of Christianity. As a world religion, Christianity, it is true, has Buddhism and Mohammedanism as its rivals, but these two extra-Christian worlds, although very slowly, are decomposing and are susceptible to the influence of the Christian mission. Indeed, if you give at least one example of a Catholic missionary to the North. Africa (Foucault), it is clear that the effect of the Christian mission is great today.

All this greatness of Christianity in history is based on the personality of the Lord Jesus Christ - His image attracts hearts and conquers them. Christ is also revered as a prophet; it is enough to pick up the Koran to be convinced of the enormous place Jesus occupies there. Numerous facts testify to the introduction of the Christian mission (coming from different religious groups) into paganism. The image of Christ shines on almost the whole world - even where there is no Christian Church.

It is possible to understand this unrelenting effect of Christianity and especially the personality of the Lord Jesus Christ only by relying on His living appearance on earth. If Christ, as opponents of Christianity claim, never existed, if Christ is the same mythical image as Dionysus, Osiris, Mithra, etc., then, of course, the emergence of the Christian Church is completely inexplicable. If, as they say, a small Jewish group took advantage of the Old Testament image of Jesus in order to distinguish itself from Judaism and form a new religion, then, of course, nothing lasting could arise around the fictitious image (all the unreality of which would inevitably be recognized by those who “invented” this image) . One can question the entire gospel narrative about Christ, recognize various events and facts as myths (in the name of “demythologizing” Holy Scripture), but simple common sense requires the recognition that there was a certain living personality in the grouping of these narratives. The whole originality of Christianity lies in the fact that the teachings of Christianity inseparably from the personality of its Founder.

It is enough to familiarize yourself with ancient religious images to immediately feel that these are really the essence of myths, that is, creations of human fantasy. Of course, every myth is based on some genuine experience, but the images with which religious consciousness associates these experiences have always and everywhere been experienced in paganism as a “symbol.” Hence the fluidity of the content that was assimilated by individual images - with the stability of the religious experience itself, that “object” (personality or divine power) to which their religious consciousness referred them was always thought of as semi-real. Hence the ease, for example, of the Romans identifying their “gods” (Jupiter, Juno, etc.) with similar Greek deities (Zeus, Hera, etc.); the same must be said about the Hellenization of Egyptian deities (Hermes was easily identified with the Egyptian god Thoth, Serapis combined the images of Osiris and Apis, etc.). In the later mysteries of Isis, she was called “many names...” And the point here was, of course, not in identifying the names of different deities, but in the awareness of the unity of their “ideas.” Therefore, the cult of Mother Earth, which existed in different countries, easily replaced the name of, say, Artemis or Demeter with a different name; the cult of Aphrodite, identical to the cult of Venus, easily came close to the Babylonian cult of Astarte. Behind the various names a single essence was revealed, but not a single real personality.

Christianity was different from all these cults in that the fixed point in it was one and the same image, one and the same indecomposable divine personality. When among the Gnostics (especially the later ones, like Basilides, Valentine), whom the Church recognized as heretics, the image of the Savior acquired the features of a mythical image, it was immediately torn off from history, turned into a kind of divine category, and received the character of a mythical, but not a real being.

Thus, within the Christian consciousness, the reality of the person of Jesus was protected precisely by his historicity. The entire development of both the Christian cult and Christian dogmatic consciousness was determined by this indisputable historical reality of Christ.

In general, if we assume for a moment that in historical reality there was never a Christ, that Christ was the creation of a myth-creating fantasy, then the entire development of Christianity seems like a strange miracle: out of nowhere, by the power of fantasy, an image is created that suddenly becomes the basis, the lasting force of the historical movement!

And how strange - after all, there is not one historical religion, which would not have its founder - only Christianity turns out to be without founder, turns out to be a product of pure invention, a “literary invention.” One must not have any sense of history in order to reject at least a minimalized historical basis in Christianity, that is, to reject the personality of its founder.

Christianity and pagan mysteries.

But here a new doubt arises. If we accept that Christianity had a founder, then why is there so many similarities in the image of Christ with undoubtedly mythical images - at least in some details? In early Christianity there was even a view that the devil, having penetrated into the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, suggested this secret to different peoples, which determined the content of various mysteries. The convergence of Christian facts with mystery stories has recently become not just fashionable, but one might even say obsessive. On the other hand, many of the Christian believers, when they become acquainted, at least superficially, with the pagan mysteries, experience some kind of unpleasant shock - precisely in view of a number of similarities between Christian and mysterial features. We must therefore go into detail into the study of all this material, but we note right away that not only in the question of the relationship between Christianity and pagan mysteries, but also in general when comparing paganism and Christianity, the need for a Christocentric understanding of the history of religion clearly appears. By this we mean that in Christianity, as if in focus, the disparate features of paganism converge, which was full of premonitions of those truths that we find in fullness and integrity in Christianity. Humanity, living in all eras under the providence of God, unconsciously moved (as it still partially does) towards the acceptance of Christ - and this preparation turns Christianity itself into a central fact in the religious history of mankind. What was revealed to paganism in its individual religious movements, all of this received its completion, its solution in Christianity. A Christocentric understanding of the history of religion gives us a sufficient explanation of why there are so many similarities between Christianity and paganism. And here, on the other hand, the whole imaginary validity of that understanding of Christianity, which turns it into a kind of mosaic, becomes clear. For almost every feature of Christianity we can indeed find an analogy in pagan religions - but this is not at all due to Christianity “borrowing” anything from paganism (which is meaningless, since it turns the organic integrity of Christianity into an eclectic set, into a true mosaic), but due to the central position of Christianity in history; Threads from all almost pagan religions were unconsciously drawn towards Christianity. The Christocentric nature of the religious process in history therefore sufficiently explains the meaning of the similarities seen in Christianity and paganism. Let us now enter closer into the comparative study of the pagan mysteries and Christianity.

3. Pagan Mysteries and Christianity.

Paganism as a religious fact.

The pagan mysteries are the highest, limiting point in the religious development of paganism, and the more science reveals to us their content and meaning, the deeper we penetrate into the religious world of paganism, into the closed but most essential area of ​​its religious experiences and aspirations. But in the comparative history of religions, unfortunately, tendencies of an anti-religious nature have always been too strong; there has always been a strong desire to look at the religious life of mankind as something inferior, to see in it a product of fantasy and superstition. The study of the pagan mysteries - this highest point in the development of natural religions - has always suffered extremely from a simplified and even crude approach to the mysteries, which remained religiously incomprehensible.

Paganism is often depicted as something whole and unified, internally harmonious, easily explainable from any one of its “foundations” (which is constructed differently by different schools). The differences within the pagan world from this point of view come down to different emphases within a certain common fund of pagan beliefs, determined by the fact that they express different aspects of the same thing, in the essence of a single and integral process. This idea of ​​paganism must be decisively rejected - we must grasp in all depth the fact that the religious life of the pagan world grew and was nourished from different roots. Not alone, but a lot of different foundations were the starting point in the development of religious life among different peoples - which, of course, did not at all exclude the constant penetration of some religious systems into others. There are, for example, places where these interpenetrations and mixing occurred especially often due to the fact that in these places there were constant movements of peoples, there was a constant change of various political and cultural formations. Such a place is predominantly all of Western Asia, starting with present-day Persia and Arabia and further to the West, i.e., including all of Western Asia. Here, various political formations and various cultural eras replaced one after another - and of course, wide scope opened up for the mixing and interpenetration of religious beliefs. The entire, for example, that significant period in the history of ancient culture, which is called “Hellenism” and which covered a huge space from the southeast of Europe to the extreme end of the West. Asia and a lot of space in the northwestern and northeastern corners of Africa - the entire Hellenistic period is primarily a period of mixing and some combination of cultures, beliefs, spiritual movements under the general dome of “Hellenism”. And when at the beginning of our era, and partly even before it, a huge Roman Empire took shape, politically covering the spaces colored by this beginning of “Hellenism,” then an era began in this part of the world that was extremely favorable for the mixing and unification of cultures, beliefs, spiritual currents. It was at this time that the very idea of ​​its unity arose in paganism. What is characteristic here is that before Christianity took possession of the pagan world (within the Roman Empire), this pagan world began to consciously strive for its religious unification. But even in all these unifying systems, the pinnacle of which can be recognized as the activity of Emperor Julian the Apostate (second half of the 4th century AD), the unification of the pagan world could not erase or weaken those significant and deep differences that took place in paganism. We can say that under the cover of the theological, sometimes even mysterial liturgical unity of paganism, various beliefs were preserved in their living and intense individuality. When, for example, the cult of Mithras (from the second half of the 2nd century BC) became such a collective focus for uniting the various religious systems of the Roman Empire - which the cult of Mithra (which was truly the most serious rival of Christianity) largely succeeded in doing. - then, nevertheless, the entire female half of the empire remained outside this cult, since the cult of Mithra admitted only men - the sisters, mothers, wives of Mithra’s fans huddled around the cult of Cybele or the cult of Isis (which, with certain innovations, preserved the very system that was established approximately two centuries before this time). In general, the closer we study the religious life of the pagan world, the more clearly significant, indelible differences within the pagan world will appear before us. Its unity was only by seeking, a well-known historical task that unconsciously directed certain processes in paganism. In religious terms, the last centuries before our era therefore present a vivid picture of the so-called. religious syncretism- i.e. fusion, condensation of different beliefs. One must only keep in mind that the whole force of religious syncretism did not at all push the original religious systems into the shadows, but seemed to join them.

The meaning of the mysteries.

To understand the religious nature and function of the Mysteries, all this must be borne in mind. In the history of the pagan mysteries, it is necessary to distinguish two or even three periods, which are separated from one another by outwardly often elusive, but very significant boundaries. The first period embraces that initial, often long period, often rooted in the mysterious darkness of antiquity, when mystery cults flared up, giving impetus to the development of mystery myths and a kind of mystery theology.

Already at this stage, borrowings and direct influences and external combinations could have taken place - but what is still significant is not the emergence of mysterial ideas, but mysterious cult. From this point of view, the change of some mysterial ones acquires secondary, even unimportant significance images others, as was the case, for example, in Babylon, where the idea of ​​a resurrecting and saving God was consistently associated with a number of images (first Tammuz, later Marduk, etc.).

After the stage of the emergence of the mysteries as a cult, there comes a very important stage of the liturgical and theological stabilization of the mysteries. Here we can state a number of transitional stages, a well-known evolution (especially clear, although also only in general terms, in the history of the Egyptian cults of Osiris and Isis). But all the mysteries that are known to us in history inevitably enter the third stage, which is associated with the desire to absorb other mysteries into oneself, to become the only one and central. Not one of the pagan mysteries was able to remain in strict isolation - and the fact that Christianity never merged, never merged with other cults, determined not only the historical victory of Christianity, but also constitutes the real historical “mystery” of Christianity, its not entirely “historicity.” “, i.e., the action of forces “from above” in it.

It's fair to say Zelinsky(in the book “The Religion of Hellenism”) “the religion of the sacraments (i.e., the mysteries of the V.Z.) put at the center of religious consciousness the question of salvation human soul." It is this idea of ​​salvation that is the central point in the mystery consciousness - both in its primitive and developed forms. The deepest quest for “rebirth” and the simplest, but widespread “initiation” are associated with salvation. But the idea of ​​salvation was clearly and clearly an already formulated answer to the quest of believing souls - to their questions about the fate of people after death.

Essential and decisive in the theme of “salvation” is, of course, the search for the individual “immortality” of the individual, as he knows himself. This theme developed most vividly in Egyptian theology, but all the mystery cults - from Babylon to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea - stood in the way of formalizing the same idea. But the search for personal immortality only clarifies for us what paganism was looking for in mysterial creativity, but does not clarify the ideological grounds mysteries. Only where, in response to the search for personal immortality, the soul was opened to even just a fleeting prospect of the possibility of finding “salvation” through communion with someone or something in the “high sphere” - only there could a genuine and creative mystery be created. life. With amazing and mysterious consistency, help from above is associated in paganism with the death and resurrection of some higher being. “A suffering and dying god,” who then resurrects—this is the canvas on which this or that drawing is created by religious fantasy.

The very stability of this image of dying and resurrection has forced and is forcing researchers of primitive religion to look for the roots of this idea in the fact of dying and resurrection in nature. It cannot, of course, be denied that the resurrection in nature could create the basis for the work of mythological consciousness, bring to life religious images of a dying and resurrecting deity. But this image in itself, of course, could not yet create a mystery cult - only from the moment of organic fusion ideas resurrection with some image of the resurrecting god and the theme of the mystery could be formed.

Thus, the mysteries developed from the fusion of the quest for salvation with beliefs in the realization of salvation through union with the resurrecting deity (which also achieves personal affirmation in the deity). The mystery cult was an expression of this faith - and the fact that it inevitably included an element of "secret" which then became especially essential for the mysteries - it was all already secondary. In the development of the mysteries, a certain “spiritualization” is observed, which increasingly brighter and more persistently brings forward the spiritual side in man, as basis salvation. However, not a single pagan mystery could completely throw away the moment magism, and the “spiritualization” of the mysteries, revealing the internal impotence of the mysteries, inevitably led to strengthen magic, - as is especially evident in the fate of the Egyptian and Syrian mysteries.

The conflict between the magical and mystical principles in the pagan mysteries remained incomplete in them: its resolution was only within the power of Christianity, which is thoroughly mystical and completely free from magic. The difference between mysticism and magic comes down to the recognition of freedom in the Divine or to its rejection and limitation: in magic the Divinity itself, in general the “higher” world, is subordinated to some mysterious force, which the “initiates” strive to master, while mystical life is entirely determined by the consciousness of the “mysterious will of God.” In pagan mysteries, both motives sounded all the time - but the more spiritual and mystical any mystery became, the stronger the manifestation of magic was in it. Below we will try to reveal the meaning of this tragic conflict for the pagan mysteries.

It is extremely significant that salvation is through communion with the deity, which itself For himself, and not for people (which is so characteristic of pagan mysteries) dies and is resurrected, it is realized very early how redemption from sin man through the help of a deity. Of course, only a deity who himself serves redemption in the cosmos through his death could help in redemption. But this was not the case in the pagan mysteries. It is interesting and strange that those religious images that took a central place in the Mysteries initially occupied a very secondary place in the corresponding religions: this applies to Attis and Dionysus, etc. - but is especially clearly manifested in the image of Mithra.

The function of the mysteries in the religious life of paganism in general is extremely great and significant. We can say that the mysteries form the most essential part in pagan religions - this is, as it were, the highest point to which religions reach, the deepest and spiritually creative phase in their development - and on the other hand, this is, as it were, their core, their inner strength , guiding the development of religious life and thought. Religious consciousness not only becomes more refined in the mysteries, not only comes closer to assimilating the transcendental secret of the Divine, but in the mysteries it frees itself from the original coarseness and materiality, and finds in man himself the path of inner life.

The mysteries are naive and crude in their starting points in comparison with their later phases, in comparison with the refined philosophy of them, which we find, for example, in the 2nd-4th centuries A.D. - but even in their initial crudeness the mysteries show a new depth religious primitive consciousness.

Egyptian mysteries.

Among the large number of pagan mysteries, the following four mysteries must be recognized as the most influential and original: Egyptian(Osiris and Isis), Lydian-Phrygian(Attis and the Great Mother of the Gods), Mysteries of Mithras and finally Yelevzinsky(Demeter, Proserpina and Iaccho-Dionysus). If in the Hellenistic era these mysteries, like others, began to come closer and even merge with each other, then their main originality developed earlier. Much here is still unclear and confusing - especially the emergence (rather later) is unclear. Mithraic mysteries (mysteries of Mithras), which played such a huge role in the struggle of dying paganism with Christianity. Mysterious creativity has not so much become exhausted as broke off with the emergence of Christianity - and this would, of course, be completely incomprehensible if Christianity itself had developed from mystery: in fact, mystery creativity froze, without sufficient historical reasons.

We will focus on a brief overview of only the most typical pagan mysteries and turn first of all to the Egyptian mysteries.

The mystery of Osiris is based on the myth about the murder of Osiris by his brother Set, about the crying and search for the body of Osiris by his sister, his wife Isis, about her finding the body of Osiris and his resurrection. In the Egyptian consciousness, the mystery of the afterlife was generally the main theme of religious reflection and creativity - and Osiris, who was at first a solar god, later became a lunar deity associated with the afterlife. In the ancient myth of the resurrection of Osiris, Egyptian theology developed in great detail the doctrine of the afterlife, and although other deities besides Osiris and Isis play a large role in the afterlife destinies of man, the main significance belonged to the myth of the resurrection of Osiris. On the basis of this myth, the aspirations of individual immortality took shape and became stronger in Egyptian theology. However, if the teaching about the paths of the afterlife, about the condition of immortality (through the identification of the soul of the deceased with Osiris) existed for a long time, then this did not yet create a mystery, but was reflected only in rituals and services. The cult of Isis and the cult of Osiris, who by content In his own way, he had long been close to the Greek cults, and it was precisely thanks to the influence of Hellenism that he gave real mysteries in Egypt.

Egyptian mystery services merged the old Greek mystery tradition with Egyptian imagery. Under the name of Serapis they began to honor the one who was previously honored as Osiris; the very content of the mystery contained a dramatic depiction of the death of Osiris, the crying and search of Isis, and the resurrection of Osiris. In addition to daily services, in addition to several holidays a year, there were special solemn mysteries in which the entire mystery drama was very vividly played out - the cry of Isis over the “mummy” of Osiris, and then the “resurrection” of Osiris (after a series of magical actions) on the third day. Crying and despair, alternating with jubilation and enthusiasm, had a strong effect on the initiates; if we bear in mind that in Egypt there was a very early silent veneration of the gods (actually Isis), which already contributed to the development of reverent concentration, it is not difficult to understand how the mystery worship, accompanied by light and sound effects, in the selection of which the Egyptian priests were great masters, acted on the initiates

Initially, the priest portraying the resurrected Osiris had to crawl through the skin of a sacrificed animal or lie in a bent position like a baby in the womb (both of which had purely magical meaning); subsequently, instead of the priest, a doll was wrapped in a piece of the mother. The symbol of the resurrection was the growing of an ear from a mummy made from earth and sown with seeds. All these little things characterize well magical side in the Egyptian mysteries, their connection with the cult of nature and its productive forces. However, over time, the spiritual moment, mystical ecstasy and mysterious communion with the divine sphere come to the fore. It remains hidden from us to what extent this “communion” carried with it a sense of the reality of connection with the divine sphere, but, of course, a certain nourishment of the believing soul in this regard should have taken place.

The cult of Isis gradually became more popular than the original mysteries - the image of Isis, one might say, supplanted, pushed into the background the image of Osiris - this is mainly due to the fact that a large and, moreover, increasingly developed magical technique was associated with the image of Isis. The spread of the cult of Isis became possible precisely because the mystery of the resurrection of a dying deity was later transferred to the image of Mithras. But since only men were allowed to participate in the Mithraic mysteries, it was natural for women to enter the mysteries of Isis or Cybele (“Great Mother of the Gods”), and this ensured the existence of the Egyptian mysteries next to the Mithraic ones.

It is of significant importance for us that the Egyptian mysteries emphasized with exceptional force, firstly, the possibility of individual resurrection and, secondly, precisely through the mystery of the death and resurrection of Osiris. True, the theological idea of ​​personal resurrection has not yet been sufficiently developed, but nevertheless it is very clearly and strongly expressed here and completely rejects the idea of ​​​​reincarnation. Before Christianity, no religion knew the idea of ​​​​resurrection with such clarity as the Egyptian one. Only one thing is essential here: personal resurrection, associated here with the mystery of Osiris, inseparable from this mystery, since only in it is the secret of merging with Osiris communicated to the initiate. Without participation in the mysteries, salvation is impossible, although salvation itself is connected with the fact that Osiris passed through death and was resurrected. The divine drama takes place here in the heavenly sphere, but in the mysteries it is symbolically repeated - therefore, the salvation of the initiate is possible only through merger with Osiris, through identification with him - outside of this, the saving power of Osiris cannot be assimilated. In the same detachment of the divine drama from the world lies the explanation why mythical The image of Osiris determined a certain uncertainty in the experience of the reality of the salvation of the initiates: it remained an object of pure faith, but without that support in the concrete, historical fact that Christianity has in the resurrection of Christ.

Greek mysteries.

As for the Greek mysteries, which were generally very numerous (in European Greece, a very small country, there were up to 50 different mystery centers), the main ones (in terms of their religious influence) can be considered the so-called. Eleusinian mysteries associated with the cult of Mother Earth. The main meaning in these mysteries, which had a very rich ceremony, belonged to the theme of death and resurrection - but in a general form, without dwelling on the theme of personal immortality. In general, the personal aspect in these mysteries is especially emphasized only in the rites of “purification”, preparation for mystical contemplation. The aspect of personality (in the matter of death and resurrection) was expressed more clearly in the mysteries associated with the cult of Dionysus. Dionysus himself dies due to the fact that the jealous Hera, the (“wife” of Zeus), directs the cruel titans at him, but Dionysus is reborn from his heart, which Zeus himself managed to save. The so-called Orphic mysteries, which did not have their own special center, were based on the story of the death and rebirth of Dionysus, and Orpheus was so revered that in the Christian era he was depicted, for example, crucified like Christ. But the mysteries about the suffering, dying and resurrecting god especially developed in various cities of Asia Minor - and here a certain Hellenization of local cults took place, ennobling and artistically decorating the local mythological content. Let us mention two young semi-divine beings who were the “heroes” of these mysteries - Attis and Adonis - both of them die from a wild boar. This sad end is preceded in mystery stories (even in their later, very Hellenized form) by the completely different lives of both heroes - but both fall as innocent victims from a wild animal, both die, both are buried. Around Attis (like Adonis), already dead, women are crying. A pine tree with an image of Attis is brought into the cave where Attis is to be buried, and then on the third day the resurrection of Attis is announced. Around Attis, in his memory, the mysteries dedicated to Attis thus arose; here, with chants, the joy of the “mystas” (members of the mystery community) about the resurrection of Attis was announced, which also revealed to the mystes the hope of restoring them to life after death. As for the cult of Adonis, in the original narrative there was no resurrection of him, but later (apparently under the influence of the mystery of Osiris - probably back in the 3rd century BC), this idea was introduced into the cult dedicated to Adonis. There were no real mysteries around the story of the death and resurrection of Adonis, i.e. That is, there was no special “initiation,” but there were details in the cult that were somewhat closer to Christian rites (crying over the image of Adonis). In parallel mysteries Hyacinth the services lasted three days in the spring or early summer: the first day mourned the death of the young hero, on the second and third days they celebrated his resurrection (in the services to Attis and Adonis, the resurrection was celebrated on the third day).

In all these mystery stories, next to the dying demigod stands a female divine figure (Osiris - Isis, Adonis - Aphrodite, etc.).

Mysteries of Mithra.

Let us now turn to the mysteries of Mithras. The Mysteries of Mithra are important to us because they were the last mystery creation of paganism. The image of Mithras itself, as the god of sunlight, is very ancient - it dates back to the era when the population of India had not yet separated from the Iranian population. In the following period, Mithras still remains a minor deity in the Persian pantheon, however, his importance gradually increases, and in the last 3rd centuries before our era, the cult of Mithra becomes the point at which Semitic influence approaches Persian dualism - in particular the mystery myths of the suffering and the resurrected God. Already in the ancient cult of Mithra and especially in the mythical legend about his killing of the bull, whose blood seeded the world, there were elements of a cosmological interpretation of the image of Mithras, which served as a point of crystallization of the mysterial legends that settled in it. The exact origin of the Mysteries of Mithras remains unknown, but it is indisputable that by the beginning of our era fully established Mysteries of Mithra already existed. When the cult of Mithras, in connection with the growth of the Roman Empire, began to penetrate through the soldiers and through the Syrian colonies, partly already captured by this cult, into the borders of the Roman Empire, it received here extremely favorable conditions for its spread and development. The rise of the cult of Mithras, the meaning of which is connected with the general religious needs of the time, brought it closer to other cults; this enriched and expanded the Mysteries of Mithras, which absorbed the most important elements of other Eastern cults that existed by this time. In its ability to assimilate foreign liturgical material, the cult of Mithras, in accordance with the demands of the era, revealed an exceptional power of synthesis: the cult of Mithras, in strength and brilliance, in ceremonial and its ideological design, contained and combined in itself everything that was magnificent, deep, spectacular in other cults. There was only one feature in it that limited the power of its influence and, according to historians, ultimately weakened its historical effectiveness: the cult of Mithra remained accessible only to men. The entire female population, naturally more ardent in religious life, and on the other hand more gifted in the missionary sense, was associated with the mysteries of Isis or the Great Mother of the gods. This shattered the religious forces of paganism in its universalizing role, which was so vividly expressed in the mysteries of Mithra. And if Renan notes in one place that if Europe had not become Christian, it would have become Mithraic, then some of the justice of this remark of Renan is still greatly weakened by the indicated fact.

The mystical meaning of Mithraism is indeed deeper and more complete than other mysteries. One can distinguish three essential aspects in the mysteries of Mithra, which were successfully combined here. First of all, there was a motive salvation: although Mithra himself did not die and was not resurrected, salvation in the mysteries of Mithras was associated with the killing of the mysterious bull (taurobolium), from whose blood the world began and from whose second defeat at the end of the world there will be revival and salvation. Mithra saves not by his own resurrection, but by his victorious power, - however, death and redemption are included in the saving feat of Mithra - only not his death, but the death of the mysterious bull.

Secondly, Mithras is not only a savior, but he is also the creator of the world through his feat of defeating the bull. The mysterious bull (which, according to Persian legends, was Mithra himself earlier) cannot be killed, cannot fertilize the earth except through the self-sacrifice of the one who kills it. Therefore, Mithra’s saving work includes a number of feats. The unification of the cosmological and salvific functions in the image of Mithras was very important for the theological consciousness of that time, which was mature enough to understand the full depth of the problem of evil. Evil is recognized so deeply that only he who is the creator of the world is able to save it, free it from evil and transform it.

And here comes the third, very significant, perhaps the most influential part of the mystery theology of Mithraism - in the doctrine of evil. The cult of Mithras, despite its enormous ability to combine with foreign cults, retained from its homeland the original and remarkable feature of Parsism in its teaching about evil, which here is considered equivalent to good. Metaphysical dualism, which does not interfere with the fact that in the end good triumphs over evil, provided on the basis of paganism the only satisfactory and religiously correct interpretation of evil in its power and in its effectiveness. Mithra, as a mediator and savior of the world, is, as it were, a source of grace, helping now to overcome the power of evil - which already precedes his saving feat at the end of the world. Participation in the mysteries of Mithras not only promised salvation at the end of the world (with which the idea of ​​the final judgment, characteristic of Parsism, was associated with it), - here Mithraism did not differ, however, from the Egyptian mysteries of Osiris, - but it also brought help in earthly life. Participation in the mysteries carried with it the powers that were inherent in Mithras himself - and if he bore the name Sol invictus (i.e., “invincible sun”), then the same promise of “invincibility” shone to the participants in the Mystery of Mithras (which determined the spread them in the Roman Empire). There was faith in the magic of the mystery ritual, but at the same time this magic not only did not make ethical asceticism fruitless and unnecessary, as was the case, for example, in the mystery cults of Osiris, Attis, etc. (where only physical asceticism took place - fasting, “ purification”, etc.), but on the contrary, the assimilation of the mysterious power given in the mysteries of Mithra was thought to be organically connected with the moral rebirth of man, i.e., it opened up space for internal work, created the need for moral activity, which brought to life moral animation and pathos.

The meaning of the mysteries.

In all the pagan mysteries, with different variants in them, there are some common features that we need to highlight and emphasize.

The mysteries, in the precise and strict sense of the word, always presupposed “initiation,” which was preceded by various ascetic steps (washing, fasting, often going through various trials). Only "initiates" could take part in all mystery ceremonies; everyone swore an oath not to reveal secrets. Usually, during initiation, new names were given, everyone put on new clothes. This is the external side of the mysteries - and their internal basis was connected with the idea salvation from death. To achieve it, it was necessary not only “initiation”, but also the assimilation of a number of secrets - this was “new knowledge” (gnosis), opening up a new life. Very often ecstasy was allowed and even encouraged in the mysteries.

It should be noted that the intensive development of mystery cults (generally very ancient) begins around the 6th century. BC. At this time, some kind of wave of spiritual renewal passed through the whole world - in the 6th century, Confucius and the mystic Lao Tse (creator of the mystical system of “Taoism”) acted in China, in India the sermons of Buddha date back to this time. Apparently around the 6th century. The activity of Zarathustra develops in Persia, raising folk beliefs to a harmonious system in which the idea of ​​salvation (from evil) is essential. The cult of Mithras, initially a minor deity, also began to develop probably from the 6th century. BC But after a few centuries, mystical fervor seems to lose its creative power everywhere; Mystery cults are fragmented, become smaller, and sometimes merge with one another. One thing is certain - the pagan religious consciousness itself could not be completely satisfied with the mysteries. The mysteries could not rise above the symbolic overcoming the evil of death - they undoubtedly brought pagan consciousness closer to the transcendental mystery of existence, but could not enter into her. The highest reality opened up a little before the pagan world, but could not open up to it completely. This created a sad insatiability souls - and hence the trait of tragic dissatisfaction that tormented the best souls in the pagan world. Christianity responded to the needs of these souls in that it gave them a genuine meeting with the genuine highest Reality. Not symbols, not images, but the living person of Christ appeared before the pagan world and conquered it.

But now, after we have presented various mystery cults, we will try to find out whether it is possible to seriously talk about their influence on the image of Christ, as Christianity saw and sees Him?

4. Pagan Mysteries and Christianity.

Symbolism in paganism.

Those who associate Christianity with pagan mysteries usually forget that Christianity is based (in its consciousness, in any case) on historically real events (life, death, resurrection of Christ), while all pagan mysteries are ( for paganism itself) essentially symbolic. Even where the “character” (as was the case, for example, in the case of Osiris, who was said to have once “reigned” on earth) has in the eyes of the mystics some degree of reality, the religious power and effectiveness of the images still determined by the symbolic meaning of the image. It was precisely this circumstance that created the proximity of the mystery images to each other, so that one can, with sufficient grounds, talk about how one and the same image acquired new features when it found itself in a new cultural spiritual environment. Thus, the image of Osiris, apparently, determined the evolution of the images of Adonis, and then the image of Dionysus. Thus, in the atmosphere of religious syncretism (from the 3rd century BC to the 5th century after AD), different images of the “great mother of the gods” (Cybele, Isis, Artemis, Aphrodite and the image of Mother Earth - Demeter) were identified and mixed etc.). This process is very close to the so-called. “sacred marriages” (this term is adopted in relation to the history of religious life in ancient Greece), thanks to which some unity of beliefs was created within a particular religious group.

The effective power of the mysteries in general was not based on historical reality, but on the “idea” that was embodied in certain images. It was once said about the mysteries that their “garment” in which they are clothed in consciousness is myth, that is, a certain creation of religious thought or imagination; indeed, at the heart of the mystery there was always an “idea”, but this idea was clothed in one or another “mythical” content. “Myth” does not simply mean some kind of poetic legend, but its task was to be an expression and then a symbol of the idea that underlay this or that mystery. Some peoples (for example, the ancient Greeks) were distinguished by an exceptional gift in the development of their mythology, while others, on the contrary, did not have this gift. But all paganism is characterized by symbolism, as an expression of the fact that paganism did not have revelation, that it contemplated God only in symbols.

In the mysteries, this general symbolic nature of paganism was associated with the theme of the afterlife, that is, with the theme of death and the possibility of some kind of afterlife. Even in primitive animism, that is, the belief that the soul continues to live after the death of the body, this theme is central, but in the mysteries the idea of ​​“salvation” from the dangers of the afterlife, from its “misadventures” comes into play. Developing into the form of a cult, into one or another “divine service,” the idea of ​​“salvation” gradually began to be associated with particular strength and persistence with the image of a suffering, dying, and then resurrected god or semi-divine being. What we see here is not so much mysterious as significant. premonition that “good news” about the salvation of people through the death on the cross and resurrection of Christ, which forms the living basis of Christianity. Of course, it is impossible to see anything more in the mysteries: Christianity did not grow out of pagan mysteries, it is not some kind of (even the highest) stage in the development of mystery ideas. Only with a superficial comparison of Christianity with the pagan mysteries can one pose the question in this way - a closer analysis shows that Christianity speaks of something completely different in comparison with paganism. But of course, the pagan (in particular Hellenistic) world, through the development of the mysteries, seemed to be preparing to receive the good news brought to people by Christ. In the light of the Christocentric understanding of the religious life of humanity, this is absolutely clear. At the same time, it is characteristic that, as we have already indicated, as the “time and timing” approaches the Incarnation of Christ, mysterial creativity subsides and freezes. So the stars, bright in the night sky, begin to fade when the first signs of the approaching sunrise appear.

Let us first turn to a comparative analysis of the ideas of death and resurrection, and then to a comparative comparison of the images in which this idea was embodied.

The reality of Christ's resurrection.

Christ died on the cross and on the third day rose again - not as a spirit, but as a living man in the fullness of his essence (“Why are you looking for the living among the dead,” the Angels said to Mary Magdalene and other women who came to the tomb with spices (Luke 24:5) But even the closest disciples of the Lord, who heard from Him many times about the resurrection, found it difficult to accept this fact: the stories of Mary Magdalene and other women about the resurrection of Christ “seemed empty to them and they did not believe them” (Ibid. 24:11).When Christ Himself appeared to the apostles, they "were confused and afraid, thinking that they saw a spirit. But He said to them: Why are you embarrassed? Look at My hands and at My feet; it is I Myself, touch Consider Me, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have” (Ibid. 24:26-39).

Although Judaism had an idea of ​​the afterlife (except for the Sadducees, who in every possible way denied the resurrection), this idea was unclear and vague among them. It is interesting to note here that with the advent of Christianity and its strong testimony to the resurrection, Jewish thought (especially in the mystical treatises of the Kabbalah) decisively evolved towards the denial of the resurrection. In any case, it was not easy for the apostles to master the idea of ​​resurrection - we have clear evidence of this in the skeptical attitude of the apostle. Thomas to the stories of other disciples that they saw the risen Lord (Apostle Thomas believed in the resurrection of Christ only when he himself saw Him).

The whole difficulty for the apostles and for everyone who followed Christ to accept the resurrection of Christ lay precisely in full reality risen Savior. The difficulty was not so much in the very idea of ​​resurrection, not even in understanding this idea, but precisely in the blinding reality of resurrection. It was also significant here that the resurrection of Christ was transformation His flesh.

The disciples often did not recognize Him when He came to them; He appeared “behind closed doors” (John 20:19), then again became invisible, disappeared... There were already new properties in Christ: in Him was all the former fullness of bodily life (to show the disciples the whole reality of his resurrection to life, Christ “took baked fish and honeycomb and ate before the disciples,” Luke 24:42–43), but there were also these new properties. Ap. Paul explains it this way: “The natural body is sown, the spiritual body is raised” (1 Corinthians 15:44). The spiritual body of the resurrected Lord was the original body, but already transformed, and the Lord ascended to heaven with it. In the spiritual body, space was conquered (although it did not disappear).

The Risen Lord was seen by many, but subsequent generations (except for cases when the Lord Himself appeared, as He appeared to Apostle Paul) lived only by faith into the true reality of Christ's resurrection. Christianity has stood and stands on this faith to this day, and to turn His resurrection into some kind of symbol means to move away from Christianity.

Extra-Christian teachings about posthumous existence.

If we turn to extra-Christian teachings about posthumous existence and resurrection, then here first of all we must set aside all (mainly Hindu) teachings about the “transmigration of souls,” which, although they affirm the reality of afterlife and in some sense even talk about “ resurrection" in reincarnation - but reincarnation no longer gives life to the person who was previously on earth, but only to the spiritual core in him. The denial of individual posthumous existence is therefore the reduction of our earthly individuality to the level of a random shell in that spiritual “core”, which endlessly replaces its individual “shells” one with another... The doctrine of “reincarnation” does not at all connect present and future life into individuality , since our individuality, according to this teaching, disappears with death; individuality in a person in general not connected in this teaching with its “essence” with that spiritual core that endlessly reincarnates into new and new “personalities”. Christianity says that our posthumous existence is a continuation of life exactly that same individuality who lived on earth. Let us note right away that in ancient Greece (apparently from the 8th century BC) the doctrine of reincarnation became very widespread - for example, in Orphic circles. But the Orphics, whose teaching was a kind of transformation of the cult of Dionysus, nevertheless developed a special teaching on how to stop endless reincarnations.

Leaving aside all these religious movements that did not recognize the posthumous existence of each individuality and taught only about the endless life in various reincarnations of a certain spiritual core in man, let us turn to those religious movements outside of Christianity that taught about the posthumous existence of each individuality.

Persian doctrine of posthumous existence.

As for the Iranian (Persian) teaching, it is necessary to distinguish at least three eras in the development of its religious teaching. In the prehistoric period, when the features of the Iranian religious consciousness were only being determined, it was based on moral The theme is about power, the reality of evil in the world and the fight against it. Evil was thought of as a cosmic, divine force, and although in the final stage it must be defeated by good, the struggle between evil and good is still going on in the world; People must therefore protect their purity in every possible way and observe the requirements of moral consciousness. The body of a deceased person, as struck by death, that is, by the power of evil, was recognized as unclean - therefore, the bodies of the deceased were taken outside the city and left without any supervision; until they are destroyed. The soul must go to court, at which its fate will be decided - but in any case, this afterlife souls was still continuation her previous earthly life and was determined depending on what the soul lived on earth - good or evil. In the second period, when the religious reform of Zarathustra (VI-VII centuries BC) purified the religious ideas of the Persians, as they had been before that time, eliminated all elements of magic, fire worship, etc., religion took on a consistent character purely moral teaching. Here the doctrine of salvation is gradually developed, and later (in all likelihood, already under influence of Christianity) the doctrine of a “savior” is being developed, who will finally defeat the forces of evil.

Finally, 3–4 centuries BC (maybe a little earlier) a mystery cult develops, associated with a minor (up to that time) deity - Mithras. However, no mysteries(in the exact sense of the word) based on idea There was no resurrection in the Persian religion: the idea of ​​the posthumous life of each soul, affirming the indestructibility of individuality through the life of the soul, was not associated with Mithra: Mithra himself did not die, and therefore was not resurrected. His feat consisted of killing a bull, whose blood contained the guarantee of life. Mithras was a source of strength for those who participated in his mysteries, and he was naturally especially revered by those who had to fight (the followers of Mithras were called “soldiers of Mithras”). However, at the end of the world, with the triumph of good and the renewal of the world, Mithras, with magical power, resurrected the bodies of the righteous - which was a reward for a good life. In general, participation in the mysteries of Mithra was not a condition for resurrection– such a condition was only a righteous life; Participation in the sacraments did not give any “connection” with Mithra, other than vitality, i.e. it helped in life, and not after death. This is very close to totemism.

As we see, the difference between Mithraism and Christianity is very deep and comparing Christ and Mithra is possible only by ignoring the essential features in both.

Egyptian teachings about immortal life.

Closer to Christianity are, of course, the Egyptian teachings about the afterlife and the Egyptian mysteries. And in Egypt, as in Persian beliefs, the matter is about posthumous existence, i.e. continuation the same individual life that existed before death. In Egypt, this continuation of life after death was associated with union with Osiris (for which participation in the mysteries was necessary); more precisely, it was not a matter of connection, but of identification with Osiris. For Osiris himself, his return to life (after the murder of his brother Set on the grounds of jealousy) was actually new birth(which is why Osiris is often depicted as a child). Moreover, if Osiris returned to life (and not completely of his previous properties, then his life is concentrated in the afterlife only in the kingdom, which was expressed in the fact that from the solar god Osiris became the lunar god. The death of Osiris did not contain any redeeming power - and his return to life was only, as it were, a prototype of a return to existence for people. In contrast to the moral rigor of the Persians, the Egyptians attached importance not to the deeds themselves, but to certain magical actions after death. Such magical means included, among other things, placing a prayer in the coffin - it was important to mention good deeds in it, even if they actually did not exist.

Comparing Egyptian beliefs with Christianity, we could not say that in Christianity we must see some “higher” form of what the Egyptians recognized. Osiris dies at the hands of his brother because of jealousy - how far is this from a voluntary sacrifice of oneself for the salvation of people from Christ! Resurrection in an earthly body is alien to the Egyptian consciousness; mummification of dead bodies did not prepare this body for resurrection, but was associated with the teaching of the Egyptians that the individuality of man (his “Ka” in Egyptian terminology) for its preservation needed - before its identification with Osiris - the preservation of the body (or its remains). True, in the Egyptian “Book of the Dead” there are words that “Osiris promises the justified that his soul will not be separated from his body.” But as one researcher (Sea) says, according to Egyptian views, “paradise is a beautifully constructed grave, where the double of man finds his home, abundantly supplied with everything necessary, full of friends, women and flowers.” Here there is already some approach to what Christianity brought to people, but all this is only a separate element of what was revealed in its entirety in Christianity.

"Resurrection" in the Mysteries.

If Osiris dies as a result of his brother’s jealousy and returns to life thanks to the efforts of his sister, the wife of Isis, then the heroes of other eastern mysteries also die as a result of their murder, but by wild animal force (boar). This is, for example, Attis: the original scheme of the myth about him is very rough, but in the Hellenized form he is a demigod - a young man killed by a boar. He is “buried” - see details about this in the previous chapter - and on the third day the priests exclaim: “Calm down, mystics, God is saved; so you too will be saved from suffering.” The words that “God is saved” well express the passive position of Attis himself - and his death is not a condition for “resurrection,” but only a condition for Attis’s new, transformed life. The innocent victim of brute force, which accidentally ended his life, returns to life - but this mythical shell envelops a mysterious core, the essence of which is the return to life of the innocent victim.

We have already said that totemism (as Fraser forever showed in his book on totemism) is not a religion and cannot convert to it because he is pure magic. Religion can be degenerated into magic, replaced by it, but not back. That is why it is impossible to derive the Christian Eucharist from totemism, since in the Christian Eucharist there is not an ounce of magic: Eucharist, like the communion of St. body and blood of the Lord, does not and cannot have a magical effect. Union with the Lord through St. The Eucharist is purely spiritual, even mystical, that is, impenetrable to our consciousness; we unite with the Lord in St. The Eucharist in the very depths of our being. According to the word of the Lord: “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him.” This is our communion with the Kingdom of God, the liberation of human nature from its subordination to nature, from sin, that is, our entry into spiritual life, usually suppressed by our nature. Of course, a distant parallel with totemism can be seen here, but, as in other aspects of pagan beliefs, here there is only a premonition and pre-consciousness of the greatest mystery associated with the Incarnation, death and resurrection of the Lord. Therefore, it cannot be said that Christianity introduced a new “meaning” into the old totemic rite - it only revealed a new meaning Jewish Easter, but that's all.

Let us emphasize once again that the ritual meal in totemism (after the killing of the totem) did not have a religious character at all - it was a purely magical act. When R. Smith based indirect data (in particular, based on observations of the Bedouins of our time) tries install religious character of the ritual meal in totemism, then all this remains completely unfounded for him.

This concludes our review of various teachings and hypotheses, real facts and imaginary influences on the issue of the influence of paganism on Christianity and we can summarize this entire part of our book.

6. Christianity in History.

The paradox of Christianity.

The paradox of Christianity, its essence and its uniqueness, its incomparability lies in the fact that Christianity is both historical and supra-historical. Neither completely immersing him in history, nor, on the contrary, tearing him away from history and making him a chapter from mythology, is equally impossible. If we want to conscientiously and without prejudice “explain” Christianity, we must recognize that the historical and supra-historical moment are expressed in it with such force that one is inseparable from the other. Any attempts to push aside one side of Christianity at the expense of the other lead to the fact that it remains incomprehensible. True, one can object to this that other religious systems often refer to “revelation,” which introduces a divine principle, above the historical, into the historical material of a given religion. But, for example, Islam, which claims precisely this about itself, is still entirely and completely historically explainable, which should be recognized by anyone who approaches analysis and study impartially, but with the necessary attention. And about Christianity, an open-minded attitude towards it at every step historical research is forced to admit that the historical thread is broken, and in the break of historical material the light of another world shines. It's not just about those miracles that throughout all time stories Christianity showed itself to the world in countless quantities; after all, in our time or a time close to us, miracles have been and are happening everywhere. Suffice it to recall the wonderful renewal of icons in the Soviet Union. Russia, just during the years of the fierce “godless company”; the atheists fruitlessly used all possible techniques to “scientifically explain” what actually went beyond the scope of scientific explanation. But still, it’s not just about miracles; no matter how important their testimony is, it is even more important that life force, which is inherent in Christianity and which to this day ignites souls, transforms and renews them. And behind this stands the Lord Jesus Christ in all its incomprehensibility; He was a true man, but also a true God - and in the combination of the earthly and divine planes in His Person, in the inseparability, but also the non-fusion of two natures (human and divine) in the unity of the Person, everywhere and in everything the historical is inseparable from the above-historical. One can endlessly exercise in finding historical parallels to certain events in the life of Christ, but all this does not exhaust the mystery, incomprehensible and at the same time obvious to everyone in the Person of the Lord.

Historical side of Christianity.

Christianity, of course, is historical in one on your side. Christ came to earth among a certain people, in a certain historical era. He spoke to to his people and in their language, preached, healed, directed. His disciples scattered all over the world, but the Church, created by Christ, did not lose its internal unity and, having gone through centuries-old trials, still preserves all the gifts that the Lord gave to the Church. One can, with more or less thoroughness, dispute in all this certain parts in that grandiose whole, which is called Christianity, but despite the enormous efforts of the opponents of Christianity, the Church lives and reveals itself in its entirety to those who enter into it and live by it.

All these are facts of history; they are subject to historical research, but they are not afraid of it. It has long been pointed out (in Russian literature by Khomyakov) that if historical research had established with unquestionable accuracy that the Gospel of Matthew is incorrectly attributed to Matthew, then the sacred power of the Gospel would not have diminished one iota (even though it would have to be recognized as belonging to not Matthew). If it were proven with absolute conviction that this or that message of Ap. Paul does not belong to him, then this could in no way affect the ecclesiastical Authority of this epistle. In general, the ecclesiastical significance of this or that New Testament material is connected with the Church, is recognized by the Church as a manifestation of the gracious power of the Holy Spirit, and no historical research could and cannot weaken this authority. What is before us in all the New Testament materials Sacred The Scriptures that Revelation is given in them - no historical research can reject this. It is equally impossible to “prove” the presence of Revelation in it and to reject it; and negative and positive statements about the Holy Scripture cannot touch its sacred core. The sacred in Holy Scripture is simply not revealed to historical research, but it is open to the believing consciousness. And this does not at all create any kind of “subjectivity” in the assessment of Holy Scripture, but only expresses boundaries of historical research. Through historical research it is impossible to enter into a living perception of the sacred power of Holy Scripture, - but therefore the mystery of Christianity cannot be fully explored historically. The church in its sanctuary remains closed to outside view. We will see this more clearly in the next part, devoted to the defense of the Church from attacks on it, but this means that Christianity, being historical, is at the same time supra-historical. A the superhistorical cannot be studied historically, - in this formula both the reality of the supra-historical side of Christianity and the transcendental, closed nature of this supra-historical side are clearly presented.

Christianity is not entirely historical.

But now we understand the futility of attempts to push Christianity entirely into history. It is possible, with greater or less success, to compare Christianity with other religions, to find certain parallels and similarities, but it will never be possible to completely “historicize Christianity,” that is, to reduce everything in it to the “historical” side. True, for people who have turned away from Christianity, especially for those who do not like or even hate it (like, for example, the majority of the followers of Marx and Lenin), various historical “studies” turn Christianity into a mosaic, into some kind of literary mixture of non-Christian beliefs may seem victorious. But Christianity would have disappeared from the scene long ago if it were only a teaching, a doctrine - its historical “vitality” is determined by the fact that Christianity is life in Christ, and not at all a teaching about Christ.

That is why the entire direction of modern religious-historical research is essentially false. On the path they are on, they will never master the essence of Christianity - and not only Christianity. The history of beliefs among other peoples is revealed only with a Christocentric understanding of them. This means: it is not Christianity that must be explained from paganism, but on the contrary, paganism must be understood from Christianity. In other words, the fact that there is God and the entire heavenly sphere became clear only in Christianity, and in paganism it was only a partial foreknowledge, a presentiment. In general, paganism (from a Christian point of view) is only a darkening - in different directions, to varying degrees - of that primordial God-consciousness that was born in paradise, when God talked with our ancestors. At its core, this consciousness of God never dies, but it inevitably became obscured in the historical movement of mankind, changed, and acquired a number of mythological additions. When, through the Incarnation, the opportunity to have Revelation opened up again for humanity, then for paganism the fullness of Christianity in which each individual feature in paganism received its understanding became necessary and close. Christianity illuminated all the vague premonitions of paganism - and now it is clear why one can see so many parallels between paganism and Christianity. From this point of view, the religious life of paganism is revealed in a new way, which “gropingly,” by the power of religious genius, grasped what is the truth about God, about the future life, about the salvation of people. The entire history of paganism would have to be written in a new way - and if much remains incomprehensible in paganism even now, the most important thing is still clear: paganism was drawn to the true God, and when individual pagans came to Christianity, they found in it what they wanted. what burned their hearts, what was before them in unclear forms before. A Christocentric understanding of the history of religion shows all the futility of modern religious and historical attempts to bring Christianity out of paganism, whereas only in the light of Christian doctrine would we fully understand those individual, partial truths that were revealed to sensitive minds in Hinduism, Parsism, Babylon, Egypt , in mystery cults, in Greece, in Rome. The supra-historical in Christianity (i.e., Revelation) is the key to the entire history of religion, including how Christianity absorbed (on the paths of “reception”) various doctrinal, liturgical, ascetic positions that had developed in paganism before the advent of Christ.

Bibliography for Part II.

S. Glagolev – Religious consciousness of paganism.

Vl. Soloviev - Articles on the history of religion in collected works.

Rozhdestvensky - Apologetics.

Smirnov - History of religion.

V. D. Kudryavtsev - Works.

Zelinsky – Hellenistic religion.

Strakhov - The idea of ​​resurrection in pre-Christian religious consciousness.

S. Glagolev – Natural knowledge of God and supernatural Revelation.

Arch. Cyprian - Eucharist.

Karelin - The fall of the pagan worldview. Duchesne - L'origin du culte Chretien.

Prumm – Heidentum und Christentum.

Weigall – Survivances paiennes dans le monde Chretien.

Labriolle – La reaction paienne.

Fr. Cumont – Les religions orienltales dans le paganisme romain.

Hugo Rahner – Mythes grecs et mysteres Chretiens.

Dolger – Sol salutis.

M. Eliade – Traité d'hisitoire des religions.

Apologetics

Prot. V. Zenkovsky Paris 1957

Introduction.

The struggle of faith and unbelief. Severance from the Church. Rationalism. The meaning of faith for a person. Faith is combined with knowledge and culture. Basic topics of apologetics. Question about the Church.

Part I. Christian Faith and Modern Knowledge. 1. General Fundamentals of the Christian Understanding of the World.

Holy Scripture as the source of Christian truth. The Bible's main ideas about the world boil down to the following: The difference between chapters 1 and 2 in the book of Genesis. The Fall of the Forefathers. Damage to nature due to the fall of our ancestors. Story about the flood. The depth of Christian teaching.

2. Faith And Reason

The meaning of faith in knowledge of the world and man. An assessment of reason in Christianity. The limitations of our mind. Participation of faith in knowledge. The possibility of miracles. The reality of miracles. The miracle of the resurrection of the Savior. It is impossible to deny the reality of Christ's resurrection. Knowledge cannot be opposed to faith.

3. God and Peace. Analysis of Extra-Christian Teachings about the Relationship between God and the World.

God is the Creator of the world. Naturalism. The unacceptability of pure naturalism. Agnosticism. Pantheism. About the existence of God. Proofs of the existence of God. Systems of deism and theism.

4. Origin of the World and Development of Life.

Modern teachings about the universe. The earth is like a celestial body. Features of the earth. The initiative of the earth. The emergence of life. The teachings of Charles Darwin. Criticism of Darwinism. God's participation in the life of the earth. About the fourth day of creation.

5. The appearance of Man on Earth.

Man and subhuman nature. Paleontological data. Embryology data. Mental differences of a person. Only humans have spiritual development. Development of speech in man. The appearance of fire.

6. The appearance of Man on Earth.

The debate between monogenism and polygenism. Unity of the human psyche. Unity in aesthetic life. Unity in the moral sphere. Unity in the religious sphere. The fundamental unity of humanity. Unity in the development of material culture. When did man appear on earth? Flood. The truth of the biblical account of the flood.

7. Evil in the world.

The theme is about evil in man. Explanation of evil from ignorance. Explanation of evil from difficult social conditions. A dualistic solution to the theme of evil. Christian interpretation of evil. Why was evil allowed?

8. Conclusion to the 1st part.

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Bibliographical Guidelines for Part I. Special Books in Russian:

Part II. Christianity in History. 1. Christianity and Paganism.

Contact between Christianity and paganism. Christian terms common to pagan philosophy. The concept of “reception.” The meaning of “reception.” The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not taken from Greek philosophy. The inadmissibility of the doctrine of the mosaic nature of Christianity. History of religion as a science. The latest trends in the history of religion.

2. The Historical Reality of Christ.

The absurdity of denying the historical reality of Christ. Rationalism as a source of doubt about the historical reality of Christ. Jewish sources about Christ. Extra-Christian sources about Christ. Why is there so little historical evidence for Christ? Christianity as evidence of the reality of Christ Christianity and pagan mysteries.

Paganism as a religious fact. The meaning of the mysteries. Egyptian mysteries. Greek mysteries. Mysteries of Mithra. The meaning of the mysteries.

4. Pagan Mysteries and Christianity.

Symbolism in paganism. The reality of Christ's resurrection. Extra-Hrietian teachings about posthumous existence. Persian doctrine of posthumous existence. Egyptian teachings about immortal life. “Resurrection” in the Mysteries. "Resurrection" of Dionysus. Comparison of pagan mysteries with Christianity. Basic features of Christianity.

5. Reception of Extra-Christian Material.

The entry of Christianity into history. Development of Trinitarian dogma. Development of Christological dogma Differences in the development of Christianity and paganism. Veneration of the Mother of God in Christianity. Pagan cult of Mother Earth. Development of Christian worship. Feast of the Nativity of Christ. Christian Eucharist.

6. Christianity in History.

The paradox of Christianity. Historical side of Christianity. Christianity is not entirely historical. Bibliography for Part II.

Part III. Christianity as a Church. 1. “Churchless Christianity.”

How is “churchless Christianity” possible? Individual reasons for leaving the Church. Decline of churchliness. Return to the Church. Faith in the Church. The pressure of the historical situation on church life. What is the Church accused of? 2. Church and Freedom of the Spirit.

Christian concept of freedom. Freedom in Christ. Church as authority. Authority and power. Secularism is not the path of freedom. Non-religious construction of science. The problem of freedom in religious consciousness.

3. Socio-Economic Problems.

The inevitability of social themes in Christianity. Responsibility of the Church and responsibility of the clergy. Attitude to wealth in the New Testament. Attitudes to wealth in the early Christian community. Development of social themes in the history of Christian peoples. Social idealism instead of Christianity. Non-religious humanism. Christian morality. Gospel basis in social idealism.

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4. Church and State.

Attitude to power in the first centuries of Christianity. The idea of ​​a “symphony.” Church and state in the East. The principle of theocracy. Western theocracy. Perversion of the idea of ​​theocracy in the West. "Symphony."

5. Unity of the Church.

The concept of “unity of the Church.” The theory of “branches.” The unity of the Church and its truth. Church Divisions. The problem of the unity of the Church in the Catholic interpretation. Protestantism. Ecumenical movement. Divisions in the Church are its cross.

6. Conclusion about Christianity as a Church.

The church is connected to history. We must bear the cross of the Church. Creative tasks of the Church in the world. Bibliography:

Appendix I. Life After Death.

Pre-Christian teachings. Analysis of Plato's argumentation. Teaching of the Orthodox Church. Is it possible to communicate with the deceased? Data from Christian anthropology about life after death.

Appendix II. The Beginnings of Christian Morality.

The difference between Christian morality and pagan and Old Testament morality. New Testament morality; its general features. Understanding Christian morality in various confessions. Moral traits are in our “nature.” Attitude towards yourself. Attitude to family, to property and to the social system. Church and law. Church and State. Conclusion. Bibliography.

Appendix III. Divisions in the Christian World.

Truth of Orthodoxy. What stands between us and Catholics? Church groups that separated from the Roman Church? The fragmentation of Protestantism. Divisions in the Russian Church. Non-Christian religious movements.

Introduction.

The struggle of faith and unbelief.

1. The struggle between faith and unbelief runs through the entire history of Christianity. This was already the case when the Lord himself was on earth and with his whole life and personality shone the world, but it was precisely this light that emanated from Christ that aroused opposition and criticism among people who loved darkness more than light. It happened more than once that those who approached Christ then abandoned Him, walked away from Him. The path of faith even then required purity of heart and readiness to follow the Lord in everything - and those who, like Pilate, did not live for the truth and were indifferent to it - and many, many more, having approached Christ, then departed from Him. The path of faith was and remains the path of completely surrendering oneself to God as the highest Truth; in other words, the path of faith is difficult for those who lack inner integrity.

It also happens, of course, that people have conscientious doubts arising from the limitations of our minds, from the difficulty of incorporating into our consciousness that which exceeds the power of our understanding. But conscientious doubts, often inevitable for certain minds, are not sinful in themselves - they become sinful when we, succumbing to them, let's stop looking the truth in its completeness, we calm down spiritually and freeze in our doubts - i.e. we fall into spiritual sleep. In such a spiritual sleep, with

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In which the highest demands of the spirit freeze, many now remain - and the reason for this lies in the spiritual untruth that has developed and matured in humanity in recent centuries. Without exaggeration, we can say that the entire modern culture, with its technical achievements, lulls us spiritually, drowns out the needs of the spirit - and we, like the Old Testament Esau, sell our spiritual birthright for “lentil soup,” for those petty and superficial hobbies of ours that contribute to our spiritual sleep. But why does the entire system of modern life and culture affect us this way?

Severance from the Church.

This question, which is extremely important for understanding the current position of Christianity in the world, can only be answered by a historical review, albeit a very brief one, of how the relationship between the Church and culture developed from the beginning of Christianity to the present day. We will deal with this in some detail in the section where we will talk about the departure from the Church and the struggle with it among modern people (see Part III), but now we will say briefly: the grief of people is that modern culture has long been divorced from the Church, is alienated from her, secretly even afraid of her. This separation of various spheres of culture from the Church is called secularism (i.e., separation from the Church) - and it is clear that the process of secularization, which began (in Western Europe) already at the end of the 13th century, has put its stamp on all modern culture. This process achieved particular strength and influence in the field of science and philosophy, which very early began to lay claim to “autonomy,” i.e. to complete independence from the Church. The word “autonomy,” consisting of two (Greek) words - avtos (self) and nomos (law), precisely means that modern science and philosophy are confident that they are a law unto themselves, i.e. they seek neither foundation nor support in religious beliefs. Extraordinary advances in knowledge and technology, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries. c., are not at all connected with this autonomy of science - it is enough to point out that in all areas of knowledge and technology, people of clergy worked very hard, always strictly adhering to the teachings of Christianity. But it seems to many that the development of science and technology seems to indicate the complete maturity of the mind, as if to confirm the self-sufficiency of our mind in the search for truth. The whole spiritual atmosphere of our time is indeed permeated with this spirit of secularism; if faith and the Church are still given some place, then only somewhere in the depths of the soul, but for life, for creativity, it is as if one can do without faith and without the Church.

This intoxication with the successes of science and technology acquires special strength among those who are inclined towards the so-called. rationalism - i.e. to that direction of thought that is confident in the ability of our mind to penetrate the most hidden mysteries of the world. To understand these claims of our mind, in its self-affirmation, we must delve into the question of the source

kah knowledge.

Rationalism.

Humanity has two indisputable ways of knowing - the first way of knowing is based on experience and experiments, the second on insights of the mind. Historically, the second method of cognition matured earlier, but the significance of experience and experiment was finally realized in Europe only towards the end of the 16th century. This appeal to experience, especially the development of the experimental method, is called empiricism - and it must be said about it that empiricism is truly a powerful means of understanding the world. All major achievements of science and technology owe most of all to experience and experiment. But that one too

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a way of cognition that is based on the reasoning of the mind and which is called rationalism, is also a powerful means of cognition. It is enough to point out that all mathematical knowledge, which occupies a huge place in modern science, is purely rational.

Those claims to complete freedom and autonomy that we talked about above are characteristic only of rationalism: only rationalism is characterized by boundless self-confidence, the desire to subordinate everything to our reason. Rationalism rejects everything that does not fit into the forms of our reason - and hence its intolerance and self-confidence. Rationalism therefore rejects the possibility of a miracle, since in every miracle there is something inexplicable to reason. We will have occasion later to touch upon the question of the possibility and reality of miracles in more detail, but even now it is clear that this question is of paramount importance for religion, which is all connected with the belief that God can rise above the laws of nature and accomplish what remains inexplicable for us: the impossible for man is possible for God. If we deny the possibility and reality of miracles, then our prayers and appeals to God are useless; religious life is therefore inseparable from faith in the action of God in the world, i.e. from belief in the possibility of miracles, . Meanwhile, rationalism often rejects in advance the possibility of miracles, and about everything incomprehensible in the world it speaks in the sense that this incomprehensible is only inexplicable for us for now, but that as knowledge develops, the volume of the inexplicable will decrease and one day be reduced to zero...

This self-confidence of rationalism has matured precisely on the basis of the secularization of science and philosophy, and many sometimes think that this is completely justified by history. The relationship between faith and knowledge is often presented to us in such a form that faith is supposedly associated with the weak development of the mind and knowledge, that a person standing at the height of modern knowledge can no longer live by faith, but can live only by knowledge. If something still remains undiscovered for knowledge, then, as is now often thought, knowledge will one day master that which now remains incomprehensible... This self-confidence of modern minds is perhaps the main source of indifference to faith and the Church.

As for empiricism, it is free from such categorical statements, it listens to experience, and is sometimes ready to admit a miracle, but in an atmosphere of secularism, it also becomes infected with indifference to faith and the Church. Modern culture generally leads souls away from faith and the Church.

The meaning of faith for a person.

That is why for many, the path of faith in our time is like a feat - as if living by faith and surrendering to faith, we are following some risky path. If the path of faith does open up to modern people, it is often only after difficult life trials, illnesses and misfortunes that free our spirit from self-confidence and blindness. There are, of course, even in our time quite a few people who grow up in a believing environment, enter church life from childhood and learn from their own experience the truth and power of faith. But even such people have to experience the pressure of all modern life, which looks at them as eccentrics and holy fools. Modern life is, as it were, filled with godlessness, insensibility of what is ABOVE the world - and this skeptical attitude towards faith, towards the Church digs into our soul, poisoning it.

Meanwhile, living without faith is not only difficult, but also scary and meaningless. In our soul lives an ineradicable need for complete truth, a need to get closer to

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To the Eternal Foundation of life; death makes our whole life meaningless, turns life into an insoluble and painful riddle. Our soul cannot come to terms with death - those who have loved ones and dear people who have died know this well. In the light of death, life seems like some kind of deception, someone’s unnecessary mockery, meaningless vanity. Our soul cannot help but love the world, not love people, but this love only torments our heart, since we cannot, unless we have faith, come to terms with the fact that all this will disappear forever. The life of the world is a terrible mystery for those who do not believe in the existence of God, who do not feel His closeness to us.

The soul needs faith even more than we need knowledge; We need faith as a strong and creative basis for life. But how can we protect our faith from the poisonous breath of modern secularized culture? We cannot refuse knowledge, culture; While keeping faith, we would like at the same time to breathe deeply, to join in with everything that is true and authentic in culture. Or is faith possible only by renouncing science and philosophy, art, and social life?

Faith is combined with knowledge and culture.

But this formulation of the question is incorrect and false. The discrepancy between faith and knowledge is an invention of those who fight against faith in the Church; the entire modern culture is so deeply connected in its roots with Christianity that it cannot be break away from Christianity. By this we do not want to say that there are no “points” at which both knowledge and culture are difficult to connect with Christianity. There is nothing to be surprised at: after all, starting from the 13th century. and the further, the stronger and more acutely, the idea of ​​secularism and the autonomy of reason developed among Christian peoples. Therefore, much in modern knowledge is connected with this poisonous opposition to the Church, but essentially neither science, nor philosophy, nor art can reject Christianity.

The task of apologetics is to show at all those points where there is a real or imaginary divergence of knowledge and culture from the Church that the truth of Christianity remains unshakable. It is necessary to always keep in mind that knowledge is in constant movement and development, due to which theories and hypotheses are replaced one after another in knowledge. What seemed indisputable in science yesterday is disappearing without a trace today - and this change of guiding ideas in knowledge is inevitable and legitimate. Nowadays no one will explain the phenomena of heat using the caloric hypothesis, but at one time this hypothesis held firm. And whoever knows modern physics knows how the previous teachings about the nature of light have wavered, how the doctrine of the constancy of matter has wavered, etc. Science should be given complete freedom to construct any hypotheses to explain certain phenomena, but we must remember that all these are hypotheses that can be replaced by other hypotheses. Christianity tells us about something that has not changed since the time when the Lord Jesus Christ was on earth. There may be serious differences between Christianity and science in one era, but they may naturally dissipate in another era. And the difficulty of bringing Christianity and knowledge closer is not in individual differences, but in principles, in the essence of the matter. Apologetics must, with all the necessary freedom and breadth, reveal the truth of Christianity, without fear of marking those points in which the statements of modern knowledge diverge from the truths of Christianity.

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Basic topics of apologetics.

It is quite clear from this that the content of apologetics can vary depending on where at any moment the particularly acute difficulties on both sides are. Thus, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, the question of the relationship between Christianity and the natural science of that time was especially acute; until the middle of the 19th century. this severity hardly softened, but already from the middle of the 19th century. the situation began to change in the sense of weakening the severity of the divergence. But from the middle of the 19th century. to this day, a new area of ​​divergence between science and Christianity has come to the fore - the question of the relationship between Christianity and other religions has come to the fore, i.e. the question of the place of Christianity in history. Isn't Christianity just “one of the religions” - at least the most sublime and pure?

The development of historical knowledge has provided a lot of material for a better understanding of paganism - and now the depth and significance of religious quests in the world before the coming of the Savior is becoming increasingly clear. It turns out there were many points of contact between Christianity and the ancient world; Isn't Christianity then just the completion of this religious movement in the world, i.e. Isn't Christianity the same historical religion as, say, Buddhism or Islam? But Christianity itself stands on the fact that Jesus Christ was not only a true man who appeared in the world in a certain historical era, but He was also the true God, was the eternal Son of God. Christianity not only stands on this, but if you do not recognize Christ as God, then the whole essence of Christianity disappears. Christ was the God-man - this is the main revelation of Christianity. But those who fight Christianity want to completely immerse it in history, i.e. they reject transhistoricality, the eternal Divinity in Jesus Christ. Recently, obviously due to the failure of these statements, opponents of Christianity have put forward the doctrine that Christ never existed at all, that Christ is a mythical image, similar to such mythical images as Osiris, Adonis, Dionysus.

All these attacks are recent, what gives them the imaginary power of “the last word of science.” We will have to take a close look at this issue and we will be convinced of the absurdity of all these constructions.

Question about the Church.

But not only faith in God, as the Creator of the world and the Provider of it, who comes to our aid in our trials, not only faith in Christ, as the God-man, is the content of attacks on Christianity. There is one more question that we cannot ignore in the course of apologetics - this is the question of the Church. We can often meet people who have not lost faith in Christ the Savior, but who live outside His Church. This “churchless” Christianity is a complex phenomenon - it is also associated with criticism of the Church, with denunciations of its mistakes or the sins of church leaders, but is often associated with purely psychological moments - the ever-increasing loneliness of people who are alienated from any closeness to other people (even through the Church) etc. Meanwhile, “churchless” Christianity contains the deepest contradiction: Christianity without the Church is Christianity without Christ, since Christ is inseparable from His Church. We must therefore devote a special part of the book to “churchless” Christianity and the reasons for its spread.

Finally, we will have to devote some space to the analysis of various deviations from the one truth of Christ, both within the Christian world and outside it.

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8. Religious crises.

This is the plan of our book. Its purpose, we repeat once again, is to give into the hands of those who have any doubts about the truth of this or that Christian teaching, the opportunity to strengthen their faith. Of course, the strength and inner truth of our faith is not connected with the work and clarity of our mind and various structures of the mind, but with our spiritual life. Religious crises, which almost no one can escape, receive only their expression in doubts and critical structures of the mind - but their source, in the overwhelming majority of cases, is associated with that spiritual lull, which we talked about at the beginning of the chapter. When spiritual life barely glimmers in us, when lethargy, indifference, and despondency reign in the depths of our hearts, then the reality of the invisible world, the reality of God, seems to dim in our consciousness. In the modern spiritual atmosphere, in the conditions of secular culture, when science, philosophy, art exist as if independently of religion, this spiritual dullness of ours does not give us the strength to resist the crafty speeches of our age. In this sense, religious crises are more a symptom of general spiritual decline than of individual brokenness. But those whose thoughts have not lost the attraction to an honest search for truth cannot and should not leave the faith of their fathers without realizing whether this faith has foundations that remain unshakable in the light of the achievements of modern science and the achievements of modern science. technology. Helping them in this regard is the task of apologetics.

Christian Faith and Modern Knowledge.

1. General Fundamentals of the Christian Understanding of the World.

Holy Scripture as the source of Christian truth.

The Christian teaching about the world is entirely based on the biblical narrative (book of Genesis, chapters I and II), but at the same time it is a continuation and development of it. We must first of all become familiar with the most basic features of the Christian teaching about the world, which is not always clearly understood by Christian believers. Therefore, before we talk about the relationship between the Christian faith and modern knowledge, let us dwell on clarifying the exact meaning of the Christian understanding of the world.

As we said, Christianity bases its teaching about the world on the biblical narrative, since it recognizes the Bible Holy Scripture. Opponents of Christianity primarily attack this attitude towards the Bible, denying that the Bible's narrative represents a “Revelation from above.” It is often pointed out that the stories in the Bible cannot claim to be inspired by God, since in other (so-called “natural”) religions we find similar teachings. This question became especially acute from the time when (in 1873-5) during excavations in the place where ancient Nineveh was located, tables written by the so-called cuneiform, which contained

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stories very close to what we find in the Bible.1 The discovery of these monuments of ancient Babylon created a real sensation, and a number of scientists who studied these monuments began to be inclined to the conclusion that the biblical text (in the first chapters of the book of Genesis) represents a reworking of the Babylonian legends. There was even a whole movement of the so-called. “Pan-Babylonism,” which argued that Babylonian legends penetrated everywhere and formed the basis of religious legends in different countries.

Without going into details, we can say that with all the undoubted similarities of the biblical legend with the Babylonian narratives, the fundamental difference of the biblical text, its indisputable incomparability with any other legends, immediately catches the eye. The biblical text is distinguished by such internal integrity, the main concepts in it are so precise and clear, so free from various distorting or weakening details, that this immediately catches the eye. Moses could have known the Babylonian legends that arose long before Moses, but in the book of Genesis we find, of course, not an “editing” of the Babylonian text: the biblical text is distinguished by exceptional purity, accuracy and clarity of basic concepts, which could not have been obtained with any “editing” of the Babylonian material. The idea of ​​monotheism in the Bible is revealed with such extraordinary strength and completeness that in comparison with polytheism in Babylonian legends, this idea stands at an unattainable height.

Let us not go further into this question, which has long since lost all urgency; the theological purity and depth of the biblical narrative truly cannot be attributed to the “genius” of Moses and can only be explained as an inspired creation with the power of Revelation. In truth, the Bible is a holy book.

1 Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, which in the 13th century. BC conquered Babylon (located south of Assyria) and owned it until VH BC. The religion and culture of Assyria depended on Babylon.

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The Bible's main ideas about peace are as follows:2

a) The world is a creation of God (“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”), in other words, according to the Bible, the world does not exist from itself, does not have its existence in itself and therefore is not beginningless. The idea of ​​the creatureliness (createdness) of the world is the main idea of ​​Christian teaching - only Christianity, rejecting the incorrect teachings about creation that appeared later, very early added to the biblical teaching: God created the world out of nothing. Even at the beginning of our era, the Jewish philosopher Philo, who sought to combine the Bible with the ideas of Greek philosophy, taught that matter itself was eternal, and the “creation” of the world, according to Philo, should be understood as the creation of different forms of being from this primordial matter. But it is easy to see what his mistake was: if matter is eternal in itself, then it possesses the properties of the Divine, and then we inevitably fall into insoluble difficulties*). From these difficulties derives the Christian doctrine that the world was created from nothing, i.e. Before the creation of the world there was nothing except God, who brought matter into existence.

b) By accepting the doctrine of the creation of the world from nothing, we reject the beginninglessness of the world,

- Only with the act of creation does time begin. In other words, time (as we know it)inseparable from created being; outside of created existence there is no our time. In God there was eternal life, incomprehensible to us, and this statement about life in God eliminates the so-called. a “static” understanding of the Divine, in which, due to absolute immutability in God, there could be no act of creation. - But the act of creating the world does not follow from the essence of the Divine with any necessity; it is connected with the will of God, with the so-called. “eternal Council” (see further in the chapter on the creation of man). If we teach about “immobility” in God, then the act of creation and the world itself turned out to be, as it were, “co-eternal” with God, and we again approach

the living one was flying over the water. And God said: let there be light, and it became holy. And God saw the light that it was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day and the darkness night. And there was evening and there was morning - one day. And God said: Let there be a firmament among the waters, and let it separate water from water; and God created the firmament and separated the water that was under the firmament from the water that was above the firmament. And so it became. And God called the firmament heaven. And there was evening and there was morning: the second day. And God said: Let the water that is under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear. And it came to pass that God called the dry land earth, and the collection of waters I called seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said: Let the earth bring forth greenery, grass yielding seed, and a fruitful tree bearing fruit according to its kind, in which is its seed on the earth. And it was so, and the earth brought forth grass, grass yielding seed, and tree bearing fruit, in which is its seed according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning: the third day. And God said: Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to separate the day from the night and for signs and seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light on the earth, and it was so. And God created two; great lights: the great light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars, and God set them in the firmament of heaven to shine on the earth and rule the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning: the fourth day. And God said: Let the water bring forth reptiles, living souls, and let birds fly over the earth in the firmament of heaven. And God created the great fish and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And the Lord blessed them, saying: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters of the seas and let the birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning: the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kinds, cattle and creeping things and wild beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that moves on the earth according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And God said: Let us make man in our image and likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female he created them. See about them in Chapter III, § 3.

The struggle of faith and unbelief. Severance from the Church. Rationalism. The meaning of faith for a person. Faith is combined with knowledge and culture. Basic topics of apologetics. Question about the Church.

Part I. Christian faith and modern knowledge.

1. General foundations of the Christian understanding of the world.

Holy Scripture as the source of Christian truth. The Bible's main ideas about the world boil down to the following: The difference between chapters 1 and 2 in the book of Genesis. The Fall of the Forefathers. Damage to nature due to the fall of our ancestors. Story about the flood. The depth of Christian teaching.

2. Faith and reason

The meaning of faith in knowledge of the world and man. An assessment of reason in Christianity. The limitations of our mind. Participation of faith in knowledge. The possibility of miracles. The reality of miracles. The miracle of the resurrection of the Savior. It is impossible to deny the reality of Christ's resurrection. Knowledge cannot be opposed to faith.

3. God and the world. Analysis of extra-Christian teachings about the relationship between God and the world.

God is the Creator of the world. Naturalism. The unacceptability of pure naturalism. Agnosticism. Pantheism. About the existence of God. Proofs of the existence of God. Systems of deism and theism.

4. The origin of the world and the development of life.

Modern teachings about the universe. The earth is like a celestial body. Features of the earth. The initiative of the earth. The emergence of life. The teachings of Charles Darwin. Criticism of Darwinism. God's participation in the life of the earth. About the fourth day of creation.

5. The appearance of man on Earth.

Man and pre-human nature. Paleontological data. Embryology data. Mental differences of a person. Only humans have spiritual development. Development of speech in man. The appearance of fire.

6. The appearance of man on Earth.

The debate between monogenism and polygenism. Unity of the human psyche. Unity in aesthetic life. Unity in the moral sphere. Unity in the religious sphere. The fundamental unity of humanity. Unity in the development of material culture. When did man appear on earth? Flood. The truth of the biblical flood story.

7. Evil in the world.

The theme is about evil in man. Explanation of evil from ignorance. Explanation of evil from difficult social conditions. A dualistic solution to the theme of evil. Christian interpretation of evil. Why was evil allowed?

8. Conclusion to the 1st part.

Bibliographical Guidelines for Part I. Special Books in Russian.

Part II. Christianity in history.

1. Christianity and paganism.

Contact between Christianity and paganism. Christian terms common to pagan philosophy. The concept of "reception". The meaning of "reception". The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not taken from Greek philosophy. The inadmissibility of the doctrine of the mosaic nature of Christianity. History of religion as a science. The latest trends in the history of religion.

2. The historical reality of Christ.

The absurdity of denying the historical reality of Christ. Rationalism as a source of doubt about the historical reality of Christ. Jewish sources about Christ. Extra-Christian sources about Christ. Why is there so little historical evidence for Christ? Christianity as evidence of the reality of Christ Christianity and pagan mysteries.

3. Pagan mysteries and Christianity.

Paganism as a religious fact. The meaning of the mysteries. Egyptian mysteries. Greek mysteries. Mysteries of Mithra. The meaning of the mysteries.

4. Pagan mysteries and Christianity.

Symbolism in paganism. The reality of Christ's resurrection. Extra-Christian teachings about posthumous existence. Persian doctrine of posthumous existence. Egyptian teachings about immortal life. "Resurrection" in the Mysteries. "Resurrection" of Dionysus. Comparison of pagan mysteries with Christianity. Basic features of Christianity.

5. Reception of non-Christian material.

The entry of Christianity into history. Development of Trinitarian dogma. Development of Christological dogma Differences in the development of Christianity and paganism. Veneration of the Mother of God in Christianity. Pagan cult of Mother Earth. Development of Christian worship. Feast of the Nativity of Christ. Christian Eucharist.

6. Christianity in history.

The paradox of Christianity. Historical side of Christianity. Christianity is not entirely historical. Bibliography for Part II.

Part III. Christianity as a Church.

1. “Churchless Christianity.”

How is “churchless Christianity” possible? Individual reasons for leaving the Church. Decline of churchliness. Return to the Church. Faith in the Church. The pressure of the historical situation on church life. What is the Church accused of?

2. Church and freedom of spirit.

Christian concept of freedom. Freedom in Christ. Church as authority. Authority and power. Secularism is not the path of freedom. Non-religious construction of science. The problem of freedom in religious consciousness.

3. Socio-economic problems.

The inevitability of social themes in Christianity. Responsibility of the Church and responsibility of the clergy. Attitude to wealth in the New Testament. Attitudes to wealth in the early Christian community. Development of social themes in the history of Christian peoples. Social idealism instead of Christianity. Non-religious humanism. Christian morality. Gospel basis in social idealism.

4. Church and state.

Attitude to power in the first centuries of Christianity. The idea of ​​a "symphony". Church and state in the East. The principle of theocracy. Western theocracy. Perversion of the idea of ​​theocracy in the West. "Symphony".

5. Unity of the Church.

The concept of “unity of the Church”. The theory of "branches". The unity of the Church and its truth. Church Divisions. The problem of the unity of the Church in the Catholic interpretation. Protestantism. Ecumenical movement. Divisions in the Church are its cross.

6. Conclusion about Christianity as a Church.

The church is connected to history. We must bear the cross of the Church. Creative tasks of the Church in the world. Bibliography:

Appendix I. Life after death.

Pre-Christian teachings. Analysis of Plato's argumentation. Teaching of the Orthodox Church. Is it possible to communicate with the deceased? Evidence from Christian anthropology about life after death.

Appendix II. The beginnings of Christian morality.

The difference between Christian morality and pagan and Old Testament morality. New Testament morality; its general features. Understanding Christian morality in various confessions. Moral traits are in our “nature”. Attitude towards yourself. Attitude to family, to property and to the social system. Church and law. Church and State. Conclusion. Bibliography.

Appendix III. Divisions in the Christian World.

Truth of Orthodoxy. What stands between us and Catholics? Church groups that separated from the Roman Church? The fragmentation of Protestantism. Divisions in the Russian Church. Non-Christian religious movements.

Introduction.

The struggle of faith and unbelief.

1. The struggle between faith and unbelief runs through the entire history of Christianity. This was already the case when the Lord himself was on earth and with his whole life and personality shone the world, but it was precisely this light that emanated from Christ that aroused opposition and criticism among people who loved darkness more than light. It happened more than once that those who approached Christ then abandoned Him, walked away from Him. The path of faith even then required purity of heart and readiness to follow the Lord in everything - and those who, like Pilate, did not live for the truth and were indifferent to it - and many, many more, having approached Christ, then departed from Him. The path of faith was and remains the path of completely surrendering oneself to God as the highest Truth; in other words, the path of faith is difficult for those who lack inner integrity.

It also happens, of course, that people have conscientious doubts arising from the limitations of our minds, from the difficulty of incorporating into our consciousness that which exceeds the power of our understanding. But conscientious doubts, often inevitable for certain minds, are not sinful in themselves - they become sinful when we, succumbing to them, stop looking for the truth in its completeness, calm down spiritually and freeze in our doubts - i.e. we fall into spiritual sleep. Many people are now in such a spiritual sleep, in which the highest demands of the spirit freeze, and the reason for this lies in the spiritual untruth that has developed and matured in humanity in recent centuries. Without exaggeration, we can say that the entire modern culture, with its technical achievements, lulls us spiritually, drowns out the needs of the spirit - and we, like the Old Testament Esau, sell our spiritual birthright for “lentil soup”, for those petty and superficial hobbies of ours that contribute to our spiritual sleep. But why does the entire system of modern life and culture affect us this way?

Severance from the Church.

This question, which is extremely important for understanding the current position of Christianity in the world, can only be answered by a historical review, albeit a very brief one, of how the relationship between the Church and culture developed from the beginning of Christianity to the present day. We will deal with this in some detail in the section where we will talk about the departure from the Church and the struggle with it among modern people (see Part III), but now we will say briefly: the grief of people is that modern culture has long been divorced from the Church, is alienated from her, secretly even afraid of her. This separation of various spheres of culture from the Church is called secularism (i.e., separation from the Church) - and it is clear that the process of secularization, which began (in Western Europe) already at the end of the 13th century, has put its stamp on all modern culture. This process achieved particular strength and influence in the field of science and philosophy, which very early began to lay claim to “autonomy,” that is, complete independence from the Church. The word “autonomy”, consisting of two (Greek) words - avtos (self) and nomos (law), precisely means that modern science and philosophy are confident that they are their own law, i.e. they do not seek no basis or support in religious beliefs. The extraordinary successes of knowledge and technology, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, are not at all connected with this autonomy of science - it is enough to point out that in all areas of knowledge and technology, clergymen worked very hard, always strictly adhering to the teachings of Christianity. But it seems to many that the development of science and technology seems to indicate the complete maturity of the mind, as if to confirm the self-sufficiency of our mind in the search for truth. The whole spiritual atmosphere of our time is indeed permeated with this spirit of secularism; if faith and the Church are still given some place, then only somewhere in the depths of the soul, but for life, for creativity, it is as if one can do without faith and without the Church.

This intoxication with the successes of science and technology acquires special strength among those who are inclined towards the so-called. rationalism - that is, to that direction of thought that is confident in the ability of our mind to penetrate the most hidden mysteries of the world. To understand these claims of our mind, in its self-affirmation, we must delve into the question of the sources of knowledge.

Rationalism.

Humanity has two indisputable ways of knowing - the first way of knowing is based on experience and experiments, the second on insights of the mind. Historically, the second method of cognition matured earlier, but the significance of experience and experiment was finally realized in Europe only towards the end of the 16th century. This appeal to experience, especially the development of the experimental method, is called empiricism - and it must be said about it that empiricism is truly a powerful means of understanding the world. All major achievements of science and technology owe most of all to experience and experiment. But that method of cognition, which is based on the reasoning of the mind and which is called rationalism, is also a powerful means of cognition. It is enough to point out that all mathematical knowledge, which occupies a huge place in modern science, is purely rational.

Those claims to complete freedom and autonomy that we talked about above are characteristic only of rationalism: only rationalism is characterized by boundless self-confidence, the desire to subordinate everything to our reason. Rationalism rejects everything that does not fit into the forms of our reason - and hence its intolerance and self-confidence. Rationalism therefore rejects the possibility of a miracle, since in every miracle there is something inexplicable to reason. We will have occasion later to touch upon the question of the possibility and reality of miracles in more detail, but even now it is clear that this question is of paramount importance for religion, which is all connected with the belief that God can rise above the laws of nature and accomplish what remains inexplicable for us: the impossible for man is possible for God. If we deny the possibility and reality of miracles, then our prayers and appeals to God are useless; religious life is therefore inseparable from faith in the action of God in the world, that is, from faith in the possibility of miracles. Meanwhile, rationalism often rejects in advance the possibility of miracles, and about everything incomprehensible in the world it speaks in the sense that this incomprehensible is only so far inexplicable for us, but that as knowledge develops, the volume of the inexplicable will decrease and one day be reduced to zero...

This self-confidence of rationalism has matured precisely on the basis of the secularization of science and philosophy - and to many, at times, it seems that this is completely justified by history. The relationship between faith and knowledge is often presented to us in such a form that faith is supposedly associated with the weak development of the mind and knowledge, that a person standing at the height of modern knowledge can no longer live by faith, but can live only by knowledge. If something still remains undiscovered for knowledge, then, as is now often thought, knowledge will one day master that which now remains incomprehensible... This self-confidence of modern minds is perhaps the main source of indifference to faith and the Church.

As for empiricism, it is free from such categorical statements, it listens to experience, and is sometimes ready to admit a miracle, but in an atmosphere of secularism, it also becomes infected with indifference to faith and the Church. Modern culture generally leads souls away from faith and the Church.

The meaning of faith for a person.

That is why for many, the path of faith in our time is like a feat - as if living by faith and surrendering to faith, we are following some risky path. If the path of faith does open up to modern people, it is often only after difficult life trials, illnesses and misfortunes that free our spirit from self-confidence and blindness. There are, of course, even in our time many people who grow up in a believing environment, enter church life from childhood and learn from their own experience the truth and power of faith. But even such people have to experience the pressure of all modern life, which looks at them as eccentrics and holy fools. Modern life is, as it were, filled with godlessness, insensibility of what is ABOVE the world - and this skeptical attitude towards faith, towards the Church digs into our soul, poisoning it.

Meanwhile, living without faith is not only difficult, but also scary and meaningless. In our soul there lives an ineradicable need for complete truth, a need to get closer to the Eternal Foundation of life; death makes our whole life meaningless, turns life into an insoluble and painful riddle. Our soul cannot come to terms with death - those who have loved ones and dear people who have died know this well. In the light of death, life seems like some kind of deception, someone’s unnecessary mockery, meaningless vanity. Our soul cannot help but love the world, not love people, but this love only torments our heart, since we cannot, unless we have faith, come to terms with the fact that all this will disappear forever. The life of the world is a terrible mystery for those who do not believe in the existence of God, who do not feel His closeness to us.

The soul needs faith even more than we need knowledge; We need faith as a strong and creative basis for life. But how can we protect our faith from the poisonous breath of modern secularized culture? We cannot renounce knowledge, culture; While keeping faith, we would like at the same time to breathe deeply, to join in with everything that is true and authentic in culture. Or is faith possible only by renouncing science and philosophy, art, and social life?

Faith is combined with knowledge and culture.

But this formulation of the question is incorrect and false. The discrepancy between faith and knowledge is an invention of those who fight against faith in the Church; all modern culture is so deeply connected in its roots with Christianity that it cannot be separated from Christianity. By this we do not want to say that there are no “points” at which both knowledge and culture are difficult to connect with Christianity. There is nothing to be surprised at: after all, starting from the 13th century. and the further, the stronger and more acutely, the idea of ​​secularism and the autonomy of reason developed among Christian peoples. Therefore, much in modern knowledge is connected with this poisonous opposition to the Church, but essentially neither science, nor philosophy, nor art can reject Christianity.

The task of apologetics is to show at all those points where there is a real or imaginary divergence of knowledge and culture from the Church that the truth of Christianity remains unshakable. It is necessary to always keep in mind that knowledge is in constant movement and development, due to which theories and hypotheses are replaced one after another in knowledge. What seemed indisputable in science yesterday is disappearing without a trace today - and this change of guiding ideas in knowledge is inevitable and legitimate. Nowadays no one will explain the phenomena of heat using the caloric hypothesis, but at one time this hypothesis held firm. And whoever knows modern physics knows how the previous teachings about the nature of light have wavered, how the doctrine of the constancy of matter has wavered, etc. Science should be given complete freedom in constructing any hypotheses to explain certain phenomena, just remember that these are all hypotheses that can be replaced by other hypotheses. Christianity tells us about something that has not changed since the time when the Lord Jesus Christ was on earth. There may be serious differences between Christianity and science in one era, but they may naturally dissipate in another era. And the difficulty of bringing Christianity and knowledge closer is not in individual differences, but in principles, in the essence of the matter. Apologetics must, with all the necessary freedom and breadth, reveal the truth of Christianity, without fear of marking those points in which the statements of modern knowledge diverge from the truths of Christianity.

Basic topics of apologetics.

It is quite clear from this that the content of apologetics can vary depending on where at any moment the particularly acute difficulties on both sides are. Thus, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, the question of the relationship between Christianity and the natural science of that time was especially acute; until the middle of the 19th century. this severity hardly softened, but already from the middle of the 19th century. the situation began to change in the sense of weakening the severity of the divergence. But from the middle of the 19th century. to this day, a new area of ​​divergence between science and Christianity has come to the fore - the question of the relationship between Christianity and other religions, that is, the question of the place of Christianity in history, has come to the fore. Isn't Christianity just “one of the religions” - at least the most sublime and pure?

The development of historical knowledge has provided a lot of material for a better understanding of paganism - and now the depth and significance of religious quests in the world before the coming of the Savior is becoming increasingly clear. It turns out there were many points of contact between Christianity and the ancient world; Isn’t Christianity, in this case, just the completion of this religious movement in the world, i.e. isn’t Christianity the same historical religion as, say, Buddhism or Islam? But Christianity itself stands on the fact that Jesus Christ was not only a true man who appeared in the world in a certain historical era, but He was also the true God, was the eternal Son of God. Christianity not only stands on this, but if you do not recognize Christ as God, then the whole essence of Christianity disappears. Christ was the God-man - this is the main revelation of Christianity. But those who fight Christianity want to completely immerse it in history, that is, they reject transhistory, the eternal Divinity in Jesus Christ. Recently, obviously due to the failure of these statements, opponents of Christianity have put forward the doctrine that Christ never existed at all, that Christ is a mythical image, similar to such mythical images as Osiris, Adonis, Dionysus.

All these attacks are recent, which is due to the imaginary power of the “last word of science.” We will have to take a close look at this issue and we will be convinced of the absurdity of all these constructions.

Question about the Church.

But not only faith in God, as the Creator of the world and the Provider of it, who comes to our aid in our trials, not only faith in Christ, as the God-man, is the content of attacks on Christianity. There is one more question that we cannot ignore in the course of apologetics - this is the question of the Church. We can often meet people who have not lost faith in Christ the Savior, but who live outside His Church. This “churchless” Christianity is a complex phenomenon - it is associated with criticism of the Church, with denunciations of its mistakes or the sins of church leaders, but is often associated with purely psychological moments - the ever-increasing loneliness of people who are alienated from any closeness to other people (even through the Church) etc. Meanwhile, “churchless” Christianity contains the deepest contradiction: Christianity without the Church is Christianity without Christ, since Christ is inseparable from His Church. We must therefore devote a special part of the book to “churchless” Christianity and the reasons for its spread.

Finally, we will have to devote some space to the analysis of various deviations from the one truth of Christ, both within the Christian world and outside it.

Religious crises.

This is the plan of our book. Its purpose, we repeat once again, is to give into the hands of those who have any doubts about the truth of this or that Christian teaching, the opportunity to strengthen their faith. Of course, the strength and inner truth of our faith is not connected with the work and clarity of our mind and various structures of the mind, but with our spiritual life. Religious crises, which almost no one can escape, receive only their expression in doubts and critical structures of the mind - but their source, in the overwhelming majority of cases, is associated with that spiritual lull, which we talked about at the beginning of the chapter. When spiritual life barely glimmers in us, when lethargy, indifference, and despondency reign in the depths of our hearts, then the reality of the invisible world, the reality of God, seems to dim in our consciousness. In the modern spiritual atmosphere, in the conditions of secular culture, when science, philosophy, art exist as if independently of religion, this spiritual dullness of ours does not give us the strength to resist the crafty speeches of our age. In this sense, religious crises are more a symptom of general spiritual decline than of individual brokenness. But those whose thoughts have not lost the attraction to an honest search for truth cannot and should not leave the faith of their fathers without realizing whether this faith has foundations that remain unshakable in the light of the achievements of modern science and the achievements of modern science. technology. Helping them in this regard is the task of apologetics.

Apologetics

Prot. V. Zenkovsky

The struggle of faith and unbelief. Severance from the Church. Rationalism. The meaning of faith for a person. Faith is combined with knowledge and culture. Basic topics of apologetics. Question about the Church.

Part I. Christian faith and modern knowledge.

1. General foundations of the Christian understanding of the world.

Holy Scripture as the source of Christian truth. The Bible's main ideas about the world boil down to the following: The difference between chapters 1 and 2 in the book of Genesis. The Fall of the Forefathers. Damage to nature due to the fall of our ancestors. Story about the flood. The depth of Christian teaching.

2. Faith and reason

The meaning of faith in knowledge of the world and man. An assessment of reason in Christianity. The limitations of our mind. Participation of faith in knowledge. The possibility of miracles. The reality of miracles. The miracle of the resurrection of the Savior. It is impossible to deny the reality of Christ's resurrection. Knowledge cannot be opposed to faith.

3. God and the world. Analysis of extra-Christian teachings about the relationship between God and the world.

God is the Creator of the world. Naturalism. The unacceptability of pure naturalism. Agnosticism. Pantheism. About the existence of God. Proofs of the existence of God. Systems of deism and theism.

4. The origin of the world and the development of life.

Modern teachings about the universe. The earth is like a celestial body. Features of the earth. The initiative of the earth. The emergence of life. The teachings of Charles Darwin. Criticism of Darwinism. God's participation in the life of the earth. About the fourth day of creation.

5. The appearance of man on Earth.

Man and pre-human nature. Paleontological data. Embryology data. Mental differences of a person. Only humans have spiritual development. Development of speech in man. The appearance of fire.

6. The appearance of man on Earth.

The debate between monogenism and polygenism. Unity of the human psyche. Unity in aesthetic life. Unity in the moral sphere. Unity in the religious sphere. The fundamental unity of humanity. Unity in the development of material culture. When did man appear on earth? Flood. The truth of the biblical flood story.

7. Evil in the world.

The theme is about evil in man. Explanation of evil from ignorance. Explanation of evil from difficult social conditions. A dualistic solution to the theme of evil. Christian interpretation of evil. Why was evil allowed?

8. Conclusion to the 1st part.

Bibliographical Guidelines for Part I. Special Books in Russian.

Part II. Christianity in history.

1. Christianity and paganism.

Contact between Christianity and paganism. Christian terms common to pagan philosophy. The concept of "reception". The meaning of "reception". The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not taken from Greek philosophy. The inadmissibility of the doctrine of the mosaic nature of Christianity. History of religion as a science. The latest trends in the history of religion.

2. The historical reality of Christ.

The absurdity of denying the historical reality of Christ. Rationalism as a source of doubt about the historical reality of Christ. Jewish sources about Christ. Extra-Christian sources about Christ. Why is there so little historical evidence for Christ? Christianity as evidence of the reality of Christ Christianity and pagan mysteries.

3. Pagan mysteries and Christianity.

Paganism as a religious fact. The meaning of the mysteries. Egyptian mysteries. Greek mysteries. Mysteries of Mithra. The meaning of the mysteries.

4. Pagan mysteries and Christianity.

Symbolism in paganism. The reality of Christ's resurrection. Extra-Christian teachings about posthumous existence. Persian doctrine of posthumous existence. Egyptian teachings about immortal life. "Resurrection" in the Mysteries. "Resurrection" of Dionysus. Comparison of pagan mysteries with Christianity. Basic features of Christianity.

5. Reception of non-Christian material.

The entry of Christianity into history. Development of Trinitarian dogma. Development of Christological dogma Differences in the development of Christianity and paganism. Veneration of the Mother of God in Christianity. Pagan cult of Mother Earth. Development of Christian worship. Feast of the Nativity of Christ. Christian Eucharist.

6. Christianity in history.

The paradox of Christianity. Historical side of Christianity. Christianity is not entirely historical. Bibliography for Part II.

Part III. Christianity as a Church.

1. “Churchless Christianity.”

How is “churchless Christianity” possible? Individual reasons for leaving the Church. Decline of churchliness. Return to the Church. Faith in the Church. The pressure of the historical situation on church life. What is the Church accused of?

2. Church and freedom of spirit.

Christian concept of freedom. Freedom in Christ. Church as authority. Authority and power. Secularism is not the path of freedom. Non-religious construction of science. The problem of freedom in religious consciousness.

3. Socio-economic problems.

The inevitability of social themes in Christianity. Responsibility of the Church and responsibility of the clergy. Attitude to wealth in the New Testament. Attitudes to wealth in the early Christian community. Development of social themes in the history of Christian peoples. Social idealism instead of Christianity. Non-religious humanism. Christian morality. Gospel basis in social idealism.

4. Church and state.

Attitude to power in the first centuries of Christianity. The idea of ​​a "symphony". Church and state in the East. The principle of theocracy. Western theocracy. Perversion of the idea of ​​theocracy in the West. "Symphony".

5. Unity of the Church.

The concept of “unity of the Church”. The theory of "branches". The unity of the Church and its truth. Church Divisions. The problem of the unity of the Church in the Catholic interpretation. Protestantism. Ecumenical movement. Divisions in the Church are its cross.

6. Conclusion about Christianity as a Church.

The church is connected to history. We must bear the cross of the Church. Creative tasks of the Church in the world. Bibliography:

Appendix I. Life after death.

Pre-Christian teachings. Analysis of Plato's argumentation. Teaching of the Orthodox Church. Is it possible to communicate with the deceased? Evidence from Christian anthropology about life after death.

Appendix II. The beginnings of Christian morality.

The difference between Christian morality and pagan and Old Testament morality. New Testament morality; its general features. Understanding Christian morality in various confessions. Moral traits are in our “nature”. Attitude towards yourself. Attitude to family, to property and to the social system. Church and law. Church and State. Conclusion. Bibliography.

Appendix III. Divisions in the Christian World.

Truth of Orthodoxy. What stands between us and Catholics? Church groups that separated from the Roman Church? The fragmentation of Protestantism. Divisions in the Russian Church. Non-Christian religious movements.

Introduction.

The struggle of faith and unbelief.

1. The struggle between faith and unbelief runs through the entire history of Christianity. This was already the case when the Lord himself was on earth and with his whole life and personality shone the world, but it was precisely this light that emanated from Christ that aroused opposition and criticism among people who loved darkness more than light. It happened more than once that those who approached Christ then abandoned Him, walked away from Him. The path of faith even then required purity of heart and readiness to follow the Lord in everything - and those who, like Pilate, did not live for the truth and were indifferent to it - and many, many more, having approached Christ, then departed from Him. The path of faith was and remains the path of completely surrendering oneself to God as the highest Truth; in other words, the path of faith is difficult for those who lack inner integrity.

It also happens, of course, that people have conscientious doubts arising from the limitations of our minds, from the difficulty of incorporating into our consciousness that which exceeds the power of our understanding. But conscientious doubts, often inevitable for certain minds, are not sinful in themselves - they become sinful when we, succumbing to them, let's stop looking truth in its fullness, we calm down spiritually and freeze in our doubts - that is, we plunge into spiritual sleep. Many people are now in such a spiritual sleep, in which the highest demands of the spirit freeze, and the reason for this lies in the spiritual untruth that has developed and matured in humanity in recent centuries. Without exaggeration, we can say that the entire modern culture, with its technical achievements, lulls us spiritually, drowns out the needs of the spirit - and we, like the Old Testament Esau, sell our spiritual birthright for “lentil soup”, for those petty and superficial hobbies of ours that contribute to our spiritual sleep. But why does the entire system of modern life and culture affect us this way?

The struggle of faith and unbelief. Severance from the Church. Rationalism. The meaning of faith for a person. Faith is combined with knowledge and culture. Basic topics of apologetics. Question about the Church.

Part I. Christian Faith and Modern Knowledge.

Holy Scripture as the source of Christian truth. The Bible's main ideas about the world boil down to the following: The difference between chapters 1 and 2 in the book of Genesis. The Fall of the Forefathers. Damage to nature due to the fall of our ancestors. Story about the flood. The depth of Christian teaching.

The meaning of faith in knowledge of the world and man. An assessment of reason in Christianity. The limitations of our mind. Participation of faith in knowledge. The possibility of miracles. The reality of miracles. The miracle of the resurrection of the Savior. It is impossible to deny the reality of Christ's resurrection. Knowledge cannot be opposed to faith.

God is the Creator of the world. Naturalism. The unacceptability of pure naturalism. Agnosticism. Pantheism. About the existence of God. Proofs of the existence of God. Systems of deism and theism.

Modern teachings about the universe. The earth is like a celestial body. Features of the earth. The initiative of the earth. The emergence of life. The teachings of Charles Darwin. Criticism of Darwinism. God's participation in the life of the earth. About the fourth day of creation.

Man and subhuman nature. Paleontological data. Embryology data. Mental differences of a person. Only humans have spiritual development. Development of speech in man. The appearance of fire.

The debate between monogenism and polygenism. Unity of the human psyche. Unity in aesthetic life. Unity in the moral sphere. Unity in the religious sphere. The fundamental unity of humanity. Unity in the development of material culture. When did man appear on earth? Flood. The truth of the biblical flood story.

The theme is about evil in man. Explanation of evil from ignorance. Explanation of evil from difficult social conditions. A dualistic solution to the theme of evil. Christian interpretation of evil. Why was evil allowed?

Bibliographical Guidelines for Part I. Special Books in Russian

Part II. Christianity in History.

Contact between Christianity and paganism. Christian terms common to pagan philosophy. The concept of "reception." The meaning of "reception." The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not taken from Greek philosophy. The inadmissibility of the doctrine of the mosaic nature of Christianity. History of religion as a science. The latest trends in the history of religion.

The absurdity of denying the historical reality of Christ. Rationalism as a source of doubt about the historical reality of Christ. Jewish sources about Christ. Extra-Christian sources about Christ. Why is there so little historical evidence for Christ? Christianity as evidence of the reality of Christ Christianity and pagan mysteries.

Paganism as a religious fact. The meaning of the mysteries. Egyptian mysteries. Greek mysteries. Mysteries of Mithra. The meaning of the mysteries.

Symbolism in paganism. The reality of Christ's resurrection. Extra-Hrietian teachings about posthumous existence. Persian doctrine of posthumous existence. Egyptian teachings about immortal life. "Resurrection" in the Mysteries. "Resurrection" of Dionysus. Comparison of pagan mysteries with Christianity. Basic features of Christianity.

The entry of Christianity into history. Development of Trinitarian dogma. Development of Christological dogma Differences in the development of Christianity and paganism. Veneration of the Mother of God in Christianity. Pagan cult of Mother Earth. Development of Christian worship. Feast of the Nativity of Christ. Christian Eucharist.

The paradox of Christianity. Historical side of Christianity. Christianity is not entirely historical. Bibliography for Part II.

Part III. Christianity as a Church.

How is “churchless Christianity” possible? Individual reasons for leaving the Church. Decline of churchliness. Return to the Church. Faith in the Church. The pressure of the historical situation on church life. What is the Church accused of?

Christian concept of freedom. Freedom in Christ. Church as authority. Authority and power. Secularism is not the path of freedom. Non-religious construction of science. The problem of freedom in religious consciousness.

The inevitability of social themes in Christianity. Responsibility of the Church and responsibility of the clergy. Attitude to wealth in the New Testament. Attitudes to wealth in the early Christian community. Development of social themes in the history of Christian peoples. Social idealism instead of Christianity. Non-religious humanism. Christian morality. Gospel basis in social idealism.

Attitude to power in the first centuries of Christianity. The idea of ​​a "symphony." Church and state in the East. The principle of theocracy. Western theocracy. Perversion of the idea of ​​theocracy in the West. "Symphony."

The concept of "unity of the Church." The theory of "branches." The unity of the Church and its truth. Church Divisions. The problem of the unity of the Church in the Catholic interpretation. Protestantism. Ecumenical movement. Divisions in the Church are its cross.

The church is connected to history. We must bear the cross of the Church. Creative tasks of the Church in the world. Bibliography:

Pre-Christian teachings. Analysis of Plato's argumentation. Teaching of the Orthodox Church. Is it possible to communicate with the deceased? Evidence from Christian anthropology about life after death.

The difference between Christian morality and pagan and Old Testament morality. New Testament morality; its general features. Understanding Christian morality in various confessions. Moral traits are in our "nature." Attitude towards yourself. Attitude to family, to property and to the social system. Church and law. Church and State. Conclusion. Bibliography.

Truth of Orthodoxy. What stands between us and Catholics? Church groups that separated from the Roman Church? The fragmentation of Protestantism. Divisions in the Russian Church. Non-Christian religious movements.

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