Cataphatism and apophaticism

When we consider the names of God, we conclude that none of them can give us a complete picture of Him. When we speak of God's attributes, we also find that the totality of them is not God. God transcends any name: whether we call Him being, He transcends being, He is superbeing; whether we call it truth or justice, in His love He surpasses all justice; whether we call it love - He is more than love, He is super-love. God is also superior to any attribute we can attribute to Him, whether omniscient, omnipresent, or immutable. In the end, we come to understand that nothing can be said affirmatively about God at all: everything we say about Him is incomplete, partial, and limited. Hence the natural conclusion: we cannot say of God that He exists, but can only say that He is not. This way of reasoning about God is called apophatic (negative) theology, in contrast to cataphatic (positive) theology. In the words of Archpriest George Florovsky, God "is higher... all limitation, above all definition and affirmation, and therefore above all negation... The apophatic "not" is equivalent to "above" (or "outside", "except") - it does not mean limitation or exclusion, but exaltation and superiority... Divinity is above all speculative names and definitions... God is neither soul, nor reason, nor imagination, nor opinion, nor thinking, nor life, He is neither word nor thought... God is not the "object" of knowledge, He is above knowledge... Therefore, the path of knowledge is the path of abstraction and negation, the path of simplification and silence... We know God only in the peace of the spirit, in the peace of ignorance. And this apophatic ignorance is rather super-knowledge, not the absence of knowledge, but perfect knowledge, therefore incommensurable with all partial knowledge. This ignorance is contemplation... God is known not from afar, not through contemplation of Him, but through an incomprehensible union with Him. .. [1] "The apophatic ascent of the mind to God is compared by the Fathers and teachers of the Church (in particular, Dionysius the Areopagite, Gregory of Nyssa) with the ascent of Moses on Mount Sinai to God, Who surrounded Himself with darkness (cf. 2 Sam. 22:12). Divine darkness means the absence of anything material or sensual. To enter the Divine darkness means to go beyond the limits of intelligible being. The people of Israel at the time of Moses' encounter with God had to be at the foot of the mountain, that is, within the limits of the cataphatic knowledge of God, and only Moses could enter the darkness, that is, having renounced everything, to meet God, Who is beyond everything, Who is where there is nothing. Cataphatically we say of God that He is Light, but in saying this we involuntarily liken God to sensual light. And if it is said of Christ, transfigured on Tabor, that "His face shone like the sun, and His garments became white like light" (Matt. 17:2), then the cataphatic concept of "light" is used here symbolically, since we are talking about the uncreated radiance of the Godhead, which surpasses any human concept of light. Apophatically we may call the divine light, which transcends all conception of light, superlight or darkness. Thus, the darkness of Sinai and the light of Tabor are one and the same.Terminologically, apophaticism can be expressed in several ways: 1) through the use of terms beginning with the prefix "not-" (non-being, bearing, invisible, incomprehensible); 2) through the use of terms with the prefix "super-" (super-existent, super-good, even "super-God", hypertheos, as in Dionysius the Areopagite); 3) through the use of concepts that are deliberately opposite to what is expected ("Divine darkness" instead of "Divine light", "ignorance" instead of "knowledge"); 4) through the use of oxymorons - verbal pairs, in which one word is opposite in meaning to another ("to see the invisible", "to comprehend the incomprehensible", "bright darkness").In our understanding of God, we often operate with cataphatic concepts, since it is easier and more accessible to the mind. But cataphatic knowledge has its limits, which it cannot overstep. The path of negation corresponds to the spiritual ascent into that Divine abyss where words are silenced, where reason freezes, where all human knowledge and comprehension ceases, "where God is." Not on the paths of speculative knowledge, but in the depths of prayerful silence, the soul can meet God, Who reveals Himself to it as incomprehensible, unapproachable, invisible, and at the same time alive, close and dear, as God the Person. Archpriest George Florovsky. Byzantine Fathers of the V-VIII centuries. Paris, 1937. pp. 102-103 ^

Anthology of Holy Texts

A hard-to-comprehend mystery... Constantly it goes forward and hides from the one who seemed to be already close to achieving it. And yet God, who is far from man, moves near him. Oh, the ineffable miracle! "I am the God that draweth near," saith the Lord, "though in my being I escape from your senses." And indeed. For under what name can the Uncreated draw near to that which He has created? And yet He surrounds us with His omnipotence... He constantly watches over us, constantly does good to us, guides us, is present with us, embracing us all equally. For this reason, Moses, convinced that man is incapable of knowing God by his wisdom, exclaimed: "Show me Thyself" (Exodus 23:13). And he strove to penetrate into the darkness of the clouds, where the voice of God thundered, that is, he tried to comprehend the deepest and most impenetrable ideas of existence. But God is not in the cloud or in any other place. It is beyond space, not subject to the limitations of time, not embraced by the properties of things... Heaven, though called His throne, still does not embrace Him; He only rests there, satisfied with the creation of His hands.Clement of Alexandria"It is not easy to know the Father and Creator of this universe, and once you have found it, you will still not be able to proclaim Him to all, because the mystery of His essence cannot be expressed in words like other teachings," says Plato, a sincere friend of truth. He heard, no doubt, what was said about Moses, in whom wisdom also dwelt, how, preparing to ascend the mountain to contemplate face to face this most magnificent of mysteries perceptible to the mind, he was compelled to forbid the people to follow these inscrutable revelations. And when the Scriptures say: "And Moses entered into the darkness where God is" (Exodus 20:21), these words for a person capable of understanding meant that God cannot be seen with the eye or depicted by the word of man. And one should not consider that negation contradicts the statement, since She is much more primary and higher... of any negation or affirmation... The divine Moses... Only after every purification did he hear the many-voiced trumpets and saw many lights, purely radiant, and various rays. After that, he left the crowd and, with the chosen priests, reached the pinnacle of the divine ascents. But even there he did not converse with God Himself, nor did he see Him Himself, for He is invisible, but the place where He stood. This indicates, it seems to me, that the most divine and highest of the objects of contemplation are but some conjectural expressions of the footstools of the All-Transcendent, by means of which the presence of Him who rests on the intellectual summits of His holiest places is revealed. And then Moses breaks away from all that is visible and seeing, and penetrates into the darkness of ignorance, truly mysterious, after which he ceases rational perception and finds himself in complete darkness and blindness, being completely beyond everything, belonging neither to himself nor to anything else.

Further, ascending, we say that She is not a soul, not a mind; She has neither imagination, nor opinion, nor word, nor understanding; It is neither word nor thought; It is inexpressible in words and incomprehensible; It is not number, not order, not magnitude, not smallness, not equality, not inequality, not likeness, not difference; It does not stand, does not move, is not at rest, has no power, and is neither force nor light; It does not live and does not live; It is neither essence, nor age, nor time; It is not characterized by mental perception; It is not knowledge, nor truth, nor kingdom, nor wisdom; It is not one or unity, not divinity or goodness; It is not spirit in the sense we know, nor sonship, nor fatherhood, nor anything else that is accessible to our perception or to anyone else's perception; It is not something of non-being, and it is not something of being... Above all affirmation is the perfect and only Cause of all, and above all negation is Her superiority, as completely abstract from everything and transcendent for everything.Dionysius the AreopagiteThus, it is clear that God exists. And that He is in essence and nature is completely incomprehensible and unknown... The Unborn and the Beginningless, and the Unchangeable, and the Incorruptible... - does not mean that God exists, but that He is not. And to those who wish to speak about the essence of something, it must be explained that it is, and not that it is not. However, it is impossible to say of God that He is in essence. Rather, it is more common to speak (of Him) through the denial of everything. For He is not something of existence, not as Non-Being, but as Being above all that exists, and above being itself... Thus, the Divinity is boundless and incomprehensible. And this alone - infinity and incomprehensibility in Him - is comprehensible. And what we say about God affirmatively shows not His nature, but what is near nature. Whether you call Him good, or righteous, or wise, or anything else, you will not speak of the nature of God, but of that which is near nature. Also, some (of what) is said of God in the affirmative has the meaning of an excellent negation; as, for example, when we speak of darkness in relation to God, we do not mean darkness, but that which is not light, but is above light; St. John of DamascusAccording to the Scriptures, God sleeps (Psalm 43:24), awakens (Dan. 9:14), is angry (Deut. 11:17), walks and has cherubim as his throne (Isaiah 37:16)... In accordance with our concept, we have also called the things of God by names taken from ourselves. When God, for reasons known to Him, ceases His care and carelessness, as it were, for us, it means that He is asleep, because our sleep is such inactivity and carelessness. When, on the contrary, he suddenly begins to do good, it means that He is awakening... He punishes, and we have made of it - he is angry, because with us punishment is the result of anger. He acts here and there, but according to ours - He walks... And also every other power of God and every other action of God is depicted in us by something taken from the body.

Chapter III: The Trinity

A hard-to-comprehend mystery... Constantly it goes forward and hides from the one who seemed to be already close to achieving it. And yet God, who is far from man, moves near him. Oh, the ineffable miracle! "I am the God that draweth near," saith the Lord, "though in my being I escape from your senses." And indeed. For under what name can the Uncreated draw near to that which He has created? And yet He surrounds us with His omnipotence... He constantly watches over us, constantly does good to us, guides us, is present with us, embracing us all equally. For this reason, Moses, convinced that man is incapable of knowing God by his wisdom, exclaimed: "Show me Thyself" (Exodus 23:13). And he strove to penetrate into the darkness of the clouds, where the voice of God thundered, that is, he tried to comprehend the deepest and most impenetrable ideas of existence. But God is not in the cloud or in any other place. It is beyond space, not subject to the limitations of time, not embraced by the properties of things... Heaven, though called His throne, still does not embrace Him; He only rests there, satisfied with the creation of His hands.Clement of Alexandria"It is not easy to know the Father and Creator of this universe, and once you have found it, you will still not be able to proclaim Him to all, because the mystery of His essence cannot be expressed in words like other teachings," says Plato, a sincere friend of truth. He heard, no doubt, what was said about Moses, in whom wisdom also dwelt, how, preparing to ascend the mountain to contemplate face to face this most magnificent of mysteries perceptible to the mind, he was compelled to forbid the people to follow these inscrutable revelations. And when the Scriptures say: "And Moses entered into the darkness where God is" (Exodus 20:21), these words for a person capable of understanding meant that God cannot be seen with the eye or depicted by the word of man. And one should not consider that negation contradicts the statement, since She is much more primary and higher... of any negation or affirmation... The divine Moses... Only after every purification did he hear the many-voiced trumpets and saw many lights, purely radiant, and various rays. After that, he left the crowd and, with the chosen priests, reached the pinnacle of the divine ascents. But even there he did not converse with God Himself, nor did he see Him Himself, for He is invisible, but the place where He stood. This indicates, it seems to me, that the most divine and highest of the objects of contemplation are but some conjectural expressions of the footstools of the All-Transcendent, by means of which the presence of Him who rests on the intellectual summits of His holiest places is revealed. And then Moses breaks away from all that is visible and seeing, and penetrates into the darkness of ignorance, truly mysterious, after which he ceases rational perception and finds himself in complete darkness and blindness, being completely beyond everything, belonging neither to himself nor to anything else.

Further, ascending, we say that She is not a soul, not a mind; She has neither imagination, nor opinion, nor word, nor understanding; It is neither word nor thought; It is inexpressible in words and incomprehensible; It is not number, not order, not magnitude, not smallness, not equality, not inequality, not likeness, not difference; It does not stand, does not move, is not at rest, has no power, and is neither force nor light; It does not live and does not live; It is neither essence, nor age, nor time; It is not characterized by mental perception; It is not knowledge, nor truth, nor kingdom, nor wisdom; It is not one or unity, not divinity or goodness; It is not spirit in the sense we know, nor sonship, nor fatherhood, nor anything else that is accessible to our perception or to anyone else's perception; It is not something of non-being, and it is not something of being... Above all affirmation is the perfect and only Cause of all, and above all negation is Her superiority, as completely abstract from everything and transcendent for everything.Dionysius the AreopagiteThus, it is clear that God exists. And that He is in essence and nature is completely incomprehensible and unknown... The Unborn and the Beginningless, and the Unchangeable, and the Incorruptible... - does not mean that God exists, but that He is not. And to those who wish to speak about the essence of something, it must be explained that it is, and not that it is not. However, it is impossible to say of God that He is in essence. Rather, it is more common to speak (of Him) through the denial of everything. For He is not something of existence, not as Non-Being, but as Being above all that exists, and above being itself... Thus, the Divinity is boundless and incomprehensible. And this alone - infinity and incomprehensibility in Him - is comprehensible. And what we say about God affirmatively shows not His nature, but what is near nature. Whether you call Him good, or righteous, or wise, or anything else, you will not speak of the nature of God, but of that which is near nature. Also, some (of what) is said of God in the affirmative has the meaning of an excellent negation; as, for example, when we speak of darkness in relation to God, we do not mean darkness, but that which is not light, but is above light; St. John of DamascusAccording to the Scriptures, God sleeps (Psalm 43:24), awakens (Dan. 9:14), is angry (Deut. 11:17), walks and has cherubim as his throne (Isaiah 37:16)... In accordance with our concept, we have also called the things of God by names taken from ourselves. When God, for reasons known to Him, ceases His care and carelessness, as it were, for us, it means that He is asleep, because our sleep is such inactivity and carelessness. When, on the contrary, he suddenly begins to do good, it means that He is awakening... He punishes, and we have made of it - he is angry, because with us punishment is the result of anger. He acts here and there, but according to ours - He walks... And also every other power of God and every other action of God is depicted in us by something taken from the body.

The Mystery of the Trinity

Christians believe in God the Trinity - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is not three gods, but one God in three Hypostases, that is, in three independent personal (personal) existences. This is the only case where 1 = 3 and 3 = 1. What would be absurd to mathematics and logic is the cornerstone of faith. A Christian partakes of the mystery of the Trinity not through intellectual knowledge, but through repentance, that is, a complete change and renewal of the mind, heart, feelings, and our entire being (the Greek word "repentance" – metanoia – literally means "change of mind"). It is impossible to commune with the Trinity until the mind becomes enlightened and transfigured.The teaching about the Trinity is not an invention of theologians - it is a divinely revealed truth. At the moment of the Baptism of Jesus Christ, God for the first time clearly reveals Himself to the world as a Unity in three Persons: "And when all the people were baptized, and Jesus was baptized and prayed, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form, like a dove, and there was a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art My beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased" (Luke 3:21-22). The voice of the Father is heard from heaven, the Son stands in the waters of the Jordan, the Spirit descends upon the Son. Jesus Christ repeatedly spoke of His unity with the Father, that He was sent into the world by the Father, that He called Himself His Son (John 6-8). He also promised His disciples to send the Spirit of the Comforter, Who proceeds from the Father (John 14:16-17; 15:26). Sending His disciples to preach, He says to them: "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19). Likewise, in the writings of the Apostles it is said about God the Trinity: "Three bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these Three are One" (1 John 5:7). The ancient Jews sacredly preserved faith in one God, and they would not have been able to understand the idea of the trinity of the Godhead, because such an idea would have been perceived by them unequivocally as tritheism. In an era when polytheism reigned supreme in the world, the mystery of the Trinity was hidden from human eyes, it was, as it were, hidden in the deepest core of the truth about the unity of the Godhead. The first verse of the Bible - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1) - in the Hebrew text contains the word "God" in the plural (Eloghim - lit. "gods"), while the verb "created" is in the singular. Before the creation of man, God says, as if in consultation with someone: "Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness" (Gen. 1:26). With whom can He consult if not with Himself? With angels? But man was not created in the image of angels, but "in the image of God" (Gen. 1:27). Ancient Christian interpreters asserted that here we are talking about the consultation of the Persons of the Holy Trinity among Themselves. In the same way, when Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God says to Himself: "Behold, Adam became as one of Us, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:22). And at the moment of the construction of the Tower of Babel, the Lord says: "Let us go down and confuse their language, so that one may not understand the speech of the other" (Gen. 11:7).Some episodes of the Old Testament are considered in the Christian tradition as symbolizing the trinity of the Godhead. The Lord appears to Abraham at the oak grove of Mamre. "He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men stood against him. When he saw them, he ran to meet them from the entrance to the tent and bowed down to the ground, and said, "Lord! If I have found favor in Thy eyes, do not pass by Thy servant... but I will bring bread, and you will strengthen your hearts, then go, as you pass by your servant... And they said to him, Where is Sarah thy wife? He answered, "Here, in the tent." And one of them said, I will be with you again at the same time, and Sarah will have a son" (Gen. 18:2-3, 5, 9-10). Abraham meets Three, and worships One. Thou = You, Pass = Go, Said = Said, 1 = 3...The Prophet Isaiah describes his vision of the Lord, around Whom the Seraphim stood, crying out, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts." The Lord says: "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" to which the prophet answers: "Here am I, send me" (Isaiah 6:1-8). Again, equality between "Me" and "Us". In the Old Testament, in addition, there are many prophecies that speak of the equality of the Son of the Messiah and God the Father, for example: "The Lord said to me, You are my Son, this day I have begotten you" (Psalm 2:7) or "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand... From the womb before the dawn I begat you" (Psalm 109:1, 3).The above biblical texts, however, only foreshadow the mystery of the Trinity, but do not speak of it directly. This mystery remains under the veil, which, according to the Apostle Paul, can only be removed by Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 3:15-16).

Ternary terminology

Christians, from the earliest days of the Church, have believed in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, based on the words of Christ and the testimonies of Scripture. However, it took several centuries for the doctrine of the Trinity to be clothed in precise theological formulations. In the third century, the Church was confronted with the heresy of Sabellius, who taught that God is one Being, and that the three Persons are, as it were, three manifestations of one and the same Nature, as if three "masks" under which God appears to people (the Greek term "person" - prosopon - means not so much a person as a "mask", a mask of an actor). One and the same indivisible Monad, according to Sabellius, acted at different times as if in three different modes: in the Old Testament God manifested Himself as the Father, in the New Testament as the Son, and in the Church after Pentecost as the Holy Spirit. God, according to Sabellius, is the "Son-Father": in relation to the world He is the silent Monad, but in relation to the world He is the Word-Logos. The teaching of Sabellius was an extreme expression of monarchianism, which was based on the idea of God as an indivisible Monad.At the beginning of the fourth century, the Alexandrian priest Arius taught that the Father is the one true God, and the Son is His creation. The Son was created "out of nothing", but He has an advantage over other creatures, since He was born before time and centuries. Arianism is one of the forms of subordinationism, that is, the doctrine of the subordination of the Son to the Father, and the Spirit to the Son. Arianism quickly became widespread and caused heated debates throughout the Christian East. In connection with the teaching of Arius, the First Ecumenical Council was convened in Nicaea in 325, which was destined to formulate the Orthodox teaching on the Holy Trinity.The Council of Nicaea spoke of the Son as "consubstantial" (homoousios) with the Father, that is, having one essence with the Father. Theologians also used another term - "hypostasis" (hypostasis - existence), originally perceived as a synonym for "essence". Gradually, however, already in the era after the Council of Nicaea, the word "hypostasis" acquired the meaning of personal existence, i.e. personal and concrete being, while "ousia" began to be understood as a certain general ontological property. A decisive role in the final development of the Trinitarian terminology was played by the "great Cappadocians" - Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa. They also formulated the teaching about the Holy Spirit as consubstantial and equal to the Father and the Son.Thus, the Orthodox teaching about God the Trinity is expressed in the following terms: God is one in essence, but one in three Hypostases. If the formula "one nature - three Persons" left it possible to speak of emanations and faces of one and the same Being, then the formula "one essence - three Hypostases", pointing to the ontological unity of the Godhead, at the same time emphasized the independence of each Hypostasis. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three full-fledged Persons-persons, each of whom has not only the fullness of being, but is also the whole God. One Hypostasis is not a third of the general essence, but contains in Itself the fullness of the Divine essence. The Father is God, not a third of God, the Son is also God, and the Holy Spirit is also God. But all the Three together are not three Gods, but one God. We confess "the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in essence and indivisible" (from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom). That is, the three Hypostases do not divide the one essence into three essences, but the one essence does not merge or mix the three Hypostases into one.

The Fullness of the Divine Life in the Trinity

In order to make the doctrine of the Trinity more comprehensible, the Holy Fathers sometimes resorted to analogies and comparisons. For example, the Trinity can be compared to the sun: when we say "sun" we mean the celestial body itself, as well as sunlight and solar heat. Light and heat are "hypostases" in their own right, but they do not exist in isolation from the sun. But the sun also does not exist without heat and light... Another analogy: water, source and flow: one does not exist without the other... In man there is a mind, a soul, and a word: the mind cannot exist without the soul and the word, otherwise it would be soulless and wordless, but neither the soul nor the word can be without the mind. In God there is a Father, a Word, and a Spirit, and, as the defenders of "consubstantiality" said at the Council of Nicaea, if God the Father ever existed without God the Word, then He was wordless or irrational. The simplest thing would be to explain the mystery of the Trinity, as did St. Spyridon of Trimythous, a participant in the Council of Nicaea. According to legend, when asked how it could be that the Three were One at the same time, instead of answering, he took a brick in his hands and squeezed it. From the clay softened in the hands of the saint a flame burst up, and water flowed down. "As in this brick there is fire and water," said the saint, "so in the one God there are three Persons. [1] "Another version of the same account (or perhaps another similar event) is contained in the Acts of the Council of Nicaea. A philosopher argued for a long time with the Fathers of this Council, trying to prove logically that the Son cannot be of one essence with the Father. Tired of long debates, everyone was about to disperse, when suddenly a simple shepherd elder (identified with St. Spyridon) entered the hall and declared that he was ready to argue with the philosopher and refute all his arguments. Then, turning to the philosopher and looking at him sternly, he said: "Listen, philosopher, there is one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, who created all things by the power of the Son and the co-operation of the Holy Spirit. This Son of God became incarnate, lived among people, died for us and rose again. Do not trouble yourself in vain to seek out proofs of that which is comprehended by faith alone, but answer: Do you believe in the Son of God?" The elder said: "If you believe, then come with me to church and there I will unite you to this true faith." The philosopher immediately got up and followed the elder. As he came out, he said to those present: "While they were proving to me in words, I opposed words to words, but when divine power appeared from the mouth of this elder, words could not resist power, because man cannot resist God" [2]... God the Trinity is not some kind of frozen existence, it is not rest, immobility, static. "I am that I am," God says to Moses (Exodus 3:14). Being means existing, living. In God is the fullness of life, and life is movement, manifestation, revelation. Some divine names, as we have seen, have a dynamic character: God is compared to fire (Exodus 24:17), water (Jeremiah 2:13), and wind (Gen. 1:2). In the biblical book of the Song of Songs, a woman is looking for her lover, who is running away from her. This image is reinterpreted in the Christian tradition (Origen, Gregory of Nyssa) as the soul's pursuit of God, who is eternally fleeing from it. The soul seeks God, but as soon as it gains it, it loses it again, tries to comprehend Him, but cannot comprehend Him, tries to contain Him, but cannot contain Him. It moves with great "speed" and always exceeds our strength and our capabilities. To find and catch up with God means to become Divine yourself. Just as, according to physical laws, if any material body began to move at the speed of light, it would itself turn into light, so the soul: the closer it is to God, the more it is filled with light and becomes luminous... The Holy Scriptures say that "God is love" (1 John 4:8; 4:16). But there is no love without a beloved. Love presupposes the existence of the other. A lonely isolated monad can only love itself: self-love is not love. An egocentric unit is not a person. Just as man cannot realize himself as a person-person except through communion with other persons, so there can be no personal being in God except through love for another personal being. God the Trinity is the fullness of love, each Person-Hypostasis is turned by love to the other two Persons-Hypostases. The persons in the Trinity are aware of Themselves as "I and You": "You, Father, are in Me, and I in You," Christ says to the Father (John 17:21). "All that the Father has is Mine, therefore I have said that He shall take of Mine and declare it unto you," says Christ of the Holy Spirit (John 16:14). "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God" - this is how the Gospel of John begins (John 1:1). In the Greek and Slavonic texts, there is a preposition "to": the Word was "to God" (pros ton Theon). The personal nature of the relationship between the Son (the Word) and the Father is emphasized: the Son is not only born of the Father, He not only exists with the Father, but He is turned to the Father. Thus, each Hypostasis in the Trinity is turned to the other two Hypostases.On the icon of the Most Holy Trinity by St. Andrei Rublev, as well as on other icons of the same iconographic type, we see three angels sitting at a table on which stands the Chalice, a symbol of the redemptive sacrifice of Christ. The subject of the icon is borrowed from the above-mentioned case of Abraham ("Abraham's Hospitality" is the name of this iconographic version), and all the Persons of the Trinity are represented facing each other and at the same time to the Chalice. The icon seems to imprint the Divine love that reigns within the Trinity and the highest manifestation of which is the redemptive feat of the Son. This, in the words of St. Philaret (Drozdov), is "the love of the Father crucifying, the love of the Son crucified, the love of the Holy Spirit triumphant by the power of the Cross [3]." The sacrifice of God the Son on the Cross is also a feat of love between the Father and the Holy Spirit. Eternal. Collection of Spiritual Reading No342. Paris, 1983. P. 61 ^ Acts of the Ecumenical Councils. Ed. 1-e. T. 1. Kazan, 1859. Ss. 101-103 ^ PG 4, 221 ^