Concluding the analysis of the Old Russian theological teachings on the salvation of the human race, i.e. on liberation from sin, we will note its two aspects: a) complete fidelity to the patristic universal understanding of the feat of Jesus Christ, reaching the identity of comparative images; b) the psychological and vitality of this teaching in the transmission of ancient Russian theologians; The universal doctrines are not clothed in dry and lifeless formulas, but are expressed with all the fire of faith and contemplation.

VIII. Redemption among Latin and Southern Russian Theologians

In discussing the introduction of the doctrine of the three ministries of the Lord Jesus Christ into the Kievan theological systems, we were forced to clarify the view of patristic theology, both universal and Russian, on blood sacrifices. This view is almost negative: according to the consciousness of the Holy Fathers, sacrifices were allowed in the Old Testament period only as a condescension to the human weakness of the Jews. Such a view of sacrifice did not allow for the recognition of Jesus Christ as a sacrifice to God the Father as the final form of salvation. True, Sts. the Fathers repeated the words of the Apostle Paul about the sacrifice of Christ (Hebrews 7:27), but of course they understood them in a comparative, figurative sense, like the other names of Christ: if God did not want the death of dumb animals and allowed their sacrifices as a condescension to human weakness, then it is difficult to admit that God needed or even desired (we do not dare to say pleasant) the bloody death of His incarnate Son, full of shame and fear. And indeed, although Sts. the Fathers were, of course, aware of the Apostle's words about the priesthood and the sacrifice of Christ, but none of them builds theories of man's liberation from sin through sacrifice to God the Father. Western scholastic theology, having accepted the teaching of the high priestly ministry of Jesus Christ, understood sacrifices quite differently and looked upon them as a real means of deliverance from sin (utrum Christus simul fuerit sacerdos et hostia? Sic, hostia et pro peccata et pacifica et holocaustum). Inclined, owing to the religious ignorance of its representatives, to crude literalism, it accepted the figurative words of the Apostle about sacrifice in the literal sense and introduced it as an essential dogma of doctrine; the doctrine of sacrifice, dogmatized in the West, had a firm stronghold in Western culture, based on the ideas of law and knightly honor, "sacrifice" was presented as the usual satisfaction of the offended in chivalric times. Thus, the salvation of man was very easily resolved from the point of view of chivalric concepts. It seems to us that even such a solution to the problem of man's liberation from sin could take place in theology if it were accepted as an artistic image of comparison, although not particularly successful: but the crude literalism of scholasticism did not admit of comparative images, and the concepts of sacrifice and satisfaction acquired the force of immutability and unconditionality. Human limitation passed into the realm of the Divine, and on these foundations the entire system of our salvation is built: "Having angered the infinite greatness of God," we read in Statsevich's lengthy Catechism, "man was no longer able to correct his sin, because he could not bring to the Lord satisfaction commensurate with his crime" (v. 34). But what man could not do, the incarnate Son of God did: "Jesus Christ alone, Who, as a man, could suffer, and as God, could impart to His sufferings an infinite merit, He alone could satisfy the justice of His heavenly Father, offering Him His sufferings of an infinite price, instead of the punishment due to the sin of men" (v. 39). This theory of salvation, borrowed from the sphere of legal relations and therefore known under the name of juridical, fully corresponds to the entire structure and life of the Western community, usually called the Roman Catholic Church. We have already had occasion to speak of the earthly, secular, and highly conventional character of the ecclesiastical mechanism of the West when we made an assessment of the very spirit of the scholastic system. Now we will only note the fact that the juridical point of view has transferred to each individual case of the sinner's salvation: according to the teaching of the Catholic Catechism, the necessary conditions for repentance are contrition, confession and satisfaction (v. 121). Thus, the doctrine of satisfying God's truth, for all its conventionality, is quite appropriate in a religious community governed in the spirit of the ideas of Roman law and medieval chivalry. But, unfortunately, this teaching did not survive in the systems of Latin theologians: in the seventeenth century it passed through the works of the Kievan theologians into Russian theological science. "The first passion and death of Christ is called the sacrifice of the offering of union, which reconciled us to God, and by His wrath many sins (The Great Catechism, v. 45). This sacrifice, which is one body and blood of Christ, is to us the supplication of the wrathful God, which is pleasing to God from all sacrifices, and more than all offerings" (46 l.). However, Lavrenty Zizanius does not defend this view entirely; already on the reverse of folio 47, the point of view changes somewhat: "For this reason Christ was a man for us, and suffered and offered blood to the Father, that the Father might condemn the enemy, having unjustly brought death." On page 53 the juridical understanding again triumphs: "For a single drop of His holy blood weighs before God for the redemption of the whole human race, yet for this reason our Lord Jesus Christ willed to accept and reproach in the great passion of sickness and reproach, so that all the multitude of our sins would abound in His righteousness, and all our sins would be like a drop of sea water against His loving mercy." "In addition to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, every sinner must also bring satisfaction" (341 p.). Thus, in the "Large Catechism" we see not only traces of Latin scholastic thinking, but the completely transferred scholastic doctrine of our salvation by satisfying the truth of God.

In the "Orthodox Confession" of Peter Mogila, which is generally inferior in detail to the "Great Catechism", there are no such definite recognitions of the need to satisfy Divine justice, but his general teaching on salvation differs to a considerable degree in juridical character, although without such a complete explanation of all the details as we have seen in Statsevich's "Catholic Catechism". Christ is recognized as a sacrifice to the Father, of course, in the literal sense, and the penance imposed on the sinner is regarded as a "punishment." The idea of satisfying God with a "bloody" sacrifice was so inherent in the consciousness of the author of the "Orthodox Confession" that it led him to a very characteristic slip of the tongue: on page 39 we read that Christ suffered in one flesh; it is true that the flesh is here opposed to the Divinity, but Christ Himself spoke of the sufferings of His soul (Mark 14:34), which could not have been unknown to Metropolitan Peter Mogila, but faithful to the tendency of satisfaction, he placed all the power of Christ's sufferings in a bloody death.

If scholastic theologians had recourse to the juridical theory of salvation as merely a comparative image, it might be said that the comparison is not entirely successful. If this teaching were not expounded with such crude literalism, then the satisfaction of divine truth could be interpreted in the highest sense, i.e. it could be asserted that the establishment of the salvific path of life and the love of the innocent Divine Sufferer, which attracts to this path, fully corresponds to the plans of the creative will and, consequently, satisfies eternal truth.

Unfortunately, the Catholic theologians, and the Kievans who copied from them after them, speak in this case so clearly and definitely, and with such persistence raise their unfortunate interpretation to an absolute one, that there is no room for any mitigating explanations. From the above excerpts of the lengthy Roman Catholic catechism, it is clear that, in the opinion of the scholastics, God, infinitely offended by sin, was satisfied (i.e., avenged) by the bloody sacrifice of His Son. In order to agree with such an explanation of the divine cause, it is necessary to recognize the very idea of satisfaction, i.e. revenge as something unconditional, inevitable. Perhaps this is how it appeared to medieval society: on the one hand, chivalry, with its infinitely developed idea of honor, on the other, barbarous legal proceedings, which looked upon punishment as revenge on the criminal. But mankind, in the brighter moments of its life, has risen even by natural forces above the cruel idea; many teachers of the East and West spoke about the forgiveness of offenses, and modern humane legislation looks at punishment as the correction of the criminal, therefore, it has also risen above the idea of revenge. Further, in accepting the theory of gratification, one must admit divine wrath as something real, not comparative. Not to mention the fact that the recognition of anger as an unconditional attribute of God contradicts the general Christian concepts of God, it runs counter to the positive testimonies of Sts. Fathers who understood the wrath of God in a comparative sense. Prep. John Cassian directly says that "without blasphemy it is impossible to attribute to Him indignation with anger and fury" (Good 2, vol. 60). In addition, introducing elements of conventionality and dryness into the Christian doctrine and little harmony with Christ's teaching on forgiveness, the legal theory introduces into the church discipline and into the personal life of Western Christians a great deal of dryness and legalistic formalism, completely unknown to the life of the ancient universal Church. In the teaching of the Orthodox Church, which lives by the traditions of the self-sacrificing love of the apostles, martyrs, ascetics and hierarchs, and which has never known the limits of divine love for mankind, this theory appeared quite accidentally, by virtue of a sad misunderstanding. Existing only in books (almost exclusively in textbooks) and penetrating little into life, it remained alien to the consciousness of the Church and therefore had no practical significance. At the present time, however, its inconsistency is recognized by the vast majority of our theologians, and practical objections to it are a well-known phenomenon.

Chapter Three. Analysis of the Doctrine of the Sacraments

I. The Teaching of the Ancient Fathers

For this was conceived by himself, and not from the holy apostles, inferior to our God-bearing fathers and teachers, inferior to the holy seven ecumenical councils, who said or invented: for this reason this glory is not strong. (Verse 8)

The unity of man with God, which is the task of Christianity, is not achieved suddenly, but is created by a slow, gradual feat of inner self-perfection, constant spiritual self-mortification for the world, for sin, and unceasing growth for Christ. In contrast to the world, which lives according to the laws of its own will and carnal wisdom, the Christian lives according to the laws inscribed by the divine manifestation of the hypostatic Word, and reflects in his life the same qualities that constituted the distinctive qualities of the Lord's earthly life. The sphere of salvation of a Christian is his whole life, and at the same time his whole life is filled with the grace of the highest truth. We have already had occasion to dwell on the picture of a truly Christian life depicted by the Holy Martyr Justin, and we have seen there a deep and perfect submission to the will of Christ, we have seen an image that reflects in all its fullness the meek and humble Teacher of truth, we have seen the Christian life that saves man from passions. And all the teaching of Sts. of the Fathers of the Universal Church about our salvation is at the same time a teaching about a truly Christian life. It should be noted that in dogmatic-polemical works, where polemical questions of a metaphysical nature were usually considered, Sts. The Fathers spoke very little about moral questions, because the latter had nothing to do with their polemics, but there is a whole area of patristic writing, where the laws of a truly Christian life are revealed in their entirety.

Instructions of Sts. the ascetic fathers were more close and accessible to the majority of Christians than the best dogmatic works; therefore, the authors of the latter, expounding in detail the dispensation of our salvation by the Lord Jesus, did not need to speak at length and in detail about the assimilation of it, as a subject known to Christians from other writings. That our opinion about the greater prevalence of ascetic works in comparison with purely dogmatic ones is quite correct can be seen in the example of modern Christians: the classical works of Sts. Athanasius, Basil, and Gregory are read by specialists and for special purposes, while the Ladder, Abba Dorotheus, Barsanuphius, and John are read by monastic monks, pilgrims, pious laymen, and (especially the Ladder) schismatics. Consequently, the sacred writers of Greek theology had no motive to write about the accomplishment of the salvation of each person individually, assuming this matter to be known from other writings.

In the dogmatic systems of Sts. The Fathers speak only of those moments of the spiritual life of the Christian which, due to their exceptional significance, required a special interpretation, and of those aspects of the Christian cult whose existence and purity were endangered by the fanatical malice of the heretics. In general, in patristic dogmatic theology, the section on the personal assimilation by each Christian of the grace of Christianity is not distinguished by detail, because the Christian life has always been spoken of for other reasons in other writings: as for the external Christian cult, it has always been given a place in accordance with the needs of the time. Bl. Theodoret does not consider it necessary to discuss even the Eucharist, probably having no motive for this in his polemical tasks, and St. Theodoret. John of Damascus, in contrast to the Nestorians, Monophysites and iconoclasts, speaks of the veneration of the Mother of God, and of the Trisagion Hymn, and of the worship of icons.

In the "Great Catechetical Discourse" of Gregory of Nyssa, baptism is spoken of as the moment of man's spiritual birth to life in God, and of the Eucharist as a constant and uninterrupted manifestation of the Divine life, as a real union with the love of our Lord and Saviour, which liberates us from sin. The Holy Father speaks of baptism as the spiritual birth of a person. Apparently, he takes into account mainly those who doubt the possibility of a second birth by means of water, because in the XXIII chapter of the Word he points out the incomprehensibility of even bodily birth, which testifies to the absolute impossibility of fully interpreting spiritual birth. In Chapter XXIV, St. Gregory establishes that the truth of Christianity vouches for the presence of Divine power at baptism, which is also indicated by the prayers performed at baptism. Baptism is considered as a psychological act, identical in the world to the physical act of birth. If God shows help to the woman who gives birth, "how much more so in the spiritual manner of birth (after God has promised to be at rebirth and has communicated, as we believe, His power to this action, and our will is well disposed to the work done), if the co-operation of prayer is properly added, the action will be more successful." Chapter XXV explains in detail the symbolic meaning of the external form of baptism, as an image of the three-day death of the Savior, and Chapter XXVI notes the wisdom of God, which indicated in such small means as faith in the omnipresent of God and the water element, the instrument of rebirth to a new spiritual life. As the unchangeable conditions for the efficacy of baptism, St. Gregory points to faith in the uncreated and life-giving Trinity, for through this faith a person enters into an unchangeable and immutable life, and to a complete readiness to change his moral disposition in accordance with the requirements of the divine will. The Holy Father's reflections on these conditions are extremely strong and convincing and testify to the depth and spirituality of the views of the ancient Church on baptism. "Confessing St. The Trinity enters into unchanging and immutable life, and he who sees in the Trinity a created nature in an unorthodox way and therefore is baptized into it again enters into a changeable and transitory life" (180). If we, having been "washed," as the prophet puts it, "by this mysterious bath, become pure in our strivings, having expelled evil from our souls, then we have become better and have passed into a better state. On the contrary, if the water purification is accomplished on the body, and the soul does not reject the impurities of passion, but its life after enlightenment is similar to an unenlightened life, then even if it would be bold to say, I will nevertheless say that in such people the water remains only water, because the gift of the Holy Spirit is not the same. The Spirit is not at all manifested in the one who is born, when not only ugliness in the spirit, such as passion, covetousness, criminal and abominable thoughts, and vanity, and envy, and pride, offend the divine image, but also the profits obtained by unrighteousness remain with him, and the wife who is adulterously maintained by him even after this satisfies his lusts... If you remain with vicious inclinations, you boast in vain of being born again" (189).

St. Gregory speaks of the Eucharist as of bodily union with the Saviour through communion of His life-giving body and holy blood: "Since the human being consists of two parts, the soul and the body, it is necessary that those who are saved should follow the one who leads to life with both parts. For this reason the soul, united to it by faith, has in it the means of salvation: for union with life imparts life to it. And the body enters into unity and communion with the saver in a different way.