Characteristically, this remarkable passage on ignorance in De Sectis forms part of the chapter in which the author refutes the so-called Aphthartodocetes, who asserted that the body of Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, was the body of the New Adam and thus had no sin, and was therefore incorruptible (ajqartos). In fact, it is a problem of the same kind as the question of Christ's ignorance, and a problem that is anthropological rather than Christological. R. Draghe clearly showed that "the doctrine of the incorruptibility [of the Body of Christ] agrees equally well with the formula of the two natures and with Monophysite Christology; this is confirmed by the fact that it had followers both among the supporters of the Council of Chalcedon and among the Monophysites: the Jacobites and the Severians." Did not the Emperor Justinian himself, who professed the Chalcedonian faith all his life, succumb to the temptation of Julian's "Aphthartodocetism"?

The problem was to find out whether man is corruptible by nature, for if he is corruptible, then the Word, taking on human nature, inevitably perceives both corruption (and ignorance).

We have already seen that St. Cyril included ignorance among the properties (idiwmata) of human nature perceived by the Word. Severus of Antioch, who agrees with the Orthodox in this, also asserted, contrary to Julian, that corruption belongs to the properties of human nature proper, that Adam before the Fall was incorruptible only insofar as he participated in divine incorruption, and only the Resurrection of Christ imparts incorruptibility to human nature.

The controversy over the Aphthartodocetism of Julian of Halicarnassus and its condemnation not only by the Orthodox Church, but also by moderate Monophysites, shows, as has been noted more than once, that the Christian East as a whole rejected the doctrine of original sin as a "natural" category. Since Julian shared the concept that the corruption of human nature is the result of Adam's transgression, he wanted to protect Christ from this. Severus called him a Manichaean and vehemently rejected the doctrine of original sin as the hereditary transmission of guilt. Rather, it is natural mortality, transmitted from generation to generation, as a result of man's falling away from God after Adam's sin. This is not a state of sin as such, but a "condition" of the existence of human nature, which was received by the Word through the Incarnation and restored to the grace of immortality through His Resurrection.

This controversy shows that sixth-century Christology, and especially the Theopaschist formulas, did not dispute the perfect reality of Christ's human nature, which is also our human nature, limited, ignorant, perishable. When we say "God suffered in the flesh," we confess precisely the corruption of human nature, which the Word came to save, taking it in the very state in which it was after Adam's sin.

Thus, the era of Justinian showed real progress in the development of Christology. Moreover, by clarifying the Chalcedonian point of view in the interests of Christian unity, the Fifth Ecumenical Council put forward the only possible basis for reconciliation between the Monophysites and the Orthodox: a common fidelity to the teaching of St. Cyril of Alexandria.

Pseudo-Dionysius

Byzantine thought has always faced an essential problem: the relationship between Greek philosophy and Christian Revelation. The condemnation of Origenism under Justinian, of course, was an important stage in the history of Byzantine Hellenism, which was constantly in conflict with itself. A serious blow was dealt to the so-called "Alexandrian worldview", which is a combination of the teachings of Aristotle and Plato and constitutes the essence of the system of Neoplatonism. Neoplatonism had gained acceptance in Christian circles since the time of Clement and Origen, after it had already been widely accepted by the Gnostics. According to this teaching, the world is a hierarchical structure, all elements of which emanate from God and strive towards Him, with those who are higher in the hierarchy serving as intermediaries for the lower. In attempting to solve the problem of the relation between the absolute and the relative, the philosophical "method" of Neoplatonism consciously multiplies the number of mediators, endowing them with divinatory and theurgic functions. This method satisfies the typically Hellenistic need to perceive the world as a harmonious whole (kosmos), subject to an eternal and metaphysically necessary order (eimarmenh). But since the idea of creation ex nihilo is completely excluded, the method of Neoplatonism does not avoid a monistic and essentially pantheistic view of the universe.

Following Philo, Origen tried to reconcile this system with biblical Revelation. To do this, he had to explain the existence of hierarchy as the result of the initial fall. The differentiation of minds into angelic, human, and demonic is the result of their self-determination in relation to evil, and not a consequence of divine necessity. Thus, at this point, Origen makes significant adjustments to the system of Neoplatonism, professing the doctrine of free will. Lacking a clear concept of creation, he was unable to avoid the monism inherent in Neoplatonic philosophy, which resulted in the doctrine of the preexistence of souls and universal restoration, which was condemned in 553.

However, at the very moment of its condemnation, this "Alexandrian worldview" appears in a new form, using for its own purposes the authority of Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athenian disciple of St. Paul. Paul. Since the identity of the author is unknown, it is very difficult to determine the historical connection with Origenism. The issue deserves careful study. It is now generally accepted that the unknown author of the Corpus Areopagiticuin belonged to the Severian circles of Syria, that is, to the moderate Monophysites. In addition, it is known that in these circles the Neoplatonic way of thinking common to Origen, Evagrius and Pseudo-Dionysius was spread, with its desire to include the hierarchical world of Neoplatonism in the Christian system. This essentially apologetic attitude is the best way to explain such an exceptional phenomenon in the history of Christian thought as the Corpus Areopagiticum. Under the direct influence of Proclus, the last of the great Neoplatonists, the author of the Areopagiticuin does not, like Origen, resort to the biblical idea of the Fall to explain the hierarchy of the world, but regards it as blessed by God and assigns it a positive role in his doctrine of the relationship between God and creation (to which he seeks to convey a Christian content). He believed that he would be able to preserve the essence of Christian Revelation intact by introducing changes into the Neoplatonic system adopted by him in connection with the doctrine of the absolute transcendence of God.

It is not our aim to give a complete analysis of Dionysius' system. We will only determine its place in the context of the Byzantine doctrine of salvation, on which Dionysius exerted a certain influence. The main attention will be paid to the teaching of Dionysius about God, "theology" in the proper sense of the word, and the hierarchical concept.

Before Dionysius, the question of the knowledge of God in Greek patristics was considered mainly in the fourth century and was associated with polemics against the extreme Arians, Eunomius and Anomoeans. In this most important dispute participated the great Cappadocians and St. John Chrysostom. According to Eunomius, the divine essence, which he identified with the essence of the Father, the Unbegotten, is accessible to the human mind; man is able to know God to the same extent that God knows Himself. This teaching of Sts. The Fathers contrasted apophatic or negative theology: the divine essence is unknowable, so it is impossible to say what God is, only what He is not. Any positive definition of God implies His identification with something. But Sts. The Fathers affirmed that God transcends all things, and that is why nothing can limit His beings. The knowable God would inevitably be limited, since our created mind is limited by nature.

Having identified the divine being with the essence of the Father, Eunomius confronted Christian thought with the following alternative: either to recognize the divine essence as knowable, or to fall into agnosticism. The Origenist trend, which Eunomius himself adhered to in its simplified-rationalistic version, tended to the former. Of course, Origen also spoke, following Philo, of "divine darkness," but he thereby strove to exclude from the knowledge of God any material or sensual images. His negative theology was associated with "Platonic" anthropology, where the condition of true knowledge was the dematerialization of the mind. The mind, once freed from bodily fetters and emerging from the fallen state, is restored, according to Origen, to its original divinity and becomes capable of contemplating God in His essence. Thus, the unknowability of God is caused by the imperfection of fallen minds, and not by the divine essence itself. The Cappadocian Fathers, on the other hand, insisted on the absolute transcendence of the divine essence. The negative definitions of apophatic theology are not limited to simply pointing out that it is impossible for fallen man to know God, but postulate the fundamental unknowability of God Himself, who is absolutely transcendent, for He is the Creator and Almighty. But doesn't this lead to agnosticism? Far from it. St. St. Gregory of Nyssa, drawing attention to the obvious contradiction between the promise to "see" God, given by the pure in heart (Matt. 5:8), and the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa. St. Basil the Great also asserts that "the energies [of God] descend to us, while His essence remains unapproachable." His opponent retorts: "If you do not know the Divine essence, then you do not know God Himself." To which St. Basil answers: "In what way am I saved? Faith. But by faith one can know that God is, and not that He is."

In a dispute with Eunomius, Sts. The Fathers firmly defended the biblical concept of a living, active God in contrast to the rationalistic philosophical concept of God the Essence. On this point their theological thought was particularly clear, although the terminology they used to express their doctrine was far from being established.