Вл. Соловьев – интеллектуалист, а не волюнтарист. Поэтому у него не играет такой роли свобода, как у волюнтариста Хомякова. Его миросозерцание скорее принадлежит к типу универсального детерминизма, но детерминизм этот спиритуалистический. Оно принадлежит также к типу эволюционного миросозерцания, но эволюционизм этот получен не от натуралистических учений об эволюции, а от германской идеалистической метафизики. Достижение всеединства, социального и космического, носит у него интеллектуальный характер. Иррациональной свободы у него нет. Отпадение мира от Бога есть распадение его на враждующие начала. Эгоистическое самоутверждение и отчуждение суть главные признаки падшести человека и мира. Но каждое из отделившихся от высшего центра начал заключает в себе частичную истину. Воссоединение этих начал с подчинением их высшему божественному началу есть достижение всеединства. Всеединство мыслится не абстрактно, а конкретно, с внесением в него всех индивидуальных ступеней. Так, в теории познания эмпиризм, рационализм и мистицизм являются отвлеченными началами, которые ложны в своем исключительном самоутверждении, но заключают в себе частичные истины, которые войдут в целостное познание свободной теософии. Также в сфере практической свободная теократия достигается соединением начал церкви, государства и земщины, как тогда обозначали в славянофильской терминологии общество. Вл. Соловьев одно время слишком верил, что интеллектуальная концепция свободной теософии и свободной теократии может очень способствовать достижению конкретного всеединства. Он сам потом в этом разочаровался. Но совершенно верна была его мысль, что нельзя рассматривать то, что он называл «отвлеченными началами», как зло, грех и заблуждение. Так, эмпиризм сам по себе есть заблуждение, но в нем есть частичная истина, которая должна войти в теорию познания более высшего типа. Так, гуманизм в своем исключительном самоутверждении есть заблуждение и неправда, но в нем есть и большая истина, которая входит в богочеловеческую жизнь. Преодоление «отвлеченных начал» и есть то, что Гегель называет Aufhebung. В преодоление входит то, что было истинного в предшествующем. Вл. Соловьев говорит, что для того, чтобы преодолеть неправду социализма, нужно признать правду социализма. Но стремится он всегда к целостности, он хочет целостного знания. С целостностью всегда для него была связана не только истина и добро, но и красота. Он остается в линии Гегеля и немецких романтиков, оттуда он получил универсализм и органичность. Он не переживал с остротой проблему свободы, личности и конфликта, но с большой силой переживал проблему единства, целостности, гармонии. Его тройственная теософическая, теократическая и теургическая утопия есть все то же русское искание Царства Божьего, совершенной жизни. В этой утопии есть социальный элемент, его христианство – социальное. По мнению Вл. Соловьева, есть два отрицательных начала – смерть и грех и два положительных желания – желание бессмертия и желание правды. Жизнь природы есть скрытое тление. Господствующая в природном мире материя, отдаленная от Бога, есть дурная бесконечность. Вера в Бога есть вера в то, что добро есть, что оно сущее. Искушение же в том, что зло принимает форму добра. Победа над смертью и тлением есть достижение всеединства, преображение не только человека, но и всего космоса. Но самая интересная и оригинальная идея Вл. Соловьева связана с различением бытия и сущего.

Он был, конечно, под сильным влиянием Гегеля. Но он все-таки по-иному решает вопрос о бытии. Бытие есть лишь предикат субъекта-сущего, но не самый субъект, не самое сущее. Бытие говорит о том, что что-то есть, а не о том, что есть. Нельзя сказать, что бытие есть, есть только сущее, существующее. Понятие бытия логически и грамматически двусмысленное, в нем смешиваются два смысла. Бытие значит, что что-то есть, и бытие значит то, что есть. Но второй смысл «бытия» должен быть устранен. Бытие оказывается субъектом и предикатом. Говорят: «это существо есть» и «это ощущение есть». Так происходит гипостазирование предиката[65]. По-настоящему предметом философии должно было бы быть не бытие вообще, а то, чему и кому бытие принадлежит, т. е. сущее[66]. Это важное для Вл. Соловьева различение между бытием и сущим не на всех языках выразимо. Тут он, как будто бы, приближается к экзистенциальной философии. Но его собственное философствование не принадлежит к экзистенциальному типу. В основании его философии лежала живая интуиция конкретного сущего, и его философия была делом его жизни. Но самая его философия остается отвлеченной и рациональной, сущее в ней задавлено схемами. Он все время настаивает на необходимости мистического элемента в философии. Этим проникнута его критика отвлеченных начал, его искание целостного знания, в основании знания, в основании философии лежит вера, самое признание реальности внешнего мира предполагает веру. Но, как философ, Вл. Соловьев совсем не был экзистенциалистом, он не выражал своего внутреннего существа, а прикрывал. Он пытался компенсировать себя в стихах, но и в стихах он прикрывал себя шуткой, которая иногда производит впечатление, не соответствующее серьезности темы. Особенности Вл. Соловьева, как мыслителя и писателя, дали основание Тарееву написать о нем: «Страшно подумать, что Соловьев, столь много писавший о христианстве, ни одним словом не обнаружил чувство Христа» [67]. Тареев имел тут в виду, что Вл. Соловьев, говоря о Христе, обычно говорил, как будто бы, о Логосе неоплатонизма, а не об Иисусе из Назарета. Но его интимная духовная жизнь оставалась для нас скрытой, и не следует произносить о ней суда. Нужно помнить, что он отличался необыкновенной добротой, раздавал бедным свою одежду и однажды должен был появиться в одеяле. Он принадлежит к числу людей, внутренно раздвоенных, но он стремился к целостности, к сущему, к всеединству, к конкретному знанию. К конкретному знанию стремился и Гегель, но достигал этого лишь частично, главным образом в «Феноменологии духа». Как у русского философа, тема историософическая была для Вл. Соловьева центральной, вся его философия, в известном смысле, есть философия истории, учение о путях человечества к богочеловечеству, к всеединству, к Царству Божьему. Его теократия есть историософическое построение. Философия истории связана для него с учением о Богочеловечестве, что и есть главная его заслуга перед русской религиозно-философской мыслью. В этом отношении огромное значение имеют его «Чтения о Богочеловечестве». Идея Богочеловечества, выношенная русской мыслью и мало понятная западной католической и протестантской мысли, означает своеобразное понимание христианства. Эту идею не нужно отожествлять с соловьевским эволюционизмом, при котором и Богочеловек и Богочеловечество суть как бы продукт мировой эволюции. Но и в эволюционизме Вл. Соловьева, в основном ошибочном и не соединимом со свободой, есть доля несомненной истины. Так гуманистический опыт новой истории входит в Богочеловечество, и результатом этого является эволюция христианства. Вл. Соловьев хочет христиански осмыслить этот опыт и выражает это в замечательном учении о Богочеловечестве.

Христианство есть не только вера в Бога, но и вера в человека, в возможность раскрытия божественного в человеке. Существует соизмеримость между Богом и человеком, и потому только и возможно откровение Бога человеку. Чистый, отвлеченный трансцендентизм делает невозможным откровение, не может раскрыть путей к Богу и исключает возможность общения между человеком и Богом. Даже юдаизм и магометанство не являются таким трансцендентизмом в крайней его форме. В Иисусе Христе – Богочеловеке, в индивидуальной личности, дано совершенное соединение двух природ, божественной и человеческой. Это должно произойти коллективно в человечестве, в человеческом обществе. С этим связана для Вл. Соловьева самая идея Церкви. Церковь есть богочеловеческий организм, история Церкви есть богочеловеческий процесс, и потому есть развитие. Должно произойти свободное соединение Божества и человечества. Таково задание, поставленное перед христианским человечеством, которое его плохо исполняло. Зло и страдание мира не мешали Вл. Соловьеву в этот период видеть богочеловеческий процесс развития. Богочеловечество подготовлялось еще в языческом мире, в языческих религиях. До явления Христа история стремилась к Богочеловечеству. После явления Христа история стремится к Богочеловеку. Внехристианский и противохристианский гуманистический период истории входит в этот богочеловеческий процесс. Богочеловечество возможно потому, что человеческая природа консубстанциональна человеческой природе Христа. На идее Богочеловечества лежит печать социальной и космической утопии, которой вдохновлялся Вл. Соловьев. Он хотел осуществления христианства в путях истории, в человеческом обществе, а не в индивидуальной только душе, он искал Царства Божьего, которое будет явлено еще на этой земле. Я употребляю слово утопия не в порицательном смысле, наоборот, я вижу большую заслугу Вл. Соловьева в том, что он хотел социального и космического преображения. Утопия обозначает только целостный, тоталитарный идеал, предельное совершенство. Но утопизм обыкновенно связан с оптимизмом. И мы тут наталкиваемся на основное противоречие. Соединение человечества и Божества, достижение Богочеловечества можно мыслить только свободно, оно не может быть принудительным, не может быть результатом необходимости. Это Вл. Соловьев признает, и вместе с тем богочеловеческий процесс, который приводит к Богочеловечеству, для него, как будто бы, есть необходимый, детерминированный процесс эволюции. Проблема свободы не продумана до конца. Свобода предполагает не непрерывность, а прерывность. Свобода может быть и противлением осуществлению Богочеловечества, может быть и искажением, как мы видели в истории Церкви. Парадокс свободы в том, что она может переходить в рабство. У Вл. Соловьева богочеловеческий процесс бестрагичен, между тем как он трагичен. Свобода порождает трагедию. На «Чтениях о Богочеловечестве» лежит несомненная печать влияния Шеллинга последнего периода. Но, тем не менее, соловьевское учение о Богочеловечестве есть оригинальный плод русской мысли, этого учения в такой форме нет ни у Шеллинга, ни у других представителей западной мысли. Идея Богочеловечества означает преодоление самодостаточности человека в гуманизме и вместе с тем утверждение активности человека, высшего его достоинства, божественного в человеке. Понимание христианства как религии Богочеловечества радикально противоположно судебному пониманию отношений между Богом и человеком и судебной теории искупления, распространенной в богословии католическом и протестантском. Явление Богочеловека и грядущее явление Богочеловечества означают продолжение миротворения. Русская религиозно-философская мысль в своих лучших представителях решительно борется против всякого юридического истолкования тайны христианства, и это входит в русскую идею. Вместе с тем идея Богочеловечества обращается к космическому преображению, это почти совершенно чуждо официальному католичеству и протестантизму. На Западе родство с космологизмом русской религиозной философии можно найти лишь в немецкой христианской теософии, у Я. Бёме, Фр. Баадера, Шеллинга. Это приводит нас к теме о Софии, с которой Вл. Соловьев связывает свое учение о Богочеловечестве.

Учение о Софии, которое стало популярно в религиозно-философских и поэтических течениях начала XX в., связано с платоновским учением об идеях. «София есть выраженная, осуществленная идея», – говорит Соловьев. «София есть тело Божие, материя Божества, проникнутая началом Божественного единства». Учение о Софии утверждает начало божественной премудрости в тварном мире, в космосе и человечестве, оно не допускает абсолютного разрыва между Творцом и творением. Для Вл. Соловьева София есть также идеальное человечество. И он сближает культ Софии с культом человечества у Ог. Конта. Для придания Софии православного характера он указывает на иконы Св. Софии Премудрости Божией в Новгороде и в киевском Софиевском соборе. Наибольшие нападения в православных кругах вызвало понимание Софии как вечной женственности, внесение женственного начала в Божество. Но принципиально те же возражения должно было вызвать внесение мужественного начала в Божество. С Софией связаны наиболее интимные мистические переживания Вл. Соловьева, выраженные главным образом в его стихах. Услышав внутренний призыв, он совершает таинственное путешествие в Египет на свидание с Софией – Вечной Женственностью. Он описывает это в стихотворении «Три свидания» и других стихотворениях.

Не веруя обманчивому мируПод грубою корою вещества,Я осязал нетленную порфируИ узнавал сиянье Божества.Все видел я, и все одно лишь было —Один лишь образ женской красоты…Безмерное в его размер входило, —Передо мной, во мне – одна лишь ты.Еще невольник суетному мируПод грубою корою веществаТак я прозрел нетленную порфируИ ощутил сиянье Божества.Подруга вечная, тебя не назову я.

И еще:

Знайте же: вечная женственность нынчеВ теле нетленном на землю идет.В свете немеркнущем новой богиниНебо слилося с пучиною вод.Все, чем красна Афродита мирская,Радость домов, и лесов, и морей, —Все совместит красота неземная,Чище, сильней, и живей, и полней.

The vision of Sophia is a vision of the beauty of the Divine cosmos, of the transfigured world. If Sophia is Aphrodite, then Aphrodite is heavenly, and not vulgar. Solovyov's teaching about Sophia – the Eternal Feminine and the poems dedicated to her had a huge influence on the symbolist poets of the early 20th century, Alexander Blok and Andrei Bely, who believed in Sophia and had little faith in Christ, which was a huge difference from Vl. Solovyov. In the West, the brilliant doctrine of Sophia was in the possession of Jacob Boehme, but it was of a somewhat different character than that of Vl. Solovyov and Russian sophiologists[68]. J. Böhme's teaching about Sophia is a teaching about eternal virginity, and not about eternal femininity. Sophia is virginity, the wholeness of man, the androgynous image of man. The fall of man was the loss of his Virgin Sophia. After the fall, Sophia flies to heaven, and Eve appears on earth. A person yearns for his Virgin-Sophia, for wholeness. Sex is a sign of duality and fallenness. It is possible to discover the kinship of Behmew's teaching about Sophia with Plato (the doctrine of androgyne) and with the Kabbalah. Sophiology in Böhme has mainly an anthropological character, in Vl. Solovyov is mainly cosmological. Bömöv's teaching is purer than Solovyov's, which allows turbidity in the moods of Sophia. In Vl. Solovyov was undoubtedly a cosmic seduction. But there was a great truth in his expectation of the beauty of the transfigured cosmos. And in this he goes beyond the boundaries of historical Christianity, like all the original currents of Russian religious thought. Article Vl. Solovyov's "The Meaning of Love" is the most remarkable of all that he wrote, it is even the only original word said about love-eros in the history of Christian thought. But in it one can find a contradiction with the teaching about Sophia, the teaching about love is higher than the teaching about Sophia. Vl. Solovyov is the first Christian thinker who truly recognized the personal, and not the generic, meaning of love between a man and a woman. The traditional Christian consciousness did not recognize the meaning of love and did not even notice it, for it there was only a justification for the union of a man and a woman for procreation, i.e. a generic justification. What Bl. Augustine, resembles a treatise on cattle breeding. But this is the prevailing ecclesiastical point of view. Vl. Solovyov establishes the opposition between the perfection of personality and procreation. This is a biological truth. The metaphysical truth is that there is an opposition between the prospect of personal immortality and the prospect of the succession of newly born generations. The personality disintegrates, as it were, in procreation, the impersonal race triumphs over the personality. Vl. Solovyov combines mystical eroticism with asceticism. In the brilliant insights of "The Meaning of Love" an anthropological problem is posed. It has less of that synthesizing conciliatory attitude which often irritates in Solovyov, which irritates most of all in his Justification of the Good, a system of moral philosophy, in which he thinks radically. His only predecessor in this field can only be recognized as Fr. Baader, but his point of view is still somewhat different.

At one time, Vl. Solovyov was little appreciated and misunderstood. His idea of theocracy, i.e., the weakest thing in it, was appreciated; His liberal journalism was more widely recognized. Later, he had a huge influence on the spiritual renaissance of the early 20th century, when a spiritual crisis occurred in part of the Russian intelligentsia. How to evaluate the case of Vl. Solovyov? His manner of philosophizing belongs to the past, it is more outdated than the philosophy of Hegel, which in our time is carried away in a new way. His construction of a universal theocracy with the threefold ministry of king, high priest and prophet has been destroyed by him himself and can least of all be restrained. Also, the method of uniting the churches he proposes, addressed to church governments, seems naïve and inconsistent with modern sentiments when more importance is attached to types of spirituality and mysticism. And yet the meaning of Vl. Solovyov is very large. First of all, his assertion of the prophetic side of Christianity is of great importance in Solovyov's case, and in this it is most of all included in the Russian idea. His prophetism has no necessary connection with his theocratic scheme and even overturns it. Solovyov believed in the possibility of novelty in Christianity, he was imbued with the messianic idea turned to the future, and in this he is closest to us. The Russian currents of religious thought, the Russian religious searches of the early 20th century will continue the prophetic service of Vl. Solovyov. He was an enemy of any Monophysite deviation in the understanding of Christianity, he affirmed the activity of man in the Christian divine-human cause, he introduced into Christianity the truth of humanism and humanitarianism. The question of Catholicism by Vl. Solovyov is usually misrepresented by both his Catholic supporters and his Orthodox opponents. He never converted to Catholicism, it would have been too simple and would not have corresponded to the significance of the theme he posed. He wanted to be both Catholic and Orthodox, he wanted to belong to the Universal Church, in which there would be a fullness that neither Catholicism nor Orthodoxy has, taken in their isolation and self-assertion, he admitted the possibility of intercommunion. This means that Vl. Solovyov was super-confessional, believing in the possibility of a new era in the history of Christianity. Catholic sympathies and deviations, especially expressed when he wrote the book "Russia and the Universal Church", were an expression of the universalism of Vl. Solovyov. But he never broke with Orthodoxy and before his death he confessed and communed with an Orthodox priest. In The Tale of the Antichrist, the Orthodox Elder John is the first to recognize the Antichrist, and this affirms the mystical calling of Orthodoxy. Vl. Solovyov, like Dostoevsky, went beyond the boundaries of historical Christianity, and therein lies its religious significance. His eschatological moods towards the end of his life will be discussed in the next chapter. He was disappointed in the optimism of his theocratic and theosophical schemes, saw the power of evil in history. But this was only a moment of his inner destiny, he belonged to the type of messianic religious thinkers, akin to the Polish messianist Czeszkowski. It must also be said that the struggle which Vl. Solovyov's approach to nationalism, which triumphed in the 1980s, may outwardly seem outdated, but it remains alive for our time. This is his great merit. Just like the struggle for freedom of conscience, thought, speech. Already in the XX century, from the rich, diverse, often contradictory thought of Vl. Solovyov followed different trends - the religious philosophy of S. Bulgakov and kn. E. Trubetskoy, the philosophy of all-unity by S. Frank, the symbolism of A. Blok, A. Bely, Vyach. Ivanova; The problems of the beginning of the century are very much connected with it, although, in the narrow sense, we may not have had Solovyovism.

3

But the main figures in Russian religious thought and religious searches of the 20th century are not philosophers, but novelists – Dostoevsky and L. Tolstoy. Dostoevsky is the greatest Russian metaphysician, or rather, an anthropologist. He made great discoveries about man, and from him begins a new era in the inner history of man. After him, a person is no longer the same as before him. Only Nietzsche and Kirchegard can share with Dostoevsky the glory of the initiators of this new era. This new anthropology teaches about man as a contradictory and tragic creature, extremely dysfunctional, not only suffering, but also loving suffering. Dostoevsky is more of a pneumatologist than a psychologist, he poses problems of the spirit, and his novels are written about the problems of the spirit. It depicts a man going through a bifurcation. He has people of double thoughts. In Dostoevsky's human world, polarity is revealed in the very depths of being, the polarity of beauty itself. Dostoevsky becomes interested in man when the inner revolution of the spirit begins. And he depicts the existential dialectic of human bifurcation. Suffering is not only deeply inherent in man, but it is the only cause of the emergence of consciousness. Suffering atones for evil. Freedom, which is a sign of the highest dignity of man, his likeness to God, passes into self-will. Self-will gives rise to evil. Evil is a sign of the inner depth of man. Dostoevsky discovers the underground and the underground man, the depths of the subconscious. From this depth, man exclaims that he wants to live "according to his foolish will" and that "twice two is four" is the beginning of death. The main theme of Dostoevsky is the theme of freedom, a metaphysical theme that has never been so profoundly posed. Suffering is also associated with freedom. Giving up freedom would alleviate suffering. There is a contradiction between freedom and happiness. Dostoevsky sees the dualism of evil freedom and coercive good. This theme of freedom is the main theme of The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, the pinnacle of Dostoevsky's work. Acceptance of freedom means faith in man, faith in the spirit. The rejection of freedom is a lack of faith in man. The denial of freedom is the spirit of the Antichrist. The mystery of the Crucifixion is the mystery of freedom. The crucified God is freely chosen as the object of love. Christ does not force in His image. If the Son of God had become king and organized an earthly kingdom, then freedom would have been taken away from man. The Grand Inquisitor says to Christ: "Thou hast desired the free love of man." But freedom is aristocratic, it is an unbearable burden for a million million million people. Having placed the burden of freedom on people, "You acted as if you did not love them at all." The Grand Inquisitor accepts the three temptations rejected by Christ in the wilderness, denies the freedom of the spirit, and wants to make millions of millions of babies happy. Millions will be happy to give up their identity and freedom. The Grand Inquisitor wants to make an anthill, a paradise without freedom. The "Euclidean mind" does not understand the mystery of freedom, it is rationally incomprehensible. Evil and suffering could be avoided, but at the cost of renouncing freedom. The evil engendered by freedom, as self-will, must be burned, but it is a passage through a tempting experience. Dostoevsky reveals the depth of crime and the depth of conscience. Ivan Karamazov declares a rebellion, does not accept the peace of God and returns the ticket to God to enter world harmony. But this is only the path of man. Dostoevsky's entire worldview was connected with the idea of personal immortality. Without faith in immortality, not a single question can be resolved. And if there were no immortality, then the Grand Inquisitor would be right. In Legend, Dostoevsky had in mind, of course, not only Catholicism, not only any religion of authority, but also the religion of communism, which rejects immortality and freedom of spirit. Dostoevsky would probably have accepted a kind of Christian communism and would probably have preferred it to the bourgeois capitalist system. But communism, which denies freedom and the dignity of man as an immortal being, he recognized as the offspring of the spirit of the Antichrist.

Leo Tolstoy's religious metaphysics is less profound and less Christian than Dostoevsky's religious metaphysics. But Leo Tolstoy was of great importance in Russian religiosity in the second half of the nineteenth century. It caused a search for the meaning of life. Dostoevsky, as a religious thinker, had an influence on a relatively small circle of the intelligentsia, on more complex souls. Tolstoy, as a religious moral preacher, had an influence on a wider circle, he also captured the popular strata. Its influence was felt in sectarian movements. The groups of Tolstoyans, in the proper sense, were not numerous. But Tolstoy's morality had a great influence on the moral evaluations of very wide circles of Russian intellectual society. Doubts about the justification of private property, especially landed property, doubts about the right to judge and punish, denunciation of the evil and untruth of every state and power, repentance of one's privileged position, awareness of guilt before the working people, disgust for war and violence, the dream of the brotherhood of man – all these conditions were very characteristic of the middle mass of the Russian intelligentsia, they penetrated into the upper stratum of Russian society. even captured part of the Russian officialdom. This was Tolstoy's Platonic morality, Tolstoy's morality was considered unrealizable, but the highest imaginable. Such, however, was the attitude towards evangelical morality in general. In Leo Tolstoy, there was a consciousness of his guilt in the ruling stratum of Russian society. It was, first of all, aristocratic repentance. Leo Tolstoy had an extraordinary thirst for a perfect life, it tormented him for most of his life, there was an acute awareness of his imperfection[70]. From Orthodoxy he received the consciousness of his sinfulness, an inclination to tireless repentance. The idea that one must first of all correct oneself, and not improve the lives of others, is a traditional Orthodox thought. His Orthodox foundation was stronger than is usually thought. His very nihilism in relation to culture was received from Orthodoxy. At one time he made an effort to be the most traditional Orthodox, in order to be in spiritual unity with the working people. But he did not stand the test, he rebelled against the sins and evils of the historical Church, against the unrighteousness of the lives of those who considered themselves Orthodox. And he became a brilliant denouncer of the untruths of the historical church. In his criticism, in which there was much truth, he went so far as to deny the very foundations of Christianity and came to a religion closer to Buddhism. Leo Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Church of St. The Synod, a body of little authority. Meanwhile, the Orthodox Church did not like to excommunicate. It may be said that Tolstoy excommunicated himself. But the excommunication was outrageous because it was applied to a man who had done so much to awaken religious interests in a godless society in which people who were dead to Christianity were not excommunicated. Leo Tolstoy was, first of all, a fighter against idolaters. That was his truth. But the limitation of Tolstoy's spiritual type is due to the fact that his religion was so exclusively moralistic. He never doubted only the good. Tolstoy's worldview sometimes makes it stifling, and with Tolstoyans it can be unbearable. Hence Tolstoy's dislike of rituals. But behind Tolstoy's moralism was hidden the search for the Kingdom of God, which must be realized here on earth and now. We need to start now, but, according to him, the ideal of the Kingdom of God is infinite. He liked to express himself with deliberate rudeness and almost nihilistic cynicism, he did not like any embellishment. In this there is a great resemblance to Lenin. Sometimes Tolstoy says: Christ teaches not to do stupid things. But he also says: what is is unreasonable, what is not is reasonable, the world's rationality is evil, the world's absurdity is good. He strove for wisdom and in this he wants to be together with Confucius, Laodze, Buddha, Solomon, Socrates, the Stoics, Schopenhauer, whom he greatly revered. He revered Jesus Christ as the greatest of the wise. But he was closer to Buddhism and Stoicism than to Christianity. Tolstoy's metaphysics, best expressed in his book On Life, is sharply anti-personalistic. Only the rejection of personal consciousness will overcome the fear of death. In personality, in personal consciousness, which for him is animal consciousness, he sees the greatest obstacle to the realization of a perfect life, to union with God. For him, God is true life. True life is love. Tolstoy's anti-personalism separates him most from Christianity and brings him closest to the Hindu religious consciousness. He had a great respect for Nirvana. For Dostoevsky, a person stood in the center. For Tolstoy, man is only a part of cosmic life, and man must merge with the divine nature. His very art is cosmic, in it, as it were, cosmic life expresses itself. The most important is the life fate of Tolstoy himself, his death before his death. Tolstoy's personality is extraordinarily significant and brilliant in its very contradictions. He was a telluristic man, he carried within himself all the weight of the earth, and he aspired to a purely spiritual religion. This is its main tragic contradiction. And he could not join Tolstoy's colonies, not because of his weakness, but because of his genius. All his life this proud, passionate, important lord, a true grand seigneur, had the memory of death, and all the time he wanted to humble himself before the will of God. He wanted to fulfill the law of the master of life, as he liked to say. He suffered a lot, his religion was without grace. It will be said of him that he wanted to realize a perfect life by his own efforts. But, according to his God-consciousness, the realization of a perfect life is the presence of God in man. In his search for truth, the meaning of life, his search for the Kingdom of God, his repentances, his religious-anarchist rebellion against the untruth of history and civilization, he belongs to the Russian idea. It is the Russian opposition to Hegel and Nietzsche.

Russian religious problems had very little to do with the spiritual environment, with theological academies, with the hierarchs of the church. In the eighteenth century, a remarkable spiritual writer was St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, who had such significance for Dostoevsky. In the nineteenth century it is possible to name few people from the spiritual milieu who are of interest, although they remain outside the main spiritual currents. Such are Bukharev (Archimandrite Fyodor), Archbishop Innokenty, Nesmelov in particular, and Tareev. Bukharev's life was very dramatic. As a monk and archimandrite, he experienced a spiritual crisis, doubted his monastic vocation and traditional forms of asceticism, left monasticism, but remained a fervently believing Orthodox. Then he got married and attached a special religious significance to marriage. All his life he continued to be a spiritual writer, and through the inertia of traditional Orthodoxy, novelty broke through him, he posed problems that were not posed by official Orthodox thought. He was, of course, persecuted, and his situation was tragic and painful. The official Orthodox environment did not recognize him as their own, and the broad circles of the intelligentsia did not read and did not know him. He wrote in a very old-fashioned way, in a language not characteristic of Russian literature, and it was not very pleasant to read him. His book on the Apocalypse, which he wrote for most of his life and to which he attached special importance, is the weakest of his works, very outdated, and now it is impossible to read it. Only his very appeal to the Apocalypse is interesting. What was new was his exceptional interest in the question of the relationship of Orthodoxy to modernity, and this is the title of one of his books. Bukharev's understanding of Christianity could be called pan-Christism. He wants to acquire and assimilate Christ, and not His commandments. He reduces everything to Christ, to His face. In this he differs sharply from Leo Tolstoy, who had a weak sense of the personality of Christ. The Spirit of Christ is not turning away from people, but love for humanity and self-sacrifice. Bukharev especially insists that Christ's main sacrifice is for the world and man, and not the sacrifice of man and the world for God. This is the opposite of the judicial understanding of Christianity. For the sake of every man, the Son of God became man. The lamb was slain before the creation of the world. God created the world by giving Himself to the slaughter. "The world appeared to me," says Bukharev, "not only as a realm lying in evil, but also as a great environment for the revelation of the grace of the God-Man, who took upon himself the evil of the world." "We use the thought of Christ's kingdom not of this world only for our inhumane, lazy, and faint-hearted indifference to those who labor and are burdened in this world." Bukharev affirms not the despotism of God, but the self-sacrifice of the Lamb. The spirit is strong by freedom, not by the slavery of fear. Most precious to him is "Christ's condescension to earth." Nothing essentially human is rejected except sin. Grace is opposed to sin, not to nature. The natural is inseparable from the supernatural. The creative powers of man are the reflection of God the Word. "Will we have and when will we have this spiritual transformation, according to which we would begin to understand all earthly things according to Christ; all civil orders would be understood by us and consciously maintained in the force and meaning of the grace-filled order." The idea of the kingdom of God must be applied to the destinies and affairs of the kingdom of this world. Bukharev says that Christ himself acts in the church, and does not transfer authority to the hierarchs. His originality lay in the fact that he did not so much want the realization of Christian principles in the fullness of life as the acquisition of the fullness of the life of Christ Himself, as if the continuation of the incarnation of Christ in all life. He asserted, as N. Fedorov later did, the extra-church liturgy. In general, Russian religious thought was characterized by the idea of the continuing incarnation of God, as well as of the creation of the world continuing in the appearance of Christ. This is the difference between Russian religious thought and Western thought. The relationship between the Creator and the creation does not evoke any idea of a judicial process. Bukharev is characterized by extraordinary humanity, his entire Christianity is imbued with the spirit of humanity. He wants to realize this Christian humanity. But he, like the Slavophiles, still clung to the monarchy, which, however, was not at all like absolutism and imperialism. Sometimes it seems that monarchism was the protective color of Russian Christian thought in the nineteenth century, but it also had an unovercome historical romanticism.

The only hierarch of the Church who is worth mentioning when talking about Russian religious philosophy is Archbishop Innocent. Metropolitan Philaret was a very talented person, but he was not at all interesting for religious philosophy, he did not have his own interesting thoughts in this area. Bishop Theophan the Recluse wrote exclusively books on spiritual life and asceticism in the spirit of the Philokalia. Archbishop Innocent can be called more of a philosopher than a theologian. He, like the Slavophiles and Vl. Solovyov, went through German philosophy and thought very freely. Zealots of orthodoxy probably recognize many of his thoughts as insufficiently Orthodox. He said: the fear of God is appropriate for the Jewish religion, it is not suitable for Christianity. And he also said: if there were no germ of religion in man, in his heart, then God Himself would not have taught religion. Man is free, and God cannot make me want what I don't want. Religion loves life and freedom. "Whoever feels his dependence on God will become above all fear, above despotism." God wanted to see his friend. Revelation should not contradict the higher mind, should not humiliate man. Sources of religion: the illumination of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, the chosen people, the tradition and the Holy Spirit. Scripture, and the fifth source is the shepherds. Revelation is the inner action of God on man. It is impossible to prove the existence of God. God is known by both feeling and intellect, but not by intellect and concept. Religion is accepted only by the heart. "No science, no good action, no pure pleasure is superfluous for religion." Jesus Christ gave only the plan of the church, and left its organization to time. Hierarchs are not infallible, corruption is present within the church. Like Vl. Archbishop Innocent thinks that "all knowledge is based on faith." Imagination could not invent Christianity. Some of his thoughts do not correspond to the prevailing theological opinions. Thus, he rightly thinks that the soul must pre-exist, that it was eternally in God, that the world was created not in time, but in eternity. He looked at the Middle Ages as a time of superstition and robbery, which was an exaggeration. In the religious philosophy of Archbishop Innocent there were elements of modernism. Western liberal trends also affected our spiritual environment, which was very musty. Many professors of theological academies were strongly influenced by German Protestant science. And this had a positive meaning. But, unfortunately, this led to insincerity and pretense: those who were no longer Orthodox had to pretend to be Orthodox. Among the professors of theological academies, there were also completely non-believers. But there were also those who managed to combine the perfect freedom of science with the sincere Orthodox faith. Such was the remarkable historian of the church, Bolotov, a man of immense learning. But in Russian theological literature there were no works at all on biblical criticism, on the scientific exegesis of Holy Scripture. This is partly due to censorship. Biblical criticism remained a taboo area, and some critical thought had difficulty seeping through. The only remarkable work in this field, standing at the height of European science and free philosophical thought, was the book of Book II. S. Trubetskoy "The Doctrine of the Logos". But there were many valuable works on patristics. Spiritual censorship was rampant. Thus, for example, Nesmelov's book "The Dogmatic System of St. Gregory of Nyssa" was distorted by spiritual censorship, he was forced to change the end of the book in a sense unfavorable to the teaching of St. Gregory of Nyssa about universal salvation. Nesmelov is the greatest phenomenon in Russian religious philosophy that came out of theological academies, and in general one of the most remarkable religious thinkers. In his religious and philosophical anthropology, he is more interesting than Vl. Solovyov, but in him, of course, there is no universalism of the latter, there is no scope of thought, there is no such complexity of personality.