In the book "The Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century" the author explores with exhaustive depth the moral principles of the faith, clearly expressed in the fates of the great teachers and fathers of the Church of the fourth century.

The text is given according to the edition: G.V. Florovsky. The Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century (from readings at the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris). Paris, 1931. + Additions.

Christianity, patrology, Eastern Church, Church Fathers ru Vladimir Schneider http://www.ccel.org/contrib/ru/xml/index.html FB Editor v2.0, MS Word, XML Spy 05 July 2009 http://www.ccel.org/contrib/ru/xml/Florovsky_fathers_4.zip 4E8732CB-F09B-473A-BB22-62031C7A30DD 2.0 Archpriest George Florovsky. Eastern Fathers of the IV century. Publishing House of the Belarusian Exarchate - Belarusian Orthodox Church Harvest 2006 985-6804-16-7

Archpriest

Georgy Vasilyevich Florovsky

The Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century

1. The main features of the theological life of the fourth century.

With the beginning of the fourth century, a new era opened in the life of the church. The empire in the person of Equal-to-the-Apostles Caesar received baptism. The Church emerges from her enforced seclusion and receives under her sacred vaults the searching ancient world. But the world brings with it its anxieties, doubts, and temptations, and brings with it both great anguish and great pride. The Church had to satiate this anguish and humble this pride. In turmoil and in struggles, the ancient world is reborn and churched. Spiritual excitement embraces the whole of society, church and church, from the top to the bottom. And alien passions are attached to the religious search, and the calculations of rulers and politicians, and personal desires, and tribal strife... The time of great and victorious triumph was also a time of great temptations and sorrows for the Church. And often the confessors of Orthodoxy had to make their way in chains and fetters, amidst persecution and suspicion, and end it with a martyr's crown. Suffice it to recall the life of the great Athanasius or Chrysostom... It was too early to talk about the final victory. The world was still "external" to the Church. Immediately behind the church fence, the old, pagan life continued. Pagan temples were also opened. Pagan teachers also taught, and polemicized with Christianity. The whole culture was still pagan, it was saturated with pagan vestiges and memories. This was felt in everything, starting from domestic life. It is not surprising that the monastic movement, the craving and flight to the desert were so strong in the 5th century. It shows not only the desire for solitude or solitude. In the world, indeed, it was difficult to live according to Christianity... The pagan restoration under Julian was not at all an accidental episode, and it showed that the old world was not yet dead. In the 4th and even in the 5th century, pagan culture experienced a new rise. Suffice it to recall Iamblichus, the Athenian school of the Neoplatonists. And it was the same in the West – let us recall the dispute about the Altar of Victory already under Gratian. In the fourth century, two worlds collided with each other: Hellenism and Christianity. And this is what is characteristic: the Church does not reject or deny ancient culture, but Hellenism does not accept Christianity. This was the case before, in the age of Gnosticism, in the time of Plotinus and Porphyry, when Porphyry openly opposed Christianity (we know his objections from the answers of Macarius of Magnesia). Now the resistance is becoming even more stubborn... The external struggle is not so important. Even more difficult and tragic was the internal struggle: every Hellenic had to endure and overcome internal division. Others reconciled and calmed down too early. In this respect, the image of Synesius of Ptolemais is very characteristic, and in the rank of bishop he remained a Neoplatonist, with a belief in dreams and fortune-telling... In the 4th century, a difficult process of spiritual regeneration of ancient society began. The majority still lives in a kind of cultural dual faith. And very slowly the spiritual structure of ancient man is transformed. This process ends much later, and is resolved by the birth of a new, Byzantine culture. The fourth century was a transitional era. This is its historical originality. It was more the end of the story already experienced than the beginning of a new period.

The entire fourth century passed in heated theological disputes. And above all, in the struggle against Arianism... The Apian movement was not homogeneous. And it is necessary to distinguish between the question of the origin of the teaching of Arius himself and the question of the reasons for the theological sympathy that he met with from various sides. There are many reasons to connect Arius himself with Antioch, with the local presbyter Lucian, even with Paul of Samosata. This was already pointed out from the very beginning by St. Alexander of Alexandria. "It received its leaven from the impiety of Lucian," he wrote about the Arian movement. This does not mean that Arius simply borrowed his teachings from Lucian. There is no reason to deny the certain independence of Apius... Not much is known about Lucian. And his image is mysteriously doubled. Apparently, he was connected with Paul of Samosata, and for many years he lived under suspension, "under three bishops." But he died as a martyr, and his name was included in the church diptychs. In any case, he was an outstanding biblical scholar and continued the work begun by Origen on the correction of the Greek biblical text. In doing so, he also used the Hebrew text, perhaps the Syriac Peshitto, who had studied in Edessa, under a certain Macarius. It was Lucian's review of the text of the LXX that received general recognition in the churches of Asia Minor and in the district of Constantinople. As an exegete, Lucian was a resolute opponent of Origen, striving to oppose the Alexandrian allegorical method to the method of direct and literal "historical-grammatical" interpretation. Disagreement on questions of exegetical method, first of all, divided the Antiochian and Alexandrian theologians. They adhered to various philological schools, for even the ancient interpreters of ancient texts differed on questions of method... And at the same time, in his theological views, Lucian was hardly very far from Origen. It is very significant that many of his disciples were at the same time Origenists. The same can be said about Aria himself. It is no accident that the Arians so often refer to Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria. Opponents of Origen in exegesis, they remained Origenists in theology. In any case, the problems of Arian theology are clear only from Origen's premises. Arian theologians feel the same fear of the temptations of modalism as Origen. The Arian movement was possible only on Origenistic grounds. And therefore the struggle against Arianism was in reality the overcoming of Origenism. The name of the teacher was rarely mentioned in disputes. For the opponents of Arianism were also Origenists, first of all, St. Alexander. Origen himself was not an "Arian." But the Arian conclusions were easy to draw from his premises, not only from his words or slips of the tongue. And the overcoming of Arianism historically turned out to be at once the overcoming of Origenism, in Trinitarian theology. Origen's system as a whole was not yet subject to discussion at that time, and only at the very end of the century was the general question of his right-thinking raised. The renunciation of Origen's Trinitarian theology took place as if tacitly. It is very characteristic that such a consistent Origenist as Didymus is already completely free from Origen's motifs in the doctrine of the Trinity. He is farther from Origen than even St. Athanasius. It was not only a renunciation, but also a overcoming of Origenism. And this is the positive theological outcome of the Arian disputes.

Arius proceeded in his reasoning from the concept of God as a perfect unity, as a self-enclosed monad. And this divine monad is for him God the Father. Everything else that really exists is alien to God in essence, has a different, its own essence. The completeness of God's existence excludes any possibility that God communicated or gave his essence to anyone else. Therefore, the Word or the Son of God, as a hypostasis, as truly existing, is unconditionally and wholly alien and unlike the Father. He receives his being from the Father and, by the will of the Father, like other creatures, comes into being as an intermediary in creation, for the sake of creating the world. Therefore, there is, as it were, a certain "gap" between the Father and the Son, and in any case the Son is not co-equal to the Father... Otherwise, there would be two "beginningless," i.e., "two principles"—the truth of monotheism would be rejected... In other words, "it was when there was not," when there was no Son. It was not, and it became, it came into being, came into being. This means that the Son is "of non-beings", εξ ουκ οντων. He is a "creature," that is, something that has happened. And therefore it has a "changeable" nature, like everything that has happened. Divine glory is communicated to him somehow from without, "by grace." However, according to the foreknowledge of the future, immediately and in advance... — Such was the general outline of the teaching of Arius, as far as we can judge from the surviving fragments of his writings and from the testimony of his contemporaries. It was in essence a denial of the Trinity of God. For Arius, the trinity is something derived and has happened. It arises, is separated by "time intervals" (διαστημα), its hypostases are not similar to each other, alien to each other and non-eternal, "infinitely dissimilar to each other." It is a kind of diminishing Trinity, a kind of union or "society" of three dissimilar beings (a remark of Gregory the Theologian), a union of "three hypostases" united in essence. In other words: three Suvoli, but "separated in essence". In other words: three beings... Arius was a strict monotheist, a kind of Judaist in theology. For him, the Trinity is not one God. There is one and only God, this is the Father. The Son and the Spirit are the highest and firstborn creatures, the mediators in the creation of the world. In this, indeed, Arius repeats Paul of Samosata, in general, repeats the monarchian dynamists. But he is much closer to Philo. And it is not difficult to understand why the reasoning of Arius could arouse sympathy among the Alexandrians, among the Origenists. One immediately feels how connected the entire theology of Arius is with the problem of time and with the question of creation, of the origin of the world. This was the main question for him. Creation is precisely origination. That created thing that has come into being, which exists not from itself and not through itself, but from another, which did not exist before it came into being. And therefore "birth" for Arius is indistinguishable from "creation" — both are origination. The emergence of the Aryans cannot think otherwise than in time. Related to this is the ambiguity in the concept of "beginnings". What has happened has a beginning, has a cause for its existence outside and before itself. But "beginning" can mean twofold: the foundation or source of being, first; Secondly, the moment in time. For Arius, both meanings coincide. "Beginninglessness" or timelessness for him also means ontological primacy. Therefore he refuses to admit the "beginninglessness" or eternity of the Son's existence. For it would mean the denial of "birth" or "origin," and the Word would be a kind of second and independent God. If the Word is from the Father, then He came to be. Otherwise, He is not of the Father. From tradition Apius knows that the Word is the God of revelation, the proximate cause of creation. But the creature is changeable, it is in time. This gives him a new reason to connect the existence of the Word with time. Arius seems to be at odds with Origen all the time. After all, Origen openly taught about the eternal birth of the Word, and at the same time he relied on the immutability of the Divine being. However, he concluded too much from this: it seemed to him that all generation contradicted the Divine immutability; and therefore he also taught about the eternal creation of the world — the creation by God of a world beginning in time seemed to him impossible. For Origen, too, the birth of the Son and the creation of the world were equally united in the concept of origin. In the name of divine immutability, Origen essentially denies all origination. He does not dare to say about anything that exists: it was, when it was not... He comes to the conclusion about the eternity of all existence, about the co-eternity of everything with God. In this it is Origen who is close to Aristotle, with his doctrine of the eternity of the world. The world ceased to be a creature for Origen. This conclusion turned out to be unacceptable to his followers. But in rejecting the conclusion, they did not abandon Origen's premises. Arius reasoned in the same way. He denies the eternity of the world, the whole pathos of his system is in the assertion of the temporal nature of everything that has happened, of everything that has a "beginning" of its existence in another. But from this it follows that the Son is also born in time... Arius differs from Origen in conclusions, but coincides in the premises... And within the limits of Origen's system there remained a hopeless alternative: either to recognize the eternity of the world, or to reject the eternal birth of the Son... It was possible to get out of this circle only through the denial of Origen's premises... That is why the system of Arius attracted the stubborn followers of Origen, who rejected the doctrine of the eternity of the world. In this respect, the theology of Eusebius of Caesarea is most vivid. Far from everything he coincides with Arius – he directly rejects the main idea of Arius about the "origin" of the Son "from non-beings"... And at the same time he denies the "co-beginninglessness" of the Son with the Father: as the cause or beginning of the Son, the Father "pre-exists," although not in time. The existence of the Son for Eusebius is in any case connected with time. Before His actual birth, the Son exists "in the Father," but exists unbegotten, "in potentiality." And only then is it born, as an existent and independent hypostasis, even as a "second essence" (or "second being") along with the Father, and is born by the will and from the will of the Father. In His being, the Son is turned to the world, and in this sense He is "the firstborn of all creation." He is the creator, the demiurge, the creator of all visible and invisible beings, including, first of all, the Spirit of the Comforter. As the direct creation of the Father, the Son is co-existent with Him. But as proceeding from the Father, He is less than Him, there is a certain "intermediate" force between the Father and the world – there is a "second God", but not the first. And He is "honored by the Divine," but he is honored... He is a creature, though "not like other creatures." Like Arius, Eusebius discusses an essentially cosmological, not theological problem. He talks all the time about "origin." The Being of the Son... "in his own hypostasis" for him is closely connected with the existence of the world. And therefore, in order not to erase the boundary between God and the world, he sharply separates the Son from the Father: "the existence of the Son is not necessary for the fullness of being and for the fullness of the Father's divinity." For Eusebius, the existence of the Son is connected with time because the existence of the world is connected with time. He distinguishes between the origin of the Son and the creation of the world, γενεσις and δημιουργια... But it still cannot get out of the aporias of "origin". The aporia of "origin" was the main topic of the Arian disputes. And in a certain sense, Origenism, like Origenism, can be called a heresy about time. This was precisely the main error of Arian thought.

The Apostles set a philosophical task before the theological consciousness. And in philosophical concepts and words, the Church responded to the Arian temptation. Already St. Alexander of Alexandria, in denouncing Arius, in the words of Socrates, "theologized philosophically." And he theologized first of all about time. St. Alexander also proceeds from the idea of Divine immutability and emphasizes the complete inseparability of the Father and the Son. "God always, the Son always; the Father, the Son; The Son coexists with God"... Αμα and αει — These definitions exclude any gradualness in the Genesis of the Holy Trinity: "Not by the slightest moment does the Father precede the Son." He is always and unchangeably the Father of his Son. The Son is born "from the Father Himself," and therefore is His "indistinct image," He preserves in full and exact the nature of the Father and His perfect likeness to Him in all things. Only one "unbegottenness," which is peculiar only to the Father, as His "own inheritance," is "lacking in the Son." But generation, being eternal, does not dissolve the perfect co-existence of the Son and the Father. St. Alexander was also an Origenist, but he developed other motifs of the Origen system. He completely abstracts himself from the cosmological problem and tries to understand and explain the birth of the Son as an internal moment of the inner divine life, not as a moment of "origin." From his theological confession it is clearly seen what essential importance in the struggle against Arianism the question of time and eternity was acquired at the very beginning, and is brought into close connection with the teaching about the essence or essence of God. In the anathemas attached to the Nicene Creed, on the one hand, all temporal definitions are rejected ("was, when it was not", "from bearers", changeability, creation), on the other, the origin "from another essence or hypostasis". Apparently, Hosius of Corduba, sent by the Emperor to Egypt to pacify the Arian troubles, for the first time, as Socrates reports, "proposed the question of essence and hypostasis, and made it the subject of a new competition."

In philosophical definitions, Arianism is also rejected by the Council of Nicaea. The whole meaning of the Nicene Dogmatic Act, the "dogma of the 318 Holy Fathers," is to be condensed in two words: ομοουσιος and εκ της ουσιας — Consubstantial and "of essence." In the use of these expressions, the teaching authority of the Church was expressed. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, these expressions were subjected to "careful examination" at the council: "questions and answers were given on this occasion, and the meaning of the words was carefully examined." It is possible that the term "consubstantial" was proposed to the council by Hosius, who, as St. Athanasius says, "expounded the faith at Nicaea." According to Philostorgius, even on the way to Nicaea, St. Alexander and Hosius decided to stop at the word ομοουσιος. For the West, this term, or rather its Latin analogue, was a familiar expression. In Trinitarian theology, Tertullian was held here with his definition: tres unius substantiae. In Greek, this had to be translated by ομοουσιος. Novatian also spoke of the "one essence" and the "common in essence" (communio substantiae ad Patrem) in the Holy Trinity. Dionysius of Rome reproached Dionysius of Alexandria for not using the term "consubstantial." In Alexandria, of course, they still remembered this. St. Athanasius later reminded us of this. "The ancient bishops, who lived for almost 130 years, the bishop of great Rome and the bishop of our city, condemned in writing those who assert that the Son is a creature and is not of the same essence with the Father." Alien to Scripture, these sayings are taken from church usage: the Nicene Fathers, St. Athanasius emphasizes, borrowed them "from ancient times, from their predecessors," "having witness to this from the Fathers"... However, the Latin terms did not coincide with the Greek, and the unius substantiae did not protect Tertullian from subordinationism. In the East, the term "consubstantial" had long been known, but it bore a thick shadow and even the seal of conciliar condemnation. In philosophical literature, it was very rare. Only a few quotes can be collected. Aristotle spoke of the consubstantiality of the stars with each other. Porphyry discussed the question of whether the souls of animals are of the same essence with ours. In Porphyry, "consubstantial" means, on the one hand, "of the same material," and on the other, "of the same kind." Plotinus used the word in the same sense. The expression was first introduced into religious language by the Gnostics, the Valentinians, to denote the unity and community between the aeons: they emphasized that within one "nature" the "consubstantial" is born. This term apparently entered the ecclesiastical language primarily for the translation of Gnostic texts, and in Gnostic usage this term had a bright emanatic connotation. This, first of all, explains Origen's negative or, in any case, restrained attitude to the expressions: "from the essence of the Father" or "consubstantial." It seemed to him that they had too coarse and material a meaning, that they introduced a kind of division or fragmentation into the existence of God, "just as one can imagine about pregnant women." Following Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria also avoids the use of this word, probably for the same reasons. Later, the Omiusians emphasized that "consubstantial" denotes material connections, the continuity of matter; therefore, like Origen, they found the term inconvenient in theology. It remains not entirely clear for what reasons the use of the word "consubstantial" was condemned and rejected at the Antiochian assembly of 269, which met against Paul of Samosata. In explaining this fact, St. Athanasius and Hilary of Pictavia differ. Apparently, Hilary was right, and the reason for the Antiochian prohibition was that Paul himself combined this expression with a modalistic meaning, asserting the strict unity of the Godhead with only the nominal difference of persons. The Antiochian anathema and the Omiysian were explained in the same way; Hilary only repeated their explanations... Generally speaking, the word "consubstantial" allowed for a variety of interpretations, and from the history of dogmatic disputes of the fourth century we know what bewilderment it caused. In this respect, the letter attributed to St. Basil the Great to Apollinaris (of Laodicea) is very characteristic; if this letter does not belong to St. Basil, it at any rate refers to his time and well depicts the state of mind of that time. The author asks about the meaning of the term ομοουσιος. Does "consubstantial" mean a "common kind" under which both the Father and the Son fit as its "species," or the unity of the pre-existent "corporeal" substratum, from which the Father and the Son proceed equally, through separation? In his book on the councils, Hilary of Pictavia, defending the Nicene faith, stipulates that ομοουσιος can have and in the past received a "bad meaning." And he points out three cases or types of false and impious understanding of "consubstantiality": first, "consubstantial" can be understood in the monarchian sense of exclusive monotheism, in which the Father and the Son differ only in name, as states of one and the same person. Secondly, "consubstantial" can be interpreted in the sense of the "distribution" of the one divine essence, between the Father and the Son, as "co-heirs", as two lights from the one light... And thirdly, the concept of "consubstantiality" may be mixed with an emanatical motive, the idea of the Son as a part of the Father's substance, as the "cutting off" of the Father, so that the one "thing" is divided and distributed in two and between the two. It should be noted that Tertullian's teaching about the Son as the product and separation of the Father (derivatio or portio) was not devoid of the latter shade. All these false shades in the understanding of "consubstantiality" had to be stipulated, and clearly and precisely excluded from theological language. At the Council of Nicaea, the Arians pointed out precisely these shades. "To call someone consubstantial," in their opinion, "means to indicate that which proceeds from another, either through a shoot, as it grows from a root, or through an outflow, as children from their fathers, or through separation, as two or three golden vessels." In the concept of "consubstantiality" they imagined a taste of co-materiality... All this makes understandable the reserved attitude of the theologians of that time to the Nicene definition. It required explanation and interpretation, and this was possible only in connection with and in the composition of an integral doctrinal system. Only then was its exact meaning revealed, limited from doubtful interpretations. To do this, first of all, it was necessary to define the concept of "essence", ουσια. In ancient philosophy, this concept received different shades for different schools. For Platonism and Neoplatonism, "essence" denotes the general. In the same way, for the Stoics, the term "essence" (Latin substantia) denotes a general and non-qualitative substratum (i.e., matter) as opposed to distinguishing forms. For Aristotle and the Aristotelians, on the contrary, ουσια means first of all an indivisible, individual being, an individual and individual thing in the fullness of its immutable determinations, πρωτη ουσια. And only secondarily can the general genus be called essence; uniting and embracing individual existences, according to Aristotle: δευτερα ουσια, "second essence". However, in Aristotle himself, the word ουσια does not have a precisely limited meaning, and sometimes merges in meaning with the concept of being or "subject". At the same time, the concept of essence for Aristotle is connected with the concept of emergence or becoming, γενεσις. By the fourth century, it was precisely the narrow Aristotelian meaning of the word ουσια that was established in broad usage. In this sense, ουσια is not only an essence, but also a being. — Another term of the Nicene definition of faith, υποστασις, came into philosophical use relatively late, after Aristotle in any case. And for a long time this word was used in the literal sense: "standing under"; but a certain shade can be noticed: καθ'υποστασιν already in Aristotle means: actual, — in contrast: in appearance. In the seventy, υποστασις has a different meaning, meaning, among other things, "foundation" (the foundation of a house, the foundation of hope), composition, etc. — In Philo. "hypostasis" apparently means independence and originality. "Essence" is denoted by the word υποστασις in Ap. For the first time in Neoplatonism, the concept of "hypostasis" acquires terminological definiteness. Plotinus calls the forms of self-revelation of the One "hypostases" and, perhaps, distinguishes as if ουσια as το είναι from υποστασις as τι είναι. In any case, Pophyrius made such a distinction. Characteristically, Plotinus considered the concept of "hypostasis" to be inapplicable to the first principle, as well as the concept of "essence": the One "is above all essence". It is as if the concept of "hypostasis" includes for him the moment of origin. At the same time as Plotinus, Origen spoke of the "three hypostases", followed by Dionysius of Alexandria. However, the concept of "hypostasis" remained indistinguishable from the concept of essence, and that is why the theological language of Dionysius so alarmed Roman theologians. In general, it can be said that until the middle of the fourth century, the concepts and terms "essence" and "hypostasis" remained interchangeable; blzh. Jerome said bluntly: "The school of secular sciences knew no other meaning of the word 'hypostasis' than essence." And in the anathemas of the Council of Nicaea, "essence" and "hypostasis" are clearly identified ("from another hypostasis or essence"). St. Athanasius also identified them. It should be noted that only one of the Latin terms corresponded to both Greek terms, both ουσια and υποστασις; were equally translated as substantia. There remained only ambiguity in the Nicene definition of the creed. The confession of "consubstantiality" affirms the perfect "identity of essence" in the Father and the Son. Is it possible to speak of the birth of the Son "from the essence of the Father"? This terminological difficulty was subsequently eliminated — in the Constantinopolitan Creed, "from the essence of the Father" was omitted. On the basis of the works of St. Athanasius, it can be said with certainty that there was no contradiction or hesitation in the thought of the Nicene Fathers; and the expressions "of essence" and "consubstantial" revealed to them one and the same thing from different angles: the sincere and immutable co-belonging of the Father and the Son in the identity of the unchanging and common life. By contrasting the Arian "out of will" or "out of will" with the decisive "out of essence," the Nicene Fathers sought to express the immanent and ontological character of the Divine birth as an internal, eternal, and somehow necessary state (rather than an act) of Divine life and being. "Of essence" meant for them "in essence" or "in essence," and excluded first of all any connection between birth and will or consultation. In the Nicene understanding, birth and "being from essence" coincide and are equally opposed to the conjugated pair of concepts: creation and being by will or will. The inconsistency of the Nicene formula lay in something else: there was no general term for naming the three in the unity of the Godhead. And therefore the unity and inseparability of the Divine being were expressed more sharply and definitely than the Trinity and the differences: the one essence and the three, only a numeral without a noun...