It is possible that the changes in Constantine's position during his stay in Constantinople, most likely after he had completed the course of study, are also connected with something that, it seems, researchers have not paid attention to until now. It was at this time, as it is described in the Communal Communal Complex and which, apparently, reflects the situation of Constantine himself, that the leading theme of the initial parts of the Communal Complex – Sophia-Wisdom – completely disappeared (only the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia is mentioned) and the teaching of the Holy Trinity appeared, more and more coming forward as the main confessional principle, the attention and special interest to which was also confirmed by the then disputes on religious topics. reflected in the text of the Housing Code. Thus, the Caesar, sending Constantine to the Hagarian Saracens, admonishes him: "Hear the philosopher what the Hagarians say about our faith. Yes, as the Holy Trinity is a servant and a disciple" [an important indication that Constantine was sent to the Hagarites not just as a talented theologian and preacher, capable of clarifying any religious question, but because even before this "Hagarian" complication he had already declared himself as a faithful servant and disciple of the Holy Trinity. — V.T.], "going to resist them, and God, the Creator of all things, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, glorified in the Trinity, that thou mayest bestow grace and power in words, and as another new David, shall manifest thee upon Goliad [...] and bring thee back to us, vouchsafed the kingdom of heaven." The Philosopher's answer only confirms the consideration expressed that he is now a servant and disciple of the Holy Trinity: "I am glad to go for the Christian faith. For what are I who are happy in this world, (but) for the Holy Trinity to die and live?" The Hagarians considered this position to be the most vulnerable point of Christian teaching, and its weakness seemed obvious to them. Therefore, the attack was launched in this direction, with the confidence in one's rightness, which allows one to be ironic in relation to one's opponent. They began with the question: "How can you praise God alone, and tell me, if you do? for you call the Father, both the Son and the Spirit. If you say so, then you will give him a wife, so that you will have many children." The philosopher answered: "Do not speak such blasphemies without rank. For we have learned well from the father, and from the prophet, and from the teacher, to glorify the trinity, for the father is both the word and the spirit, three hypostases in one being. And the Word was incarnated in a virgin, and was born for our salvation [...] From this and I will make a statement to you about the Trinity." And when later it was necessary to send Constantine to the Khazars in response to the Khazar embassy, the Caesar said to him almost the same as when he went to the Hagarites: "Go, philosopher, to these people, make them an answer and a word about the Holy Trinity, with its help." And this mission was completed successfully. The final words addressed by Constantine to the Khazars sounded as follows: "Brothers, fathers, friends, and people, behold, God will give every reason and an answer is worthy. If there be any who resist, let him come and pregnant, or he will be pregnant. Whoever hears this, let him baptize in the name of the Holy Trinity" [...]. This was, perhaps, the most convincing lesson to the Khazars, taught to them by Constantine. In any case, this is exactly what the Khazar kagan reported in his letter to the Caesar, after two hundred people had converted to Christianity: "For Thou hast sent, O Lord, such a man, who told us the Christian faith in word and in things, the Holy Trinity, and led us away, that is, the true faith, and commanded us to be crushed by our own will, hoping that we too might achieve the same" [...] (On the victory over Arius and the curse of his heresy, "which was raised against the Holy Trinity," at the Council of Nicaea, see JM).

This change of religious accents is undoubtedly significant, and in general it is correlated with what took place in Christian theology in Russia: the very beginning (the turn of the 10th-11th centuries) was marked by a special interest in religious ideas associated with Sophia-Wisdom, and in her very image; in the "Sergius" era, the emphasis shifted to the Trinitarian idea, about which Florensky wrote more than once.

Be that as it may, this first stay of Constantine in Constantinople confronted him with a new problem – how to live further – which indirectly reflected a premonition of a certain crisis.

It seems that at this time Constantine was not particularly willing to enter into philosophical conversations and, consequently, was at least partially burdened by what was supposed to be his main profession: In any case, even the love of the logothete for him could become burdensome or perceived as such, especially since the logothete apparently involved him more and more often in conversations on philosophical topics. Constantine "made him the teaching of Philosophism, in a little word having spoken a great mind." The following phrase in the JK hints at a certain "adversarial" meaning, at that "ideal" that does not coincide with the realities of life at that time, in particular, with philosophical conversations: "In purity you abide and worship God, only more loving to you, [as many people have come and desire to appropriate love for him, and to be zealous to the end against your own power according to God, the virtue of that being, For his understanding was simply loved by all."] "Pleasing" God was an internal, more and more urgent need of Constantine, which required time and concentration, but people, seeing this holiness of the Philosopher, his life in God, were drawn to him and more and more involved him in their life, which he apparently began to fear: it stood more and more firmly between him and God.

And the impetus that upset the balance and put Konstantin before the need for an immediate choice was the offer made to him by his benefactor, a man who sincerely and deeply loved the Philosopher, the logothete (he, according to the ZhK Zhk, gave him "the honor of doing him a lot of gold, he did not accept it"). The logothete had a spiritual daughter, whom he baptized. She was beautiful, from a good family, rich. "If you wish," the logothete suggested to Constantine, "I will give you this friendship. O Tsar now I have great honor and great honor, and great tea, for soon you will be a strategist." Constantine probably felt that life, but not the one he was looking for, was laying claim to him, and he had to make some energetic decision and do it at once. Apparently being a sensitive and delicate person, he tried to soften the refusal, but, as it happens with such people, the desire not to offend with his refusal turned into a certain shift in emphasis and a dangerous proximity to indelicacy ("and I don't need this at all, I have my own business", so one could translate Konstantin's refusal into the more frank language of this day): "For the gift is great to those who require this, but I have no greater learning, to whom I desire to seek understanding before honor and riches." It seems that in this answer Constantine, finding himself in a difficult position, is in a hurry to express his decision, to force a situation which, had it not been for this proposal of the logothete, would not have required an immediate way out of it, "Great-Father's Honor and Wealth" – of course, that sinlessness of the forefather Adam, which Constantine is now going to seek as a part due to him as an heir, if only he embarks on the path of overcoming his sinful nature. More specifically, Constantine in this case somewhat floridly informs the logothete of his intention to take the monastic order, and the logothete correctly understands what is behind this figurative answer. In this case, the question arises, what kind of teaching ("and I have no greater learning than this") Constantine is now talking about. If he was talking about what he had been indulging in before, about philosophy and dialectics, geometry and arithmetic, and so on, then Constantine could have been suspected of an excessive shift in emphasis and even insincerity: it is unlikely that all these sciences and knowledge are necessary for a monk. If by teaching he means theology and even, more specifically, the knowledge of "how man can draw near to God," then perhaps this is too broad an interpretation of the teaching, which has hitherto been understood in a different sense. Finally, it is worth recalling that, having emerged from his difficult situation thanks to his answer, Constantine did not accept monasticism for many years and took on the holy monastic image already hopelessly ill, fifty days before his death.

The refusal did not offend the logothete, and he continued to do good to Constantine. Coming to the Caesar (var. - queen) and not wishing, on the one hand, to hinder Constantine in his choice, and on the other, wishing to keep him in Constantinople, he expresses his proposal, casually formulating the main feature of Constantine's current internal state: "Young philosophist does not love this life, let us not let him go, let us not let him go, let us give him to the priesthood and service, let the Vivliotikar be with the Patriarch in St. Sophia, and we will not eat for him." And so it was done. It remains only unclear whether Constantine became a "vivlioticar" – a chartophylax (χαρτοφυλαξ), the first secretary of the patriarch, who was in charge (at least in the ninth century) of the office work of the chancellery and the patriarchal archive (see Dvornik 1933, 49–56), or whether he became a "vivlioticar" – a bibliophylax (βιβλιοφυλαξ), i.e. simply the keeper of the books of the patriarchal library (the assumption that Constantine, then still a very young cleric, held this more modest position, was expressed in the book: Darrouzes J. Recherches sur le οφφικια de l'église byzantine. Paris 1970, 431–432).

Logothete was not only a benevolent man (at least in relation to the young Constantine), but also a shrewd man, and he correctly noted the "dislike of this life," which most of all determined Constantine's state of mind at that time, perhaps even more than the desire to "draw near to God," because the impressions of life experience were unfavorable or burdensome and hindered this longed-for approach. It is well known that the holy ascetics (and not only they) were often burdened by life in this sinful world, so much so that this very flight from this world became a typical and widespread hagiographic cliché, often, apparently, used even more widely than the range of real life situations that gave grounds for turning to clichés of this type. In the life of Constantine the Philosopher, as it is described in the ZhK and as one can guess it from implicit hints, the reflection of this experience of relations with life in this world as difficult, burdensome, hindering the implementation of some significant plan looks not like a tribute to hagiographic fashion, cast in the typical form of a cliché, but as a purely concrete, individual trait, in this form inherent in Constantine and characterizing precisely his mental situation.

A certain discrepancy between the soul and its expectations of this world and life in it manifested itself from childhood and was expressed in despondency, sorrow, tears, although at first these states were explained to himself and motivated by the boy himself, apparently in a different way. They were too rigidly attached to any specific cases (cf. the episode of the unsuccessful hunt), which were interpreted as particulars: the boy at that time hardly realized that behind all these particular-concrete phenomena, behind external and "everyday" events, there is something common, internal, spiritual, which gives rise to the consciousness of the alienation of the soul to life in this world (another discrepancy was noted above - the disproportion between the boy's spiritual experiences and the causes of the who caused them). Nevertheless, quite early these experiences of encounters with "this life" became the subject of reflection, in the course of which both a general view and the idea of a way out of this "narrow" state of the soul were formed. "Is this the way of life, that in joy dwelleth sorrow? — the boy pondered and outlined a decision, — about this day according to the other path, which is the best, and in the midst of this life I do not depend on my days." Life, as Constantine knew it in his youth, or as it seemed to him, seems to have aroused in him a feeling of anxiety or even frightened him, and when the compiler of the ZhK in the introduction, in the most general context, speaks of a "rebellious life" ("I chose them from this many life"), the illusion of this very perception of life by Constantine himself easily arises.

Constantine the Philosopher accomplished his feat of holiness in this life and in this world. He did not renounce his service (although formally he did not go to the podvig of his own free will, but at the command of the Caesar or at his request, but when he was sent, he took the initiative on the spot if some unforeseen situation arose, cf. the case of the discovery of the relics of St. Clement, and in any case the initiative belonged entirely to him when the question arose how to accomplish the task assigned to him), and when he was called to "service," he did not refer to a "rebellious" life or a life of sin. But in timelessness, when podvig did not call him to service, Constantine more than once sought solitude, a secret and quiet place, and then he left the "narrowness and narrowness" of this world and this life into the wide space of encounters with God. Thus, having served for a short time as a patriarchal "vivlioticar", he "went to the sea and hid himself in monasteries" ["Narrow sea" is a calque from the Greek το Στενον, Bosphorus, cf. στενός "narrow", "narrow", "cramped"; "poor", "weak", etc.; στενός "distress", "want", "distress", cf. Matt. 7:13-14: "Enter ye by the strait gate (διά της στενής πΰλης); for wide is the gate (πλατεία), and broad is the way (εύρΰχωρος ή οδος), which leads to destruction, and many go through it. For strait is the gate (στενή ή πυλη) and narrow is the way (τεθλιμμενη ή όδος) that leads to life, and few find it."] There they searched for Constantine for six months, "and as soon as they found him, they could not convince him to do the same service, begging and teaching the dignity of the clergy, to teach philosophy to their zemstvo and strange [...], and so on." The way it is described in the Housing Code can hardly be called anything other than an escape. But even later, in the interval between the two regular missions, he was drawn to himself by loneliness, and he felt a desire, shaking off all the vain cares of this world, to surrender to God's will: "Not for many years, I renounced this life, I sat in one place without a life, only for myself, and in the morning leaving nothing for the day, but distributed everything to the poor, I have sorrows against God, Who is all to bake every day." Sometimes this "carelessness" of Constantine about himself led to the fact that there was nothing to eat. This happened one day on a holiday. To his servant, who was struggling for lack of food on the "holy day," he said that he who had once fed the Israelites in the wilderness would give them food also. And indeed: when lunchtime came, a certain man brought "a burden of every kind of food and 10 pieces of gold" (a similar miracle was performed more than once by other saints, in particular, from the Russian Theodosius of the Caves). That Constantine was strongly and repeatedly drawn to solitude, to life in a monastery, among a number of other facts, is also evidenced by the fact that soon after the episode just described, Constantine went to Mount Olympus, not far from Brussa, on the Asia Minor coast of the Sea of Marmara, where in the ninth century one of the main centers of Byzantine monasticism was located (see Malyshevsky I. I. St. Cyril and Methodius — the First Slavic Teachers. 1886, Appendix: Olympus, where St. Constantine and Methodius lived; Dvornik 1933, ch. IV. Au mont Olympe; Florya 1981, 114 and others), compare: "In Olympus he went to his brother Methodius, to begin to live and pray unceasingly to God, only with books of conversation."

И, наконец, вероятно, самое сильное свидетельство. Незадолго до смерти, изнемогая от мук болезни, после того как ему было даровано видение Божье и он облекся в честные ризы, Константин, веселесе и с явным и глубоким облегчением, сказал: «отселе несмь азъ ни царю слуга, ни иному никомуже на земли, нъ токмо Богу вседръжителю […]». Этот вздох облегчения, несколько даже некорректный по отношению к цесарю, который так высоко ценил его, и к делу жизни самого Константина, ставшего подвигом его святости, особенно убедительно показывает, как тяжек был для него жизненный путь в сем мире, как стремился он к преодолению мира сего и к жизни в Боге, наконец, каким воистину трудным подвигом было для него оставаться в этом мире и совершать подвиг труженичества на ниве просвещения людей светом христианской веры.

Константин слишком близко подошел к тайнам иного мира, слишком многое было открыто ему в двух видениях — в сне, увиденном им ребенком, и в «Божьем явлении» в самом конце жизни, чтобы так легко и безболезненно было ему возвращаться на грешную землю. Но именно на ней он совершил свой подвижнический путь, на основании которого был признан святым, почитаемым и Царьградом и Римом, хотя — нельзя этого исключать полностью — его исходная предрасположенность могла предполагать осуществление иного типа святости, более соответствующего его религиозным дарам, душевным наклонностям и психологическому типу. Кажется, никто до сих пор не говорил о том, что этот интеллектуал, философ, мудрец, проповедник логосного Слова и Премудрости был одновременно визионером, духовидцем, слышащим голоса, т. е. был носителем тех способностей, которые с очень большой вероятностью предопределяют мистические дарования Константина и свидетельствуют о них. Сочетание двух столь различных начал относится к числу редких случаев–ситуаций, трудных, а иногда и мучительных для тех, кто в них оказывается. Похоже, что Константин был из их числа, и именно отсюда, из этой трудности и мучительности нужно, видимо, объяснять его taedium vitae, по временам, неконтролируемо обнаруживающее себя с тем, чтобы вскоре же раствориться в подвиге, в котором злое и грешное «многомятежной» жизни преодолевается, а сама жизнь преображается, просвещается и освящается.

Иногда случается, что человек отправляется в дальний, нередко длиной в его собственную жизнь, путь, в конце которого — цель, достижение которой решает главную задачу жизни, но, вступив на этот путь, ему приходится отвлекаться на мелочи. Их можно было бы миновать, пренебречь ими, хотя бы потому что в сравнении с конечной целью они действительно не заслуживают особого внимания и не стоят затраченного на них труда. Но что–

Так идущий человек включается в некое дело, мыслимое им как периферийное, маловажное, временное, не отвлекающее его серьезно от главного дела — Деяния, освещающего ему, человеку, весь путь его от начала до конца. И чем дальше идет человек, тем больше становится этих мелочей, тем настоятельнее взывают они об участии человека в них, тем серьезнее и важнее начинают они казаться и… тем дальше оттесняется им главная цель, о которой человек еще продолжает помнить, а иногда и беспокоиться, удастся ли ему достичь ее и выполнит ли он задуманное. И оказывается, что до той, заранее и сознательно определенной им цели в том виде, как он ее несколько абстрактно мыслил себе в начале, он так и не доходит и выполнить так задуманное он не успевает. Но в ходе этого движения и попутного решения этих мелких, но конкретных и насущных задач, связанных со злобой сего дня, меняются не только эти задачи — меняется и сам путник, ибо и путь не неизменен и не задан, но творим движущимся по нему путником. Соответственно меняется и внутренний вес целей, их соотношение: главная цель непоправимо отступает в тень, разум еще помнит о ней, но душа, сердце все более и более обращаются к «малым» целям, которые, как дети, требуют к себе внимания и участия и через это все сильнее привязывают к себе: их проблемы ждут теперь неотложного решения, не где–то и когда–то, но именно здесь и именно сейчас. Как раз в этой точке возникновения привязанности человека к его делу понимаемого уже именно как его по преимуществу, в точке встречи души с делом, ставшим внутренним содержанием ее, происходит чудо если не достижения той главной изначальной цели, то наибольшего приближения к ней, проникновения в ее смысл, хотя совершается это в неожиданно парадоксальной форме, иногда даже как бы от противного.

Представляется, что именно таким и был случай Константина. Стремясь к уединению, к устранению всего, что мешало его встречам в духе с Богом, он вынужден был откликаться на зовы времени и, смиряясь, отправлялся к хазарам, арабам или славянам и делал то «неглавное», хотя и важное дело, которое, как оказалось, стало главным подвигом его святой жизни.