Here are rare cases when the word "to be reconciled" is nevertheless said in the soteriological sense: "a person is as if on the border (of two worlds) and, if he wishes, can live on" [1302]. "Before the ages, the sacrament was determined for the universal salvation of the human race..., i.e. the unity of God with people and dwelling with them; but in the future there must be an ascent of men to God and a perfect contact with Him, when by grace we will become gods" [1303]. This is very reminiscent of the teaching of Maximus the Confessor about catabasis and anabasis.

But for the aristotheliizing Photius, "theosis" is probably too neo-Platonic. One gets the impression that the soteriological concepts of the classical Sts. fathers are somewhat forgotten by him.

But not feeling a special taste for the words "deification" and "to deify", "to deify", Photius, nevertheless, willingly uses all the synonyms of this. Examples include the "renewal" of the human race [1304], the "reunion" [1305], the "correction" [1306] and "apocatastasis." The latter is used either in the sense of "restoring our nature to its ancient nobility" [1307], i.e., as the ultimate destination of man, or as the sacrament of baptism [1308]. Photius sometimes speaks with the even more general word "salvation." But most often he uses the word "adoption", "adopt". This is perhaps one of his favorite expressions about our ultimate fate. Suffice it to say that the words "adoption" and "adopt" occur 18 times in the "Amphilochius" alone. He speaks of the heavenly gift or heavenly charisma of adoption.

We are adopted through the fulfillment of virtues [1309]. In the "Amphilochius" this idea is explained. "There are two modes of adoption: the first, which is shown to us by Him who adopts us (God), out of love alone for our honor; the second is combined with our zeal, in which our virtues are manifested. In such a case, the grace of adoption, given from above, in accordance with the reasonable performance of the virtues, completely transforms the adopted person to be likened to the Adopter, as far as it is possible for a person to imitate God in general" [1310]. The fruits of adoption are, in addition, the redemption of the body and the enjoyment of goods" (probably: eternal life). [1311].

By preferring the Biblical word "adoption" to the later patristic "theosis," Patriarch Photius is thereby closer to the concepts of the Gospel and Ap. Paul. In the spirit of adoption we cry out: "Abba, Father," and this filial attitude of ours to God finds a noticeable response in the consciousness of Photius. "To call God our Father," he says, "is by no means impious, nor offensive to the ear; this closeness and boldness do not dishonor God, whereas to call the Son of God or the All-Holy Spirit our son is intolerable to comprehend. The name of God as the Father, both by ordinary use and by our innate striving for Him, can be easily accepted by the human mind" [1312].

All these soteriological terms: "correction," "recreation," "salvation," "deification," which is comparatively rare in Photius, and "adoption," which he loved, show that for him there could be no hiatus between God and creation, as is always observed in dualistic conceptions of the world. All four books of "Against the Manichaeans" are a confession of love and reverence for the created principle, matter, man. There is no abhorrence of the world as a creature of God, and there cannot be. The joyful cosmism characteristic of all our patristics is fully shared by Patriarch Photius. He, like all Sts. The Fathers distinguishes the "world" as created nature, as empirical and visible, from the "world" as an ascetic-religious concept, as the sphere of sin and the distortion of this visible and beautiful nature. Interpreting, for example, Eph. VI, 12, St. Photius says: "In peace here, as is usual in the Holy Scriptures. The Scriptures do not call that which is created in heaven or on earth or between them; but these are those who are burdened with worldly and carnal wisdom, who are seized by sensual passions" [1313].

There is a certain correlation between God and the world. Had it not been for her, Photius would not have been able to profess that symbolic realism which is characteristic of all our fathers and of him as well. Without it, God would not have dwelt in the world. If man were not the image of God, if he were not of divine origin, the very incarnation of God could not take place. In general, there is no greater misunderstanding and distortion of the Christian worldview than to assert some kind of world-hating pathos in the patristic tradition. As long as such a mood is generated in Christian thought or literature, it contradicts all our asceticism and enlightened cosmism.

"The Good Son of the Good Father was born of a virgin's womb for the salvation of the world," says Patriarch Photius, "and, having created for Himself our flesh from Her most pure blood, the Son of God became man" [1314]. That is why, in his polemics against the Manichaeans, shattering their arguments about the creation of the world by the Evil Principle, Photius, explaining the words of John's Gospel that Christ is "at His own coming" (I, 11), insists that people could not be at their own for God if matter were the product of the Evil Principle. "Ours are the visible world" [1315].

In addition, Patriarch Photius' loving and respectful attitude towards man, his bright view of his eternal glorified state and of his lofty purpose in general, are supported by that Christologically grounded anthropology of which we spoke above. Through Christ the Son of God, we also become the sons of God to the extent of our imitation of Christ, of course.

With St. Patriarch Photius and St. Simeon the New Theologian, we conclude this historical review of patristic anthropology. In our opinion, it was necessary for the following reasons.

First of all, in order to understand the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas about man, it was impossible not to trace his origins and influences. In a sense, Palamas sums up the Byzantine period of theological thought. It can be sufficiently understood only with a proper assessment of the components that led to this result. For a systematic acquaintance with his anthropology, it was necessary to subject the doctrine of man before him to historical analysis. At the same time, as far as we know, such a more or less detailed review has not yet been made in Russian scientific literature, which is why the present essay, together with the exposition of the Palamite doctrine of man, should, it would seem, give some contribution to our historical science. But to conclude this review, it is necessary to make some explanatory reservations.

This essay is not complete. If it had claimed to be exhaustive, it would have grown into a multi-volume study, since the volume of this work is insufficient for a fully thorough analysis of all patristic systems. We have not touched, for example, on such a great thinker about man as Bl. Augustin. The reason for this is stated above (see Chapter 1). Byzantium recognized the bishop of Hippo too late and he did not exert any influence on Palamas, which we are studying. For this reason, such a prolific writer as St. John Chrysostom has been considered by us much more superficially than others and, as it were, demanded the volume of his works. But Chrysostom is much more of a pastor and pedagogue of moralism than a theologian and thinker, leaving behind him a trace and a school in the history of dogmatic thinking. We also had to confine ourselves to an extremely brief exposition of the teachings of the desert fathers and mystical writers, all for the same reason of the immensity of the subject. We have reduced this to two groups: the "anthropology of the Desert" and the "anthropology of the mystics," combining in such schemes precisely what could be set forth without prejudice to historical truth and at least relative completeness of the question. However, we will stipulate one detail: much of the mysticism of the Areopagitics and St. Maximus the Confessor, which belongs to the sphere of the symbolic worldview, has been elucidated in more detail in a special chapter (Chapter VI). There it is organically connected with the symbolism of Palamas himself and is included in the context of the theme under consideration. In order to avoid duplication of the topic, we have accordingly shortened the exposition of the worldview of these mystics in Chapter IV.

After these reservations and explanations, we consider it necessary to draw some conclusions from this historical review in order to understand how we are going to systematically present the anthropological views of Palamas himself.

Each group of ecclesiastical writers, in accordance with the problems of their epoch, introduced its dominant ideas into the doctrine of man and left its mark. Their attention was mainly directed to the themes of the rationality of human nature and the resurrection. Origen outlined a number of problems in the doctrine of man, of which the question of the origin of the soul and the ultimate fate of man were most closely connected with his general cosmogonic and cosmological teachings. The character of his very bold views on "fallen spirits" and on universal apocasastasis put on his whole teaching about man with the stamp of a kind of spiritualism. Origen could not influence Palamas directly, both because of the general lack of consonance, and because of the suspicion that lay on Origen and did not dissipate what happened next, in the era of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, it is customary to call it by the general name of "Origenism", but which in many respects had nothing in common with the great Alexandrian. But Origen, like Evagrius Ponticus, was refracted in subsequent Byzantine theology, in particular in St. Maximus the Confessor, as is now proved by the learned works of Viller and Hans Urs v. Balthasar. A Maximus the Confessor influenced Palamas. Only the epoch of the great dogmatic contests of the fourth and fifth centuries, and then of the seventh century, put its definite, purely theological emphasis on the theme of man.