"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.

The Cappadocians, in their stubborn struggle against the Arians, and mainly in that laboratory work to clarify the Trinitarian terminology, contributed to the clarification of the differences between the "essence" and the "hypostasis" and thus laid the foundation for a theological understanding of the human person. Though not in the sense of modern personalism, though not in the sense that subsequent German philosophy pointed out and proved, the fathers of the fourth century had the honor of elaborating the concepts of "person" and "hypostasis." The emphasis may lie not so much on the moment of self-consciousness as on the bearer of responsibility, but the human Hypostasis is given a divine justification. On the other hand, the epoch of Christological controversy brings to the Christian teaching about man, or more precisely, about his composition and nature, a dogmatic or, more correctly, Christological foundation. Leontius of Byzantium, Maximus the Confessor, and Anastasius the Sinaite think of man and speak of him in Christological categories. The same Leontius, in his terminological work, continues the task of his predecessors and introduces anthropological themes into the mainstream of Aristotelianism, in which they will also be developed by the synthesizing mind of two later writers, St. John of Damascus and St. Photius of Constantinople. All this will enter into the theological understanding of man, and in the case of Palamas, whom we are studying, the center of gravity, however, is not in this, or, better, not only in this.

In the 1st chapter of our study, outlining the historical and cultural background of the epoch of St.

This, perhaps, is decisive in the theology of Palamism and, in particular, in its anthropology. In Chapter 1, giving an overview of various points of view on Palamism, we tried to point out a rather variegated characterization of Palamism on the part of learned specialists. None of them can satisfy the researcher of the issue because of its one-sidedness. It would be especially one-sided, we repeat what has been said above, to stylize Palamas and his opponents under the exclusive philosophical schemes of Platonism and Aristotelianism. To some extent, this may be correct, but it is still of secondary importance. It is much more important not to forget the mystical genealogy of Palamas. The mystical perception of the world, more than anything else, determines much in Palamas' teaching about God, about the world and about man. That symbolic realism, as a special perception of the world, which began to penetrate and be assimilated by the writers of the Church, beginning, at first uncertainly, in Clement and Origen, and then more and more deeply and grounded in St. Gregory of Nyssa, and then blossomed especially brightly in the mystical insights of the Areopagiticians and Maximus the Confessor, exerted, we insist, a predominant influence on the anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas. In St. Maximus the Confessor, this worldview was revealed as an absolutely exceptional revelation of the world as a Universal Whole, as a universal harmony united and embraced by divine Love. This divinely beautiful cosmos, permeated by the rays of the Divine, the logoi reflecting the Divine Logos, is reflected in every part of the universe, in every drop of this world, is reflected in its entirety, repeated countless times, is perceived by human logoi, conformed to it and united by the same power of Love. According to Balthazar's correct and figurative expression, a special mysterious and wondrous vision was revealed to St. Maximus, which he characterized as the "cosmic liturgy." In Maximus the Confessor, patristic mysticism reaches its supreme limit, its "acme." This mysticism revealed to him to perfection the symbolic realism that some seers knew before him, but could not grasp in such a holistic worldview. This symbolic perception of the world entered the anthropology of mystics.

If the searching thought has long been accustomed to speak of man as a "microcosm," it is only in the symbolic-realistic perception of man and the world that this word has acquired its true meaning. Peering into man, the mystics saw in him the whole world, the entire world Whole, everything that is pre-worldly, pre-existent, they saw and penetrated into that which is accessible to human speculation in God, that, as Maximus said, is not the very essence of God, but "the surroundings of God." In himself, man has experienced not what has so interested naturalistic psychology of all times, from the ancient philosophers, through their Christian epigones such as Nemesius of Emesa, to the school psychologists of our day. Not what is sometimes called "formal anthropology," i.e., the structure of man that is usually written about in psychology textbooks. Not questions of memory, attention, perception, associations, etc., but the true structure of a person, which can only be perceived symbolically. This is the special language of heavenly revelations, which is perceived not in a school, not theoretically, but as an inner purification, an "ontological catharsis" of the mind and soul. It is a language understandable only to mystics and symbolists, a language that speaks of a different reality, the reflection of which in our soul and nature are the phenomena of school psychology. The symbolically inclined mystic believes and knows that "everything we see is only an echo, only shadows of the invisible with the eyes."

If the naturalistic psychology of Nemesius builds and refines schemes of various forces of the soul, subordinate to reason and not subject to it; if the scholastic approach to man will require an answer whether man is two-part or consists of three parts; then the mystical-symbolic perception of the human soul and nature does not pay attention to this. Speaking of the structure of man, it seeks in him precisely these symbolic reflections of another world; in the spiritual world of man he sees a reflection of the intra-Trinitarian life of the Godhead; in the relationship between the spiritual and bodily natures of man finds Christological parallels, etc. One may ask: what then? What is the pragmatic application of this? Answer: This is applicable in the field of mystical contemplation, and it serves as a means of inner approach to God, this is one of the methods of knowing God. It helps the inner spiritual experience of the symbolically attuned thinker, and for him it will be experimental psychology in the most direct sense of the word, and not in the sense that modern scientific methodology attaches to it.

We need to add one more thing. The most sublime and subtle writers and thinkers, whether they are theologians of a dialectical bent or mystics of a symbolic tendency, have long since (St. Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, and many others) have drawn attention to the complexity of human nature, to its conjugation of two heterogeneous natures, spiritual and corporeal, and to the conflicts and contradictions arising from it. This put the stamp of apophaticism on the patristic perception of man. Man was and remains a cryptogram that is not given to the human mind to decipher.

From all that has been said about man in the history of religious thought in Byzantium, from theological, philosophical, and mystical experiments, the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas about man was formed. Three main themes about man attracted the attention of the head of the Athonite hesychasts. He did not invent anything new in the formulation of these themes; he inherited them from the centuries-old experience of his fathers. These are: 1. the question of the composition of man, i.e., of the relationship between his soul and body, or of the two natures, physical and rational. In the mystical concept of Palamas, it is developed in the categories of symbolic realism. 2. The problem of the image and likeness of God in man, which is especially characteristic of patristicism, is included in Palamas's thinking in his favorite categories of essence and energy, which he distinguishes not only in the divine life, but also in the entire creation of the world and in man himself. It is connected with the theme of the relationship between the two worlds: the human and the angelic, and what is especially important for us, it touches on the topic of creativity, of assimilation to the Creator in this regard, which is acute for religious thought. 3. Finally, the third theme concerns man's ultimate destiny or destiny. This is the theme of theosis, i.e. the deification of our nature in Christ and the deified state of each of us. If in the previous topics Palamas inserted man in the categories of "essence" and "energy", here he considers man in his Hypostasis. This is the path of each of us' personal ascent to God. The path from the conversion of the sinner, from the grace-filled rebirth in the font of baptism, through the narrow gates of podvig to the longed-for Kingdom of Heaven. Here, of course, they will inevitably touch upon, even in the most superficial exposition of ascetic issues.