Mozhaisk deanery. About Orthodoxy wisely Basics of ancient church anthropology

Review of the book by A.S. Pozov “Fundamentals of Ancient Church Anthropology.” St. Petersburg, 2008.

The monograph by Abraham Samuilovich Pozov (Pozidis), published in 2008 by the publishing house of St. Petersburg State University, is a phenomenon that deserves attention not only because it is a thousand-page work - a summa of anthropological views of Christian authors, systematically presented, it is also a kind of “distant echo” of Russian religious -philosophical tradition of the first half of the 20th century.

Pozidis-Pozov, a man of unusual destiny, was born in Kars on December 17, 1890, graduated from the Tiflis gymnasium, the medical faculty of the Kyiv Imperial University and devoted almost his entire life to medicine. However, Pozov did not want to limit himself to a natural scientific orientation: the beginning of the century was a time of intellectual quest under the sign of a synthesis of science, philosophy, art, religion, the intuition of which at the end of the century of the 19th century. Soloviev outlined the theme of unity.

Belonging to the younger generation of Russian religious philosophers, Pozov inherited the synthetic impulse from the elders: N.A. Berdyaeva, N.O. Lossky, Fr. P. Florensky. Some of the “younger” continued the “work of their fathers”, such as A.F. Losev (born in 1893), someone who spent a lot of effort on overcoming or even exposing the “cosmic obsession” of supporters of unity, like Fr. G. Florovsky (born in 1894). Pozov’s place in this simplified, of course, classification is still intermediate, taking into account the fact that “the work of life” was written very late - in the 60-70s of the 20th century, when the “younger” ones had already “faded away” and such books were no longer written. You can only compare him with Losev. Pozov’s “Fundamentals…” is typologically close to “The History of Ancient Aesthetics” - the same coverage of material spanning several millennia, the same metaphysical subtext in a historical-philosophical study in genre. In Losev, his orientation towards the tradition of Russian religious philosophy, on its themes, half-hearted by prison and orthodox Marxism, is fully felt in “aesthetics”. He writes an eight-volume history of aesthetics in accordance with the concept of symbol, beloved in Russian thought: the historical “body” of the ancient intellectual tradition (especially Platonism) embodies the spirit of Russian religious philosophy, deprived of its historical body. Pozov, being in exile since 1938, did not know such problems, but his historical-philosophical, historical-theological work is a rush from the plane of historically former anthropological concepts, including their genesis, diversity of connections and mutual influences, to some holistic vision where historically The recorded phenomenology of the human theme is fragments of the sought-after noumenon: mentally, spiritually, physically a single “all-man.” But if the desired “all-humanity” is not a phantom, it is necessary to formulate its systematizing principles. In Pozov they are not articulated in detail, and the reader is left to guess about their actual meaning, for example, by the original terminology that Pozov actively uses. Hence the feeling that arises when reading a book of a circular line, incapable of becoming a circle. This is not related to the substantive side of the study; it is clear that the topic of man in philosophy and theology is not a simple one; rather, this is a flaw in the researcher’s “optics”: when analyzing anthropological reflection in philosophy, religions, theology, psychology, medicine, the author ignores the boundaries of competence, as if There is no distance between the first written sources, where the theme of a person is somehow recorded, and the calculations of modern psychology.

The anthropological theme is taken in colossal amplitudes from the data of Buddhism, Hinduism to anthropology in Western European philosophy of the 13th–20th centuries, from patristic asceticism to modern psychology, medicine and psychoanalysis. In this regard, Pozov is a very Russian thinker, boldly taking upon himself the solution of a super task: to combine in one paradigm (the meaning of which remains unclear) the variety of information about a person, his consciousness, volitional, mental, spiritual, psychophysical dimensions with corresponding clarifications and details (the meaning of the heart , words, memory, fantasy). The matter is complicated by the diversity of cultures that never came into contact in a single space and time, but, nevertheless, connected into a common picture of data. The method of associations and analogies creates the illusion that “everything is similar to everything else”: the philosophy of Hume or Berkeley to Buddhism, Buddhist tantra to hesychasm, ancient humoral medicine to modern medical practices. Yes, in a sense, all this is a single movement of humanity under the sign of “know thyself”, a process that has been the subject of philosophical generalization more than once or twice (let’s remember Hegel or Jaspers), but, in essence, it is an apparent unity , unity from the heights of abstract thought. And if you go down to earth, universalism turns out to be imaginary, unity illusory. The connection between the elements of anthropological reflection in philosophies, science, religions in different periods and in different cultures, except for the associations that arise in the head of the researcher, is usually not confirmed by anything. Even a partial coincidence of some individual elements does not mean a coincidence of genesis and perspective. Pozov, as a doctor, could not help but know this simple idea: let’s say, the body’s temperature can rise for a lot of different reasons, this is just one of the symptoms, which in itself does not say anything about the patient’s illness, the illness is individual, so to speak, historical. In Pozov’s systematics, the scheme completely abolishes the historicity of man, as if we are not talking about fixing the originality of this or that anthropological picture, but about the embodiment in the historical empiricity of a pre-existing and supra-historical paradigm: “Adam Kadmon”, “God-manhood”, “symphonic personality” or something something like that. Here one can argue: what about the Christian vision of man, because for Pozov it is the understanding of man within the framework of ancient church anthropology that is central, non-Christian “anthropologies” are peripheral, and those where there are no parallels, “seeds of the Logos,” are dead ends. The universalism of Christianity: everyone sinned in Adam, and for everyone the Way, Truth and Life are revealed in Christ - of course, presupposes a universal anthropology, it is even possible to fix with great accuracy the central category of the Christian vision of man - the category of personality (it should be noted that Pozov rather has nature , even the body finds itself in the center). The paradox is that the category of personality as applied to a person in patristic thought is “theomorphism”, personality is a theme of triadology and Christology, so anthropology is not a “text”, but a “context”, it is peripheral and fragmentary in the body of patristic heritage. Pozov, it seems, is not fully aware of this fact; he, for example, accepts the testimony of Orthodox asceticism as the Orthodox teaching about man, which is in principle equivalent to the understanding of man in antiquity or within the framework of modern European rationalism. But asceticism is not a way of being of a person, not a specification of his essence, but a way of action. Asceticism is energetic, it is a path whose goal is to meet God “face to face.” In Pozov, the “technicism” of asceticism, the refined arsenal of psychosomatic intentions, does not lead to the Personality, but closes in on itself. At the same time, another theological series related to anthropology within the framework of Tradition is ignored - ecclesiology; the topic of man remains isolated in an ascetic “seclusion”, it has no outlet into the element of history.

Abraham Samuilovich Pozov (Pozidis)

This idea is also suggested by the three-part structure of the book as a whole: “stasis”, “catastasis”, “apocatastasis”. Pozov is inclined to view it as a closed cycle, where “stasis” and “apokatastasis” come close to coincidence. It is no coincidence that the extreme phase of the triad makes us recall Origen: Pozov Hellenizes Christian anthropology by closing it on the cosmos, on the play of forces and elements. For Pozov, and in this he is very reminiscent of Florensky, the Logos-Christ (precisely in such a non-random combination) is rather the principle of cosmic and anthropological structure, the order immanent in the world, the law, accessible in one form or another to the “great minds of mankind”, and not the “crucified for us under Pontius Pilate.” Associated with this kind of “humanism” is a certain rhetorical quality of Pozov’s constructions. “Renaissance titanism” and the encyclopedism of both Florensky and Pozov are a manifestation of possibilities, often not going beyond the phenomenological surface. Pozov’s only illustration of the correspondence between the cosmic Logos and the rhetorical logos: “The archetype is identical to the idea of ​​Plato, the logos of Aristotle and the Stoics, the monad of the Stoics, J. Bruno and Leibniz, the substance of Paracelsus, the mode of Spinoza, the species intelligibilis of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, the thing in itself of Kant , the self-propelled concept of Hegel and the substantial engine of N. Lossky. The commonality of concepts indicates the proximity of various currents in the ancient history of the Logos-Christ, and the different names are explained not only by the whim of the philosopher, but also by different approaches to the ancient truth.” It is clear that within the framework of European philosophy, this identity does not exist, and the difference is not only in words, “whims” or “views of ancient truth”, but in something completely different - in the difference between the ancient type of rationality from the medieval and modern European ones and in the fact that the given figures in the history of philosophy are not at all equivalent (on the one hand Plato and Kant, on the other Paracelsus and N. Lossky). But such distinctions are contraindicated for rhetorical generalization.

Magazine "Nachalo" No. 19, 2009

Pozov A. Fundamentals of ancient non-church anthropology. St. Petersburg, 2008. T. 2. P. 5.

Abraham Pozov was born in 1890, on the territory of Transcaucasia, in the city of Kars, in the family of Samuil Pozidis, a civil servant. By origin, the latter was a Pontic Greek, like his wife, the mother of Abraham Pozov.

Before the revolution, Kars was part of the Russian Empire. Despite their Greek origin and the existence of a Greek colony in Kars, Abraham’s parents gravitated in heart and soul to Russia.

Abraham's mother wanted to name him Vladimir, but her husband, Samuel, Abraham's father, decided the issue differently. The fact is that it was his tradition to give children the names of participants in biblical events.

When their son was baptized, and the priest was ready to immerse him in the baptismal font, having already uttered the key words “being baptized...”, suddenly the baby’s father appeared among those gathered to participate in the Sacrament, in a state of slight “fun,” and authoritatively exclaimed: “ Abraham". Thus, who was supposed to be Vladimir became Abraham. Despite this, the mother continued to call her son Volodya.

Abraham's parents, being Orthodox people, laid in him the foundations of the Christian faith and culture from childhood. When he grew up, he was sent to the Tiflis gymnasium. Here, along with other disciplines, Abraham studied the Law of God, and under the supervision of experienced teachers, he became even more imbued with the ideas of Orthodoxy.

During his studies at the gymnasium, he showed himself at his best: he diligently and diligently absorbed what was taught; I tried not to violate discipline.

Among other subjects, Abraham mastered several languages: ancient Greek, Latin, French, German (he knew modern Greek from an early age). He graduated from high school with a gold medal.

In the gymnasium, Abraham's surname - Pozidis - was changed for convenience and adapted to Russian: Pozov. So he became Abraham Samuilovich Pozov.

Youth

After graduating from high school, A. Pozov faced a difficult choice: what specialty should he direct his efforts towards? He had a considerable desire for speculative sciences, but still chose a different path for himself - the path of a doctor, and entered the Kiev Imperial University, the Faculty of Medicine.

The time of graduating from university coincided with the beginning of a terrible war - the First World War. During this period, A.S. Pozov served his Motherland as a military doctor.

Circumstances developed in such a way that he ended up in the Caucasus. Here he met the October Socialist Revolution. For some time he continued to treat people. Often we had to wander along mountain roads and paths, moving from one village to another.

During the same period, he met and then tied the knot with an energetic, talented woman who came from the Rybkin family (Saratov merchants), Tatyana, who was widowed after her husband was shot by the Bolsheviks in 1918. After the death of her husband, Tatyana was left with a three-year-old daughter, Nina. Just like A.S. Pozov, Tatyana was a doctor.

The Pozovs lived in the Caucasus for several years, and in 1924 they decided to move to Petrograd. Despite the complexity of the social situation, as doctors they found an appropriate practice for themselves, the income from which was quite enough to support their family.

Meanwhile, growing internal political tension in the country, associated with the search for ideological opponents, oppression of the intelligentsia, mass arrests and executions, forced the Pozovs to look for an opportunity to leave the country. On the initiative of his wife and at her urgent admonitions, Abraham Samuilovich applied to the Greek consulate, with the help of which he officially confirmed his Greek origin and received permission to emigrate abroad.

Life in exile

In 1932, the Pozov family settled in Athens. Despite his solid practical experience as a doctor, Abraham Samuilovich could not provide himself with a good job for a long time: unlike his Greek colleagues, he lacked enterprise and experience in competing for clients. In addition, by this time he decided to devote himself to literary and scientific creativity. The preparation of materials for future books alone required a lot of time and effort.

Fascinated more and more by the idea of ​​devoting himself to creativity, he made extracts from the Patrology of Min, studied German and French literature on psychology, and studied yoga and the occult.

With the outbreak of World War II, living conditions seriously deteriorated. In 1943, the Pozov family moved to Leipzig. She subsequently lived there until 1959.

When, on the territory of USSR-controlled Germany, the Pozovs’ daughter, Nina, had misunderstandings with the MGB authorities (they began to ask her alarming questions and persuade her to cooperate), she decided on a daring escape to Germany. At that time, the border between the two parts of Germany still had certain gaps. In the end, her desire and efforts were crowned with success: she managed to carry out her plans, escape and get to Stuttgart.

A year later, following Nina, A.S. Pozov and his wife came to Stuttgart. In Stuttgart, the couple attended the Russian church, and they tried to visit it as often as possible.

They say that in the 60s, Abraham Samuilovich came to Athos, met there with a schema monk, seeking instructions.

Writing activity

Having settled in Stuttgart, A. S. Pozov finally found the opportunity to seriously engage in literary activity. Having found a publisher in Spain at his own expense, he, already 70 years old, began writing works.

His last work, devoted to the analysis of the work of Russian writers, was published two years before his death, in 1982.

In his works, A. S. Pozov sought to reveal and convey to the reader a number of basic principles of the Christian faith and mysticism. Despite the fact that some of the thoughts expressed in his writings cannot be called impeccable and indisputable from the point of view of an orthodox theologian, they contain a lot of useful and instructive things.

Twenty years ago, I came across a book that determined the direction of my spiritual search for many subsequent years. The unknown name of the author - Abraham Samuilovich Pozov- represented a riddle that needed to be solved, and his fate was a mystery that had to be comprehended.

The first task was external - to find biographical information. The second is internal, since the fate of a person is a kind of existential mystery, which can only be comprehended by acquiring spiritual experience. This is how it seems after many years, during which, having visited the countries where Pozov lived, having discovered the world of Greek spiritual culture, on which Pozov was raised, I became a resident of the most ancient monastery of the Orthodox East, the monastery of St. Sava the Consecrated at the Dead Sea .

It all started in a Pskov village near the city of Dno, where I ended up in 1980, which in my life became the year of the beginning of monasticism. An icon painter from Moscow worked in the rural church there and suggested reading a book. After leafing through the book without any desire, I put it aside. But then, feeling something, I began to read again, and after a few pages, it was as if someone’s invisible hand, like an evangelical paralytic from his bed, raised me to active work. I started making notes, but when I saw that I would have to rewrite the entire book, I stopped doing this and just started reading, trying to remember as much as possible.

The book was dedicated to the Christian teaching about man - anthropology. Such a subject was not studied in our theological schools; there was no systematically presented course of this science. This was the first experience. The author's high apologetic attitude was combined with excellent literary language and an extraordinary breadth of coverage of the topic. Many pages represented a mosaic of statements from ancient Greek philosophers, medieval scholastics, modern European psychologists, classics of Russian literature, representatives of Eastern cults and, of course, the holy fathers from the vast Patrology published by Abbot Min in the 19th century. However, the most valuable thing for me was the active nature of this teaching. It was a guide to spiritual life, which could not be read based only on an abstract interest in the topic. It called for spiritual activity, for the Jesus Prayer.

Naturally, the question arose about the author who created a fundamental work on the foundations of a new spiritual science and managed to present these foundations in such a way that the book is read with captivating interest. Who is this man? Was he an armchair scientist? Or maybe this is a monk of some Orthodox monastery in the West (the book was published in Madrid)? But on the first page there was a dedication - to his wife Tatyana. All the Russian emigrant theologians were well known, but no one had ever heard the name Pozov.

After some time, I managed to find a brief biographical information about him: “Abraham Samuilovich Pozov, born in 1890 in the city of Kars, in Transcaucasia. He graduated from the Kiev Imperial University, was an attending physician during the First World War, and practiced in the Caucasus. In 1924 he moved with his wife to Petrograd, in 1932 he emigrated to Greece, and from there in 1943 to Germany. Since 1960 he lived in Stuttgart. Date of death unknown." The following were a list of the many books he wrote. It later turned out that I received this information when Pozov was still alive (he died in 1984). The questions asked themselves: what family did he come from, how was he able to get out of Soviet Russia and why - to Greece, how did he end up in Germany with such a patronymic name in 1943? When did you write so many serious works?

Meanwhile, my life also did not flow like a quiet river. After several years of parish life, I found myself in the Pskov-Pechora Monastery, in the calm atmosphere of which, it seemed to me, I could dive deeper into the extraordinary world of Pozov’s creations. By that time, in addition to “Fundamentals of Ancient Church Anthropology,” I had already obtained Pozov’s book on the Jesus Prayer, “Logos - Meditation of the Ancient Church,” which enriched me with new rare knowledge in this area.

Unfortunately, my hopes were not destined to come true. I had to serve a lot, perform various obediences; there was no time left for theological studies. I resumed my work on collecting and studying Pozov’s heritage a few years later - already at the parish in the Pushkin Mountains. A laconic, transparent Western Russian landscape, preserved noble estates of the early 19th century, conveying the aroma of that time, the Svyatogorsk Monastery with the bell tower of St. Michael's Cathedral soaring upward... Standing on the steps of the temple, I vividly imagined Pushkin at the moment of the seraphic vision, under the impression of which he wrote the poem “ Prophet". So it was according to Pozov’s version, which he set out in his book “The Metaphysics of Pushkin,” full of deep thoughts about the poet’s work. This book helped to see new sides of Pushkin’s genius, about whom Pozov said that the guardian angel of Russia endowed him with his gifts. At the same time, the author of the monograph on Pushkin, the breadth of his interests and ability to deeply penetrate into the essence of the work of poets, philosophers, and theologians, aroused no less surprise.
Soon I discovered the unread third volume of “Fundamentals of Christian Philosophy” in the library of the Moscow Theological Academy, and then I managed to find the other two volumes - with clear concepts about philosophical disciplines and clear Christian formulations. Thus, I have already collected almost all of Pozov’s main works. It has not yet been possible to find out any details about his life.

In the fall of 1990, I miraculously found myself in Munich, in the Orthodox monastery of St. Job of Pochaev. The monastery was founded by the brethren of the Lavra printing house, who left Pochaev in 1940 as the Red Army approached. Once upon a time, in the 70s, I was a novice of the Pochaev Lavra, and since then everything connected with it has been very close to me. In those days, the recently ordained priest Ilya, who was soon to leave for Stuttgart, served in the monastery. I asked if he had heard about a spiritual writer named Pozov who lived there. Father Ilya replied that he knew such a theologian and that Pozov’s daughter, Nina Georgievna, was a parishioner of their Stuttgart church. Such luck was another small miracle of God’s mercy.

I went to Stuttgart, we met, Nina Georgievna invited me to the house and told me a lot about the life of their family.
The house in which the Pozovs lived is located in the beautiful green area of ​​Feuerbach, next to a forest park. There is a Greek church nearby, but the Pozovs are used to visiting the Russian one, which has existed in the city since ancient times. Nina Georgievna’s apartment was Pozov’s last refuge, here he wrote most of his books, and from here he saw off his wife Tatyana, a faithful life partner, on her last journey, whose energy saved the whole family more than once. Now they rest under one cross in the Stuttgart cemetery...

Pozov's parents were Pontic Greeks by last name Pozidis. They had five children: two sons and three daughters. Father, Samuil Pozidis, was a government official in the city of Kars, which was part of Russia before the revolution. This town was little Jerusalem. Russians, Greeks, Turks, Jews lived there quite peacefully. There was a large Greek colony in the city, but the Pozidis family, whose tradition was to name their children with biblical names, was culturally drawn to Russia. The mother wanted to call the boy the Russian name Vladimir, but was forced to submit to the will of her husband, which he expressed in a very original way at the baby’s baptism. At the very moment of immersion in the font, when the priest began to say: “the baby is baptized...”, a parent who appeared from nowhere, already slightly tipsy, exclaimed: “Abraham!” This name was imprinted in the sacrament. However, his mother called him Volodya, and then his wife and grandson called him by the same name.

Russophile sympathies were also reflected in the choice of education. Young Abraham was sent to the Tiflis classical gymnasium, where such future celebrities as the priest Pavel Florensky and the philosopher Vladimir Ern studied at one time. During his years of study at the gymnasium, Abraham laid a solid foundation for future scientific studies in the fields of theology, philosophy, psychology and medicine. He mastered the ancient languages, Latin and Greek, to such an extent that he subsequently read patristic literature in the original and made his own translations. In addition, he mastered modern German and French, which was also later useful in everyday life and scientific work, and he knew modern Greek since childhood. He had an excellent memory, remembered many poems, especially his beloved Pushkin.
At the gymnasium, they changed his surname in the Russian manner - Pozov, and he signed his works with it. He studied brilliantly and graduated from high school with a gold medal. From the gymnasium he took away not only knowledge of secular culture. The Pozidis family was traditionally Orthodox, and it was in the family that the foundations of faith were laid in the child. Subsequently, in the gymnasium, he deepened them in the lessons of the Law of God, which was for many the least favorite of the gymnasium subjects.

This was the beginning of the spiritual path. Having the opportunity to choose any faculty and engage in speculative subjects, for which he had a clear inclination, Pozov chose the very practical and completely Christian profession of a doctor and entered the medical faculty of the Kyiv Imperial University.

The end of his studies at the university coincided with the beginning of the World War, which he fought as a military doctor. The war took him to the Caucasus, where he met the revolution and remained to treat people, mainly in small villages. At this time, an important change occurred in his life - he got married. His wife Tatyana was also a doctor. She came from a family of Saratov merchants, the Rybkins, and, in contrast to the contemplative Pozov, was of an active and energetic character. She had excellent vocal abilities, but, submitting to the will of her father, a man of traditionally conservative views, she went to Paris to study not vocals, but medicine. She married a small nobleman from Georgia and went home with him. In 1918 her husband was shot by the Bolsheviks, and she was left alone with her three-year-old daughter Nina. Soon Tatyana met Pozov...

The Pozovs lived in the Caucasus for several years, and in 1924 they moved to Petrograd. There they found good practice and could exist quite comfortably, but the general situation constantly worsened, repressions covered ever wider circles of the intelligentsia. Something had to be done. Then his wife, who became, as it were, the engine of the family, insisted that Pozov receive confirmation of his Greek origin and the right to emigrate from the Greek consulate.

As soon as they succeeded, they hastened to leave Soviet Russia, making it before the Great Terror began. In 1932 they found themselves in Athens, where there were already many Russian emigrants. Finding a job was not easy. Pozov was a good doctor, but did not possess the entrepreneurial spirit and practicality inherent in the Greeks in acquiring patients. Another reason for his lack of professional activity was the literary activity in which he began to engage. Pozov worked a lot in the library, collecting materials for future theological books, but he began to write on topics closer to the historical events he was experiencing - socio-political.

The centers of social life of the Russian emigration were then Berlin and Paris; the main intellectual forces gathered there, among whom the experience of the Russian catastrophe was comprehended and the paths of the future Russia were outlined. In his philosophical and political views, Pozov was close to Ivan Aleksandrovich Ilyin, who was then living in Germany, and among the Parisian figures he could have gotten along with Fedotov and Kartashev. But Greece was far on the periphery of emigrant life. Pozov had no connections with Russian philosophers and theologians.

Soon Pozov loses interest in social activities along with the hope of finding like-minded people in his religious historiosophical views. He completely switches to scientific work. He makes extracts from Minh’s “Patrology” and reads German and French journals on psychology. For comparison, I began to study non-church mysticism, occultism, and yoga. All this required time and effort, but the main work - writing books - was still far ahead. Meanwhile, it was necessary to earn a living. The Second World War began, it became even harder. An unexpected solution was found. It turned out that in Germany, where the retreating German army had not yet reached, it was easier to find a place, and in 1943 the family moved to Leipzig.

They lived there until 1959. But new problems began in sub-Soviet Germany. The MGB authorities became interested in Nina, the daughter of the Pozovs. They began pestering her with questions and persistently offering cooperation, and she decided to flee to Germany. At that time the border was not yet very firmly sealed, so she eventually managed to move to Stuttgart. A year later, Avraham Samuilovich and Tatyana arrived there. They settled far from the center. The Russian Orthodox Church was located almost in the center, but they tried to visit it as often as possible. Pozov loved Sunday services and loved to pray. A person’s inner life often remains invisible to others. Those close to him noticed that he was immersed in a state of prayer, but they knew nothing about the power and depth of his prayer. He did not tell anyone about this, although it can be assumed with confidence that in two places in his writings he left evidence of his inner work.

In the series, in the second volume dedicated to dialectics, in the chapter “Creation, nature, life” Pozov writes about the dyad of the basic vital forces in man. He cites the opinion of the ancient Chinese sage Laozi and the modern Greek esotericist George Semelos, who calls the first force “tropos,” which means circulation, direction, linear movement; the second is “pathos”, meaning suffering, pain, passion, embrace. “Tropos is an active ability of penetration, and pathos is an enveloping, embracing ability, as if delaying the swiftness of the tropos, embracing it. From the interaction of both forces, a spiral movement arises, which underlies life in general and all life manifestations.” What follows are words that covertly express the author’s own spiritual experience: “To a clearly seeing eye, these two forces appear in the form of two sheaves of light coming towards each other from the heart, and the first sheaf of light (the first upon occurrence) goes straight, and the other wraps around, envelops the first . Having made a spiral movement, both sheaves of light disappear and are replaced by another pair. Usually both sheaves of light are the same color, and the color depends on the degree of spiritual development of the observer. At first it may be a bright red color, over time it turns into orange and, finally, into a bright, sparkling golden yellow color, as in the halo of saints in icons. In exceptional cases, after acts of mercy, self-sacrifice, active love for one's neighbor, a sparkling, dazzling snow-white color appears. Dark colors indicate spiritual impurity. This play of two forces-lights appears after prolonged prayer, concentration and meditation or after deep, pure reflection.”

In addition, Pozov was a practitioner of the Jesus Prayer. A monk I know from the monastery of the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon on Mount Athos told me that in the 60s. Pozov came to Athos and visited their monastery. He met a schema-monk there and talked with him for a long time. The monks of the schema-monk were afraid, since he sometimes accused them of negligence about the main task - the smart Jesus Prayer. According to Pozov’s extensive knowledge, no one could talk to him, only this schema-monk.

In one of his books, called "Ancient Logos and Occult Science", in the chapter “The Secrets of Mental Jesus Prayer,” Pozov left testimony about the power of his prayer: “Two-hour, continuous mental prayer leads to ecstasy, which is unity with God, directing a ray to the one praying with His finger. You can be in ecstasy for two days if you pray continuously for one hour a day.<…>Mental-heart prayer leads to contemplation, concentration and meditation, and lies at the basis of Christian mysticism from ancient apostolic times to the present day.”

In Stuttgart, Pozov finally got the opportunity to work on his planned works. He reduced his medical practice and began replacing doctors who were going on vacation. The funds he earned were enough to find a publisher in Spain, and at the age of 70 he began working on books - an unprecedented event in the writing community. And then, one after another, books began to appear: in 1964, in Munich, the publishing house “Association of Foreign Writers” published a book "Logos - Meditation of the Ancient Church" with a foreword by Fyodor Stepun, and then in Madrid at the expense of the author - two volumes "Fundamentals of Ancient Church Anthropology", three volumes "Fundamentals of Christian Philosophy", then “Metaphysics of Pushkin”, “Metaphysics of Lermontov”, “God-Man”, “The Path to Truth and Life”, “Asceticism and Mysticism”, third volume “Fundamentals of Ancient Church Anthropology”, “Blok’s Lyrical Mysticism” etc. Last book “After Lermontov. Baratynsky, Tyutchev, Nekrasov, Nikitin, Dostoevsky" published in Stuttgart in 1982, two years before the author's death.

Undoubtedly, this is a spiritual feat of writing. Taking into account the versatility and depth of his works, you come to the conclusion that Pozov was a younger contemporary and a worthy representative of the great galaxy of Russian theologians and philosophers of the era of religious renaissance at the beginning of the 20th century. But he is also our contemporary. Not only because less than two decades have passed since his death, but mainly because the themes that were the focus of his attention are still relevant today. Pozov made a significant contribution to Orthodox theology, to the doctrine of man, based on the data of Revelation, the New Testament, and patristic writing. He built a science that has precise definitions, its own special theological language, and at the same time easily digestible and applied in practice in the prayerful spiritual life.
The entire teaching is based on the principle of trinity. There are three states in which the history of mankind fits: before the fall of Adam (the heavenly state), after the fall, and the one that will be after the resurrection of the dead, but partially achievable already in this life. The three-part composition of a person: spirit, soul and body, in which each component is also three-part. As Pozov wrote: “The seal of the Holy Trinity lies on all creation, and especially on man.” Such a construction is, in fact, deeply immanent in consciousness and is the solid foundation on which the entire teaching about man and the ways of his salvation by the incarnate Word rests.

This work of Pozov is especially close to those who came to faith after a long search on “other paths” - Eastern teachings, yoga, Buddhism, who tried to discover their extrasensory abilities and felt the falsity of this experience. This is an encyclopedia of knowledge from a wide variety of fields: theology, philosophy, medicine, psychology, poetry... The book completes the anthropological series "God-man" with the subtitle "The Mysticism of Christianity", published in 1976 in Paris. It also sets out for the first time in a systematic manner the entire path of Christian ascent through the stages of perfection. In the perspective of the modern movement towards the restoration of the unity of the Eastern Churches with the Catholic Church, this work of Pozov acquires special value. He convinces us that the doctrine of man is a common property of the Church. Scientists, theologians and ascetic practitioners of the East and West made their contribution to it, and the differences in mysticism, which Pozov examines in the chapters “Logos-mysticism” (Eastern) and “Eros-mysticism” (Western), do not contradict, but complement each other friend. From this teaching follows the conclusion that was once formulated by Fr. Sergius Bulgakov in the article “On the real unity of the divided Church in faith, prayer and sacraments”: “The division of the Church does not go to the depths; in its mysterious life the Church remains united.”

The second, no less remarkable work of Pozov - "Fundamentals of Christian Philosophy"- designed for a narrower circle of people who strive for in-depth knowledge, have completed the school of logical thinking, and are familiar with philosophy. Its three parts are the theory of knowledge (epistemology), dialectics and metaphysics. The greatest interest is dialectics. Anyone who has mastered the dialectical method of cognition has learned to distinguish true dialectics from false ones, is able to penetrate the mysteries of existence and comprehend the religious meaning of the historical process. Even in spiritual practice, dialectics is vitally necessary as a method of distinguishing and detecting the opposing factor - the Anti-Logos, the spirit of darkness that brings discord into the mental sphere.

The mystery of dialectics, writes Pozov, is revealed in Christianity. It lies in the fact that creation is not yet finished, not completed. “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5:17). The consubstantiality of the Father and the Son does not prevent Their separate work in reality, creation in nature and life. The work of the Father and the Son finds completion in the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the “giver of life,” He “fills everything,” and His work is universal, like that of the Father and the Son. Where there is Three, there is life. The divine triadization in creation is a prototype and a stamp on creation, which manifests itself in dialectics. The prerequisites for the dialectical nature of creation are given in the Triplicity of Absolute Being.
Until the end of his life, Pozov remained an active person, not only writing himself, but also being interested in what others wrote. Among his correspondents was such an outstanding representative of religious thought as Prof. Nikolai Arsenyev, who sent him several of his books with dedicatory inscriptions. Pozov was a constant parishioner of the Church of St. Nicholas in Stuttgart; he loved Russian church services no less than Russian culture.

Avraham Samuilovich died unexpectedly after an injury (a fracture of the hip joint) on September 23, 1984, just shy of 94 years old. On the grave in Stuttgart, where he is buried with his wife, there is a cross - a symbol of victory over death. The call won her twice: as a Christian doctor who did a lot of good to people, and as a spiritual writer who left a guiding thread of truth for many generations. The weight of his contribution to Russian culture has yet to be assessed. Using the example of his life, he showed that the path of smart work leading to Christian perfection is accessible not only to monks, but also to people of all ranks - those who seek God and strive for Him. †

Hieromonk Joseph (Kiperman) is a resident of the Greek Orthodox monastery of St. Savva the Sanctified in Israel.

Bibliography:

1. Logos-meditation of the ancient Church: Smart doing. - Munich: Association of Foreign Writers, 1964. 163 p.


2. Metaphysics of Pushkin. - Madrid, 1967. 235 p. (2nd edition - M.: Heritage, 1998. -313 p.).


3. Fundamentals of ancient church anthropology: T. 1. Son of Man. - Madrid, 1965. 421 pp.; T. 2. Apocalypse. - Madrid, 1966. 349 pp.; T. 3. - Stuttgart, 1976. 169 p.


4. Fundamentals of Christian philosophy. - Madrid: Part 1: Theory of knowledge (Epistemology). - 1970. 341 p.; Part 2: Dialectics. - 1970. 205 p.; Part 3: Metaphysics. - 1972. 422 p.


5. God-Man: The Mysticism of Christianity. - 1974. 384 p.


6. Metaphysics of Lermontov. - Madrid, 1975. 202 p.


7. The path to truth and life. - Stuttgart, 1977. 190 p.


8. Asceticism and mysticism. - Stuttgart, 1978. 259 p.


9. Blok's lyrical mysticism. - Stuttgart, 1978. 32 p.


10. Religion and philosophy: Crete. collection. - Stuttgart, 1979. 130 p.

Zenko Yuri Mikhailovich

"Ancient Church Anthropology" by Abraham Pozov (1890-1984):
pro et contra

It is not our task detailed a biographical review of the life of Abraham Samuilovich Pozov (1890-1984), a writer of Russian émigrés abroad, whose work is being addressed by an increasing number of modern researchers. We will only outline a brief context of his work and life path, in the context of analyzing the attitude of his contemporaries and modern authors towards him, and then we will focus on his ideas about Christian anthropology in general and its main problems.

In the work of B.V. Emelyanov, V.V. Kulikov “Russian thinkers of the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries: Experience of a brief biobibliographic dictionary” (Ekaterinburg: Ural University Publishing House, 1996) it is written: “Pozov A. Soch .: Fundamentals of ancient church anthropology. T. 1-2. Madrid, 1965-1966; Fundamentals of Christian philosophy. Madrid, 1970-72. That is, in fact, not only is no biographical information given, but even the years of life are not indicated, the name is not disclosed and the patronymic is not given.

From the work of the reference book “Philosophers of Russia of the XIX-XX centuries. Biographies, ideas, works” (3rd ed., revised and additional – M.: Academic Project, 2002, p. 631), we learn the following: “Pozov Abraham Samuilovich (12/17/1890–1979) – philosopher and theologian. Born in Kars, he studied medicine in Kiev. He participated in the First World War (in medical service). 1931 moved to Greece, worked as a doctor in Athens. Since 1943 - in Germany, studied theology and philosophy. (article cited entirely). In addition to this, his works are listed: “Logos - meditation of the ancient Church. M., 1961; Fundamentals of Church Anthropology. In 2 volumes. Madrid, 1965–1966; Metaphysics of Pushkin. Madrid, 1967; Fundamentals of Christian Philosophy. Vol. 1–2 . Madrid, 1970". The year of death is most likely incorrect, since according to other, fairly reliable data, he died in 1984.

Although modern authors have defined Pozov as a “philosopher and theologian,” there is no information about him in the works of his contemporaries, authoritative theologians and philosophers: in the fundamental work “The Ways of Russian Theology” by Archpriest. Georgy Florovsky, in the fundamental “History of Russian Philosophy” prot. Vasily Zenkovsky. What are the reasons for this is another question, but for now we have to state that “Pozov had no connections with Russian /in emigration - Z. Yu./ philosophers and theologians” (Iosif (Kiperman). 2001).

Another modern author writes: “The psychological and methodological attitudes of Father Vasily Zenkovsky are manifested in a somewhat grotesque magnification by the author of “Fundamentals of Ancient Church Anthropology” Abraham Pozov (1890-1979), who grew up in almost complete isolation from the philosophical circles of the Russian emigration. With his own style, with his unusual language, full of neologisms, and his manner of thinking, he gives the impression of a chaotic autodidact, an extravagant eccentric, from time to time puzzling with plausible and by no means ordinary intuitive insights" (Gavryushin. 1997, p. 41). And further: “For the “Orthodox,” Pozov’s anthropology still looks overly systematized and methodical; signs of formal kinship with theosophical syncretism are rooted in the depths of the author’s plan, but until attempts to systematize the Orthodox worldview along one axis or another cease, this work must be taken into account undoubtedly it will have to" (ibid.). True, here it is immediately necessary to note that one can “take into account” in different ways, for example, in his “Anti-Dühring” Engels also “reckoned” with Dühring, criticizing almost all the provisions of his concept.

Therefore, prepared by the previous point of view, we will understand with understanding what such a famous Orthodox theologian as Archpriest John Meyendorff wrote about Pozov: “I tried to read him, but did not continue. He is such an amateur from the street. Maybe this offends someone -who through him found the path of truth and this is his happiness, but this writer does not fit into any framework" (Meyendorff. 1995, p. 54). The fact is that Pozov actually did not receive any philosophical or theological education - he graduated from the medical faculty of Kyiv University. In addition, in-depth study or even self-education, of course, was not facilitated by his stay in Soviet Russia in the 20-30s, and then by the difficult emigrant life in Europe, where he earned his living by private medical practice.

Let us turn directly to the work central to our analysis, “Foundations of Ancient Church Anthropology” (Vol. 1-2. Madrid, 1965-1966; V. 3. Stuttgart, 1976; hereinafter simply “Fundamentals”). It is of a mixed theological and philosophical nature, with various psychological, historical, esoteric and other parallels. It was republished quite recently and is still known to a very limited circle of readers (some of whom treat it very reservedly, and some, on the contrary, are downright filled with special enthusiasm for the ideas contained in it).

There is little available biographical information about Pozov, but it is quite enough to draw some important conclusions:

1) “Fundamentals” were published in 1965-1966, when its author was 75-76 years old, that is, he was at a fairly “mature” age, and it can be reasonably assumed that his work was the result of long life reflections;

2) this is also shown by a comparative comparison of his work: “Fundamentals” are in the middle of his writing period, constituting, as it were, its peak, while his final and generalizing work was “Fundamentals of Christian Philosophy.”

Therefore, it seems to us that the content of the “Fundamentals” and the form of their presentation should be treated quite responsibly, especially, looking ahead, when analyzing those provisions that can raise many questions and bewilderments. And here the reservations that “the author expressed himself poorly,” or something like that would simply be inappropriate: the author was a fully formed person in terms of worldview, who wrote about things and the way he wanted them.

Let's move on to analyzing the main aspects of his teaching: first the positive, then the negative.

When analyzing positive sides, I, of course, do not pretend to be exhaustive (which is impossible within the scope of the article), but I present what was interesting and close to me when I was collecting material for my work “Fundamentals of Christian Anthropology and Psychology” (St. Petersburg. : Speech, 2007). I will list a number of Pozov’s thoughts with their exact quotation, introducing or concluding them with my comments:

– Christian anthropology, of course, could be very useful for academic psychology: “The basic principles of ancient church anthropology can serve not only as a stimulus for the development of scientific psychology... but can also provide an ontic and metaphysical basis, which it lacks” (Pozov. T. 1. 1965, p. 12);

– genuine, religious salvation of soul and spirit occurs in body; the soul and spirit cannot be saved in a disembodied state; in the body a redemptive school of spirit and soul is given, but the body must also break away from its kindred world in order to find a new home in God (ibid., p. 125);

– purification of the heart, its care, storage and education constitute the central part of ascetic work - a special science of sciences and the art of arts; in addition, they constitute a special culture - heart culture: “The search for the Word within is at the same time the Culture of the Heart, the greatest and only continuous sacred act in the world, brought into the world by the Logos-Christ Himself for those who seek Him within themselves. The Inner Word, like a seed, must sprout, must grow and to bear fruit. In the wild and uncultivated soil of the heart it does not sprout and lies in vain, like a treasure buried in the soil of the heart, although it manifests its hidden activity. Cultivation, fertilization and watering of the pastures of the heart are the task of true religious life in the Word... Culture. the heart leaves no place in it for chaos and the dark abyss of the heart, tearing out thorns and thistles, burning with fire the mud of passions and thoughts, and watering the field of the heart with tears of purification and tenderness" (ibid., p. 266);

– the heart is deeper and ontological than the head consciousness and is incomprehensible to it; to designate this quality of the heart, it is sometimes compared to the subconscious: “The depth and intimacy of cardiac processes is the reason that these processes are subconscious and therefore inaccessible to scientific research. The relationship of the heart to the head is the same as the subconscious to the conscious. The subconscious is broader than consciousness, gives material for him, and is to the same extent the “lining and foundation” for consciousness as the heart is for the head. The cardiac subconscious does not fit into the head consciousness and only fragments of the subconscious reach consciousness, and then under the constant control of the head mind” (ibid.). , pp. 174-175);

– what in the West is called mental prayer appeared quite late, it is not the Jesus Prayer, there is no system of concentrating the mind in the heart (ibid., p. 96);

– the transfer of the mind from the head to the heart in mental prayer should not be confused with eastern concentration – on the heart chakra anahata: the latter is initially figurative, while concentration in mental doing is spiritual, without images (ibid., p. 45);

- recognizing the importance of sensory, patristic teaching uses in relation to it restrictive strategy; this is due to the fact that the senses, as well as the whole person as a whole, are subject to original sin; as a result of this, negative changes occurred in the sense organs themselves, manifested in: 1) hedonism - feelings began to give pleasure, 2) distortion - feelings began to give an inaccurate picture of the world, 3) in carnality, in the coarsening of feelings (ibid., p. 71) .

– after the Fall, there was also a violation of the internal connection, coordination, harmony and hierarchy of individual parts of the human being, which in ancient church anthropology is called diaeresis or disintegration (Pozov. 1996, p. 4);

– in the Fall of man, not only the relationship of his parts changed, but also these parts themselves; metaschematism (perversion) affected not only the person as a whole, but also individual parts of his being (Pozov. 1996, p. 5): the mind has become not as insightful as before, and it is more and more occupied with simple earthly things, memory is getting worse , and everything negative and bad is retained in it first of all (memory malice), willpower is small (lack of will), attention is less and less (absent-mindedness and inattention).

It is clear that this list could be continued, but a critical analysis awaits us ahead negative sides of the Pozov teaching, which, unfortunately, are no less than positive.

Pozov is one of the most consistent trichotomists, authors who believe that human nature consists of body, soul and spirit, in contrast to dichotomists who argue that man consists only of body and soul, and the spirit enters the soul as its highest component . It is in this capacity that Pozov is now being referred to more and more often, thus promoting and expanding this point of view. This is not surprising, since it is with Pozov that trichotomy turns into a special methodological installation and, in fact, an independent and universal principle that permeates his entire “Fundamentals” and is used in many specific, more particular cases.

Let us give several relevant quotes from his work: “In ancient church literature, the triadic nature of man, his trimerism, is firmly established” (Pozov. T. 1. 1965, p. 16), “Man is created in the image of the Divine Trinity and is a triune or three-hypostatic being " (ibid., p. 25). But the latter, of course, is not so: God is unmerged and indivisible in three hypostases-persons, while man is the only and singular person. Pozov himself understood this when he wrote further: “The tripartiteness of man is conditional, based on the principle of similarity, and not according to essence... Therefore, it is better to talk not about the tripartiteness of a person, but about the three parts of his being, about the tripartiteness, about the trimerism of a person” (ibid. , p. 25). But this idea of ​​Pozov does not stand up to any criticism: three hypostases this is not at all like three parts. God is precisely three-hypostatic - in Him the three Divine personalities are unmerged and inseparable, which in no way corresponds to the structural and hierarchical division of man into body, soul and spirit. This is a fundamental position of Orthodox theology, which is simply impossible not to know and which is impossible not to use (precisely in this case and precisely in such a context).

Thus, it turns out that Pozov’s use of triadicity as a universal method is incorrect in principle. On this issue, we fully agree with the following opinion: “The cross-cutting principle of Pozov’s constructions is triadicity, and here it must be said frankly that its external attractiveness cannot in any way serve as a criterion of Christian orthodoxy. As is known, the works of the Neoplatonists were built on this principle (by their systematicity, certainly superior to the patristic works), Hegel, etc. Triadicity is by no means an indicator of the confession of the Holy Trinity, but sometimes rather indicates an arbitrary interpretation of this dogma. But the main thing is the principle itself: being placed at the basis of the system, it constantly demands from the author. introduction of such distinctions into the conceptual apparatus of patristic texts, which can only be defined as a kind of hermeneutic violence and arbitrariness" (Gavryushin. 1997, p. 42). And according to the modern Orthodox anthropologist, Pozov derives from the trinity “the principle of the trinity, transferred to man,” which begins to work rationally. They see triplicity where thought rather guesses the monad or polysemy is truncated to triplicity. Thus, rationalization and adjustment to the scheme is accomplished (Lorgus Andrey. 2003, p. 171).

To confirm the last thought, we will give examples of how Pozov applies the principle of triadity in relation to the parts of a person he identifies: spirit, soul and body.

About the spirit and soul, Pozov writes: “The spirit and soul were created according to the principle of godlikeness and therefore became tripartite. The spirit is formed from three parts or abilities: mind, will and strength, and the soul consists of a thinking part (logikon), an irritable or sensitive part (thymos ) and the desirable or lustful part (epithymia)" (Pozov. 1996, p. 11). Yes, the trinity of the soul is a general church teaching, but the teaching about the trinity of the spirit is not found in patristic literature. Moreover, the latter is so “secret” (or, perhaps, refers to the “Christian esotericism” so beloved by the Pozovs (ibid., p. 9)) that none of the saints. Fathers cannot read the phrase so important for Pozov: “the spirit is formed from three parts or abilities: mind, will and strength.” And the point here is not that this phrase is unknown to us: it is not cited either Pozov himself. And if he knew her, then, without any doubt, he would have brought her, and more than once.

But in general it turns out that the thoughts and ideas of St. fathers are used by Pozov as separate arguments for his “generalizing” provisions. And this turns out to be very unfortunate, because the texts of St. Fathers speak for themselves, and they do not have the thoughts that Pozov wants to see in them. Let's give a few examples of this.

Pozov quotes the words of Meletius the Monk: “Man - Microcosm is a mixture of both worlds, consists of two natures and can contemplate them, but not two natures - man, but from two natures...” (Pozov. T. 1. 1965, p. 20). How can this thought be analyzed from the point of view of dichotomism-trichotomism? - It talks specifically about two natures of man, which means Meletius the Monk sees man as two-part - dichotomous. Pozov draws from this text precisely the trichotomous conclusion that he places straightaway behind the above quote: “Man is a whole, not spirit and not soul, and not body. Man as a whole is a triad of spirit, soul and body...” (ibid., p. 20). As for the dichotomous position of Meletius the Monk, it is beyond doubt, for he writes quite definitely: “man is composed of soul and body, but neither the soul alone leaves the hypostasis (personality), nor the body: they only exist in hypostasis” (De nat . hom., t. 94 gr., col. 1309 B. cited by: Vladimirsky.

Pozov applies a similar, subjectivist method of analyzing patristic ideas in relation to Gregory of Sinaite. The latter writes: “Just as in a person there is a mind, a word and a spirit; and neither the mind is without the word, nor the word without the spirit, but they are always both in each other and in themselves. The mind speaks through the word, and the word manifests itself through the spirit According to this example, man bears a weak image of the ineffable and principle-shaped Trinity, showing in this his creation in the image of God, the Mind is the Father, the word is the Son, the Holy Spirit is the spirit, as the approximately God-bearing Fathers teach, expounding the dogmatic teaching about the pre-essential and supernatural Holy One. The Trinity, about one God in three persons..." (Gregory of Sinaite. 1900, p. 186).

Now let us cite the same place in quoting Pozov: “In man there is mind, word and spirit (pneuma), and there is no mind<без>words, not a word without pneuma, but always the essence both in each other and in themselves. The mind speaks through the word, and the word manifests through the pneuma. Following this example, man carries within himself a weak image of the ineffable and beginning-shaped Trinity, showing in this (in the spirit) his creation in the image of God. The mind is the Father, the word is the Son, the Holy Spirit is pneuma, as the God-bearing Fathers teach about one God in three persons" (Pozov. T. 1. 1965, p. 32). This, of course, is rather close to the text retelling the thoughts of Gregory the Sinaite than hers citation. And the point here is not in the missing individual words, but at the end - and the whole subordinate clause (we were forced to insert one word at the beginning of Pozov’s “quote”, in angle brackets, otherwise the meaning of what was said was simply lost). Much more important are Pozov’s additions and “explanations” with the help of which he wants to substantiate his own thought (Pozov’s own insertions are given in parentheses; it is natural that they relate to the spirit).

Let us conduct a comparative analysis of the above thought of Gregory Sinaite and its interpretation by Pozov. At the beginning of Pozov, next to the spirit, he puts the word “pneuma” in parentheses. This must be understood in such a way that in the original Greek there is a corresponding term. But Pozov did not need this to explain the Russian word spirit, with which it is quite rightly customary for us to translate Greek " pneuma", but for their subsequent opposition. In the following, he does not translate "pneuma" in the quote itself in spirit, but leaves it pneumatic (without changing this word according to cases).

Pozov’s other explanation in parentheses – “in the spirit” – is also completely incorrect. The entire quote by Gregory of Sinaite is imbued with the pathos of the Trinity, about which he writes: “By this example, man bears a weak image of the ineffable and beginning-shaped Trinity, showing in this way his creation in the image of God.” Therefore, it is obvious that the expression “and in this,” just like the previous “therefore,” refers not to the spirit, which here is one of the three, but to the entire trinity of mind-word-spirit. Thus, from our point of view, Pozov’s idea of ​​the triadic nature of the spirit itself cannot in any way follow from the opinion of Gregory of Sinaite about the unity of mind, word and spirit.

Even more problematic, in our opinion, is Pozov’s application of the idea of ​​trinity to body. He wrote: “The triad of the body is expressed in three psychophysiological environments of the animal body: lymph, blood and nervous system” (Pozov. T. 1. 1965, p. 109). Imagine a human body consisting, according to Pozovsky, only from lymph, blood and the nervous system (without muscles, bones, skin, internal organs, etc.) - you won’t see this even in modern horror films, in which, it would seem, they have already tried everything. As for the specific content of this Pozov triad, the following problem arises here: Pozov likes to refer to the patristic tradition, thereby seeming to confirm his point of view, but in the patristic tradition such a “triad of the body” is not found at all, moreover, the word “lymph” itself ", so often used by Pozov, is not found at all in the patristic works in the Russian translation, which adhered not only to the spirit, but also to the letter of the text - and if the word “lymph” had been in the Greek original, then it would have necessarily been translated exactly like that into Russian (at the same time, for information, we have worked through electronic versions of about 750 texts from 95 Holy Fathers and ancient Christian writers). Perhaps the information we did not find is in other works of other saints. fathers, but Pozov himself does not cite none corresponding patristic quotation (referring only to Aristotle (ibid., p. 110)).

In addition, and trinity of the soul Pozov’s does not coincide with the patristic one. According to Pozov, the human soul “consists of an individual soul with its triad of forces, and of a cosmic soul with its seven forces” (ibid., p. 99). “The triad of the individual soul” Pozov calls what in the patristic tradition are known as the three main forces of the soul: mind, will and feeling. But for Pozov this patristic trinity is not enough, and he supplements it with the seven of the “cosmic soul.” Further – more, the Gnostic “World Soul” also appears: “The cosmic soul circulates in man and through it man is in a state of continuous exchange with the cosmic environment, that is, with the World Soul” (ibid., p. 139). And further: “The cosmic forces of the soul are individualized in man in the form of etheric, astral and mental bodies, but nevertheless are in a state of constant exchange with the World Soul” (ibid.).

Pozov quite consistently, according to his internal logic, moved from the “trichotomy of the human being” to seven “bodies”: etheric, astral, mental, etc. (ibid., p. 139), which is a purely theosophical idea described in the works E. Blavatsky and her followers (who in a similar form propagated eastern religious and anthropological ideas in the West). It is not simple Not Christian, this anti Christian ideas.

Such ideas and statements are absolutely in tune with theosophical or anthroposophical literature, but they, of course, have no place in a book that claims to reveal the foundations of Christian anthropology. This is occultism, or, at best, neoplatonism with elements of the latter, and it has nothing to do with patristic teaching.

Thus, the trichotomous approach to man received absolutely no disclosure or confirmation from Pozov, despite his categorical statements: “In ancient church literature, the triadic nature of man, his trimerism, is firmly established” (ibid., p. 16); “The trichotomy of the human being runs through all ascetic literature and ancient church anthropology (psychology)” (ibid., p. 25). Moreover, it is with trichotomism that Pozov associates many of his most dubious (and often simply occult) ideas. Therefore, it seems to us, the authors who try to substantiate the trichotomous point of view with references to Pozov only do it a disservice by linking it with a number of non-Orthodox (and non-Christian) ideas. The trichotomy should rather be defended from Pozov than defended by him.

As for the dichotomous point of view, Pozov seemed to have never heard anything about it (and never writes anything about it). By the way, it was in Pozov’s example that an interesting difference between followers of dichotomism and trichotomism emerged: dichotomists most often explain their position in detail and almost always mention the trichotomous point of view. Conversely, trichotomists often present their position without any justification or comparison, as the only existing and only correct one.

The falsity of Pozov’s “basic intuitions” leads to many of his other dubious or incorrect ideas from a Christian point of view:

– “triadization” of everything: “According to ancient church teaching, the task of triadizing God and Heaven was entrusted to the First Angel. The task of triadizing God and Earth fell to the lot of man” (vol. 1, p. 16);

– “The analogy between man and the world goes so far that the world is built in the image of man, there is a big man, Macroanthropos...” (ibid., p. 17).

– the historical trinity of man: “The Old Testament or generally pre-Christian man had within himself the Image of the Father and the “pledge” (“firstfruits”) of the Son in the form of the internal Logos (Atman in Hinduism). The New Testament Christian man carries within himself the Images of the Father and the Son, and the “pledge” of the Holy Spirit. The man of the coming Third Testament of the Holy Spirit will have in himself the Images of all Three - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." (ibid., vol. 2, p. 115); St. does not have such an anthropological idea. fathers, and such non-Orthodox authors as D. Merezhkovsky and N. Berdyaev (or A. N. Schmidt, the notorious “mystical correspondent” of Vladimir Solovyov) wrote about the “coming Third Testament”;

– about the “Soul of the World”: “The Almighty Logos becomes the Soul of the World, takes on part of the functions of Eosphorus, remaining the Spirit” (vol. 2, p. 114); “Soul of the world” or “world Soul” is the main concept in the philosophy of Plotinus; it was long ago rejected by Christianity, as well as various forms of hylozoism (animation of natural phenomena and objects); This is exactly what John of Damascus wrote about: “Let no one think that the heavens or luminaries are animated, for they are soulless and insensitive” (John of Damascus. 1992, p. 127); this problem was so important and urgent that it was given attention at the Fifth Ecumenical Council: “Whoever says that the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, the waters that are higher than the heavens are animate beings and some rational-material forces, let it be anathema" (Acts of the Ecumenical Councils. T. 3. 1996, p. 537); and in the opinion of modern Orthodox theologians: “...the doctrine of Sophia, or the world soul, is a Gnostic and pantheistic doctrine... Neither in the Holy Scriptures, nor in the patristic works of this absurd teaching can be found. To speak about the world soul, this means break away from the Orthodox faith and fall into the disastrous errors of Gnosticism and pantheism" (Seraphim (Sobolev) archim. 1997, p. 212);

– about the Mother of God: “She is the female Archetype, the Archetype of the Eternal Feminine, and at the same time, the female Sophia-Wisdom” (vol. 2, p. 116); This one phrase contains several ideas unacceptable from a Christian point of view: 1) the concept of “archetype”, which was introduced into scientific use by Carl Jung; 2) the idea of ​​the “Eternal Feminine Archetype”, as well as simply the “Eternal Feminine”, is all the more questionable; 3) as for “Sophia-Wisdom”, the sophiological approach, despite all the efforts of some philosophically oriented theologians, has not been recognized by the church - due to the many problems and errors present there;

– about Eros: “The heart is the center of Eros, divine and human...” (vol. 2, p. 320).

Let's talk about the latter in more detail. Pozov used such phrases as “ascetic Eros” (vol. 2, p. 318), “supercosmic Eros” (vol. 2, p. 339), “divine Eros” (vol. 1, p. 282; vol. 2 , pp. 156, 229, 238, 273) and "Divine Eros" with two capital letters (vol. 1, pp. 240, 272, 280, 303; vol. 2, pp. 148, 257, 294, 315). For example, he wrote: “Human Eros can be understood by analogy with Divine Eros, which is formulated in the Gospel as the love of God for the Son (and Spirit) and for the world (John 5:20), which is limitless. “And we have come to know the love that God has for us” (1 John 4:16)" (vol. 2, p. 315). At the same time, Pozov simply “did not notice” that in the Greek text of the New Testament never no term used Eros and that both the love of God for man, and the love of man for God, is designated only by the term love- agape. This is very fundamental and shows Pozov’s misunderstanding of both the letter and the spirit of the New Testament teaching on love. We have already written in more detail about the latter earlier, giving the corresponding argumentation (Zenko. 2007).

Let's move on to the general ones conclusions:

– we have to admit that despite some interesting and useful ideas, Pozov’s work “Fundamentals of Ancient Church Anthropology” has a common Not Christian, and often anti Christian, occult orientation;

– Pozov almost everywhere mixes patristic thoughts and occult ideas, and this can have very negative consequences: the reader of his book first seems to be reassured by the presence of the names of recognized Christian authorities, and then either Pozov’s own dubious thoughts or occult and non-Christian ideas are introduced into the reader’s consciousness;

– Call customizes patristic thoughts under the Procrustean bed of his dubious ideas, often even with direct distortion of the quoted text (which, naturally, does not correspond to what he wants to see in it);

– thus, based on the totality of everything said above, we consider it our duty warn modern readers (especially Orthodox Christians) from the uncritical use of this book by Pozov; It is deeply symbolic that it is still inaccessible to a wide range of readers: its reprint in a small edition was published quite recently, and before that Pozov’s followers distributed it in photocopied form; Even peculiar circles of Pozov’s followers have formed, which propagate his ideas, presenting them as Christian, which, as we have seen, is not true; There are his texts on the Internet, but, not surprisingly, more often on anti-Christian or anti-Orthodox sites;

– we are not going to “condemn” Pozov himself, as his followers may perceive this Pozov criticism: judging other people from a Christian point of view is a great sin, but a positive attitude towards a person’s personality does not in any way mean acceptance of his dubious and non-Christian thoughts and ideas; such a “separation of man and his sin” has long been used in the patristic tradition; a brief formulation of this patristic principle states that it is necessary to “love the person himself and hate his sins”; this principle, of course, is spiritually beneficial for us, and is positive for protecting the Christian worldview from alien inclusions;

– this poses an important methodological task: the need to develop the correct form and method of studying the available Christian literature, which not only mixes seemingly incompatible approaches (philosophical, theological, psychological and simply natural science), but also mixes grains of patristic wisdom with the authors’ own “wisdom” and with the age-old “ esoteric wisdom" (which may include a variety of occult teachings - from Hermeticism to theosophy and anthroposophy); without taking all this into account, they usually do this: first, some author is declared “Orthodox” or “Christian” - most often, based on several facts from his biography, or on several completely Orthodox quotes from his works, which can be found in any author, even if he is not a Christian at all or an occultist-anti-Christian (just as there can always be a fly in the ointment), then, having exhausted his stock of purely Orthodox or Christian thoughts, they begin to use his other most diverse ideas as an “interesting development” of Christianity ( including non-Christian); At the same time, it often happens that ideas that have already been condemned by the Church (in patristic works or at ecumenical councils) are presented as such, thereby separating themselves from the Church and anathematizing themselves (as approved in the acts of these councils); It’s doubly offensive when normal Orthodox authors find themselves in such a situation, who wanted “the best” - to talk about the work of another Orthodox author, but who did not have enough strength, time or determination (or the methodological principle mentioned above) to see, understand and evaluate negative sides of this creativity and its even more negative remote the consequences of promoting these ideas; Thus, it seems to us, there is a very important and urgent task: analysis and elaboration of the “problem field” of modern Christian anthropology (and psychology); This is what we encourage all interested parties to do.

LITERATURE

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