"Протоиерей Иоанн Мейендорф. Byzantine Theology " - читать интересную книгу автора

of the divine Logos, and the purpose of his nature is to acquire similitude
with God. In creation as a whole, man's role is to unify all things in God
and thus to overcome the evil powers of separation, division,
disintegration, and death. The "natural," God-established "movement,"
"energy," or will of man is therefore directed toward communion with God,
"deification," not in isolation from the entire creation, but leading it
back to its original state.
One could understand at this point why Maximus felt so strongly that
both Monoenergism and Monotheletism betrayed the Chalcedonian affirmation
that Christ was fully man. There cannot be a true humanity if there is no
natural, authentic human will or "movement."
But if the human will is nothing but a movement of nature, is there a
place for human freedom? And how can the Fall and man's revolt against God
be explained? These questions to which Origen gave such great importance
find in Maximus a new answer. Already in Gregory of Nyssa, true human
freedom does not consist in autonomous human life but in the situation,
which is truly natural to man's communion with God. When man is isolated
from God, he finds himself enslaved - to his passions, to himself, and
ultimately to Satan. Therefore, for Maximus, when man follows his natural
will, which presupposes life in God, God's co-operation, and communion, he
is truly free. But man also possesses another potential, determined not by
his nature, but by each human person, or hypostasis, the freedom of choice,
of revolt, of movement against nature, and therefore of self-destruction.
This personal freedom was used by Adam and Eve after the Fall in separation
from God and from true knowledge Д from all the assurance secured by
"natural" existence. It implies hesitation, wandering, and suffering; this
is the gnomic will (gnome opinion), a function of the hypostatic or personal
life, not of nature.
In Christ, human nature is united with the hypostasis of the Logos and
while remaining fully itself is liberated from sin, the source of which is
the gnomic will. Because it is "en-hypostasized" in Logos Himself, Christ's
humanity is perfect humanity. In the mysterious process, which started with
His conception in the Virgin's womb, Jesus passed through natural growth,
ignorance, suffering, and even death - all of experiences of the fallen
humanity, which He had come to save, and He fulfilled through the
resurrection the ultimate human destiny. Christ could thus be truly the
saviour of humanity because in Him there could never be any contradiction
between natural will and gnomic will. Through the hypostatic union, His
human will, precisely because it always conforms itself to the divine, also
performs the "natural movement" of human nature.
The doctrine of "deification" in Maximus is based upon the fundamental
patristic presupposition that communion with God does not diminish or
destroy humanity but makes it fully human. In Christ the hypostatic union
the communication of idioms (perichеresis tеn idiеmatеn). The
characteristics of divinity and humanity express themselves "in communion
with each other" (Chalcedonian definition), and human actions, "energies,"
have God Himself as their personal agent. Therefore, it can be said that
"God was born," that Mary is the Theotokos, and that the "Logos was
crucified" while birth and death remain purely human realities. But it can
and must also be said that a man rose from the dead and sits at the right