The main quotes from Dostoevsky. Beauty will save the world
I would like to draw your attention to the era when the twentieth century was still in full swing, only its first third lasted, and Max Scheler in 1927, on the initiative of Otto Keyserling, in the city of Darmstadt in Germany, read a four-hour report on the place of man in space. This is what it was called: about the place of man, about the position of man, the monopoly of man in the integrity of the living world. Then this report became the book “The Position of Man in Space.” And so I would like to compare two sides of the matter: economic morality, economics, and philosophy.These lines continue, of course, through human studies. This is what we have with Scheler - and Scheler is very worth mentioning today, if only because he made us think seriously about what there is a personality in the cosmos: he identified personality with spirit, that is, he called the personality Person, which is spirit, Person is Geist.
I remember that Japan also once had a course towards Europeanization, but at the same time, the Shinto principles of renewal and purity - there are two such principles: renewal and purity - played a decisive role in ensuring that Japan remained, first of all, Japan, who never built the Eiffel Tower because she didn't need it. Because it is absolutely clear that in order for Japan to remain Japan, a functional, functioning mentality of Japan and its traditions were needed. This means that Max Scheler, whom I am exploiting today, calls it Geist. Gelst - spirit. Spirit is the identity of Person, that is, personality. The theory that I presented already on the pages of our respected collection is called the hyperpersonal theory. It is very close in some ways - in this aspect - to the approach that Max Scheler proclaimed in 1927.
That is, if today we are dealing with our people, our economy, then, naturally, the economy, if we are logical, can never be similar to the economy near Eiffel Tower or near some Shinto shrine. It should be our economy. This does not exist, has not happened and will never happen in another place and in another spiritual space.
What should philosophy do? She must be something like a director, she must be a director. (Sometimes women say about themselves that they are poets, not poetesses.) So, philosophy should be the director of spiritual space, and there is no need to squat and say again that this is not science and so on. For some reason, philosophy brings together the most experienced people in thinking. Let's admit it. Look what there are interesting people: Biant - several dozen centuries ago, Plato, a little later - also a smart man, or Aristotle - influenced people for thousands of years... So, let's not...
But the fact is that, indeed, it is very difficult to build a spiritual space without people who know how to create an alternative, and not a conflict. Our spiritual space is being built in the literal sense of the word - journalists will forgive me - by semi-knowledgeable journalists who have absolutely nothing to do with what is called our true mentality, which is buried under the rubble of the first thoughts that come across, which right there, unable to bear no tests of time, they perish, because these are not even thoughts, this is diabolical, this is some kind of real system of obsessions, when the priority of physicality, organismism, economic and human superiority over me of a certain “new Russian” is manifested... Yes, he is not Russian , and not new" This is nonsense.
That is, we obviously recognize the priority of the economy in the form of the existence of its, so to speak, “sausage hypostasis” in everyday life. How will you live, they will tell me, if you don’t have sausage? I don't want sausage. I hardly eat it. Unless for free, when you are completely hungry. All. I don’t want the Eiffel Tower, but I want Russianness, which is dying at every step. Who will do it? A person who understands this, who has delved into this spirituality, who is ready to give his life for it. And therefore, cultural people are entirely responsible for the system of constructing an alternative.
Once the wonderful poet Mandelstam said: “...beauty is not the whim of a demigod, but the predatory eye of a simple carpenter.” A? What a power! This is not the whim of a demigod, this is not the whim of a philosopher. Beauty saves the world in its daily manifestation, and not somewhere in Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky, forgive me, he sucked it out of the mentality of the people.
How great man, he formulated this, because the people feel how they need the beauty of actions, the people need to work for something, and not for the sake of accumulation, not even for the sake of money, not for the sake of the rich “new Russians”. We have accumulated instead of the good - the fortune of the Good - the fortune of the “new Russians”. And this will always continue if there is no priority for high experiences, if there is no priority for passion for beauty.
The French say: whoever is absent is wrong. And today the alternative on the part of smart people, the so-called intelligentsia, is so dilapidated, weak, so lifeless, so sad, so sluggish is our intelligentsia today that you are simply amazed how we do not understand that it is our own fault that we are absent from the feast - how there at Ostap Bender's? - at the feast of life we are strangers.
So why do we make ourselves strangers? After all, it is precisely because of our absence that the space that we do not fill - a holy place is never empty - is filled by those people who give us semi-finished thoughts and do not generalize the experience of the 20th century, which, according to the system outlined by Plato and called, as we know, , the phenomenon of “return”, should only take root now. We lived the nineteenth century in the twentieth, we built communism according to Marx and others. Therefore, now in the 20th century it is precisely philosophers who must help our entire people settle down; they are the ones who are able to enter into some new positions of spirituality, to understand the conditions of the very existence of spirituality first - after all, such conditions cannot arise on their own, without, as it were, a hint from the people’s brain, that is, its best, most intelligent representatives.
And then, if we speak from the point of view of the theory of hyperpersonality, or the hyperpersonality country, we can recall one more smart person, about which for some reason we always remember, apologizing (as often about kind, good, smart people), - we're talking about about Pindar. He once wrote in a Pythian ode, in my opinion, in verse 11, in verse 72, that, having understood yourself, follow this, be as you understand yourself, that is - let's return to our examples - do not build Shinto shrines, do not build the Eiffel Tower here. This is the most natural, the most correct. And then there is no need to make revolutions, then reforms can be carried out.
A philosopher must create a convenient, I would say, beneficial system of conventions, because all views are always a system of conventions, but based on the data of positive science. Ordinary consciousness today is successfully confused with common sense - these are completely different things.
Common sense is from God. Perhaps, according to Marx, Scheler, and Karl Mannheim, who, by the way, was a student of Max Weber. Common sense is beyond the power of man. Life is less than being, being is vast. The priority of physicality, which dominates today, is the priority of the lumpen, it is the primacy of the most terrible thing that happened in Bolshevism, which also had excellent intentions. Why didn't they come true? I am firmly convinced that the reason lies in the dehumanization of Man, in the godlessness (read: unnaturalness) of his activities, in the victory of the subcultural ordinary consciousness over true common sense.
Sublimity, natural for the development of human existence, has been transferred to the category of pomposity, pathos, etc. I have experienced this the hard way all my life, because for some reason, where one should apologize for the baseness of expressions, they paradoxically apologize for the loftiness. By the way, I would suggest that our television apologize in the morning precisely for the low style, and not ask for forgiveness when someone speaks in a high style.
In short, in order to come to the conclusion that the intelligent does not rot, does not become dust, it turns out that a lot of effort is needed on the part of philosophers, or, more simply, people who love goodness. Why do I say this? Plotinus has a “second divine level of existence”, and so - this “second divine level” corresponds approximately to what I would call the zone of optimal mental and intellectual stress and which, by the way, is consistent with the statement of Stanislav Graf, doctors, and extra-class experimenters. And this means that people who do not strain enough, are in the lowlands of the Spirit, where their strength, as if eternally underspent, is not restored. They do not have the energy for economic success, for personal success; in the end, they have nothing.
But today an ordinary person may find it difficult to come to the conclusion that you will be tired much less if you work more. Once upon a time he had the opportunity to think of this thanks to his religious consciousness. Today we most often have a phantom religious consciousness, that is, quasi-religious consciousness.
Before our eyes, the essence of our mentality is truly disappearing; the most interesting thing we had was the poetry of our society.
When you hear the word “poetry,” note that many people immediately experience intuitive resistance. Especially when it comes to the economy. The fact is that time... I came up with another theory: time is energy. A fly, by the way, when I want to kill it, has a completely different idea of how my hand moves than I do; For her, she moves very slowly, the fly scratches her paw behind her ear at this time and says to herself - if she speaks: how slowly he lowers his hand. That is, the active moment of a fly is many times greater than mine. And in the Russian year - 6-7 months...
We need to learn from the fly the experience of time, learn through poetry, through the tension of the soul, through entering into the highest spirituality of the hyperpersonality of the entire country, the entire society. Here it is also necessary to explain to the philosopher that society and the state are antipodes, just as the spirit and soul are opponents. Ludwig Klages has a whole book about this.
Culture is joy and a source of energy. If today is a professional conversation, why haven’t we heard all this yet? I hope that after what I said, everyone will talk about love. (Noise in the hall.) There is a very serious phrase from the philosopher Dante. He said, ending his "Divine Comedy": "L"amor che muove"l sole e gl"altri stelle" "Love that moves the sun and other stars...” That's the point.
So, this love, which is a love not generally for the economy or for money, or even for some kind of money for which I can buy what I need. Socrates said: here they are carrying what I don’t need. Yes, the specificity that our mentality has can be decoded today only with the help of cultural forces, very cultural ones, which can really descend along a transporal channel down into the history of this people, to understand what Russianness is, which is dying. After all, we have surprisingly dispersed it now, squandered it.
We hid under the hood of the so-called Russianness, we forgot very, very many things that, without naming them out loud, lose their value at an unimaginable speed. What turns into dust is what is perhaps the most valuable, unique for our entire Egregor, as mystics and visionaries say, for everything all-earthly, all-human.
But the most important thing I would like to emphasize: in order to build an economy, it is necessary to give people the opportunity to feel that the being that they have, that is, make it present, authentic, exists completely independently of politics and economics. Both under Cleon and under Pericles, people wrote poetry, and if we have not forgotten Pericles, then no one remembers Cleon. In any era, thought, beauty, and so on have always existed. So beauty - what I would like to make the epigraph of my speech, I will repeat again at the end - is “not the whim of a demigod”, it is our daily bread, it is a “predatory eye”. The eye, which combines, with the help of some kind of total dialectics, and not philosophy, precisely dialectics, firstly, some kind of intuitive, so to speak, calculation of the unconscious mind - and Jung used such a couple of words - and, secondly secondly, what we call great poetry. This is the kind of beauty that will save us.
And God saw everything that He had created, and behold, it was very good.
/Gen. 1.31/
It is human nature to appreciate beauty. The human soul needs beauty and seeks it. The entire human culture is permeated by the search for beauty. The Bible also testifies that the world was based on beauty and man was originally involved in it. Expulsion from paradise is an image of lost beauty, a person’s break with beauty and truth. Having once lost his heritage, a person longs to find it. Human history can be presented as a path from lost beauty to sought-after beauty; on this path, a person realizes himself as a participant in Divine creation. Coming out of the beautiful Garden of Eden, symbolizing its pure natural state before the Fall, man returns to the garden city - Heavenly Jerusalem, “ new, coming down from God, from heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband"(Rev. 21.2). And this last image is the image of future beauty, about which it is said: “ The eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, and it has not entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him."(1 Cor. 2.9).
All of God's creation is inherently beautiful. God admired His creation at different stages of its creation. " And God saw that it was good“- these words are repeated in chapter 1 of the book of Genesis 7 times and the aesthetic character is clearly noticeable in them. The Bible begins with this and ends with the revelation of a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21.1). The Apostle John says that “ the world lies in evil"(1 John 5.19), thereby emphasizing that the world is not evil in itself, but that the evil that entered the world distorted its beauty. And at the end of time the true beauty of Divine creation will shine forth - purified, saved, transformed.
The concept of beauty always includes the concepts of harmony, perfection, purity, and for the Christian worldview, goodness is certainly included in this series. The separation of ethics and aesthetics occurred already in modern times, when culture underwent secularization and the integrity of the Christian view of the world was lost. Pushkin question about the compatibility of genius and villainy was born in a split world, for which Christian values are not obvious. A century later, this question already sounds like a statement: “aesthetics of the ugly,” “theater of the absurd,” “harmony of destruction,” “cult of violence,” etc. - these are the aesthetic coordinates that define the culture of the 20th century. The gap between aesthetic ideals and ethical roots leads to anti-aesthetics. But even in the midst of decay, the human soul does not cease to strive for beauty. The famous Chekhov maxim “everything in a person should be beautiful...” is nothing more than nostalgia for the integrity of the Christian understanding of beauty and unity of image. Dead ends and tragedies modern searches beauty lies in the complete loss of value guidelines, in the oblivion of the sources of beauty.
Beauty is an ontological category in the Christian understanding; it is inextricably linked with the meaning of existence. Beauty is rooted in God. It follows that there is only one beauty - True Beauty, God Himself. And every earthly beauty is only an image that, to a greater or lesser extent, reflects the Primary Source.
« In the beginning was the Word... everything came into being through Him, and without Him nothing came into being that came into being."(John 1.1-3). Word, Ineffable Logos, Reason, Meaning, etc. - this concept has a huge synonymous range. Somewhere in this series the amazing word “image” finds its place, without which it is impossible to comprehend true meaning Beauty. The Word and the Image have one source; in their ontological depth they are identical.
Image in Greek is εικων (eikon). This is where it comes from Russian word"icon". But just as we distinguish between the Word and words, we should also distinguish between the Image and images, more in the narrow sense-icons (in Russian vernacular it is no coincidence that the name of icons is preserved - “images”). Without understanding the meaning of the Image, we cannot understand the meaning of the icon, its place, its role, its meaning.
God creates the world through the Word; He Himself is the Word who came into the world. God also creates the world, giving everything an Image. He Himself, who has no image, is the prototype of everything in the world. Everything that exists in the world exists due to the fact that it carries the Image of God. The Russian word “ugly” is a synonym for the word “ugly”, meaning nothing more than “imageless”, that is, not having the Image of God in itself, non-essential, non-existent, dead. The whole world is permeated with the Word and the whole world is filled with the Image of God, our world is iconological.
God's creation can be imagined as a ladder of images, which, like mirrors, reflect each other and, ultimately, God, as the Prototype. The symbol of the ladder (in the Old Russian version - “ladder”) is traditional for the Christian picture of the world, starting from Jacob’s ladder (Gen. 28.12) and to the “Ladder” of the Sinai abbot John, nicknamed the “Ladder”. The symbol of the mirror is also well known - we find it, for example, in the Apostle Paul, who says this about knowledge: “ now we see, like through a glass darkly,"(1 Cor. 13.12), which in the Greek text is expressed as follows: " like a mirror in fortune telling". Thus, our knowledge resembles a mirror, dimly reflecting true values, which we can only guess about. So, God's world is a whole system of images of mirrors, built in the form of a ladder, each step of which to a certain extent reflects God. At the basis of everything is God Himself - the One, the Beginningless, the Incomprehensible, without an image, who gives life to everything. He is everything and in Him everything is, and there is no one who can look at God from the outside. The incomprehensibility of God became the basis for the commandment prohibiting the impersonation of God (Ex. 20.4). The transcendence of God revealed to man in the Old Testament exceeds human capabilities, which is why the Bible says: “ man cannot see God and live"(Ex. 33.20). Even Moses, the greatest of the prophets, who communicated directly with Jehovah, who heard His voice more than once, when he asked to show him the Face of God, received the following answer: “ you will see Me from behind, but My face will not be visible"(Ex. 33.23).
Evangelist John also testifies: “ No one has ever seen God"(John 1.18a), but further adds: " The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He revealed"(John 1.18b). Here is the center of the New Testament revelation: through Jesus Christ we have direct access to God, we can see His face. " The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, and we saw His glory"(John 1.14). Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, the incarnate Word is the only and true Image of the Invisible God. IN in a certain sense He is the first and only icon. The Apostle Paul writes: “ He is the image of the Invisible God, born before all creation"(Col. 1.15), and " being in the image of God, He took on the form of a servant"(Phil. 2.6-7). The appearance of God in the world occurs through His humiliation, kenosis (Greek κενωσις). And at each subsequent stage, the image to a certain extent reflects the Proto-Image, thanks to this the internal structure of the world is revealed.
The next step of the ladder we have drawn is man. God created man in His own image and likeness (Gen. 1.26) (κατ εικονα ημετεραν καθ ομοιωσιν), thereby singling him out from all creation. And in this sense, man is also an icon of God. Or rather, he is called to become one. The Savior called on the disciples: “ be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect"(Matthew 5.48). This is where true human dignity is found, open to people Christ. But as a result of his fall, having fallen away from the source of Being, man in his natural state does not reflect, like a pure mirror, God’s image. To achieve the required perfection, a person needs to make efforts (Matt. 11.12). The Word of God reminds man of his original calling. This is evidenced by the Image of God revealed in the icon. IN everyday life It is often difficult to find confirmation of this; Having looked around and looked impartially at himself, a person may not immediately see the image of God. Nevertheless, it is in every person. The image of God may not be manifested, hidden, clouded, even distorted, but it exists in our very depths as a guarantee of our existence. Process spiritual formation This is to discover the image of God in yourself, to reveal, purify, restore it. In many ways, this is reminiscent of the restoration of an icon, when a blackened, sooty board is washed, cleared, removing layer by layer of old drying oil, numerous later layers and recordings, until eventually the Face appears, the Light shines, and the Image of God appears. The Apostle Paul writes to his disciples: “ My children! for whom I am again in the throes of birth, until Christ is formed in you!"(Gal. 4.19). The Gospel teaches that the goal of man is not just self-improvement, as the development of his natural abilities and natural qualities, but the revelation in himself of the true Image of God, the achievement of God's likeness, what the holy fathers called “deification” (Greek Θεοσις). This process is difficult, according to Paul, it is the pangs of birth, because the image and likeness in us are separated by sin - we receive the image at birth, and we achieve the likeness during life. That is why in the Russian tradition saints are called “venerables,” that is, those who have achieved the likeness of God. This title is awarded to the greatest holy ascetics, such as Sergius of Radonezh or Seraphim of Sarov. And at the same time, this is the goal that faces every Christian. It is no coincidence that St. Basil the Great said that " Christianity is likeness to God to the extent that this is possible for human nature«.
The process of “deification”, the spiritual transformation of a person, is Christocentric, as it is based on likeness to Christ. Even following the example of any saint does not end with him, but leads first of all to Christ. " Imitate me as I imitate Christ“,” wrote the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 4.16). Likewise, any icon is initially Christ-centric, no matter who is depicted on it - whether the Savior Himself, the Mother of God or any of the saints. Holiday icons are also Christ-centric. Precisely because we have been given the only true Image and role model - Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Incarnate Word. This image in us must glorify and shine: “ yet we, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord"(2 Cor. 3.18).
Man is located on the verge of two worlds: above man is the divine world, below is the natural world. Where his mirror is turned - up or down - will depend on whose image he perceives. From a certain historical stage, man's attention was focused on creation and the worship of the Creator faded into the background. The trouble with the pagan world and the fault of the culture of the New Age is that people, “ Having known God, they did not glorify Him as God, and did not give thanks, but became futile in their speculations... and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed creatures, and reptiles... they replaced the truth with a lie and worshiped and served the creature instead Creator"(1 Cor. 1.21-25).
Indeed, one step below human world lies the created world, which also reflects in its measure the image of God, like any creation that bears the stamp of the Creator. However, this can only be seen if the correct hierarchy of values is observed. It is no coincidence that the holy fathers said that God gave man two books for knowledge - the Book of Scripture and the Book of Creation. And through the second book we can also comprehend the greatness of the Creator - through “ looking at creations"(Rom. 1.20). This so-called level of natural revelation was available to the world even before Christ. But in creation the image of God is diminished even more than in man, since sin has entered the world and the world lies in evil. Each lower level reflects not only the Prototype, but also the previous one, against this background the role of man is very clearly visible, since “ the creature did not submit voluntarily" And " awaits the salvation of the sons of God"(Rom. 8.19-20). A person who has trampled on the image of God in himself distorts this image throughout creation. All environmental problems of the modern world stem from here. Their solution is closely related to the internal transformation of the person himself. The revelation of a new heaven and a new earth reveals the mystery of the future creation, for “ the image of this world passes"(1 Cor. 7.31). One day, through Creation, the Image of the Creator will shine in all its beauty and light. The Russian poet F.I. Tyutchev saw this prospect as follows:
When it strikes last hour nature,
The composition of the parts of the earth will collapse,
Everything visible around will be covered with water
And God's Face will be reflected in them.
And, finally, the last fifth step of the ladder we have outlined is the icon itself, and more broadly, the creation of human hands, all human creativity. Only when included in the system of mirror images we have described, reflecting the Proto-Image, does the icon cease to be just a board with subjects written on it. Outside this ladder, the icon does not exist, even if it is painted in compliance with the canons. Outside of this context, all the distortions in icon veneration arise: some deviate into magic, crude idolatry, others fall into art veneration, sophisticated aestheticism, and others completely deny the benefits of icons. The purpose of the icon is to direct our attention to the Prototype - through the only Image of the Incarnate Son of God - to the Invisible God. And this path lies through identifying the Image of God in ourselves. Veneration of an icon is worship of the Prototype; prayer in front of an icon is standing before the Incomprehensible and Living God. The icon is only a sign of His presence. The aesthetics of the icon is only a small approximation to the imperishable beauty of the future century, like a barely visible outline, not entirely clear shadows; one who contemplates an icon is like a person gradually regaining his sight who is healed by Christ (Mark 8.24). That's why Fr. Pavel Florensky argued that an icon is always either larger or smaller than a work of art. Everything is decided by the inner spiritual experience of what is to come.
Ideally, all human activity is iconological. A person paints an icon, seeing the true Image of God, but the icon also creates a person, reminding him of the image of God hidden in him. A person tries to peer into God’s Face through an icon, but God also looks at us through the Image. " We know in part and we prophesy in part, when that which is perfect has come, then that which is partial will cease. Now we see, as through a dark glass, fortune-telling, but then face to face; Now I know in part, but then I will know, even as I am known"(1 Cor. 13.9,12). The conventional language of the icon is a reflection of the incompleteness of our knowledge about divine reality. And at the same time, it is a sign indicating the existence of Absolute beauty, which is hidden in God. The famous saying of F. M. Dostoevsky “Beauty will save the world” is not just a winning metaphor, but an accurate and deep intuition of a Christian brought up in the thousand-year Orthodox tradition of searching for this beauty. God is true Beauty and therefore salvation cannot be ugly, ugly. The biblical image of the suffering Messiah, in whom there is “neither form nor majesty” (Is. 53.2), only emphasizes what was said above, revealing the point at which the belittlement (Greek κενωσις) of God, and at the same time the Beauty of His Image reaches limit, but from the same point the upward ascent begins. Just as the descent of Christ into hell is the destruction of hell and the leading out of all the faithful into the Resurrection and Eternal Life. " God is Light and there is no darkness in Him"(1 John 1.5) - this is the image of True Divine and saving beauty.
The Eastern Christian tradition perceives Beauty as one of the proofs of the existence of God. According to a well-known legend, the last argument for Prince Vladimir in choosing faith was the testimony of the ambassadors about the heavenly beauty of the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia of Constantinople. Knowledge, as Aristotle argued, begins with wonder. Thus, knowledge of God often begins with amazement at the beauty of Divine creation.
« I praise You because I am wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works, and my soul is fully aware of this"(Ps. 139.14). Contemplation of beauty reveals to a person the secret of the relationship between the external and the internal in this world.
...So what is beauty?
And why do people deify her?
Is she a vessel in which there is emptiness?
Or a fire flickering in a vessel?
(N. Zabolotsky)
For the Christian consciousness, beauty is not an end in itself. She is only an image, a sign, a reason, one of the paths leading to God. Christian aesthetics in the proper sense does not exist, just as there is no “Christian mathematics” or “Christian biology.” However, for a Christian it is clear that the abstract category of “beautiful” (beauty) loses its meaning outside the concepts of “good”, “truth”, “salvation”. Everything is united by God in God and in the name of God, the rest is ugly. The rest is absolute hell (by the way, the Russian word “pitch” means everything that remains except, that is, outside, in this case outside of God). Therefore, it is so important to distinguish between external, false beauty, and true, internal beauty. True Beauty is a spiritual category, imperishable, independent of external changing criteria, it is imperishable and belongs to another world, although it can manifest itself in this world. External beauty is transitory, changeable, it is just external beauty, attractiveness, charm (the Russian word “prelest” comes from the root “flattery,” which is akin to lying). The Apostle Paul, guided by the biblical understanding of beauty, gives the following advice to Christian women: “ Let your adornment be not the outward braiding of hair, not gold jewelry or finery in clothing, but the hidden person of the heart in the imperishable beauty of a meek and silent spirit, which is precious before God"(1 Pet. 3.3-4).
So, “the incorruptible beauty of a meek spirit, valuable before God” is, perhaps, the cornerstone of Christian aesthetics and ethics, which constitute an inextricable unity, for beauty and goodness, the beautiful and the spiritual, form and meaning, creativity and salvation are indissoluble in essence, how the Image and the Word are fundamentally united. It is no coincidence that the collection of patristic instructions, known in Russia under the name “Philokalia”, in Greek is called “Φιλοκαλια” (Philokalia), which can be translated as “love of beauty”, for true beauty is spiritual transformation a person in whom the Image of God is glorified.
Averintsev S. S. “Poetics of Early Christian Literature.” M., 1977, p. 32.
Explanation of the common phrase “Beauty will save the world” in the encyclopedic dictionary winged words and expressions by Vadim Serov:
“Beauty will save the world” - from the novel “The Idiot” (1868) by F. M. Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881).
As a rule, it is taken literally: contrary to the author’s interpretation of the concept of “beauty.”
In the novel (Part 3, Chapter V), these words are spoken by the 18-year-old youth Ippolit Terentyev, referring to the words of Prince Myshkin conveyed to him by Nikolai Ivolgin and ironizing the latter: “It’s true, Prince, that you once said that the world will be saved by “beauty "? “Gentlemen,” he shouted loudly to everyone, “the prince claims that the world will be saved by beauty!” And I claim that the reason he has such playful thoughts is that he is now in love.
Gentlemen, the prince is in love; Just now, as soon as he came in, I was convinced of this. Don’t blush, prince, I’ll feel sorry for you. What beauty will save the world. Kolya told me this... Are you a zealous Christian? Kolya says that you call yourself a Christian.
The prince looked at him carefully and did not answer him.” F. M. Dostoevsky was far from strictly aesthetic judgments - he wrote about spiritual beauty, about the beauty of the soul. This corresponds to the main idea of the novel - to create an image of a “positively beautiful person.” Therefore, in his drafts, the author calls Myshkin “Prince Christ,” thereby reminding himself that Prince Myshkin should be as similar as possible to Christ - kindness, philanthropy, meekness, a complete lack of selfishness, the ability to sympathize with human troubles and misfortunes. Therefore, the “beauty” that the prince (and F. M. Dostoevsky himself) speaks of is the sum of the moral qualities of a “positively beautiful person.”
This purely personal interpretation of beauty is typical for the writer. He believed that “people can be beautiful and happy” not only in the afterlife. They can be like this “without losing the ability to live on earth.” To do this, they must agree with the idea that Evil “cannot be the normal state of people,” that everyone has the power to get rid of it. And then, when people are guided by the best that is in their soul, memory and intentions (Good), then they will be truly beautiful. And the world will be saved, and it will be precisely this “beauty” (that is, the best that is in people) that will save it.
Of course, this will not happen overnight - spiritual work, trials and even suffering are needed, after which a person renounces Evil and turns to Good, begins to appreciate it. The writer talks about this in many of his works, including the novel “The Idiot.” For example (part 1, chapter VII):
“For some time, the general’s wife, silently and with a certain shade of disdain, examined the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, which she held in front of her in her outstretched hand, extremely and effectively moving away from her eyes.
Yes, she’s good,” she said finally, “very much so.” I saw her twice, only from afar. So do you appreciate such and such beauty? - she suddenly turned to the prince.
“Yes... like that...” the prince answered with some effort.
- So that's exactly what it is?
- Exactly like this
- For what?
“In this face... there is a lot of suffering...” the prince said, as if involuntarily, as if speaking to himself, and not answering the question.
“You may be delirious, however,” the general’s wife decided and with an arrogant gesture she threw the portrait back onto the table.”The writer is a like-minded person in his interpretation of beauty German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who spoke about “the moral law within us”, that “beauty is a symbol of moral goodness.” F. M. Dostoevsky develops the same idea in his other works. So, if in the novel “The Idiot” he writes that beauty will save the world, then in the novel “Demons” (1872) he logically concludes that “ugliness (anger, indifference, selfishness. - Comp.) will kill...”
Inspiration
Friday, 05.12.2014 Friday, 05.12.2014
What beauty will save the world?
F. M. Dostoevsky is a cult figure of Russian literature. But the name of the classic might not have become famous. In 1849 he was sentenced to death penalty as a participant in the revolutionary movement. The prisoners were already standing in the square, awaiting execution, but at the last moment the execution was replaced by hard labor. Dostoevsky was sent to Siberia. The writer survived. He just had to write “Crime and Punishment”, “Demons”, “The Idiot”, “The Brothers Karamazov”.
Dostoevsky's life cannot be called easy. Addiction to gambling, hard labor, eternal problems with money, small fees: he was paid 150 rubles per printed sheet, while Turgenev, Tolstoy, Goncharov received 500 rubles each. Death of a brother, first wife, two children, affairs with young girls and visits to prostitutes. Turgenev (who, by the way, hated Dostoevsky) called him “the Russian Marquis de Sade.” Tormenting attacks of epilepsy, during which he experienced not only creative insights, but also various hallucinations. Nervous disorders, explosive character, which only Anna Snitkina, his second wife, who was 25 years younger than him, could cope with.
Meeting. Ilya Glazunov, 1970
However, difficulties did not manage to shackle creative power Dostoevsky. His legacy is enormous and occupies an important place not only in the history of literature, but also in the history of spirit, manners and morality. Nietzsche called Dostoevsky “the only psychologist” from whom one can “learn something.”
Questions about goodness, truth, and beauty worried the writer all his life. He called beauty and truth two idols that people will forever worship. The philosopher V.S. Solovyov said about Dostoevsky:
First of all, he loved the living human soul in everything and everywhere, and he believed that we are all the race of God, he believed in infinite power human soul triumphing over all external violence and over all internal failure.
F. M. Dostoevsky. Night. Ilya Glazunov, 1986
The famous phrase “Beauty will save the world” belongs to Prince Myshkin from Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot” (which, by the way, was written in just 21 days). Myshkin became the bearer of the writer’s basic ideas about the good and the eternal, the embodiment of Christian virtue, the ideal of humanity. The prince’s main aspiration was “to restore and resurrect man.”
But the issue of beauty worried the writer even before the publication of the novel. Reflections on a complex subject found a place on the pages of the magazine “Time,” the literary and political magazine of M. M. Dostoevsky, the brother of the Russian classic.
Nastenka. Illustration for the story “White Nights”. Ilya Glazunov, 1970
In the February 1861 issue, in the article “G. — bov and the question of art" Dostoevsky talked about the role and essence of art and could not help but mention beauty.
The ideal of beauty and normality cannot perish in a healthy society; and therefore leave art on its path and trust that it will not stray from it. If he goes astray, he will immediately return back and respond to the first human need. Beauty is inherent in everything healthy, that is, the most living, and is a necessary need of the human body. Beauty is useful because it is beauty, because in humanity there is an everlasting need for beauty and its highest ideal. If the people preserve the ideal of beauty and the need for it, it means that there is also a need for health, norms, and consequently, the highest development of this people is thereby guaranteed.
Dostoevsky considered beauty not only a need, but also a source mental strength, the cradle of harmony that attracts people. In other words, a saving power capable of much.
Grushenka. Illustration for the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”. Ilya Glazunov, 1983
In the same article, he wrote that the highest need for beauty arises when a person is at odds with reality, in a struggle. That is, in the most living moments, since a person lives most at the time when he is looking for and achieving something. Then a natural desire for everything calm and natural manifests itself in him. All this can be found in beauty.
We talked about the need for beauty, and about the fact that humanity has already partly determined its eternal ideals. While searching for beauty, man lived and suffered. If we understand his past ideal and what this ideal cost him, then, firstly, we will show extreme respect for all humanity, ennoble ourselves with sympathy for him, we will understand that this sympathy and understanding of the past guarantees to us, in us the presence of humanity, vitality and the capacity for progress and development.
Aglaya. Illustration for the novel “The Idiot”. Ilya Glazunov, 1982
According to Dostoevsky, beauty is an inspiring and healing property of nature, which a person can notice in something pure, healthy and living, since he has a constant need for it. And he can find harmony with himself and the world around him if he finds it. By adopting the best from nature, a person can become better and more beautiful.
Nastasya Filippovna. Illustration for the novel “The Idiot”. Ilya Glazunov, 1956
In Dostoevsky's concept, the concept of beauty is inseparable from the concept of good. Let's return to the novel "The Idiot":
For some time, the general’s wife, silently and with a certain shade of disdain, examined the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, which she held in front of her in her outstretched hand, extremely and effectively moving away from her eyes.
Yes, she’s good,” she said finally, “very much so.” I saw her twice, only from afar. So do you appreciate such and such beauty? - she suddenly turned to the prince.
“Beauty will save the world” - this mysterious phrase of Dostoevsky is often quoted.
It is much less often mentioned that these words belong to one of the heroes of the novel “The Idiot” - Prince Myshkin1.
Although in this case Prince Myshkin does seem to be voicing Dostoevsky's own beliefs, other novels, such as The Brothers Karamazov, express a much more wary attitude towards beauty.
Callistus Ware - Beauty will save the world
Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia, "Beauty will save the world", in: Sobornost, Vol. 30 (2008), 7-20.
"Scary and mysterious"
“Beauty is a terrible and terrible thing,” says Dmitry Karamazov. - Terrible, because it is indefinable, but it is impossible to determine, because God asked only riddles. Here the shores meet, here all the contradictions live together.” Dmitry adds that in search of beauty a person “starts with the ideal of Madonna, and ends with the ideal of Sodom.” And he comes to the following conclusion: “The terrible thing is that beauty is not only a terrible, but also a mysterious thing. Here the devil fights with God, and the battlefield is the hearts of people.”2
1 Dostoevsky F. The Idiot, part 3, ch. 5.
2 Dostoevsky F. The Brothers Karamazov, book. 3, ch. 3.
It is possible that both Prince Myshkin and Dmitry Karamazov are right. In a fallen world, beauty has a dangerous, dual character: it is not only saving, but can also lead into deep temptation. “Tell me where you come from, Beauty? Is your gaze the azure of heaven or the product of hell? - asks Baudelaire. Eve was seduced by the beauty of the fruit offered to her by the serpent: she saw that it was pleasing to the eyes (cf. Gen. 3:6).
for from the greatness of the beauty of creatures (...) the Author of their existence is known.
However, he continues, this does not always happen. Beauty can also lead us astray, so that we are content with the “apparent perfections” of temporary things and no longer seek their Creator (Wis. 13:1-7). The very fascination with beauty can turn out to be a trap that portrays the world as something incomprehensible rather than clear, turning beauty from a mystery into an idol. Beauty ceases to be a source of purification when it becomes an end in itself instead of being directed upward.
Lord Byron was not entirely wrong when he spoke of “the gift of pernicious wonderful beauty" However, he was not completely right. Without for a moment forgetting the dual nature of beauty, it is better for us to focus on its life-giving power than on its seductions. It is more interesting to look at light than at shadow. At first glance, the statement that “beauty will save the world” may indeed seem sentimental and far from life. Does it even make sense to talk about salvation through beauty in the face of the countless tragedies we face: disease, famine, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, child abuse? However, Dostoevsky's words perhaps offer us a very important clue, indicating that the suffering and sorrow of a fallen creature can be redeemed and transformed. In the hope of this, let us consider two levels of beauty: the first is the divine uncreated beauty, and the second is the created beauty of nature and people.
GOD AS BEAUTY
“God is good; He is Kindness Himself. God is truthful; He is the Truth Himself. God is glorified, and His glory is Beauty itself.”3 These words of Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov (1871-1944), perhaps the greatest Orthodox thinker of the twentieth century, provide us with a suitable starting point. He worked on the famous triad of Greek philosophy: goodness, truth and beauty. These three qualities achieve perfect coincidence in God, forming a single and indivisible reality, but at the same time, each of them expresses a specific aspect of divine existence. Then what does it mean divine beauty, if considered separately from His goodness and His truth?
The answer is provided by the Greek word kalos, which means “beautiful.” This word can also be translated as "good", but in the triad mentioned above, another word is used for "good" - aga-thos. Then, taking kalos to mean “beautiful,” we can, following Plato, note that it is etymologically related to the verb kaleo, meaning “I call” or “call,” “I pray” or “appeal.”4 In this case, there is a special quality of beauty: it calls, beckons and attracts us. It takes us beyond ourselves and into relationship with the Other. She awakens in us eros, a feeling strong desire and yearnings, which C.S. Lewis calls “joy” in his autobiography. In each of us there lives a longing for beauty, a thirst for something hidden deep in our subconscious, something that was known to us in the distant past, but now for some reason is beyond our control.
Thus beauty, as the object or subject of our ems, directly attracts and disturbs us with its magnetism and charm, so that it does not need the frame of virtue and truth. In a word, divine beauty expresses the attractive power of God. It immediately becomes obvious that there is an inalienable connection between beauty and love. When Saint Augustine (354-430)
3 "Religion and Art", in E.L. Mascall (ed.), The Church of God, An Anglo-Russian Symposium by Members of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (London: SPCK, 1934), 175.
4 Cratylus, 416.
5 Surprised by Joy: The shape of my early life (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1956), 22-24.
began to write his “Confession,” then most of all he was tormented by the fact that he did not love divine beauty: “I loved You too late, O Divine Beauty, so ancient and so young!”6
This beauty of the Kingdom of God is the leitmotif of the Psalter. David's only desire is to contemplate the beauty of God:
I asked the Lord for one thing, that is only what I seek,
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
behold the beauty of the Lord (Ps. 27/27:4).
Addressing the Messianic king, David states: “You are more beautiful than the sons of men” (Ps 45/44:3).
If God himself is beautiful, then His sanctuary, His temple is just as beautiful: “... power and splendor are in His sanctuary” (Ps 96/96:6). Thus, beauty is associated with worship: “...worship the Lord in His beautiful sanctuary” (Ps 29/28:2).
God reveals himself in beauty: “From Zion, which is the height of beauty, God appears” (Ps 50/49:2).
If beauty, therefore, has a theophanic nature, then Christ - the highest self-manifestation of God - is known not only as good (Mark 10:18) and truth (John 14:6), but in equally like beauty. At the transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor, where the divine beauty of the God-Man was revealed to the highest degree, Saint Peter meaningfully says: “It is good (kalori) for us to be here” (Matthew 17:4). Here we must remember the double meaning of the adjective kalos. Peter not only affirms the essential goodness of the heavenly vision, but also declares: it is a place of beauty. Thus, the words of Jesus: “I am the good shepherd (kalos)” (John 10:11) can be interpreted with equal, if not more accuracy, as: “I am the beautiful shepherd (hopoemen ho kalos).” This version was adhered to by Archimandrite Leo Gillet (1893-1980), whose reflections on the Holy Scriptures, often published under the pseudonym “monk of the Eastern Church,” are so highly valued by members of our fraternity.
The dual heritage of Holy Scripture and Platonism made it possible for the Greek church fathers to talk about the divine
6 Confessions 10:27.
beauty as a comprehensive point of attraction. For Saint Dionysius the Areopagite (c. 500 AD), the beauty of God is the root cause and at the same time the goal of all created beings. He writes: “From this beauty comes all that exists... Beauty unites all things and is the source of all things. This is the great creative first cause that awakens the world and preserves the existence of all things through their inherent thirst for beauty.”7 According to Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274), “omnia... ex divinapulchritudine procedunt” - “all things arise from Divine Beauty”8. Being, according to Dionysius, the source of being and the “creative first cause,” beauty at the same time is the goal and “ultimate limit” of all things, their “ultimate cause.” The starting point is at the same time end point. The thirst (eros) for uncreated beauty unites all created beings and unites them into one strong and harmonious whole. Considering the connection between kalos and kaleo, Dionysius writes: “Beauty “calls” all things to itself (for this reason it is called “beauty”), and collects everything in itself”9.
Divine beauty is thus the original source and fulfillment of both the formative principle and the unifying purpose. Although the Apostle Paul does not use the word “beauty” in his letter to the Colossians, what he says regarding the cosmic meaning of Christ exactly corresponds to divine beauty: “All things were created by Him... all things were created by Him and for Him. ...and everything costs them” (Col 1:16-17).
Look for Christ Everywhere
If this is the all-encompassing scope of divine beauty, then what about created beauty? It exists mainly on three levels: things, people and sacred rites, others
On the Divine Names 4:7, PG 3:704A; ed. B.R. Suchla, Corpus Dionysiacum I, Patristische Texte und Studien 33 (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter,1990), 151-152; tr. Colm Luibheid and Paul Ro-rem, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987), 77.
8 In Librim Beati Dionysii De Divinis Nominibus Expositio, ed. Ceslaus Pera (Turin/Rome: Marietti, 1950), §349, 114.
9 On the Divine Names 4:7, PG 3:701C; ed. B.R. Suchla, 151; tr. Luibheid and Rorem, 76.
in words - this is the beauty of nature, the beauty of angels and saints, as well as the beauty of liturgical worship.
The beauty of nature is especially emphasized at the end of the story of the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis: “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). In the Greek version of the Old Testament (Septuagint) the expression "very good" is rendered by the words kala Pap, therefore, due to the double meaning of the adjective kalos, the words of Genesis can be translated not only as "very good" but also as "very beautiful." There is certainly a strong argument for adopting the second interpretation: for modern secular culture, the main means by which most of our Western contemporaries achieve a distant idea of the transcendental is precisely the beauty of nature, as well as poetry, painting and music.
For the Russian writer Andrei Sinyavsky (Abram Tertz), far from a sentimental withdrawal from life, since he spent five years in Soviet camps, “nature - forests, mountains, skies - is infinity, given to us in the most accessible, tangible form”10.
Spiritual value natural beauty manifests itself in the daily cycle of worship Orthodox Church. In liturgical time, a new day begins not at midnight or at dawn, but at sunset. This is how time is understood in Judaism, which is clarified by the story of the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis: “And there was evening, and there was morning: one day” (Genesis 1:5) - evening comes before morning. This Hebrew approach continued into Christianity. This means that Vespers is not the end of the day, but the introduction to a new day that is just beginning. This is the first service in the daily cycle of worship. How then does Vespers begin in the Orthodox Church? It always begins the same way, with the exception of Easter week. We read or sing a psalm, which is a hymn in praise of the beauty of creation: “Bless the Lord, O my soul! Lord, my God! You are wonderfully great, You are clothed with glory and greatness... How numerous are Your works, Lord! You have done everything wisely” (Ps 104/103: 1,24).
As we begin a new day, the first thing we think about is that the created world around us is a clear reflection of the uncreated beauty of God. Here is what Father Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983) says about Vespers:
10 Unguarded Thoughts (London: Collins/Harvill, 1972), 66.
“It begins from the beginning, that is, in the rediscovery, in the good will and in the thanksgiving of the world created by God. The Church seems to lead us to the first evening on which a man, called by God to life, opened his eyes and saw what God in His love gave him, saw all the beauty, all the splendor of the temple in which he stood, and gave thanks to God. And, giving thanks, he became himself... And if the Church is in Christ, then the first thing it does is give thanks, return peace to God”11.
The value of created beauty is equally confirmed by the trinitarian structure of the Christian life, as repeatedly said by the spiritual authors of the Christian East, starting with Origen (c. 185-254) and Evagrius of Pontus (346-399). The Hidden Path distinguishes three stages or levels: practici (“ active life"), physiki ("contemplation of nature") and theologia (contemplation of God). The path begins with active ascetic efforts, with the struggle to avoid sinful acts, eradicate evil thoughts or passions and thus achieve spiritual freedom. The path ends with “theology,” in this context meaning the vision of God, union in love with the Most Holy Trinity. But between these two levels there is an intermediate stage - “natural contemplation”, or “contemplation of nature”.
“Contemplation of nature” has two aspects: negative and positive. Negative side- this is the knowledge that things in the fallen world are deceptive and transitory, and therefore it is necessary to go beyond them and turn to the Creator. However, with positive side it means seeing God in all things and all things in God. Let us quote Andrei Sinyavsky once again: “Nature is beautiful because God looks at it. Silently, from afar, He looks at the forests, and that’s enough.”12 That is, natural contemplation is a vision of the natural world as the mystery of the divine presence. Before we can contemplate God as He is, we learn to discover Him in His creations. In present life, very few people can contemplate God as He is, but each of us, without exception, can discover Him in His creations. God is much more accessible, much closer to us, than we usually imagine. Each of us can ascend to God
11 Sacraments and Orthodoxy (New York: Herder & Herder, 1965), 73-74.
12 Unguarded Thoughts, 76.
through His creation. According to Alexander Schmemann, “a Christian is one who, wherever he looks, will find Christ and rejoice with Him.”13 Can't each of us be a Christian in this sense?
One of the places where it is especially easy to practice “contemplation of nature” is the Holy Mount Athos, as any pilgrim can confirm. Russian hermit Nikon Karulsky (1875-1963) said: “Here every stone breathes prayers.” They say that another Athonite hermit, a Greek, whose cell was on top of a cliff facing west towards the sea, sat every evening on a ledge of the rock, watching the sunset. Then he went to his chapel to perform the night vigil. One day a student, a young, practical-minded monk with an energetic character, settled with him. The elder told him to sit next to him every evening while he watched the sunset. After some time, the student began to become impatient. “It’s a beautiful view,” he said, “but we admired it yesterday and the day before. What is the point of nightly monitoring? What are you doing while you sit here watching the sun go down?” And the elder replied: “I am collecting fuel.”
What did he mean? Surely this: external beauty visible creature helped him prepare for night prayer, during which he strove for the inner beauty of the Kingdom of Heaven. Having discovered the presence of God in nature, he could then easily find God in the depths of his own heart. Watching the sunset, he “collected fuel,” material that would give him strength in the soon-to-be secret knowledge of God. This was the picture of his spiritual path: through creation to the Creator, from “physics” to “theology,” from “contemplation of nature” to contemplation of God.
There is one Greek proverb: “If you want to know the truth, ask a fool or a child.” Indeed, holy fools and children are often sensitive to the beauty of nature. Since we are talking about children, the Western reader should recall the examples of Thomas Traherne and William Wordsworth, Edwin Muir and Kathleen Rhyne. A remarkable representative of the Christian East is the priest Pavel Florensky (1882-1937), who died as a martyr for the faith in one of Stalin’s concentration camps.
Sacraments and Orthodoxy, 142.
“Admitting how much he loved nature as a child, Father Pavel further explains that for him the entire kingdom of nature is divided into two categories of phenomena: “captivatingly graceful” and “extremely special.” Both categories attracted and delighted him, some with their refined beauty and spirituality, others with their mysterious unusualness. “Grace, striking in splendor, was bright and extremely close. I loved her with all the fullness of tenderness, admired her to the point of convulsions, to acute compassion, asking why I could not completely merge with her and, finally, why I could not absorb her forever into yourself or be absorbed in it." This sharp, piercing desire of a child’s consciousness, of a child’s entire being, to completely merge with a beautiful object should have been preserved by Florensky from then on, acquiring completeness, expressed in the traditionally Orthodox desire of the soul to merge with God.”14
The beauty of the saints
To "contemplate nature" means not only to find God in every created thing, but also, and much more deeply, to discover Him in every person. Due to the fact that people are created in the image and likeness of God, they all share in divine beauty. And although this applies to every person without exception, despite his external degradation and sinfulness, initially and to the highest degree this is true in relation to the saints. Asceticism, according to Florensky, creates not so much a “good” person as a “beautiful” person.”15
This brings us to the second of the three levels of created beauty: the beauty of the host of saints. They are beautiful not by sensual or physical beauty, not by beauty that is assessed by secular “aesthetic” criteria, but by abstract, spiritual beauty. This spiritual beauty is primarily manifested in Mary, the Mother of God. According to St. Ephraim the Syrian (c. 306-373), she is the highest expression of created beauty:
14 Victor Bychkov, The Aesthetic Face of Being: Art in the Theology of Pavel Florensky (Crestwood, NY: St.
Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1993), 18.
15 Bychkov, The Aesthetic Phase, 32.
“You are one, O Jesus, with Your Mother, beautiful in every way. There is not a single flaw in You, my Lord, there is not a single spot on Your Mother.”16
After the Blessed Virgin Mary, the personification of beauty is the holy angels. In their strict hierarchies, they, according to Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, appear to be “a symbol of Divine Beauty”17. This is what is said about Archangel Michael: “Your face shines, O Michael, first among the angels, and your beauty is full of miracles.”18
The beauty of the saints is emphasized by the words from the book of the prophet Isaiah: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the evangelist who brings peace” (Isaiah 52:7; Rom 10:15). It is also clearly emphasized in the description of the saint St. Seraphim Sarovsky, given by pilgrim N. Aksakova:
“All of us, poor and rich, were waiting for him, crowded at the entrance to the temple. When he appeared at the door of the church, the eyes of all those present turned to him. He slowly descended the steps, and, despite his slight limp and hump, he seemed and indeed was extremely handsome.”19
Undoubtedly, there is nothing accidental in the fact that the famous meeting of spiritual texts XVIII century, edited by Saint Macarius of Corinth and Saint Nicodemus the Holy Mountain, which canonically describes the path to holiness, called “Phibkalia” - “Love of Beauty”.
Liturgical beauty
It was the beauty of the divine liturgy, held in the great Church of the Holy Wisdom in Constantinople, that converted the Russians to Christian faith. “We did not know where we were - in heaven or on earth,” the envoys of Prince Vladimir reported upon returning to Kyiv, “... therefore we are unable to forget this
16 Carmina Nisibena, ed. G. Bickell (Leipzig, 1866), 122.
17 On the Celestial Hierarchy 3:2, PG 3: 165B; ed. G. Neil and A.M. Ritter, 18; tr. Luibheid and Rorem, 154.
18 8 November, Great Vespers, sticheron 2 on Lord, I have cried, tr. Isaac E. Lambertsen, The Minaion of
the Orthodox Church, vol. 3, November (Liberty, T.N.: St. John of Kronstadt Press, 1998), 59.
19 Quoted. no: Archimandrite Lazarus Moore, St Seraphim of Sarov: A Spiritual Biography (Blanco, TX: New
Sarov Press, 1994), 144.
beauty"20. This liturgical beauty is expressed in our worship through four main forms:
“The annual sequence of fasts and holidays is a time imagined as beautiful.
The architecture of church buildings is a space presented as beautiful.
Holy icons are images presented as beautiful. According to Father Sergius Bulgakov, “a person is called to be a creator not only in order to contemplate the beauty of the world, but also in order to express it”; iconography is “human participation in the transformation of the world”21.
Church chant, with its various melodies built on eight notes, is a sound that is imagined as beautiful: in the words of St. Ambrose of Milan (c. 339-397), “in the psalm, instruction competes with beauty... we make the earth respond to the music of heaven”22 .
All these forms of created beauty - the beauty of nature, the saints, the divine liturgy - have two common qualities: created beauty is diaphanic and theophanic. In both cases, beauty makes things and people clear. First of all, beauty makes things and people diaphanous in the sense that it motivates the special truth of each thing, its essential essence, to shine through it. As Bulgakov says, “things are transformed and glow with beauty; they reveal their abstract essence”23. However, it would be more accurate to omit the word “abstract” here, since beauty is not vague and general; on the contrary, she is “extremely special,” which young Florensky greatly appreciated. Secondly, beauty makes things and people theophanic, so that God shines through them. According to the same Bulgakov, “beauty is an objective law of the world, revealing to us the Divine Glory”24. Thus, beautiful people and beautiful things point to what lies beyond them - to God. Through the visible they testify to the presence of the invisible.
20 The Russian Primary Chronicle, tr. S.H. Cross and O.P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Cambridge,
MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1953) ,111.
21 "Religion and Art", 191.
22 Commentary on the Psalms 1:10-11 (PL 14:925-6).
23 "Religion and Art", 177.
24 "Religion and Art", 176.
Beauty is transcendental,has become immanent; in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, she is “both transcendental and abiding among us”25. It is noteworthy that Bulgakov calls beauty an “objective law.” The ability to perceive beauty, both divine and created, involves much more than our subjective “aesthetic” preferences. At the level of the spirit, beauty coexists with truth.
From a theophanic point of view, beauty as a manifestation of the presence and power of God can be called “symbolic” in the full and literal sense of the word. Symbolon, from the verb symballo - “bringing together” or “connecting”, is what brings into correct proportion and unites two different levels of reality.
Thus, the holy gifts in the Eucharist are called "symbols" by the Greek church fathers, not in the weak sense, as if they were mere signs or a visual reminder, but in the strong sense: they directly and effectively represent the true presence of the body and blood of Christ. On the other hand, holy icons are also symbols: they convey to those praying the feeling of the presence of the saints depicted on them. This applies to any manifestation of beauty in created things: such beauty is symbolic in the sense that it personifies the divine. In this way beauty brings God to us, and us to God; it's double sided front door. Therefore, beauty is endowed with sacred power, acting as a guide God's grace, an effective means of cleansing from sins and healing. That's why you can simply proclaim that beauty will save the world.
Kenotic (decreasing) and sacrificial beauty
However, we still have not answered the question raised at the beginning. Isn’t Dostoevsky’s aphorism sentimental and far from life? What solution can be offered by invoking beauty in the face of oppression, the suffering of innocent people, and the anguish and despair of the modern world?
Let us return to the words of Christ: “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11). Immediately after this He continues: “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
Letters and Papers from Prison: The Enlarged Edition, ed. Eberhard Bethge (London: SCM Press), 282.
The Savior's mission as a shepherd is not vested in only beauty, but a martyr's cross. Divine beauty, personified in the God-Man, is saving beauty precisely because it is sacrificial and diminishing beauty, beauty that is achieved through self-denacity and humiliation, through voluntary suffering and death. Such beauty, the beauty of the suffering Servant, is hidden from the world, which is why it is said about him: “In Him there is neither form nor greatness; and we saw Him, and there was no appearance in Him to draw us to Him” (Isaiah 53:2). Nevertheless, for believers, divine beauty, although hidden from view, is all dynamically present in the crucified Christ.
We can say, without any sentimentality or escapism, that “beauty will save the world,” based on the extreme importance that the transfiguration of Christ, His crucifixion and His resurrection are essentially connected with each other, as aspects of one tragedy, an inseparable mystery. Transfiguration, as a manifestation of uncreated beauty, is closely connected with the cross (see Luke 9:31)26. The cross, in turn, must never be separated from the resurrection. The cross brings out the beauty of pain and death, the resurrection brings out the beauty beyond death. So, in the ministry of Christ, beauty embraces both darkness and light, both humiliation and glory. The beauty embodied by Christ the Savior and transmitted by Him to the members of His body is, first of all, a complex and vulnerable beauty, and it is for this reason that it is a beauty that can truly save the world. Divine beauty, just like the created beauty that God endowed his world with, does not offer us a way around suffering. In fact, it offers a path through suffering and thus beyond suffering.
Despite the consequences of the Fall and despite our deep sinfulness, the world remains the creation of God. He hasn't stopped being "absolutely beautiful." Despite the alienation and suffering of people, divine beauty is still present among us, still active, constantly healing and transforming. Even now beauty is saving the world and it will always continue to do so. But this is the beauty of God, who completely embraces the pain of the world He created, the beauty of God, who died on the cross and on the third day rose victoriously from the dead.
Translation from English by Tatyana Chikina
26 See: Kallistos Ware, uLa transfiguration du Christ et la souffrance du monde", Service Orthodoxe dePresse 322, (November 2007), 33-37
There is some impracticality in the very concept of beauty. Indeed, in modern rational times, more utilitarian values often come to the fore: power, prosperity, material well-being. Sometimes there is no room left for beauty. And only truly romantic natures seek harmony in aesthetic pleasures. Beauty entered culture a long time ago, but from era to era the content of this concept changed, moving away from material items and acquiring the traits of spirituality. During excavations of ancient settlements, archaeologists still find stylized images of primitive beauties, distinguished by their splendor of forms and simplicity of images. During the Renaissance, standards of beauty changed, reflected in the artistic canvases of famous painters who captured the imagination of their contemporaries. Today ideas about human beauty are formed under the influence of mass culture, which imposes strict canons of beauty and ugliness in art. Times go by, beauty looks invitingly at viewers from TV and computer screens, but does it save the world? Sometimes it seems that in to a greater extent The glossy beauty that has become familiar does not so much keep the world in harmony as it requires more and more sacrifices. When Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky put into the mouth of one of the heroes of the novel “The Idiot” the words that beauty will save the world, he, of course, did not mean physical beauty. The great Russian writer, apparently, was far from abstract aesthetic discussions about beauty, since Dostoevsky was always interested in the spiritual beauty, the moral component of the human soul. That beauty, which, according to the writer’s idea, should lead the world to salvation, relates to a greater extent to religious values. So Prince Myshkin, in his qualities, is very reminiscent of the textbook image of Christ, full of meekness, philanthropy and kindness. The hero of Dostoevsky’s novel cannot in any way be accused of selfishness, and the prince’s ability to sympathize with people’s grief often exceeds the boundaries of understanding from the outside. common man. According to Dostoevsky, it is this image that embodies that spiritual beauty, which in essence is the totality of the moral properties of a positive and beautiful person. There is no point in arguing with the author, since this would mean questioning the value system of a very large number of people who hold similar views on the means of saving the world. We can only add that no beauty - neither physical nor spiritual - can transform this world if it is not supported real deeds. Beautiful soul turns into a virtue only when it is active and accompanied by equally beautiful actions. It is this kind of beauty that saves the world.
