12. Ancient Rus and the Great Steppe, Gumilev
XI. The struggle for souls, A detailed discussion of why the Russian ambassadors recommended Greek Orthodoxy to Vladimir. Intrigues of how the church developed and the influences of the anti-system.
66. THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE
The change of religion for one person is a grandiose breakdown of the psyche, but it is immeasurably greater when it comes to the whole people (ethnic group) with established traditions of culture and everyday life. Nevertheless, the change of pagan cults by world religions is ubiquitous, although the details of this process vary. In Russia, the process of Christianization was particularly long, because the preaching of Orthodoxy was resisted not so much by local Slavic ideas about the spirits of the forest, water, houses and about ghouls - the restless souls of the dead, as by neighboring religious doctrines claiming a predominant place in world culture. This rivalry was manifested not only in religious disputes and competition in scholarship and asceticism, but also in direct military clashes, because in man the spirit is closely intertwined with the flesh. (40% uploaded)
Therefore, it turned out to be necessary to break away from the traditional method of telling about the event with as much detail as possible, and review the whole process, first presenting its actors to the reader (in the first approximation), then characterize the main lines of the struggle against Orthodoxy and only then describe the collision in which pagan Russia turned into one of the pillars of Orthodoxy. In this drama, the very act of the baptism of the Kievans in 988 is the culmination of that drama that took place, but its prologue and epilogue are equally important for understanding the phenomenon, which is the purpose of scientific research. Therefore, we will start from afar and go to the goal "in a converging spiral" so as not to miss, not to miss anything.
In the first millennium AD, the Christian faith was preached in all countries - from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. But the seeds of religion that fell on different lands grew differently, as it was said in the parable of the sower (Luke 8:5-15): “those who fell near the road were trampled, some were pecked by birds, those who fell on a stone withered, those caught in thorns were strangled by weeds, only some bore fruit a hundredfold.”
The parable meant individuals, i.e. the organizational level, but at the population level it is just as justified. If in place of persons experiencing the ages - childhood, maturity and old age, we put ethnoses undergoing phases of ethnogenesis - growth, the akmatic phase with "overheating" of passionarity, fracture, inertial phase and transition to homeostasis, then the picture will not fundamentally change. It is only necessary to take into account the dynamism of the geographical environment, changes in climatic conditions and explosions of ethnogenesis with the subsequent attenuation of the passionate tension. At the moment of passionate explosion, figuratively speaking, the road changes direction, the thorns dry up, a humus layer appears on the stones and the conditions for seed germination become different.
That is why the confessions of faith were divided, and the division led either to complete isolation - Islam, or to violations of dogma - heresy, or to church schisms. The reasons for these phenomena should be sought not in the religion, but in the people who have accepted it, and in the alternation of generations that change beyond recognition. But all these natural changes are neutral in themselves, i.e. they are neither good nor evil. Good and evil are phenomena that enter history through human consciousness and the attitude to the natural environment dictated by this consciousness. Let's clarify the wording of this thesis.
Confessions of faith are unequal. Even directed to salvation, some paths are tortuous roads, others are narrow, winding paths. It depends not only on the development of dogmatics. but it also depends on the moral state of society, and the latter is associated with the level of passionarity of the system, i.e. with the phase of ethnogenesis. Salvation of the soul is repentance, or rather, independent reconsideration (metavoia) of one's actions and their motivation. It is possible only at a high spiritual intensity. On the other hand, where there is a cooling ash in the soul, there is no passionate energy for genuine creativity.
But it is not only to salvation that the impulses of people's behavior are directed. We see everywhere either cults of the forces of nature, or atheisms, which are no less than religions. This is the zero point for reference. Pagans treat nature and culture humanely, although they do not consider the geographical environment a Creation.
But those who hate the beauty of the world and life in its diverse forms are disgusted. What the Manichaeans called Light, Gnostics called Pleroma, Kabbalists called En-Sof (Infinite and Infinite Nothingness), and some scholastics called "Divine Darkness", is now described in theoretical physics as a vacuum stealing photons (particles of light), i.e. performing the functions of a medieval Lucifer. Those who follow the form of Emptiness cannot be pitied, they cannot be helped, it is impossible to achieve peace with them... So people believed in them in the Middle Ages, and they had grounds for such an assessment, because they encountered representatives of anti-systems and knew what to expect from them.
In the IX-X centuries, the overwhelming majority of people were dualists in the sense that they did not doubt the existence of a creating god and a destroying devil. The dispute was only about what is good: a life of suffering or final self-destruction?
In the Middle Ages, people were not cowardly. Death as a fact was a phenomenon too familiar to give up the joy of victory for the sake of salvation, or to bear an insult, or to sacrifice one's views and principles. After all, they went to war voluntarily, that's why they won victories. Therefore, the prospect of getting rid of the sufferings of life, but by irretrievably losing its joys, attracted few. There was no imperative incentive to join a sect or a community of Manichaeans, but since it was not the whole ethnic groups that joined it, but individual people living in the same geographical environment, in the same socio-economic formation and who did not benefit from such a transition except for the opportunity to get on the bonfire, it should be recognized that the change of the vector of activity from plus to minus was the result of a person's free will. And if so, then the person who made the choice bore moral and legal responsibility for his act, i.e. he became not just a gentile, but a criminal. People understood this and nevertheless went to all lengths, knowing that there would be no mercy.
And here's what's interesting: despite the fact that the described crisis of monism was literally relevant everywhere in the IX century, heretical movements that covered wide segments of the population arose only on the borders of super-ethnoses, both newly formed or relict. And, having formed, they seemed to widen the cracks between the tectonic plates, if we apply an image borrowed from geology, after which the cultures of the divided ethnic groups developed each in their own way. And filling in the "cracks" (Pavlikianism, Blasphemy, Albiganism in Christian countries, Karmatism, Ismailism in Muslim countries), despite many differences, had common features that related these trends. The Eastern analog of the listed creeds were Uighur Manichaeism [1] and Tantric Buddhism [2], but we will not touch on them, since they have no direct relation to Russia.
But the northern peoples - Slavs and Mongols - were not affected by this phenomenon because their worldview was guilelessly dualistic. They saw in the world the struggle of Belbog with Chernobog, understanding by the deeds of the latter not the bloodshed during the wars, without which they could not imagine existence, but the betrayal of the confidant and lies, just like in Mithraism.[3]
And perhaps they were the closest of all others to ancient Christianity. That is why Poles from Rome accepted him so easily, Russians from Constantinople, and Mongol neighbors (Keraites, Naimans, Onguts, etc.) from Baghdad, where the Nestorian patriarch's residence was located.[4]
67. BIPOLARITY
It would seem that the principle of Islam - strict monism - excluded all possibilities of dualistic interpretations of ethics and especially metaphysics. However, even here a way out was found - disobedience, with the inclusion of one detail that seems extremely significant.
According to the Quran, Iblis was created as a bright angel, but when Allah created Adam, he ordered all the angels to worship him. Iblis refused, replying: "I'm better than him. You created me from fire, and You created him from clay" (Koran. M., 1963. 7, II).
This is how Iblis stood out from among those who obey Allah, became invisible, acquires different images and turns people away from religion. It should not be confused with the numerous unclean spirits of nature and the souls of sinners. All these Ifrits, ghouls, albasts, etc. were considered beings of the lower, i.e. earthly, world, whereas Iblis stood in opposition to Allah, seduced Adam and Eve and is practically independent of Allah. Here again the eternal question arises: if Allah is omnipotent, then why does he tolerate the activities of Iblis? Moreover, it will get worse until the Day of the Last Judgment, when disbelief will prevail and Dajjal will appear - an analogue of the apocalyptic Antichrist. Dajjal will mock faith, blaspheme Allah and praise Shaitan, but the Prophet Isa will put an end to his evil deeds, i.e. Jesus Christ, who will descend from heaven (the Second Coming), after which the "Great Day" will come in forty years - the End of the World. The world as such will disappear, and thus there will be no place for Shaitan, who will turn into Nothing, the same one that was described above as the antagonist of the creative principle - the Personality called God. It means that here, too, under the cover of monism, the principle of the bipolarity of the world is hidden.
It is generally believed that there is "no originality" in the dogmatics of Islam, since it’s dogmatics were formed under the influence of other monotheistic religions.[5] However, the primitive perception of this indisputable position leads to profanation, and thereby to deviation from the truth. Thus, R.R. Mavlyutov writes that Allah is "in many ways similar to the Judaic Yahweh and the Christian God the father," although "the dogma of the trinity of God is strongly rejected by Muslims"[6]. So, what is common here?
If we look for analogies, then we should recall the role of Iblis, created from fire, in the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise. Its counterpart in the Book of Genesis is a cherub with a "flaming sword" guarding the entrance to Eden (Genesis 3, 24). But this angel was doing Yahweh's will. Then it was Yahweh who spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai from a burning bush (Exodus 3, 2-5), led the Jews from Egypt in the form of a pillar of fire (Exodus 13, 21), and when issuing the ten commandments appeared in fire (Exodus 19, 18). If we compare this with the "executions" of innocent Egyptians, especially newborn firstborn, with the deception of girls whose girlfriends took gold jewelry for a holiday and ran away without returning them, and the extermination of the inhabitants of Palestine, including children, then all this looks more like Iblis than Allah. Muhammad was a man of amazing intuition: he recognized in Iblis a fiery demon. Only the level of science of the VII century did not allow him to notice that Yahweh was also a fiery demon. But there was no way that Allah, the analogue of the Holy Father God, could become him. Trinity.[7]
The Old Testament religion - the cult of Yahweh as a deity associated with the Jewish ethnic group - developed and then degraded to the turn of the new era, after which the Jews created Talmudism, in fact an independent philosophy. But in relict forms, the Pentateuch and the Psalter became widely known, which was greatly facilitated by the literary merits of the books of the Old Testament. And it was with the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus Christ argued in the temple in Galilee, because "the Jews sought to kill Him" (John 7, II.)
The reason for the hatred was elementary: Jesus said what the narcissistic philistine did not know, and the philistine cannot admit that anyone dares to know what he does not know who considers himself a descendant of Abraham (John 8, 39) and, moreover, the son of God (John 8, 41). All Jews considered themselves "sons of God", meaning only their ethnic god, and not the gods of other ethnic groups - let them figure it out for themselves. In response to this, "Jesus said to them: If God were your father, then you would love me, because I came from God and came, for I did not come from myself, but He sent Me... Your father is the devil, and you want to fulfill your father's lusts; he was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth, for there is no truth in him; when he speaks a lie, he speaks his own, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:42-44).
The thesis is formulated very precisely: Jesus considered the Jewish Yahweh to be the devil, whom he had driven away from himself in the desert during fasting shortly before. This was the same fiery demon who spoke to Moses (John 9:29), as the scribes and Pharisees themselves claimed. Consequently, a Christian could no longer choose between the Great and the New Testaments, between the devil and God. Recognizing Yahweh as God, he ceased to be a Christian, and after the adoption of the Trinity formula at the Council of Nicaea, the question itself disappeared, because Yahweh is alone.
In the X century both Eastern confessions, Orthodoxy and Islam, diverging in many principles of dogma and ritual, were unanimous in clearly contrasting God with the devil and their positive confessions - Judaism. To formulate this difference is simple: Christians and Muslims prayed to the same god, but in different ways [8], and Jews - in a different way. The latter excluded confessional contacts with Judaism, leaving only business relations. However, this suited both sides. This discrepancy should be clarified.
The usual opposition of theism to atheism is not constructive, because it does nothing to understand the relationship of mentalities with a reliable statement of their bipolarity: positive and negative. Mystical atheism is also possible - Gnostic teachings, including Manichaeism. In Buddhism, Hinayana is an atheistic teaching, but positive, since it recognizes the reality of samsara - the world in perpetual motion, causing suffering, and the Mahayanist schools - Madyamika and yogacharya - are atheistic and negative.
Tsonghawa's "yellow faith" - theistic Buddhism - is positive, and the cult of the Supreme Being established by Robespierre is negative, although the "philosophems" persecuted atheists on a par with Catholics,[9] Apparently, Hitler worshipped the same god[10], because it is not the name of the deity that is important, but the system of worldview that forms a stereotype of the behavior of a consortium that stood out from a large ethnic group, and created a "small people"[11], or an "anti-system" inside it. Since the events of the XX century are not sufficiently covered in the literature available to me, we will limit ourselves to an example from the XVIII century.
"...In the French Revolution, a large role was played by the circle of people formed in philosophical societies and academies, in Masonic lodges, clubs and sections... he lived in his own intellectual and spiritual world. "Small people" among the "big people", or "anti-people" among the people (ethnos. - L.G.)...
Here a type of person was developed who was disgusted with all the roots of the nation: Catholic faith, noble honor, loyalty to the king, pride in his history, attachment to the customs of his province, his estate, guild. The worldviews of both were built on the opposite principles... if in the ordinary world everything is checked by experience, then opinion decides here. What others think is real, what they say is true, what they approve is good. The doctrine becomes not the consequence, but the cause of life. The image of a person of "small people" is a "savage" who sees everything, but understands nothing. His habitat is emptiness, as for others it is the real world; he seems to be freed from the fetters of life, everything is clear and understandable to him; in the environment of the "big people" he suffocates like a fish pulled out of water. As a consequence, the belief that everything should be borrowed from the outside (in France of the XVIII century. - from England, in Russia - from France)... Being cut off from the spiritual connection with the people, he looks at it as material, and at its processing as a technical problem. This is expressed in the symbol of the Masonic movement - in the image of building a temple, where people are stones applied to each other according to the architect's drawings"[12].
In the tenth century, the Bogumils in Bulgaria and the Manichaean community in Macedonia played a similar role, but their activities mainly spread to the west: to Italy (Patarenes) and Provence (Cathars). These thinkers have so far neglected the Slavs.
Now, taking into account the complexity of the global situation and contradictions that were not previously noticed and not taken into account, you can return to Kiev, where, after the death of Svyatoslav, the fate of the ancient Russian ethnos and the ways of its cultural development were decided.
68. THE CHOICE OF FAITH
In the "Tale of Bygone Years" under 986, a didactic novella about the choice of faith by Prince Vladimir is placed. There is no doubt that the plot was borrowed from someone, because there is a similar story in the "Letter of King Joseph" and it is also taken from somewhere. This, however, does not mean that the chronicle narrative is not based on any historical facts.[13] And what happened anyway? This is the Nestor chronical.
Vladimir seized the golden table of Kiev by brute force. In the same way, he expanded the limits of his power, thereby acquiring many enemies both among neighbors and among his subjects. To retain power, you need strength and popularity. The first was there, and the second was missing. There was especially a lack of sincerity, which is always manifested in religion, where sympathies are disinterested. Relying on bought friends is dangerous. They betray if anyone promises them more.
Vladimir's smart advisers understood this. They also took into account the complexity of the foreign policy situation, especially after two Bulgarian failures: Svyatoslav's campaign on the Danube and Dobrynya's campaign on the Kama. The problem of the allies has become super-urgent. But it was also solved by adopting this or that confession, which played the role of a political alliance program. However, even here the guarantee of constancy was sincerity, without which there was no trust, and therefore no union. Therefore, it was necessary to choose a program acceptable to both subjects, rulers, and one of the strong neighbors.
The evil Baltic gods were not liked by the Kievans, Perun, among whom Orthodoxy had been spreading since 864 [14], although it had not yet become the state religion. Therefore, missionaries from the South (Greeks), from the East (Bulgarians) and from the West (Germans) began to penetrate into Kiev again, and the prince listened to the sermons, because a mistake in choosing a faith could cost the throne and the head. It was necessary to weigh everything.
Vladimir refused to accept Islam because of the prohibition to drink wine. It was not a matter of the prince's personal addiction to alcohol, but in the ritual of communication with the squad - a joint meal, at which they necessarily drank intoxicating drinks - beer and honey - for fun, not intoxication. The rejection of the tradition of joint feasts promised the prince the loss of the squad, which would see this as an insulting neglect.
Vladimir refused to talk to Catholics at all, referring to the fact that previous contacts had not yielded results. Obviously, he was referring to Bishop Adalbert's mission to Olga and her refusal to accept the Latin faith. But maybe later events that took place in Italy and had significance for the whole of Europe also played a role.
Until the 9th century, Sicily and Southern Italy were an integral part of Byzantium, but as soon as the Berbers seized the initiative from the Arabs in the western part of the caliphate, they developed an offensive throughout the Mediterranean. For two hundred years, beautiful Sicily has been the scene of a brutal war, similar to the one that took place here between the Hellenes and the Punians fifteen hundred years before. And this time the forces of the rivals were equal, and a third force also intervened in the war - Rome, ruled by the German king Otto II, who persuaded his subjects at the imperial diet in Verona in 983 to start a war against the Greeks and Saracens.
This fact shows that already at the end of the tenth century the "Christian world" of the Catholic West regarded Greek schismatics as "strangers", on a par with Muslims. And this was only the beginning of the alienation process. A century later, the knights went to the east, claiming that "this is what God wants," and here the feudal lords agreed that "this is what Otto II wants." But the difference is not fundamental.
Kiev diplomats were well aware that it was impossible to combine Latin and Greek orientations. Therefore, they abandoned the tedious and unnecessary dispute, which is reflected in the chronicle, where the panegyric of the Greek faith is placed. But it is preceded by a brief dialogue with the Khazar Jews, which we will focus on.
"...Khazar Jews came and said: "We heard that Bulgarians and Christians came, teaching you each of their faiths. Christians believe in the one whom we crucified, and we believe in the one god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." And Vladimir asked: "What kind of law do you have?" They answered: "To be circumcised, not to eat pork and hare, to keep the Sabbath." He asked: "And where is your land?" They said: "In Jerusalem." He asked again, "Is she really there?" And they answered: "God was angry with our fathers and scattered us to various countries for our sins, and gave our land to Christians." Vladimir said to this: "How do you teach others, but you are rejected by God and scattered: if God loved you and your law, you would not be scattered in foreign lands. Or do you want the same for us?" [15]
The text was compiled in the XII century, since in the X century. Palestine belonged to the Arabs, and the Crusaders owned Jerusalem in 1099-1187. But that's not the point - the text records the attempt of the Khazar Jews to get their hands on the Kiev kagan, just as it happened with the Itil. Then the Russ would quickly find themselves in the position of the native Khazars. But the cunning Slav was more astute than the gullible Turk and preferred an alliance with the overseas, safe Greeks.[16]
It is clear that the missions of Muslims and Jews preceded the war with the Bulgarians and Khazars, i.e. took place no later than the beginning of 985, and since Russian troops in 987 took part in suppressing the uprising of Varda Phokas in Asia Minor, it turns out that the unsuccessful campaign against the Bulgarians and the successful conquest of the North Caucasus fall at the end of 985. and 986 After this war, the Judeo-Khazars turned out to be part of Russia, but not as a government under a newly converted prince, but as inhabitants of a suburban city in one of the appanage principalities - Temutarakan. And the seventh son of Vladimir, Mstislav, became the master of their fate.
69. THE CHOICE OF CONSCIENCE
The explanation of the preference of the Greek faith contained in the "Tale of Bygone Years", despite the thoroughness of Nestor, seems partly biased, partly far-fetched and, in any case, superficial. In the X-XI centuries, Islam spread widely among the Turks, who really did not drink wine, but drank koumiss and milk vodka (arak). Couldn't Vladimir exclude honey and beer from the list of forbidden drinks, and leave grape wine for personal use, especially since it was expensive in Russia because of the need to bring it from Constantinople? And the refusal to talk to a German monk is explained quite unsatisfactorily. Obviously, there is a lot left unsaid in the chronicle, and if so, then we need to think about it.
It is also curious that, having rejected Judaism, the Russian people of the X-XII centuries read the Old Testament with interest, often quoted it and, apparently, did not identify the ancient religion of the Palestinian Jews with Talmudic Judaism. In the XX century, the discrepancy between these two confessions is clear to a specialist historian, but it turns out that a thousand years ago, simply educated people did not have doubts about this. Anyway, the rejection of the Jewish faith, which spread exclusively sexually in the tenth century, (through the mother), is not a mystery. The example of the unfortunate Khazaria was too memorable. But the reasons for the rejection of Islam and Catholicism are not so simple.
In the IX and X centuries, attitudes that we called anti-systems spread throughout the cultural world. The only exceptions were Russia, the peoples of Siberia and partly Byzantium. Let's clarify the wording of the concept of "anti-system" and try to extract arguments for the conclusion from the description of this phenomenon.
Since we have chosen nature, both surrounding us and enclosed in our bodies, as a starting point, it should be recognized that the attitude towards it is possibly twofold, which manifested itself in religious teachings, the philosophems of which can be characterized as diametrically opposed:
1. A person recognizes himself as a part of nature, the upper link of the biocenosis - then he does not oppose himself to animals, his smaller brothers, and, like them, kills to eat, or to protect himself, or to defend his right to reproduce children, and when he dies, he gives his body to be eaten by plants and worms.
2. Man opposes himself to nature, in which he sees the sphere of suffering. At the same time, he is obliged to include his own body into the biosphere he rejects, from which it is necessary to free the "soul", i.e. consciousness. Different ways were proposed for this, but the principle was always the same - the denial of the world as a source of evil.
These two approaches to the problem of the biosphere can be traced wherever there is a recorded history. At the beginning of A.D. the first concept was presented by Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism (Vedanta), Confucianism, Taoism and pagan systems of Turks, Slavs and Finns. The second concept did not arise among ethnic groups, but at their junctions and spread across the zones of ethnic contacts. It began with the Antiochian Gnostics, and it existed in the form of Manichaeism, Mazdakism, Ismailism in Persia, Catharism in France, Bohumilism in Bulgaria and Pavlikianism in Asia Minor. The logic of this concept was charming, because it replaced vague intuition with "knowledge", of course, intimate, but people instinctively rejected temptation and behaved the same way in China as in France, in the Arab Caliphate and in Southern Siberia. And those peoples or communities that accepted this fascinating teaching quickly lost its adherents, and at the same time their fame, culture and independence. However, the negation of the world flared up in another place with renewed vigor, again preached the "religion of light" and again left behind corpses and ashes enveloped in darkness. Well, from their point of view, the result was desirable - through death, the suffering of living beings was stopped, but where did the preachers of numerous and diverse anti-systems get energy for their terrible deeds? Obviously, they were as passionate as the supporters of positive systems, but at the expense of what?
Positive ethnic systems arise due to a push (mutation) or genetic drift and exist drawing from the nature of their region. Anti-systems of ethnic groups do not form, the riches of nature are neglected and nest in the body of ethnic groups, like cancerous tumors in living organisms. Their passionarity is always high, but they draw it from the swings of passionate tension, as a result of which they arise on the borders of ethnic groups or superethnoses. The diversity of the ethnosphere, i.e. its best decoration, is used by anti-systems to annihilate culture and nature. Their traditions are passed on outside families, from teachers to students. This means that the place of signal heredity, which is related to humans with other mammals, is occupied here by training, which is unthinkable without a written text. And the difference between "living" traditions, assimilated during childhood education, and "made-traditions”, i.e. book traditions, is the same as between organisms and things. Some, dying, are restored through offspring, others are slowly destroyed without hope of recovery. Only a person can fix a thing, and a new ethnic group can restore a book tradition. That is why the era of humanism, i.e. reading and assimilation of the legacy of a dead culture, was called "Revival".
But the anti-system is not a thing. She pulls passionarity out of the ethnos that contains her, like a ghoul. This is not difficult for her because her goal is not creation, i.e. complication of the system, but simplification, or the translation of living matter into the stagnant, - by depriving it of its form - into amorphous, and this latter is easily amenable to annihilation, which is the goal of the advocates of the anti-system.
Therefore, anti-systems exist for a very long time, changing their receptacles - doomed ethnic groups. Sometimes they arise anew where two or three ethnic stereotypes overlap each other. And if they have to change the symbol of faith and the dogma of confession at the same time, it does not matter. The principle of striving for destruction remains, and this is the main thing [17].
There is no doubt that the clash of adherents of systems with opposite worldviews cannot pass without a trace. They are mutually extinguished as charges with different signs or as acid and alkali in a neutralization reaction. The one whose mass is greater survives, and from which, therefore, the remainder is preserved. If the system triumphs, ethnogenesis continues normally; if the anti-system wins, the ethnos falls apart, weakens and becomes the prey of its neighbors. But the process of such a reaction is long. Even acute collisions are counted for centuries. Therefore, it is possible to see the anti-system only on the broad canvases of history.
At the end of the IX century Byzantium has coped with its anti-system - Pavlikianism - and has not yet encountered a new anti-system - blasphemy. Some small Manichaean communities lurked in Macedonia, on the border with Serbia, and in Western Bulgaria. They did not seem dangerous, because their time had not yet come.
But in the Arab-Muslim and Romano-Germanic superethnoses, anti-systems existed and operated, and their religious teachers wore masks of mullahs and theological monks. The observant ambassadors of Prince Vladimir could not help noticing the internal inconsistency that reigned in the grandiose cultures of the West and the Middle East. We should also pay attention to the thoughts, feelings and deeds of contemporaries of the baptism of Russia into Orthodoxy, as if to take the place of the ambassadors, and then make an "empirical generalization, equal in evidence to the observed fact."
70. SPLIT THE FIELD
Until the 9th century, the Eastern and Western Christian churches, despite ethnographic differences and political problems, felt like a single "body", or, in scientific terms, an integral system. And suddenly it turned out that a crack appeared between them, which in three centuries turned into an abyss. By itself, the dispute between Pope Nicholas I and Patriarch Photius could not be the cause of the split. And with more important disagreements, prelates and bishops found an acceptable way out. But this dispute coincided with the moment when the inertial phase of ethnogenesis was established in Byzantium, orthodoxy in the religious aspect, and in the West - with a change in the stereotype of behavior, and thinking, and the formation of a new worldview caused by a passionate impulse. And if the Greeks found a common language with the Mu'tazilite Muslims, freethinkers who recognize freedom of will, then the Franks borrowed eastern wisdom from the Ismailis who lurked in North Africa under the guise of Shiism - the teachings allowed in the countries of Islam. This teaching was passed on to the French and Italians who studied in Spain, the Jewish professors there, of course, in their interpretation. Europeans perceived Eastern philosophies critically to the best of their abilities, but for anti-criticism one talent is not enough, a scientific tradition is needed, which in the IX century still had to be created. And this was done in two versions: scholastic and heretical. The first was formulated as a principle in the IX century, and the second - in the XI century.
This combination of attitudes and separation from orthodoxy has brought Western Christians a lot of suffering. But in the conditions of ethnic contacts, suffering during a passionate ascent is inevitable. No matter how difficult it was to study the subtleties of theology, there were people who took it up. The ardent scholar-monk Scott Erigena studied Greek, became a translator of Dionysius the Areopagite, Origen and Maximus the Confessor, received a lot of information about the Indian philosophy of "karika" and created his own cosmological system, the principles of which have survived to our time in some schools of European idealism.[18] Erigena's main work "On the Division of Nature" contains a thesis that we will briefly convey in order not to distract from the main line of the narrative.
Nature is a universe divided into four kinds of being: creative, but uncreated; created and creative; created, but uncreative: uncreated and uncreative. ✓The first is proposed to be considered a God about whom we know nothing, and He himself does not know that He is. Having neither beginning nor end, God cannot act, i.e. move, but He cannot rest either; he is hindered by the will through which He wants to be everything. In relation to the objects of the world, He is "non-existence"; in relation to ideas, causality and potentiality; in relation to himself, "divine darkness", because, as a monad, He is equal to himself. And this non-existence constantly pours out and forms countless potencies, which in turn, through the assimilation of forms, become reality (well, why is this not pantheism?).
This terrible nothingness wants to become being and, thanks to the presence of his will, forms a Trinity, where ✓the Son is the transformation of the described Nothingness into an object - a single prototype that passes into many forms. These "forms" are apparently Platonic ideas - emanations that turn into objects, revealing themselves as human souls that "create and create." They are partly ideas in which God attains self-consciousness, but since God is non-existence, the souls that are the evolution of non-existence are also incomprehensible to God (ah yes Erigena!).
The original human body was spiritual, not divided into two sexes, but "deteriorated" due to the fall of Adam. It is formed by the soul and it can be elevated to an angel-like state and even become higher than angels. And the sensory world surrounding people belongs to the ✓third category, which "is created and does not create." So, man is isolated from the biosphere as a special being, only degraded to an animal state due to the temptation of the serpent. "...God curses neither Adam nor Eve, but only the serpent. This is because the Lord does not curse His creations. He only does good... He curses the evil that did not come from Him, but it is the work of the human will that has deviated from its goal." Here John Scotus Erigena repeats Origen, but the idea of human degradation is also in Indian philosophy.
✓The fourth state of nature, which "is not created and does not create," is a return to the source of being, i.e., to the "divine darkness." At the same time, the body decomposes into four elements, resurrects, turning into a spirit, and then all human nature flows into the Deity revered by Erigena. In other words, the souls of the dead are dear to the "divine darkness", i.e. the most terrible thing for a simple person of the Middle Ages.
Erigena himself understood that it was impossible to pray to the "non-existence" that gave birth to the world involuntarily - through emanation, not an act of creation - and not knowing about its own existence. If the prayer is not heard, it is not needed. Therefore, he suggested replacing faith with knowledge. "True philosophy is true religion." Let's say, but scientific knowledge, then called philosophy, is constantly changing. So, according to Erigene, the dogmas, including the principles set out above, must also change. But where then is the criterion of the truth of judgments? Experience? But it is not in the experience that Erigena perceived the "divine darkness".
And finally, in the concept of Erigena, contrary to the evidence of the Gospel, there is no place for Satan as an opponent and tempter of Christ. Here Erigena follows the authors of the II-III centuries, who tried to combine strict monism with the direct words of Christ about eating in the desert.
In the era of late antiquity, the problem of Satanogenesis was debated repeatedly. In the second century, the devil was introduced into church dogmatics by Irenaeus of Lyon, defining his exact place in it. Irenaeus also has a clearly expressed idea that the devil was created like other angels, that he is good by nature, has free will and could do equally good and evil, but by his own will and fault he became evil and does only evil. He "abused" his freedom due to his inherent pride, arrogance and swagger, as well as to a considerable extent envy; for these properties, according to Origen, he was cast down from heaven to earth and turned into a kind of fallen angel. His envy was especially inflamed when he became convinced that Adam and Eve had children; therefore, he led Cain to kill his brother, dear to God, and became the ancestor of death, which continues even now.
In addition to these properties, the devil's fall from heaven was also influenced by his excessive lust, the reason for the fall of so many angels chasing the daughters of mortals. From the cohabitation of fallen angels with them came "unworthy of heaven" demons, assistants and collaborators of the devil, prowling around the world and causing people a lot of evil. According to Irenaeus, the fall of the devil occurred in the period between the creation of man and his redemption, and the fallen angel is corporeal, although his body is "less physical than the human body"[19].
It is easy to see that the version of Irenaeus of Lyons does not go back to the Gospel, but to the "Revelation of Enoch", dating from 165 BC. This is a return to the Old Testament tradition, which underwent significant changes in the era of the Maccabees. The Qumran texts set forth the doctrine that the god of knowledge created the spirits of Truth and Falsehood, or light and darkness, who fight among themselves "in the heart of a man". The God of Israel helps the sons of Righteousness, who will eventually win a decisive victory.[20]
This teaching is at odds with biblical monotheism, according to which good and evil equally originate from Yahweh. Thus, the author of the 45th chapter of Isaiah exclaims: "He who creates light and creates darkness, who makes peace and does evil - I, Yahweh, who does it" (45.7 and 44. 6-7) [21]. I.D.
Amusin believes that the thoughts of the Qumran people were influenced by the Persian philosophy of Zervanism - the doctrine of Zervan - "infinite time", which gave birth to both Ormuzd and Ahriman. But if so, then the "Revelation of Enoch" is a protest against dualism and an excuse for the devil, angered by too cruel punishment.
Why the version of Enoch was adopted by Irenaeus and Origen is understandable. In their time, the main enemy of the church was gnosticism. Looking for arguments against Marcion, Christian polemicists adopted ancient ideas, which then hung on them like a heavy load. Origen had to put forward the idea of the devil's forgiveness by God, of course, after the Last Judgment, although the devil does not want to be forgiven at all. The Church did not accept Origen's version, but neither did it reject the interpretation of Irenaeus, or rather Enoch. Therefore, the question of Satan-ogenesis remained open.
To Irenaeus belongs the unification of two problems: the nature of the devil and the nature of demons, essentially separated, even if we recognize the devil (Satan) as one of the demons, by which the ancients understood the beings of our world, but more perfect than humans.
"According to the theologian of the II century Tatiana, the body of the devil and demons consists of air or fire. Being "almost corporeal", the devil and his helpers need food, and Origen claims that they "greedily swallow" the sacrificial smoke. They are mentally and physically more gifted than an ordinary mortal, and it is a mistake to assume, Tatiana teaches, that they are the souls of the dead. Based on the location and movement of the stars, they foresee the future and also possess secret knowledge, which they willingly reveal to women.[22]
This teaching was relevant in the II-III centuries.. when Christians were executed by emperors who revered demons called gods. Then the spirits of the dead, empusa, were the object of the activity of sorcerers, also persecuted by Roman laws. But for the Germans who converted to Christianity, elves, fairies and dwarves were "little people", and not enemies at all. But the souls of the dead, but not calmed down people (vampires) who inspired an irresistible fear, and the real existence of the devil as a source of evil did not arouse doubts. And suddenly a great scientist preaches that terrible ghosts are pleasing to God, who does not want to know people, and he himself is not a giver of light, but a "divine darkness".
How could the monks of the monastery of Malmesbury, where Erigena was the abbot, pray to the Darkness, which cannot even hear them? They could not but see blasphemy in the teachings of their abbot, and in 890 they killed him with their own inkwell. But even after that, the sore points were not removed.
The fate of Erigena's teaching also deserves attention. In the turbulent tenth century, theological problems were not debated, but since the end of the eleventh century, interest in his ideas has awakened, and it turned out that he was the culprit for the appearance of many false teachings and entire sects in the Western church. In the XIII century, Erigena's book "On the Divisions of Nature" was condemned at the local council in Sens. The condemnation was confirmed by Pope Honorius III in 1225. Since that time, Erigena's thoughts have been accepted and developed" not by theologians, but by idealistic philosophers: Descartes, Idanosa, Kant, Fichte and Hegel"[23]. But this problem goes beyond our chronological period and the aspect of our topic. It is much more important for us to understand due to what influences the eclectic concept of Erigena arose, i.e. how the organic worldview was replaced by a chimeric one.
To begin with, Erigena's teaching is not only NOT Christian, but also not religious. The "divine darkness" is not a person, but an element similar to the Gnostic Pleroma. However, the marked similarities with the atheistic views of Indian philosophy indicate that Erigena drew his thoughts from the Arabs. Since orthodox Muslims did not profess atheism, even mystical, it means that they were African Karmats who lived everywhere under the guise of Shiites.
Erigena could get acquainted with their ideas through the Spanish and Provencal Jews, who, not sharing the Karmatic ideas themselves, were happy to pass them on to Christians in their interpretation. This is supported by the description of "created and creative", i.e. people emanated by "divine darkness". They are too similar to imams, da'is and similar "benefactors" of humanity. There is also a cruel attitude towards the environment, where living beings are devoid of spirituality and therefore do not deserve compassion. In short, in Erigena's teaching one can see an attempt to create an anti-system in the West, similar to the one that developed rapidly in the East in the IX century. Hence, erigenism is a metastasis of Ismailism. However, the ethnic situations of both regions were different.
In the East, contacts at the superethnic level are everywhere observed, and in the West, with all the ethnic diversity, there was one superethnos, and unnatural worldviews could only huddle on its outskirts. Therefore, Erigena's teaching did not bring particularly great harm, although there was harm after all, since this teaching played an important role in the dispute about divine predestination and, accordingly, freedom of will. The descendants of the former co-religionists of St. Augustine joined this dispute, more precisely, people of the type that pushed their ideological ancestors into Manichean communities. These were people far from mystical ecstasy, but very prone to speculative phantasmagoria, which, from their point of view, explained all contradictions and answered all questions. Their thesis was extremely simple and exhaustive - dualism.
The place of activity of these thinkers was Italy and Southern France, where Greek, Arab, Jewish and local Jews met, and the Rhine cities of Germany, virtually independent of both feudal lords and the crown. Along the Rhine up to Flanders, pretty muddy thoughts flowed along with the then still clear waters, nevertheless answering the painful questions of the Middle Ages.
Dualists offered a consistent solution to the problem of people's responsibility for their sins.[24] They unconditionally and clearly denied the freedom of human will and divided people into those created by good and those created by evil gods. People can do evil only against their will, and, therefore, sin is not imputed to them, but can only delay their return "home". At the same time, they postulated the pre-existence of souls and metampsychosis. By this "return" they are connected with the cosmology of Erigena, with the only difference that the latter denied the evil principle; but he called God "divine darkness", so it is unclear who he worshipped: god or Satan?
From the point of view of his monk disciples, the second solution was more logical, since the "divine darkness" (uncreated and creative) took back into itself not its emanation, i.e. ideas (created and creative) and invisible things that fill the world (created and uncreative), and the restless souls of the dead (uncreated and uncreative), i.e. simply "undead", vampires, whom people are afraid of and whose "destiny" is pseudo-existence with evil activity (towards people).
Translating this dilemma into the language of modern concepts, we can say that in the emerging system of representations, the role of the devil was played by a vacuum, which, as is known, is very active when confronted with matter, although it is devoid of existence without it. But since the vivid imagination of the people of that time required the personification of both good and evil principles, Satan and the host of demons - Beelzebub, Astaroth, Astarte, Moloch and the lame imp Asmodeus - were accepted as a working hypothesis. In this form, they survived until the Renaissance, giving rise to the theoretical justification of the Second Inquisition.
This trend of philosophical thought, despite its obvious unnaturalness, gradually strengthened its position and popularity and figured in scholasticism along with realism and nominalism. Despite the obvious canonical differences between the followers of Blessed Augustine and the church position, the Augustinians were not only not persecuted (with one exception - the condemnation of the monk Gottschalk by Bishop Rabanus Moor of Cologne), but, on the contrary, from the tenth century they enjoyed the support of the authorities, because the author of justifying the persecution of heretics was Blessed Augustine [25]. His Manichaean intolerance was 1000 years ahead of historical time: and only Jean Calvin managed to use it completely, but hardly for the benefit of his followers.
71. SOLUTION
Were the Russian seekers of faith aware of the complexity of the interweaving of symbols of confessions and political programs in the Muslim world and disputes about dogmas in the Catholic world? They couldn't help but know that! Kiev merchants and warriors constantly visited Constantinople, fought in Crete and Asia Minor, traded with the Egyptians and Syrians. This means that knowledge of the economic conjuncture and the political situation was vital for them. But if so, then they saw that the Baghdad and Cairo rulers were cruelly at enmity with each other because of faith, and then they could not help noticing the difference between Sunnism and Ismailism, because Slavic slaves were bought both in Baghdad and in Cairo.
Russians constantly communicated with Poland, where German monks preached. They also knew that the Greeks had translated the Holy Scriptures into a language accessible to the Slavs, and that Pope John XIII (965-972) in 967 banned worship in "Russian or Slavic language"[26]. It was difficult to see benevolence towards the Russians in this prohibition, but the fact that the prohibition was made public a year after Svyatoslav's campaign against Khazaria and the fall of Itil, involuntarily catches the eye. Maybe the Rachdonites also found support from the pope.
But even this could not be the decisive circumstance. Accepting someone else's religion, you have to trust a missionary: a mullah or a prelate. But the Ismailida'i (heralds) could easily play the role of a mullah and plant a disastrous anti-system in a foreign country. So, they did it with the Berbers, using their valor to capture Egypt and invade Syria, and then got rid of them by sending battered detachments back to Tunisia. The described events took place in the 970’s of the tenth century, simultaneously with the beginning of the search for faith in Russia. It must be assumed that it would be unpleasant for the Russians to be deceived as much as the Berbers, and even more insulting, because the caliph Ubay-dullah was a Jew, and declared himself a descendant of the prophet's sister. But if the Berbers neglected the inconsistency of words with facts and did not begin to find out the true genealogy of their Mahdi, it was only because their interests coincided: The leader and the masses had a common antipathy to the Arabs. The Russians were completely untouched by intra-caliphate squabbles, but they did not want to be deceived and used.
And in the West, secret teachings have also become not just explicit, but also persistent. Until the tenth century, heresy, according to the apt expression of one Protestant historian, resembled a modest plant hidden from the eyes of people. But in the X century, she raised her head and openly declared her inner strength and energy.[27] Having received a harmonious organization from the Slavic Manichaeans who nested in Macedonia and Dalmatia, heresy moved from Italy to France and Flanders, where scholasticism prepared the way for heretics into the hearts of Catholics.[28]
Of course, one can think about why the Russian ambassadors themselves did not get carried away with Manichaeism, but it was impossible for a normal person with a clear head to imagine that the devil, or Chernobog, whom they were afraid of, was just a poor angel, embittered by a cruel punishment for a prank, that you can't eat meat, and get married - especially since the whole luxurious world, with dense forests, blue seas, clear rivers, mighty beasts for hunting and beautiful women - mothers of heroes - all this is an abomination created by Satan for the destruction of people. However, Europe was saturated with Manichaeism, and it was impossible to distinguish orthodoxy from heresy, especially since the church itself was not always consistent, even in the pressing issues of everyday morality.
The Russian people who were in Greece and Italy could not have failed to know that the doctrine they understood about the salvation of the righteous and the posthumous punishment of the wicked, the doctrine on which everyday ethics is based, is being replaced in the monastic schools of Europe by the doctrine of predestination, according to which nothing depends on the will of people, because there are lucky people destined for paradise inaccessible to other, even virtuous, husbands. Yes, the Catholic Church did not officially prescribe agreement with the thesis of Blessed Augustine, but it did not refute it, and the masters of theology preferred to follow Augustine, because this relieved people of responsibility for their actions and gave the popes power over the fate of sinners even after their death. It was very convenient for the dads, but it seemed unnatural to Russian people.
In both cases, they could not argue with the theologians who had studied the Koran and the Bible, but they felt that they were not being enlightened, but used. Such is the property of the anti-system - it cannot be refuted logically, but it is felt, and everyone has the right not to accept it.
The Russians did so. They chose Greek orthodoxy because there was no double bottom in it. Byzantium wanted only friendship from Russia and the cessation of senseless raids on the Black Sea coast. And she did not spice up the preaching of Orthodoxy with intricacies, even if unintentional.
The Byzantines overcame their own disease of rejection of the world - Pavlikianism - back in the IX century, and the Slavic anti-system - blasphemy - was localized in Bulgaria itself, preventing a religious war. Concerned about the appearance of an extraordinary heresy, Tsar Peter of Bulgaria turned to Patriarch Theophylact (933-956) for advice and imprisoned many bogumils [29]. This measure, of course, is cruel, but the threat of mass bloodshed was averted.
The Eastern Church has never shared the ideas of St. Augustine about predestination and thus did not absolve its parishioners of responsibility for sins committed, from its point of view, of their own free will. This was understandable and acceptable to the pagans. Undoubtedly, a positive attitude towards the Old Testament did not extend to Talmudic Judaism, as a result of which compromises with Gnostic-Manichaean doctrines were excluded.
The teaching about the nature of evil and the evil principle was amorphous in comparison with the Catholic recognition of Satan as a servant of God performing special tasks, but as a result elastic. Respect for the devil was by no means recommended, which means that there was no violence against the psychological structure of converts accustomed to the elementary opposition of good to evil.
Based on all of the above, it is clear why the Russian ambassadors recommended Greek Orthodoxy to Vladimir. And since in the tenth century the prince depended on the squad more than the squad depended on the prince, the decision of the ambassadors was accepted and executed by the prince, although, it seems, without much desire.
NOTES:
[1] See: Gumilev L.N. Ancient Turks. S.381- 386, 427- 428.
[2] See: Gumilev L.N. Staroburyatskaya painting. pp.40-43.
[3] See: Gumilev L.N., Kuznetsov B.I. Bon.
[4] See: Gumilev L.N. The Search for a fictional Kingdom. p. 106.
[5] See: The Quran. Appendices. p. 654.
[6] Mavlyutov P.P. Islam. M.. 1974. p. 29.
[7] In the fifth Surah of the Quran, it is said about the friendship of Muslims and Christians and the hostility of Jews to Muslims (5.85). In the VII century. this alignment of forces was obvious.
[8] This is how Pope Gregory VII formulated the thesis in a letter to An-Nasir (from the Hammadid dynasty in North Africa) in 1076: "We and you believe in the same God, although in different ways" (History of Diplomacy, Moscow, 1959. p. 150). The Pope knew about the dogmatic differences between Catholicism and Islam, but after all, people do not worship dogmas, but God, and this frame of reference in the X-XI centuries was generally understandable and exhaustively convincing.
[9] It was deism, i.e. the doctrine that the Creator of the world does not interfere in his affairs, as a good watchmaker does not repair an already manufactured watch. The difference between this Being and the Christian Trinity is obvious.
[10] See: Panel L., Bergier J. What god did Hitler worship?//Science and religion. 1966. № 10-11.
[11] Cochin Auguslin. Les societes des penses et la democratie. Paris, 1921.
[12] Ibid.
[13] PVL. Ch. II. p. 329.
[14] Or since 867-. See: Golubinsky E.E. Decree. op. Vol. 1. The first half of the volume. pp. 51-52.
[15] Text translated by D.S.Likhachev (PVL. Ch. II. P. 258).
[16] Criticism of the reliability of the story about the choice of faith was carried out more than once (see: Golubinsky E.E. Decree.op.), but from the position adopted in the nineteenth century - the literal perception of the text. However, in ancient historiography, it was customary to use dialogue as a literary device that summarizes the material. From this point of view, the chronicler's assessment of the alignment of forces of the tenth century does not raise doubts about the competence of the author. The fact that the study of foreign religions took place is shown by the evidence of the Arabic "Collection of Jokes" (XIII century), written by Muhammad al-Lufi, which contains a story about the embassy of Bulamir (Vladimir) to Khorezm with the aim of "testing" Islam for conversion to the Muslim faith (see: Notes of the Eastern Branch of the Russian Archaeological Society. Vol. IX. St. Petersburg, 1896. pp. 262-267).
[17] After all, having entered the world of phantasmagoria and spells, people became masters of this world or, more precisely, were sincerely convinced of it. This is, that for the sake of this feeling of freedom and power over others, they had to spit on the cross, like the Templars, or break the Kaaba meteorite into pieces, like the Karmats, or, having killed the wise vizier (Ismailis), bleed the country that sheltered them, it did not bother them at all. However, having embarked on this path, they did not gain personal freedom at all. On the contrary, they lost even the one they had while being in one or another positive system. There, the law and customs guaranteed them some rights commensurate with their duties. But here they had no rights. Strict discipline subordinated them to an invisible leader, an elder, a teacher, but he gave them the opportunity to bring maximum harm to their neighbors. And it was so pleasant, so joyful, that you could sacrifice your own life for the thrill of it.
[18] See: Arsenyev I. Decree. op. pp.25-41.
[19] Lozinsky S.G. The Fatal Book of the Middle Ages //Sprenger Ya. i Institoris. Hammer of Witches. M., 1932. pp. 4-5.
[20] Amusin I.D. Manuscripts of the Dead Sea. M., 1969. pp. 170-172.
[21] Ibid., p. 174.
[22] Lozinsky S.G. Decree. op.// Ibid. pp.4-5.
[23] Arsenyev I. Decree. op. p.41.
[24] See: Ibid. pp. 80-102.
[25] See: Osokin N.N. The first Inquisition and the conquest of Languedoc by the French. Kazan. 1872. Vol. II. pp. 158-159.
[26] Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores. T. VI. P. 619. See: Kuzmin A. Varangians and "Rus" on the Baltic Sea//Questions of history. 1970. No. 10. p. 45.
[27] Flalhe. Geschichte der Voriaufer dor Reformation. Bd 1. S. 270; see: Arsenyev; I. Decree. op. p. 71.
[28] Ibid. p. 72.
[29] See: History of the Macedonian people. Skopje, 1975. p. 38.
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