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

him into violent conflict with Theodore and the monastic zealots. Later
deposed by Leo V (in 815) for his defence of icons, he died in 828 after
having composed a Refutation of the iconoclastic council of 815, three
Antirrhetics, one Long Apology, and an interesting treatise Against Eusebius
and Epiphanius, the main patristic references of the iconoclasts.
Nicephorus' thought is altogether directed against the Origenist notion
found in Eusebius' letter to Constantia that deification of humanity implies
dematerialization and absorption into a purely intellectual mode of
existence. The patriarch constantly insists on the New Testament evidence
that Jesus experienced weariness, hunger, and thirst like any other man.17
In dealing with the issue of Jesus' ignorance, Nicephorus also tries to
reconcile the relevant scriptural passages with the doctrine of the
hypostatic union in a way, which was for different reasons not common in
Eastern theology. In Evagrian Origenism, ignorance was considered as
coextensive with Ї if not identical to Ї sinfulness. The original state of
the created intellects before the Fall was that of divine gnosis. Jesus was
precisely the non-fallen intellect and therefore eminently and necessarily
preserved the "knowledge of God" and of course any other form of inferior
gnosis. The authors of the age of Justinian, followed by both Maximus and
John of Damascus, denied any ignorance in Christ by virtue of the hypostatic
union; but probably also under the influence of a latent Evagrianism, they
interpreted the Gospel passages speaking of ignorance on the part of Jesus
as examples of his oikonomia Ї pastoral desire Ї to be seen as a mere man
and not as expressions of His real ignorance. Nicephorus stands in
opposition to that tradition on this point although he admits that the
hypostatic union could suppress all human ignorance in Jesus; but by virtue
of the communication of idioms, the divine knowledge being communicated to
the human nature. He maintains that divine economy in fact required that
Christ assume all aspects of human existence, including ignorance: "He
willingly acted, desired, was ignorant and suffered as a man."18 In becoming
incarnate, the Logos assumed not an abstract, ideal humanity, but the
concrete humanity, which existed in history after the Fall, in order to save
it. "He did not possess a flesh other than our own, that, which fell as a
consequence of sins; He did not transform it [in assuming it]... He was made
of the same nature as we but without sin; and through that nature, He
condemned sin and death."19
This fullness of humanity implied, of course, describability; for if
Christ was indescribable, His Mother with whom He shared the same human
nature would have been considered as indescribable as well. "Too much honour
given to the Mother," Nicephorus writes, "amounts to dishonour her, for one
would have to attribute to her incorruptibility, immortality, and
impassibility if what by nature belongs to the Logos must also by grace be
attributed to her who gave Him birth."20
The same logic applies to the Eucharist, which, as we have seen, the
iconoclasts considered only as the admissible image or symbol of Christ. For
Nicephorus and the other Orthodox defenders of images, this concept was
unacceptable because they understood the Eucharist as the very reality of
the Body and Blood of Christ and precisely not as an "image," for an image
is made to be seen while the Eucharist remains fundamentally food to be
eaten. By being, it assumed into Christ the Eucharistic elements did not