History and theory of religions. Cheat sheet: briefly, the most important

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History and theory of religions. Cheat sheet: briefly, the most important

Lecture notes, cheat sheets

Table of contents

1. Religion as a form of social consciousness

Religion (from Latin religio - piety, piety, shrine, object of worship) is a worldview and attitude, as well as appropriate behavior and specific actions, which are based on the belief in the existence of one or more gods and the supernatural world.

Religion, from the point of view of philosophy, belongs to the categories of the spiritual culture of mankind. This is a form of social consciousness, that is, a reflection of the world in the consciousness of mankind. Religion is the common spring of the deepest and most vital meanings of social consciousness. If language is a universal shell of social consciousness, then religion, more precisely, the mythological and religious consciousness of mankind, is a common source of the deepest and most vital meanings of social consciousness. The entire content of human culture developed from the mythological-religious consciousness, gradually acquiring semiotically different forms of social consciousness.

The most significant features in the content of religion can be characterized in terms of semiotics. The term "semiotics" is used in two main meanings:

1) sign system;

2) the science of signs and sign systems, including both communication systems in the animal world and a variety of natural and artificial semiotics used in human society.

Semiotics makes it possible to see in religion a method of communication, i.e., a communicative system that has its own content and its own capabilities to transmit, communicate this content. The semiotic approach to the phenomenon of religion is increasingly recognized not only in the historical explanations of individual rituals, verbal formulas or images, but in the very theory of religion. Thus, the American sociologist Robert Bella defines religion as a special communication system - "a symbolic model that forms human experience - both cognitive and emotional" in solving the most important problems of being.

Religion is the subject of a special science - religious studies. Religious studies is the science that deals with the study of religions.

In religious studies, two main sections can be distinguished - theoretical and historical.

Theoretical religious studies include philosophical, sociological and psychological problems of the study of religion. It reveals in religion the general, essential, necessary and rejects the individual, accidental, historically specific.

Historical religion is the history of religion. The history of religion studies the history of the emergence and evolution of individual religions in all the diversity of their features, in their chronological sequence.

2. Objective-idealistic and subjective-idealistic conceptions of the origin of religion

The objective-idealistic concept dominates theological and religious-philosophical literature.

The initial premise of this concept in explaining religion is the recognition of its supernatural source: God, the Absolute, in general - the transcendent.

Representatives of the objective-idealistic concept deduce the essence of religion from the presence in the world of an extra-natural Higher Beginning (Absolute, God, etc.). Man, as "created in the image and likeness of God", in their opinion, is initially endowed with an irresistible desire to merge with the Absolute. Hence the emergence of religion, which develops in parallel with the spiritual development of mankind, from its most primitive to its modern forms.

The postulation of a supernatural source of religion reduces the question of the existence and essence of religion to the question of the existence and essence of God. In Christian theology and religious philosophy, there are two tendencies in justifying the existence of God: rationalistic and irrationalistic.

Theologitomists and most religious philosophers advocate the use of the human mind to justify the existence of God. Thomas Aquinas, using Aristotle, developed the doctrine of the five proofs of the existence of God by means of the human mind and based on the study of natural processes.

There is also anthropological evidence. It consists in the fact that man is a being that belongs to two worlds and does not fit in this natural world of necessity, transcending himself as an empirically given being, discovering freedom that cannot be derived from this world.

The existence of God is revealed in the existence of the spirit in man. The virtue of a man is not to be subject to what is below him. But for this there must be something that is above it, although not outside it and not above it.

The subjective-idealistic concept of explaining the essence of religion originates in the writings of the German Protestant priest and theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher. The center of the religious problem is transferred by him to the sphere of consciousness of an individual, primarily to the area of his feelings. Schleiermacher's ideas were developed not only by liberal Protestant theology, but also by a number of bourgeois philosophers.

The most consistently subjective-idealistic conception was carried out by the representative of pragmatism, W. James. From the point of view of James, religion should be considered as a product of individual consciousness, as spontaneously arising subjective experiences of a person.

Modern philosophy of religion tries to avoid the extremes of subjectivism and irrationalism by combining subjective idealism with theology.

3. Naturalistic and atheistic conceptions of the origin of religion

According to the naturalistic concept, religion is born by the internal needs of the human body - its instincts, drives, physiological reactions. Psychoanalysis has created one of the options for a naturalistic explanation of religion. One of the representatives of this trend - Freud, he considered religious ideas as illusions, acting as "the fulfillment of the most ancient, strongest, obsessive desires of mankind: the secret of their strength lies in the strength of these desires." Erich Fromm explains the need for a person in religion, first of all, by his "existential conflict", which means "human dichotomy", a split between soul and body, separating a person from the animal kingdom. Religion E. Fromm calls "any system of thoughts and actions that provides the individual with a system of reference points and an object that he can worship." Some psychoanalysts believe that faith in God is necessary for a person. This opinion is shared, for example, by C. G. Jung. He created the theory of the "collective unconscious" containing archetypes - certain symbols, ideas and representations that are supposedly characteristic of the entire human race. The psychoanalytic school in the psychology of religion currently has many supporters among Western psychologists.

The atheistic concept of religion received its most consistent, complete development in Marxism. Religion has a social nature, since "the essence of man is not an abstract inherent in an individual, in its reality it is the totality of all social relations." The main reason for the existence of religion is the spontaneity of social development, when people are not able to consciously manage social relations.

Marxism considers its epistemological and psychological roots. The epistemological roots of religion are the possibilities for the formation of religion associated with the knowledge of the world. The essence of epistemological roots consists in absolutization, inflating the subjective side of human cognition. The ability of human thinking to isolate the general, essential and necessary, abstracting from the individual, is the greatest achievement of mankind, which made possible all the achievements of scientific, theoretical knowledge. The psychological roots of religion are rooted in the emotional sphere of the human psyche. They are not limited to a permanent sense of fear in an antagonistic society. The constant accumulation of negative experiences leads to the fact that a person is looking for means to get rid of negative emotions, resorting to the help of religion.

4. Esotericism as spiritual knowledge

The essence of the esoteric concept is the need to gain knowledge about Man and the Universe, or about the Microcosm and the Macrocosm.

The system of knowledge about the deep foundations of Being includes exoteric and esoteric components, which are interconnected as "external" and "internal". Esoteric knowledge is knowledge about the fundamental laws of the Universe, the laws of the Subtle Worlds, the external form of expression of which are the laws of the Solid World, that is, our physical reality. Exoteric knowledge exists in the form of various religious denominations. This knowledge is intended to introduce the vast majority of people to the spiritual Cosmos, in order to provide them with spiritual protection. As the esoteric doctrine says, in ancient times there was no division of teachings into exoteric, open, and esoteric, hidden: all teachings were publicly available. As a result of the action of certain laws of evolution, at a certain stage in the existence of mankind, people began to differentiate into those who chose the "right" path of spiritual development and those who chose the "left" path.

The "right" path is the path of White occultism, it is in harmony with the laws of the evolution of the Cosmos.

The "left" path is the path of Black occultism, it hinders the evolution of mankind.

The definition of the term “occultism” was proposed by E. Tiryakyan: “By occultism I understand purposeful actions, methods, procedures that:

1) attract secret or hidden forces of nature or the cosmos that cannot be measured or understood by the means of modern science;

2) have the goal of obtaining results, such as empirical knowledge of the course of events or changing them in relation to what they would be without this intervention.

The main occult sciences can be divided into three classification groups.

The first group of occult sciences are disciplines based on objective data: astrology, graphology, chirology, palmistry, and also fingerprinting. This also applies to psychiatry. The second group of occult sciences operates with subjective data. This includes primarily various mantic disciplines, that is, methods of divination. The third group of occult sciences - various types of magic, the main purpose of which is to influence nature and man using occult methods. There are several types of magic, differing in purposes and methods of influence. Professional magic has long been divided into White (theurgy) and Black (necromancy, witchcraft). But the difference between them is more ethical than technical.

5. The main stages in the development of esotericism

According to the most common approach, esoteric knowledge arose millions of years ago, in the days of Lemuria, which preceded Atlantis, and was preserved by the Great Initiates for innumerable centuries, until the era of the Roman emperor Constantine. Beginning with the Roman emperor Constantine, esoteric knowledge became officially forbidden.

The revival of the esoteric tradition in the West after this "dark age" followed the line of "Templars-Rosicrucians-Masons-occultists of the late XNUMXth and early XNUMXth centuries - modern occultists." In the East, the esoteric tradition was not interrupted.

Esoteric knowledge is divided into Western esotericism, based on the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus, Tarot cards and Kabbalah, and Eastern esotericism, based on the teachings of Shambhala, on the teachings of Buddhism, Vedanta (India) and Taoism (China). Western spirituality is based on a dualism between God the Creator and man the creation: man cannot become God, here he is only a "servant of God", although he is "God-like" - created "in the image and likeness of God".

Eastern spirituality does not deny this difference in relation to the "created" man, but explores the "uncreated", truly immortal principle in man (Atman), between which and God (Brahman) there is no abyss. This divine principle in man is God himself. The highest spiritual ideal in the East is God-realization, which means complete identification with God. When it is said about God-realization, it is not about any degree of similarity and approximation between the higher "I" of a person and God, but about complete identity, and this potentially concerns every person. According to the Eastern doctrine of "non-dualism", it is not man who is God in his potency, but the one whom we call "man", in his ultimate truth, he is not, but is none other than God, hidden in the shell of man. Human existence is only one of the rungs of the endless ladder of the cosmic hierarchy - "Jacob's ladder", along which the essence rises, which at this stage of its evolutionary development is "man".

In the West, the highest spiritual ideal is limited to "salvation of the soul", which is a much more modest metaphysical goal than God-realization. In the West, a person is only "God-like" and the maximum that he can count on here in a metaphysical sense is to "go to Paradise." In the East, man, in his ultimate depth, is God, and here his metaphysical goal is to become God himself.

6. Esotericism and Religion

At present, there is a growing need for an integral concept of the origin and essence of Higher Knowledge, which would be an organic synthesis of scientific, philosophical and religious approaches. The concept claiming this role is the esoteric concept of the origin and essence of religion.

Esoteric knowledge is knowledge about the fundamental laws of the Universe, the laws of the Subtle Worlds, the external form of expression of which are the laws of the Solid World, that is, our physical reality.

Exoteric knowledge exists in the form of various religious denominations. This knowledge is intended to introduce the vast majority of people to the spiritual Cosmos in order to provide them with spiritual protection from the corresponding church egregor (spiritual cover).

Religion is the Eternal Truths, presented in a form accessible for perception, at least on a subconscious level, to the widest strata of the population, in order to ensure their spiritual growth and ascending afterlife. Religion is intended for those who choose the long, "winding path" of spiritual development, that is, the "broad gate" to the Kingdom of God. Esotericism provides its adepts with a much more difficult, but much faster "direct path" of spiritual perfection - the "narrow gate" to the Kingdom of God. Without esotericism, religion becomes an empty shell. Each religion has its own esoteric grain. So, for example, in Orthodoxy it is hesychasm, in Islam it is Sufism, in Judaism it is Kabbalah, etc. As for Kabbalah, its meaning goes far beyond Judaism, since it represents, along with the Tarot cards and the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus , the basis of all Western occultism. Philosophy is a rationalistic form of worldview, and therefore it is not capable of penetrating further than the Solid World. Esotericism, with the help of supersensible methods of cognition, explores all the Plans of Existence, that is, the Subtle Worlds, and not only the Dense World.

Parapsychology is a "scientific", profane form of esotericism, through which modern science is trying to reconcile esotericism, built mainly on supersensible methods of cognition, and the purely rationalistic worldview that is currently dominant. Therefore, even in the atheistic former USSR, despite official atheism, occultism in a scientific form - in the form of parapsychology - was actively engaged not only by individuals, but also by state research centers, primarily those associated with various special services.

7. Knowledge and traditionalism

Scientific knowledge is based on sensory perceptions. The main criteria of scientific knowledge are the ability to reproduce the results of experiments that form the empirical basis of a given scientific discipline, and the ability to explain the accumulated facts in the system of concepts of this science. If a theory is considered true, then all facts that do not fit into its framework are treated as "anti-scientific fiction".

Supersensory knowledge obtained through intuitive perception plays no less a role in people's lives than knowledge obtained through ordinary sense organs.

Supersensible knowledge can come either through the subconscious, and then, as a rule, they give an idea of the lower, that is, the infernal regions of Being, or through the superconscious, then they give an idea of the Worlds of Enlightenment. Supersensible information often comes in figurative, allegorical form and requires appropriate interpretation.

Higher Knowledge includes both "sensory" and "supersensory" knowledge. Higher Knowledge gives an understanding of the essence of the Universe, reveals the multidimensionality of the Universe, the place in it of humanity as a whole and each person individually, unites science, philosophy and religion with a system of common concepts and images.

Interpretations of the origin of the Highest Knowledge and the emergence of religions in various esoteric teachings essentially differ little from each other. According to esotericism, the Highest Knowledge ascends to a single source and is given to man at the beginning of the cosmic Cycle.

Traditionalism is an esoteric teaching based on the Primordial (Primordial) Tradition, which refers to the comprehensive knowledge given to man by the Creator at the beginning of the cosmic Cycle. According to traditionalism, the world develops cyclically and in each cycle humanity goes from the "golden" to the "iron" age, from Satyayug to Kaliyug, from complete perfection to complete decline.

The essence of traditionalism is as follows. The fundamental principle of true metaphysics is the principle of the Unity of Truth. From this Unity comes the hierarchical subordination of various forms of its manifestation, that is, the truths of a particular order. This hierarchy, as it moves away from the One Truth, descends lower and lower, down to lies and delusion. Humanity, representing only a part of the Reality, is the image of the whole Reality. This means that in the human world there is both the One Truth and its secondary forms.

8. Mythological and religious consciousness

Mythological and religious consciousness includes the following components: faith as a psychological attitude to accept certain information and follow it, regardless of the degree of its plausibility or proof, often despite possible doubts; mythopoetic content (visual-figurative); theoretical component (abstract-logical); intuitive and mystical content.

The abstract-theoretical component of religious consciousness in different traditions can be significantly different in terms of the ratio of the speculative and irrational principles in it.

In the structure of the religious consciousness of each religion, to one degree or another, there is a mystical component, but this measure can be significantly different. Mystical talent was observed in many thinkers, preachers, religious writers. But the nature of mystical insights and mystical knowledge remains a mystery.

As far as the psychological, human significance of religious content is concerned, in comparison with any other information that can circulate in human society, religious content has the maximum value. This is due to two circumstances: firstly, religion is looking for answers to the most important questions of life; secondly, her answers, having great generalizing power, are by no means abstract; they are addressed not so much to logic as to more complex, subtle and intimate areas of human consciousness - to his soul, mind, imagination, intuition, feeling, desires, conscience.

Mythological consciousness is a primitive collective (general ethnic) visual-figurative representation of the world with an obligatory divine component. In non-terminological usage, the words "mythological consciousness", "mythology" denote certain fragments, links, features of the mythological worldview that have been preserved in the consciousness of later eras. The mythological consciousness of the primitive world includes the entire spiritual and mental life of the ancient society.

In contrast to the actual mythological consciousness of antiquity, the concept of "religious consciousness", firstly, is opposed to other forms of social consciousness; secondly, religious consciousness is more complex than the mythological representations of antiquity; thirdly, religious consciousness is individualized and is present in the minds of individual members of society.

Mythology is, as it were, the "pre-religion" of antiquity. However, mythological representations should not be identified with the religion of precisely non-literate eras. The process of separating religious consciousness from the mythological one lasted for many millennia.

9. Mythological epic and folklore

Folklore is historically the first artistic collective creativity of the people. If mythology is the collective "pre-religion" of antiquity, then folklore is the art of an unliterate people. Folklore develops from mythology. Consequently, folklore is not only a later phenomenon, but also different from mythology. The main difference between mythology and folklore is that myth is sacred knowledge about the world and an object of faith, while folklore is art, that is, an artistic and aesthetic representation of the world, and it is not necessary to believe in its veracity. But there is their genetic commonality: folklore in one form or another contains mythological components; folklore, like mythology, is collective.

Mythology nourished folklore, but archaic myths go back to such a deep - tens of millennia - antiquity that myths have not been preserved in most folklore traditions.

For primitive consciousness, myth is absolutely reliable: there are no "miracles" in myth, there are no differences between "natural" and "supernatural" - this opposition itself is alien to mythological consciousness.

The evolution of mythology into folklore can be understood as a history of changes in the nature of communication that included mythological and folklore texts.

The heroic epic in the artistic development of each people is the oldest form of verbal art, directly developed from myths. In the surviving epic of different peoples, different stages of this movement from myth to folk tale are presented - both quite early and typologically later. In general, those works of folk epic that were preserved until the time of the first collectors and researchers of folklore (that is, until the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries) in oral-song or oral form are closer to mythological origins than works that have long passed from oral literature to writing. - literary.

On the way from myth to folk epic, not only the content of communication, but also its structural features change dramatically. Myth is sacred knowledge, and epic is a story about the heroic, important and reliable, but not about the sacred.

Another line of evolution of myth into folklore genres is a fairy tale. The fairy tale grew out of myths that were included in the rites of initiation, that is, in the rituals associated with the initiation of boys and girls into the adult age class. A fairy tale consists precisely in a series of trials that the hero overcomes.

Becoming a fairy tale, myths lose their connection with ritual and magic, they lose their esoteric nature (that is, they cease to be the "secret" knowledge of the initiates) and therefore lose their magical power.

10. The main forms of mythological and religious worldview

The common source of various tribal beliefs was the universal cult of the Mother Goddess. It was based on the cult of nature. However, primitive religion is not limited to the worship of natural forces.

Non-theistic beliefs and rites of primitive antiquity are sometimes called pre-religion.

In the history of religions and in cultural studies, several main classes of religious forms are distinguished - animism, totemism, fetishism, shamanism, polytheism, ancient pantheism. However, these are not stages, not historical stages in the development of religion. Having arisen in the primitive communal world, they could coexist in the religious ideas of one tribe (for example, animism and totemism) and, with certain changes, were passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. Polytheistic and pantheistic religions are practiced in many countries of the modern world.

Animism (from Latin anima, animus - soul, spirit) is a belief in the existence of souls and spirits. Primitive man animated the whole world around him. Rivers and stones, plants and animals, sun and wind, spinning wheel and knife, sleep and illness, share and lack of share, life and death - everything had a soul, a will, the ability to act, harm or help a person. According to primitive ideas, spirits lived in the invisible other world, but penetrated into the visible world of people. Worship and magic were supposed to help people somehow get along with the spirits - propitiate them or outsmart them. There are elements of animism in any religion.

Totemism is the belief of a tribe in its kinship with a plant or animal (less often with a natural phenomenon or object). In the language of the Ojivbey Indian tribe, the word totem means "his kind." The totem was conceived as a real ancestor, the tribe bore his name, worshiped him (if the totemic animal or plant really existed) or him and his imagination. Fetishism (from the French fetiche - idol, talisman) - inanimate objects (for example, a feather of a totem bird or an oak burned in a thunderstorm, or a fang of a tiger killed in a hunt, etc.), which, according to believers, have supernatural properties. Fetishes (sacred objects) accompanied the entire life of primitive man.

The phenomenon of shamanism is sometimes seen as the development of an individual principle in the religious practice of the ancients. A person with "special mystical and occult talent" stands out from the group of fellow tribesmen, who, in the ecstasy of trance, became a clairvoyant and medium, an intermediary between spirits and people.

All manifestations of belief in the supernatural can be called a fideistic attitude towards the world, or fideism.

11. Ethnic groups and religious affiliation

As society develops, new religions are formed: Vedism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam. New religions possessed books that contained the Revelation of God, transmitted to people through the prophets, as well as the doctrine of God, peace, faith, salvation. The three largest supra-ethnic religions - Buddhism, Christianity and Islam - are usually called world religions. In the Middle Ages, it was the cultural and religious worlds that determined the political map of the world.

The geography of supra-ethnic religions coincided with the boundaries of the distribution of religious texts in languages that were or became supra-ethnic and acquired a cult character.

The languages in which this or that religious doctrine was first stated or written down, and subsequently canonized, began to be called "prophetic", prophetic.

Modern ethnic groups inherited the mental and cultural traditions of their religion, but these traditions were and are predominantly supra-ethnic in nature. Single-ethnic religions (such as Jewish Judaism, Japanese Shinto, or the Armenian-Gregorian Church of Armenia) are quite rare. Usually one religion is practiced by several or many peoples. Exceptional confessional diversity is characteristic of the United States, where 260 churches are registered. In some cultures, one person may practice several religions. For example, in China, depending on the time of year and day, the nature of the religious mood or need, the believer turns to Confucius, then to the practice of Taoism or Buddhism.

According to the calculations of Prof. R. Cipriano, in the 90s. The number of followers of the largest religions was as follows: Christians - 1 million, Muslims - 624 million, Hindus - 860 million, Buddhists - 656 million.

In Europe and America now there are no states that would define themselves on a confessional basis. Religion is becoming more and more a private matter of a person, just like confessions - associations of believers independent of the state. Therefore, religious affiliation ceases to be an external, formal sign of a certain status of a state or person. In modern times, the processes of state formation are directed mainly by the national, and not by the religious factor.

Often, however, even now religion can become the basis for uniting or, on the contrary, separating people.

Thus, on the modern map of the world, the settlement of people of various faiths generally corresponds to the historically established geography of religions and does not coincide with the boundaries of languages, ethnic groups and states.

12. Mythology of Homer and Orphism

The first signs of understanding the world can be found already in the works of Homer. Homer speaks of three first causes, which in a certain sense can be considered the first principles of the world, and calls them Nyx, Okeanos and Tethys. Nyx is the original state, the stage that precedes anything else. Okeanos represents the primordial sea, and Tethys - a certain life-giving force, which is connected to the sea - water. Moreover, all these primary causes, i.e., essential forces, are connected with the earth.

The so-called early Orphic period also goes back to Homer. We are talking about literary works that develop Orphic problems and, in addition, solve theogonic problems.

Orphism is a religious movement that goes back to the mythological singer Orpheus. A significant role in his mythological understanding of the emergence of the world and the gods was played by music - harmony. Orphic views, in particular the understanding of the relationship between soul and body, are reflected in Greek philosophy - Plato, Pythagoras. Heaven and earth are derived from the first principle of Nyx, and everything else is derived from them.

An attempt to explain the origin of the world is also contained in the works of Hesiod. According to Hesiod, the basis of everything is chaos, which is understood as an unlimited, formless mass containing all possible potencies. From it arise the original forms of being. On the one hand, it is Gaia (Earth) and Eros (a certain life force). On the other hand, it is Erebos (darkness) and Nyx (night) as the defining, ruling force. From them then arise Uranus (starry sky), Ether (Ether), light, and gradually other deities.

The later thinker Akusilai ascends to the cosmogonic views of Hesiod. He introduces a new concept into the system of Hesiod's basic principles - Metis, or Nus (mind).

A certain completion of cosmogonic concepts in Ancient Greece are the views of Pherekides and Epimenides from Syrus.

According to Ferekid, the fundamental principle of everything is a special viable matter, which he designates with the name Zeus. This fundamental principle exists in five stages, the development of which results in the emergence of the gods, the cosmos and the earth. Views on the problem of the emergence of gods (theogony) and the cosmos (cosmogony), thus, acquire a single mythological framework.

The five stages of development can also be found in Epimenides, who is half a century older. According to him, at the first stage there is air as primordial matter and night as boundless darkness. Their combination leads to the emergence of the primordial basis (the underworld). From there the Titans rise, from them - an egg, the destruction of which leads to the birth of the world.

13. The cult of ancestors and nature in Chinese mythology. yin yang principles

In Chinese mythology, the deification of heaven, earth and all nature as realities that form the environment of human existence is often found. From this mythologized environment, the highest principle stands out, which rules the world, gives existence to things. This principle is sometimes understood personified as the highest ruler (shandi), but more often it is represented by the word "heaven" (tian).

All nature is animated - every thing, place and phenomenon has its own demons.

The same is true of the dead. The veneration of the souls of dead ancestors subsequently led to the formation of an ancestor cult and contributed to the conservative thinking in ancient China. Spirits could open a veil over the future to a person, influence the behavior and activities of people.

At this time, fortune-telling practice with the use of magic formulas and communication with spirits became widespread in China. For these purposes, with the help of pictographic writing, questions were applied to the bones of cattle or turtle shells.

A feature of the development of Chinese philosophical thought is the influence of the so-called wise men - sages. Their names are unknown, but it is known that it was they who began to go beyond the mythological vision of the world and strove for its conceptual understanding.

The communal organization of society, whether it was tribal communities or communities of early feudalism, maintained social relations. Hence the interest in the problems of managing society and state organization. The formulation of ontological questions, thus, was determined by the philosophical and anthropological orientation. Chinese philosophy is internally unusually stable. This stability was based on emphasizing the exclusivity of the Chinese way of thinking, on the basis of which a sense of superiority and intolerance to all other philosophical views was formed.

The principles of yin and yang are involved in the relationship between heaven and earth, in the affairs of this limited world, and in the movement of the world. Yang is defined as something active, all-pervading, illuminating the way of knowing things; for yin the passive role of expectation, the dark beginning is defined.

The alternation of yin and yang is called the path (tao), and this path is lived by all things. From the interpenetration of yin and yang, six main categories arise, reflecting the interaction of yin and yang. The Book of Changes traces the Tao - the way of things and the way of the world in motion. The “three givens” stand out especially in it, which move along their own paths, but always together: heaven, earth, man.

All human knowledge is aimed at distinguishing, designating and understanding everything that exists.

14. Classical books of Chinese learning

These books originated in the first half of the first millennium BC. e. and during the period of a hundred schools (VI-II centuries BC) a number of these books contain ancient poetry, history, legislation and philosophy. Basically, these are works by unknown authors, written at different times. Confucian thinkers paid special attention to them, and, starting from the XNUMXnd century BC. e., these books became the main ones in the humanitarian education of the Chinese intelligentsia. Knowing them was a sufficient prerequisite for passing state examinations for the position of an official.

The creator of orthodox Confucianism as a state ideology, Dong Zhongshu, considered Confucius himself to be the author of the classic books. However, supporters of the old texts assigned Confucius only the role of an interpreter. The dispute about the origin and interpretation of the Classical books flares up again and again until the beginning of the XNUMXth century.

The book of songs (Shi jing, XI-VI centuries BC) is a collection of ancient folk poetry; it also contains cult chants and, according to some commentators on the Book of Changes, a mystical explanation of the origin of tribes, crafts and things. She became a model for Chinese poetry in its further development.

The book of history (Shu jing - the beginning of the first millennium BC) - also known as Shang shu (Shang documents) - is a collection of official documents, descriptions of historical events. It had a great influence on the formation of later official writing.

The book of order (Li shu IV-I centuries BC) includes three parts: the Order of the Zhou era (Zhou li), the Order of ceremonies (Yi li) and the Notes on Order (Li ji).

It includes a description of the correct organization, political and religious ceremonies, norms of social and political activity. The book of spring and autumn, together with the commentary of Zuo (Zuo zhuan, XNUMXth century BC), is a chronicle of the state of Lu (XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries BC), subsequently served as a model and measure for resolving ethical and formal literary questions.

The Book of Changes (I Ching, XII-VI centuries BC) is the most important. It contains the first ideas about the world and man in Chinese philosophy. In her texts, written at different times, the beginning of the transition from the mythological image of the world to its philosophical understanding can be traced. It reflects the oldest solutions to ontological issues, developed a conceptual apparatus used by subsequent Chinese philosophy. The "Book of Changes" laid the foundations and principles for the development of philosophical thinking in China.

15. Confucianism

Confucianism focuses on ethical rules, social norms, and regulation of government, in the formation of which it was very conservative. It was also characteristic of this doctrine that questions of an ontological nature were secondary in it.

Confucius is considered the first Chinese philosopher. He acquired great authority and almost deification in the era of the Han Dynasty and until modern times was revered as a sage and the first teacher. Confucius's thoughts have been preserved in the form of his conversations with students and are recorded in the book Conversations with Students.

Confucius focuses on educating a person in a spirit of respect and reverence towards others, towards society. The ethics of Confucius understands a person in connection with his social function, and education is leading a person to the proper performance of this function. Order in him is established thanks to the ideal universality, the relationship of man to nature and, in particular, the relationship between people. The order acts as an ethical category, which also includes the rules of external behavior - etiquette.

To maintain subordination and order, Confucius develops the principle of justice and serviceability. Correct behavior is behavior with respect for order and humanity, for "a noble man understands what is serviceable, just as small people understand what is profitable."

Since the bulk of Confucius's teachings concern purely secular matters, many Western scholars argue that Confucianism is not a religion, but only a moral teaching. Confucius, at first glance, spoke little and reluctantly on religious topics. But, without delving into the subtleties of religious theory, Confucius at the same time attached great importance to religious practice. The administration of a religious cult was the responsibility of every official, naturally jun tzu - an ideal official, had to perfectly know religious practice. It was religion, according to Confucius, that link that connected all the norms of behavior in society into a single coherent system.

Confucius himself also considered himself a conductor of the will of Heaven, who reveals to his contemporaries the "eternal truths" they have forgotten.

The recognition of Confucian writings as sacred, as well as the addition of the cult of Confucius (the deification of a person, a temple on the site of his dwelling, rituals and prayers addressed to Confucius), occurred five centuries after the death of Confucius - on the threshold of a new era.

16. Followers of Confucius

Mencius was the successor of Confucius, he defended Confucianism from attacks from other schools of that time. As part of the development of Confucianism, Mencius developed the concept of human nature; he developed the thoughts of Confucius about the moral good and the attitude of the educated to this good.

Good is an abstract ethical category, which means order (li) when following the path (tao). According to Mencius, human nature is endowed with goodness, although this nature does not always manifest itself. The good in every person can be realized by the four virtues, the basis of which is knowledge. In the concept of Mencius, the principle of filial and fraternal virtue (xiao-ti) put forward by Confucius is consistently carried out.

Sky Mencius understands as an ideal force that endows a person with existence and social function. Man exists thanks to Heaven and therefore is a part of it, just like nature. The difference between Heaven, which informs man of the nature of his existence, and man can be overcome by cultivating, perfecting this nature to a pure form.

Xun Tzu, real name - Xun Qin (III century BC), arguing with Mencius, put forward opposite views on the essence of the sky, opposed the concept of human nature. Xun Tzu was the most prominent Confucian of the Hundred School period.

He understood the sky as permanent, having its own way (tian dao) and endowed with the power that informs man of essence and existence. Together with the earth, the sky connects the world into a single whole. It follows from this that man is part of nature. Noteworthy is the division of nature by Xun Tzu:

1) inanimate phenomena, consisting of qi - a material substance;

2) living phenomena, consisting of a material substance and possessing sheng - life;

3) phenomena consisting of a material substance, living and possessing zhi - consciousness;

4) a person, consisting of a material substance, living, possessing consciousness, having, in addition, moral consciousness.

Xun Tzu also deals with questions of the ontology of language. Conceptual assimilation of reality occurs with the help of the mind. Sensual contact with reality is the first stage of cognition, the next stage is rational cognition.

Xun Tzu transcends the classical understanding of order in Confucian social ethics. A person's abilities are not fatally, or hereditarily, predetermined, they must correspond to the upbringing received. This approach, as well as emphasizing the absolute authority of the ruler, brings him closer to the legalist school.

17. Taoism

Taoism was one of the most important trends in the development of ideological thought in China. Taoism focuses on nature, the cosmos and man, but these principles are not comprehended in a rational way, but through direct conceptual penetration into the nature of existence. The world is in constant motion and change, develops, lives and acts spontaneously, without any reason. In the ontological teaching, it is the concept of the path - Tao - that is central. The purpose of thinking, according to Taoism, is the "fusion" of man with nature, since he is part of it.

Lao Tzu is considered an older contemporary of Confucius. He is credited with the authorship of the book "Tao-te-ching" - the Book of Tao (path) and de (virtue), which became the basis for the further development of Taoism. Tao is a concept with the help of which it is possible to give a universal, comprehensive answer to the question of the origin and mode of existence of everything that exists. The ontology of the Tao Te Ching is atheistic because, according to the Tao, the world is in spontaneous, unpredetermined motion. Tao is identity, sameness, which presupposes everything else, namely: Tao does not depend on time, like a period of the emergence, development and death of the Universe, but there is a fundamental and universal unity of the world. Tao itself has no sources, no beginning, it is the root of everything without its own energy activity. In it, however, everything happens (is given), it is an all-presupposing path.

Everything in the world is on the move, in motion and change, everything is impermanent and finite. This is possible due to the principles of yin and yang. Under their influence things develop. Tao has its own creative power de, through which Tao manifests itself in things under the influence of yin and yang.

Lao Tzu rejects any effort, not only of the individual, but also of society. The efforts of society, generated by civilization, lead to a contradiction between man and the world, to disharmony. For the world is a sacred vessel that cannot be manipulated.

Compliance with the "measure of things" is the main life task for a person. Non-action, or rather activity without violating this measure (wu wei), is not an encouragement to passivity, but an explanation of the community of man and the world on a single basis, which is Tao. Stepping aside, detachment characterize the behavior of a sage. Comprehension of the world is accompanied by silence, in which the understanding husband takes possession of the world. This is radically opposed to the Confucian concept of a "noble man" who should be trained in teaching and managing others.

18. Followers of Taoism

Zhuangzi (369-286 BC) is the most prominent follower and propagandist of Taoism. In the field of ontology, he proceeded from the same principles as Lao Tzu. However, Chuang Tzu does not agree with his thoughts about the possibility of a "natural" ordering of society on the basis of knowledge of the Tao. He individualizes the knowledge of the Tao, that is, the process and end result of comprehending the nature of the existence of the world, up to the subjective submission to the surrounding reality. Fatalism, which was alien to Lao Tzu, is inherent in Chuang Tzu. He considers subjective indifference, first of all, as getting rid of emotions and interest. The value of all things is the same, because all things are inherent in the Tao, and they cannot be compared. The knowledge of truth, truth is not given to the person who knows: "Does it happen that someone is right and the other is wrong, or is it that both are right or both are wrong? darkness." “We say about something that it is true. If what is true should necessarily be so, then it would not be necessary to talk about how it differs from untruth.”

The later absolutization of these thoughts brought one of the branches of Taoism closer to Buddhism, which established itself on Chinese soil in IV. in. and especially in the XNUMXth century. n. e.

"Le Tzu" is the next of the Taoist texts and is attributed to the legendary philosopher Le Yukou (300th-XNUMXth centuries BC). It was written down around XNUMX BC. e.

Wen Tzu (XNUMXth century BC) was a student of Lao Tzu and a follower of Confucius.

From the point of view of later development, three types of Taoism are distinguished: philosophical (dao jia), religious (dao jiao) and immortal Taoism (xian).

Consistently rejecting all the institutions of their contemporary civilization, the Taoists rejected religion in the conventional sense of the term. Rejecting the divine Sky, the Taoists considered the Tao to be the source of everything, which, in their view, was the original qualityless substance and gave rise to all things. Things, on the other hand, consisted of the smallest "seeds" that can be identified with atoms. The Taoists saw death as the regrouping of these "seeds" so that the person, or part of him, becomes, or part of, a plant or an animal. Taoists developed the theory of the origin of man from lower animals.

If Confucianism is Chinese exotericism, then Taoism is Chinese esotericism. Taoism has much in common with Buddhism, which, in the form of Ch'an Buddhism, became widespread in China.

19. Vedic Literature

Vedic literature was formed during a long and complex historical period, which begins with the arrival of the Indo-European Aryans in India and ends with the emergence of the first state formations. Vedic literature is divided into several groups of texts. These are the four Vedas; the oldest and most important of them is the Rigveda (a collection of hymns). The Rigveda contains more than 10 verses arranged in 1028 hymns. Somewhat later are the Brahmanas - the manuals of the Vedic ritual, of which the most important is the Shatapathabrahmana.

The Upanishads (literally: "to sit near" - to sit near the teacher to listen to his exposition of the content of these texts) form the completion of the Vedic literature. The Old Indian tradition has a total of 108 of them, today there are about three hundred different Upanishads. In the Upanishads, the entire complex of Vedic ideology, in particular the absolutization of the victim and its all-pervading power, is subject to revision. However, the Upanishads do not provide an integral system of ideas about the world; one can find only a mass of heterogeneous views in them. The dominant place in the Upanishads is occupied, first of all, by a new interpretation of the phenomena of the world, according to which the universal principle acts as the fundamental principle of being - an impersonal being (brahma), which is also identified with the spiritual essence of each individual (atman). In the Upanishads, Brahma is an abstract principle designed to comprehend the eternal, timeless and supra-spatial, many-sided essence of the world. The concept of atman is used to denote an individual spiritual essence, the soul, which is identified with the universal principle of the world. An inseparable part of this teaching is the concept of the cycle of life (samsara) and the closely related law of retribution (karma). The law of karma presupposes constant inclusion in the cycle of rebirths and determines the future birth, which is the result of all the deeds of previous lives. Only those who performed good deeds, lived in accordance with the current morality, will be born in a future life as a representative of the highest caste. The one whose actions were not correct may in the next life be born as a member of the lower varna (estate). Here is an attempt to explain property and social differences in society as a consequence of the ethical result of the activity of each individual in past lives.

The Upanishads are basically an idealistic teaching, however, it is not holistic in this basis, since there are views close to materialism in it. The Upanishads had a great influence on the development of later thinking in India.

20. Vedic religion

The Vedic religion is a complex, gradually developing complex of religious and mythological ideas and their corresponding rituals and cult rites. The Vedic religion is polytheistic, it is characterized by anthropomorphism, and the hierarchy of the gods is not closed, the same properties and attributes are alternately attributed to different gods. In the Rig Veda, Indra plays an important role - the god of thunder and a warrior who destroys the enemies of the Aryans. A significant place is occupied by Agni - the god of fire. The list of deities of the Rigvedic pantheon continues with Surya (the god of the sun), Soma (the god of the intoxicating drink of the same name used in rituals), Ushas (the goddess of the dawn), Dyaus (the god of heaven), Vayu (the god of the winds) and many others.

Some deities, such as Vishnu, Shiva or Brahma, break into the first ranks of deities only in later Vedic texts. The world of supernatural beings is supplemented by various spirits - enemies of gods and people (rakshasas and asuras).

In some Vedic hymns there is a general principle that could explain individual phenomena and processes of the surrounding world. This principle is the universal cosmic order (rta), which rules over everything, the gods are also subject to it. And although the mouth is an impersonal principle, sometimes the god Varuna acts as its bearer and guardian.

The basis of the Vedic cult is the sacrifice, through which the follower of the Vedas appeals to the gods in order to ensure the fulfillment of his desires. Sacrifice is omnipotent, and if correctly brought, then a positive result is guaranteed. Ritual practice is devoted to a significant part of the Vedic texts, in particular the Brahmins. Vedic ritualism, which concerns almost all spheres of human life, guarantees a special position for the brahmins, the former performers of the cult.

And in the later Vedic texts - the Brahmanas - there is a statement about the origin and emergence of the world. In addition, in the Brahmins there are provisions pointing to various forms of breathing (prana) as the primary manifestations of being.

The Brahmins are, first of all, the practical guides of the Vedic ritual, cult practice and the mythological expositions associated with it - this is their main content. In the Brahmins there is no complete religious and philosophical system, although for the first time some concepts are formulated in them, which become the central theme of the Upanishads. Later Hinduism is largely associated with Brahmin mythology.

21. Jainism

Mahavira Vardhamana is considered the founder of Jainism. According to the Jain tradition, he was only the last of the 24 teachers - tirthakars (creators of the path), whose teaching arose in the distant past. The Jain teaching existed for a long time only in the form of an oral tradition, and a canon was compiled relatively late (in the XNUMXth century AD). The Jain doctrine proclaims dualism. The essence of a person's personality is twofold - material (ajiva) and spiritual (jiva). The connecting link between them is karma, understood as subtle matter, which forms the body of karma and enables the soul to unite with gross matter. The connection of inanimate matter with the soul by the bonds of karma leads to the emergence of an individual, and karma constantly accompanies the soul in an endless chain of rebirths. Jains have developed the concept of karma in detail and distinguish between eight types of different karmas, which are based on two fundamental qualities. Evil karmas negatively affect the main properties of the soul. Good karmas keep the soul in the cycle of rebirths. And only when a person gradually gets rid of evil and good karmas, will his liberation from the fetters of samsara occur.

Jains believe that a person, with the help of his spiritual essence, can control and manage the material essence. Only he himself decides what is good and evil. God is just a soul that once lived in a material body and was freed from the fetters of karma and the chain of rebirth. In the Jain concept, god is not seen as a creator god or a god who interferes in human affairs.

The liberation of the soul from the influence of karma and samsara is possible only with the help of austerity and the performance of good deeds. Therefore, Jainism places great emphasis on the development of an ethic traditionally referred to as the three jewels (triratna). Man can only free himself, and no one can help him. This explains the egocentric character of Jain ethics.

Jainism absolutizes, in particular, the principles of non-causing harm to living beings, principles relating to sexual abstinence, removal from worldly wealth; norms of activity, behavior, etc. are determined.

An integral part of the Jain canon are also various speculative constructions, for example, about the ordering of the world. The cosmos, according to the Jains, is eternal, it was never created and cannot be destroyed.

In Jainism, two directions were formed: orthodox views were defended by the Digambaras, a more moderate approach was proclaimed by the Shvetambaras.

22. Buddhism

In the VI century. BC e. In northern India, Buddhism arises - a doctrine founded by Siddhartha Gautama. After many years of useless austerity, he achieves awakening (bodhi), that is, he comprehends the correct path of life. Buddha means "enlightened one". Salvation consists in achieving nirvana - complete peace and tranquility that comes after all human desires, passions and fears have been overcome.

The Buddhist doctrine for a long time existed only in the oral tradition, and the canonical texts were written down several centuries after the appearance of the doctrine. The Buddha's sermons were originally not so much a new religious system as an ethical and psychotherapeutic teaching.

The center of the teachings are the four noble truths. The path leading to the elimination of suffering, the virtuous eightfold path, is as follows: right judgment, right decision, right speech, right living, right aspiration, right attention, and right concentration. Correct judgment is identified with a correct understanding of life as a vale of sorrow and suffering. Correct speech is characterized as artless, truthful. The right life consists in observing the precepts of morality. Both a life devoted to sensual pleasures and the path of asceticism and self-torture are rejected. The five basic principles of Buddhism are: do not harm living beings, do not take someone else's, refrain from forbidden sexual intercourse, do not make idle and false speech, and do not use intoxicating drinks.

The path to liberation from samsara is open only to monks, however, according to the teachings of the Buddha, the observance of ethical principles and the support of the community can prepare the prerequisites for entering the path of salvation in one of the future existences. A monk who has gone through all the stages of the eightfold path becomes an arhat, a saint.

Various directions and schools of Buddhism quickly begin to form. The Hinayana ("small vehicle") direction, in which the path to nirvana is completely open only to monks who have rejected worldly life, adhered most consistently to the original teachings of the Buddha. In the teachings of the Mahayana ("great vehicle"), the cult of bodhisattvas plays an important role - individuals who are already able to enter nirvana, but postpone the achievement of the final goal in order to help others achieve it.

Buddhism soon after its origin spread to Ceylon, later through China penetrated to the Far East. In China, Buddhism took the form of Ch'an Buddhism, in Japan, the form of Zen Buddhism.

23. Zoroastrianism

The name Zoroastrianism is associated with the name of Zoroaster, the prophet god Mazda. the same religion is sometimes called Mazdaism - after the name of the main god Agur Mazda;

the term fire-worship is also encountered.

The name of the sacred book of Zoroastrianism "Avesta" appeared not at the time of Zoroaster, but much later, when the texts of the doctrine were being codified. In the Middle Persian language Avesta means "code". Despite the striking divergence of opinions about the years of Zoroaster's life, most researchers consider him a real person. Between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries BC e. Zarathushtra spent decades in the mountains, in solitary prayers and meditations.

In the face of the ancient God of light and truth, Ahura Mazda, Zarathushtra discovered the one God and Creator and therefore acted as a militant opponent of polytheism. He preached the moral freedom of man and the responsibility of his choice in the total opposition of the world forces of Good and Evil. Despite the divergence of opinions about the years of Zoroaster's life, most researchers consider him a real person. He was the first in the history of mankind to come to a new, eschatological, vision of the world, i.e. to the perception of the existence of mankind as an expectation of the End of the World, the Last Judgment and eternal life in heaven or hell, depending on the righteousness or sinfulness of everyone's life.

Zoroastrianism had an impact on a number of religious traditions of the Near and Middle East (primarily in the dissemination of the ideas of monotheism-fidelity and service to the one God of Good, as well as eschatological ideas).

The proximity of the Zoroastrian religion to monotheism is so great that the famous Orthodox theologian A. V. Men was ready to "recognize in Zarathustra a brother and like-minded Israeli prophets, a pagan forerunner of Christ on Iranian soil."

In the history of Zoroastrianism, there were forces and circumstances that did not allow for a long time to consolidate and preserve the teachings of Zarathushtra in writing. If in most mythological and religious traditions the creation of a letter is understood as a blessing and a valuable gift to people, then the ancient Iranians considered the letter an invention of an evil spirit and therefore unsuitable for recording the sacred words of the prophet. The sermons, prayers and sayings of Zarathushtra were memorized for almost a thousand years and transmitted from memory in an already dead language, and only in the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries. a new alphabet was specially created to write them down. Liturgical rhythmic texts, directly related to the name of Zoroaster, were "Bats". This is the oldest part of the sacred book of Zoroastrianism.

24. Judaism

Judaism, along with Christianity and Islam, belongs to the Abrahamic religions, which trace their origins to the biblical patriarch Abraham. Unlike Christianity and Islam, Judaism is classified in religious literature not as a world religion, but as a religion of the Jewish people. Judaism is centered on faith - the faith of the people of Israel in God. And this God is not an absent or indifferent God, but a God who communicates his will to mankind. This will is revealed in the Torah, the guide that God has given people to live by. The faith of the Jews is in the love and power of God to convey their goals to all mankind.

Judaism, therefore, is a world religion, not only in terms of geographical distribution, but also in terms of its horizons. It is a religion for the whole world, not because everyone should become Jews, for the goal of Judaism is absolutely not like that, but based on their belief that the world belongs to God, and people should behave in accordance with His will.

The genre idea, the very idea of the Creed belongs to Christianity, and, strictly speaking, only in Christianity the term creed is completely organic. However, in every religion, especially in a religion that is attentive to the word and to the structure of its teaching, there are analogues of the Creed - a specially composed text, summarizing the most important truths of the faith, read as a sign of fidelity to the teaching.

The creed of Judaism was compiled by the outstanding Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages, Moses Maimonides, the author of The Guide to the Lost, one of the early logical-theological Commentaries on the Torah. The creed formulated by Maimonides consists of 13 provisions, including the uniqueness of God, the divine origin of the Torah, the afterlife. This text is still included in many Jewish prayer books.

Rabbi Yosef Telushkin writes that the Judaic Symbol is most accurately expressed in the biblical verse from Deuteronomy (2, 4): "Listen, Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one." The main thing that lies in it is the monotheism of the Jewish faith. And in our time, believers read this text four times a day - as a prayer and a symbol of devotion to God.

In Judaism, the initial teaching of the foundations of faith is carried out according to the "Torah" and its commentaries.

The main document of Judaism is the Torah. "Torah" includes the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) and the "Pentateuch of Moses": the first five books of the Old Testament - the Tanakh (a compound abbreviated word made up of the first sounds of the names of the main parts of the Old Testament). "Torah" in Judaism is the most authoritative part of the Tanakh (Old Testament). This is the main document of Judaism and the basis of all later Jewish law.

25. "Torah" and "Talmud"

"Torah" includes the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) and the "Pentateuch of Moses": the first five books of the Old Testament - the Tanakh (a compound abbreviated word made up of the first sounds of the names of the main parts of the Old Testament). "Torah" in Judaism is the most authoritative part of the Tanakh (Old Testament). This is the main document of Judaism and the basis of all later Jewish law. "Torah" ("Pentateuch of Moses") in the Jewish tradition has another name - the Written Law. The Torah was given by God through Moses. The Jews believed that God gave Moses not only the Written Law, but also gave him the Oral Law, a legal commentary explaining how laws should be followed in different circumstances. His oldest and most authoritative writings constituted the Mishnah ("second law"), which became the foundation of the Talmud. The Mishnah contains 63 treatises, in which the instructions of the Torah are presented systematically (by branches of law and subjects). After the codification, generations of Jewish sages carefully studied and discussed the precepts of the Mishnah. The records of these disputes and additions are called "Gemara".

The Mishnah and the Gemara make up the Talmud, the most comprehensive compilation of Jewish law. The Talmud took shape over 9 centuries. It is an encyclopedically complete collection of all kinds of prescriptions based on the Tanakh, as well as additions and interpretations to the Tanakh.

The Talmud has two main parts:

1) more important and responsible - the legislative code "Halacha", mandatory for study in Jewish schools;

2) "Aggadah" - a collection of folk wisdom of semi-folklore origin. "Aggadah" was studied to a lesser extent, but was popular as a moral and religious edifying reading and a source of information about the world and nature.

A new generation of commentators created their own commentary on the Mishnah. And over time, several competing sets of interpretations became in circulation, of which the most important are the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud. At the same time, the earliest commentary - "Tosefta" - was necessary for understanding the subsequent sets of interpretations and served as a kind of introduction to them.

The creators of the Talmud were fully aware of its immensity and the difficulties associated with it in its practical use. The Talmud was codified more than once, systematized extracts were made from it, and abridged expositions were created. The legal sections of the Talmud became the foundation of Jewish law. Most sections of the Talmud have a similar structure: first, a law from the Mishnah is quoted, followed by a discussion of interpreters about its content from the Gemara.

26. Jewish theology

In Judaism, theology (or theology) as a theoretical doctrine of God began to develop after the addition of the religious canon. After the tragic defeat of the Jews in two anti-Roman uprisings, the task of the book "strengthening the faith" was recognized in Judaism as a kind of spiritual overcoming of the catastrophe. In the Talmud, the theological component proper was relatively small. Eschatological ideas become much more distinct in it: the end of the world, the Last Judgment, the resurrection from the dead, the afterlife retribution for man for his deeds. Theologically, the strengthening of monotheism is also significant.

Apophatic theology proceeds from the complete transcendence of God. Therefore, in apophatic theology, only negative judgments about God are recognized as true ("God is not a man", "God is not nature"). Positive judgments about God are impossible.

Cataphatic theology admits the possibility of characterizing God with the help of positive (positive) definitions and designations, which should not be understood literally and directly.

The name of the God of the Jews, Yahweh, is not strictly speaking in the Bible. The name Yahweh (Jehovah) arose in the XIII-XV centuries. among Christian theologians who studied the Old Testament in the original. These four consonants convey the first sounds of the Hebrew expression, which is interpreted as "I am who I am (God)." The name of God was pronounced only once a year (on the Day of Atonement) by the high priest, and the secret of its sound was transmitted orally along the senior line of the high priestly family. After the Babylonian captivity, around the XNUMXth century. BC e., the Jews stopped pronouncing this name in Divine services and when reading Scripture, replacing it with the word Elohim. This designation for God is the plural form of the Hebrew word meaning "God." In the Talmud, there are no longer those numerous characterizing names-epithets of God that the Tanakh abounds in: Eternal, Omniscient, Great in councils, Knowing the secrets of the heart, etc.

After the Talmud, Jewish theology develops in the works of many generations of scholars, including the outstanding thinker of the XNUMXth century. Martin Buber. The most famous Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages, Moses Maimonides, was a brilliant rationalist in theology. His Arabic "Teacher of the Lost" contains the logical and philosophical justification for monotheism. Defending and developing the rationalistic principles of Scripture, Maimonides systematized and supplemented the methods of interpretation of the Torah developed in the Talmud.

27. Jewish worship

"Torah" ("Pentateuch of Moses"), the main book of Judaism should be fully read every year in the synagogue. Even the sages of the Talmud divided the Torah into weekly readings, and each weekly reading into seven parts (according to the number of days in a week). An excerpt from the "Torah" is performed by one of the members of the community, called "the man of reading." In reality, he does not read, but sings "Torah" according to special notes, which must be known by heart. At every service, the reading of the Torah is usually accompanied by a rabbinic interpretation of the verse or topic of the reading. Discourse in the synagogue about the "Torah" or Judaism is called dwar Torah, which means "the word of the Torah." This kind of sermon can be delivered not only by a rabbi, but by every believer. From the Tanakh, in addition to the "Torah", selected passages of the books of the prophets are read in the synagogue, usually thematically related to the sounded chapters of the "Torah". That "Torah", which is read in the synagogue, must be a scroll and must be written by hand. In the synagogue or in the room in which the Jews pray to God, the Torah scrolls are kept in a special closet called the sacred ark. The climax of the Saturday morning service comes after the end of the reading, when two members of the community are called to perform the rite of "lifting the Torah" and "dressing the Torah." The scroll is taken out of the ark, while the worshipers sing from the "Book of the Prophet Isaiah." The scroll is raised above the head and carried around the synagogue so that everyone can see the text, while it is supposed to unfold the scroll so wide that several columns of text can be seen at once. If a heavy, usually over 10 kg, scroll is dropped on the floor, then all witnesses to this must fast all day.

The basis of the Jewish prayer book is the psalms - 150 hymns of the Old Testament book "Psalter". The name of the book "Psalter" is Greek and later.

In the Tanakh, the book of psalms is called "Songs of Praise". Tradition connects them with the name of King David.

A sermon in the temple always contains, to one degree or another, an interpretation of the Scriptures, since this is the general goal of a sermon - to bring the meaning of the word of God to the minds of people. In religion, preaching is as organic as prayer. This is the fundamental, primary genre of religious communication. The elements of preaching may already be present in Scripture. This is a fairly common occurrence for the "Tanakh" ("Old Testament"), since the Jewish Holy Scripture is a mythologized history of the Jewish people, and not only the commandments of God, but also the sermons of the prophet associated with them turned out to be included in the historical narrative.

28. Holy Scripture of Christians

The revelation of God, begun in the Old Testament, is completed in the New Testament. It has a stepped or multi-level character, reminiscent of a "story within a story" in its communicative structure. The Scriptures are deliberately ambiguous, and the boundaries between the "story" and the "story framing it" are emphatically removed. The communicative triad of "participants in communication" (God-Messenger of God-People), to whom the Revelation of God is addressed, becomes more complicated in the New Testament. On the one hand, God is not only Jehovah, God the Father, but also God the Son, who is also the incarnate Word of God. On the other hand, the functions of messenger, mediation between God and people in the New Testament are also carried out in several planes. First, the Messenger is God himself, that is, the Son of God and the incarnate Word of God. Secondly, the mediators between Christ and people are those of his 12 disciples whom Jesus chose and called apostles.

In order to present the structure of Revelation in Christianity, three questions must be answered. What is the direct speech of God the Father in Christian Scripture? First, it is the Revelation inherited by Christianity from the Old Testament. What is the direct speech of Jesus Christ? First, the instructions and parables of the Sermon on the Mount. Secondly, other gospel parables. What does the word gospel mean in the New Testament? First, this word is included in the title of the four canonical Gospels. Secondly, in the New Testament "Epistle to the Romans of the Apostle Paul" "the gospel of Christ" is called the appeal to the people of Christ himself and the Christian doctrine as a whole. Third, since the subject matter of all four Gospels is the Word of God, the Gospels represent a particular form of God's Revelation. Thus, the "separate" Revelations recorded in the Gospels are included in the Revelation, as it were, of a higher order.

Orthodox theology upholds the equal value of Scripture and Tradition, while considering Scripture as part of Tradition. It is argued that Scripture cannot be understood without Tradition. In Catholicism, the significance of the Holy Tradition is significantly higher than in Orthodoxy. This is due to the more centralized and legally more rigid organization of the Roman Catholic Church. The papal bulls proclaimed the monopoly of the Church in the interpretation of Scripture. The Bible was inaccessible to the bulk of believers. It is no coincidence that the most important principles of Protestantism were the priority of Scripture over Tradition, the availability of Scripture to the laity, including women, the translation of Scripture into the vernacular, the right of everyone to interpret and understand Scripture in their own way.

29. Holy Fathers of the Church

According to Christian biblical studies, the New Testament was written by four evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and the apostles James, John, Jude and Paul, that is, eight people. In the hierarchy of Christian authorities, the authors of the New Testament occupy the top place, while the apostles are called the first - they were revered above the evangelists, since the apostles were direct disciples and messengers of Jesus Christ and knew him personally. They were the most accurate in conveying what Christ taught. They adhered to the principle of ipse dixit ("he said"). But Christianity expanded and, on the one hand, the codification of the doctrine began to take place, and on the other hand, a comprehensive Christian picture of the world was created. The semantic, meaningful increment to the original Christianity took place over the course of six centuries - from the XNUMXnd to the XNUMXth centuries. the work of many generations of scribes. The developed powerful layer of new information, in order to be accepted by society, needed a general recognition of the authority of the creators of information. The reference ipse dixit - "said himself" - should have been extended from the apostles to new authors. They began to be called the fathers of the church or the holy fathers of the church, and their works - patristic creations, or patristics. The patristic writings became the second most important body of Christian doctrinal texts - Sacred Tradition. Although the church did not adopt a special canonical decree on who should be considered the fathers of the church, there were still certain criteria. In particular, the church fathers must be canonized as saints. Therefore, such prominent theologians as Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, Tertullian are not considered the fathers of the church, but only church writers. For the same reason, the list of Western (who wrote in Latin) and Eastern Fathers (who wrote in Greek) does not match. The pinnacle of Eastern (Byzantine) patristics are the works of the so-called Cappadocian circle - Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa in the XNUMXth century. The most prominent representative of Latin patristics was Bishop St. Augustine Aurelius, recognized by subsequent tradition as the "teacher of the West".

The Byzantine theologian, encyclopedist St. John of Damascus (650-754) and Pope Gregory the Great (540-604), the initiator of the Christianization of England, the compiler of the ecclesiastical legal code for the clergy "Pastoral Rule" and the author of "Explanations on Job or XXXV books on morality."

The corpus of patristic writings is almost boundless. The most complete, however, the remaining unfinished edition was undertaken in Paris in the middle of the 400th century. Abbe J.P. Minem. It contains nearly XNUMX volumes.

30. Christian theology

In Christianity, theological theory has been developed to a much greater extent than in other theistic religions. An additional factor in the development of theology in early Christianity was the fight against heresies. In addition, the development of theology in Christianity, as in the history of other religions, was stimulated by the mystical search for religiously gifted individuals.

"The first theologian after the apostles" the Christian Church calls St. Irenaeus. His main work, entitled "Refutation and Refutation of the Doctrine Falsely Calling Itself Gnosis," contained a detailed polemic with Gnosticism. Tertullian (160-220), presbyter of Carthage, was the first to formulate the principle of the trinity of God and introduced the concept of persons ("hypostases") of the Trinity. Origen's contribution to the speculative doctrine is associated with the development of Christology (the doctrine of the nature of Christ) and the doctrine of salvation. Origen proved the inevitability of complete salvation, merging with God of all souls and the temporality of hellish torments. In his essay on the nature of Christ, the term god-man is encountered for the first time. St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354-430), developed an ontological proof of the existence of God; the concept of faith as a prerequisite for all knowledge; the doctrine of sin and grace; first raised the so-called anthropological questions of Christianity. Augustine formulated that addition to the Creed, which distinguishes the Catholic version of the Creed from the Orthodox (the so-called filioque). Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) went down in history as an outstanding church organizer and politician. St. John of Damascus (c. 615-753), the finalist of patristics, Byzantine philosopher and poet, first compiled a systematic and complete theology under the title "Source of Knowledge".

However, already in early Christianity, the rapid development of theology met with intra-confessional restrictions and prohibitions. Theological searches and disagreements were allowed, but only as long as they did not contradict Scripture and the authorities of the Church Fathers. Those doctrinal positions, judgments or opinions that were recognized by the Ecumenical Councils as universally binding Christian truths of the "first rank" received the status of dogmas, and their systematic exposition and justification constituted the subject of a special theological discipline - dogmatic theology. A brief set of basic dogmas is the Creed - the main text, repeating which believers testify to their Christian faith. The Catholic and Orthodox denominations differ somewhat in the composition of their dogmas.

31. Christian worship

There are two main genres of texts in Christianity:

1) a symbol of faith;

2) catechism.

In early Christianity, a catechism is an oral instruction to those preparing to be baptized. Preparation for baptism (catechesis) in the Russian church tradition was called "announcement", and those who underwent such training were called "catechumens". There was also the word "catechumen" - a book of teachings for those preparing to accept Christianity, and the expression "catechumenized words" - teachings for catechumens.

All Christian joint services, including the main of them - the liturgy - include common prayers, singing and reading passages from sacred books (Old and New Testament writings of the Church Fathers). Liturgy is a divine service during which the sacrament of the Eucharist (thanksgiving), or the communion of believers to God, is performed. Liturgy established by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. The composition and sequence of prayers, chants and readings depends on three time coordinates that determine the place of a particular service in three cycles:

1) in daily worship;

2) in the church year (in relation to non-passing holidays, as well as holidays in honor of saints, icons and days of memory);

3) in the Paschal cycle, i.e., in relation to Great Lent, Holy Week, mobile, or moving holidays.

At the same time, the rite of the liturgy was distinguished by particular complexity. In the Orthodox Church, a special genre of liturgical books for the priest and deacon was developed - the Missal. On church holidays and on the days of memory of certain saints, special chants, prayers and readings dedicated to the corresponding holiday or saint are included in the service. There are special liturgical books that contain the texts of such additions, arranged in calendar order, by months - these are the Menaions.

The circle of those texts that are read and sung in Christian worship includes almost all the texts of the New Testament (excluding the Apocalypse), a number of texts of the "Old Testament", further prayers and hymns of apostolic times, the Creed, patristic hymns and prayers, excerpts from lives.

Every service has a fixed component that is required for all services, and a variable component. It depends on what day of the week and year the service is performed. Therefore, the books used in Christian worship are numerous and form a complex and rather strict system. The key to this system is the Missal and the Typicon, the two main liturgical books.

Of the books of the "Old Testament" in Christian worship, the "Psalter" is most widely used.

32. Sermon in the culture of Christianity

The famous "Sermon on the Mount", which sets forth the essence of Christian ethics, is both a parallel, an addition, and an antithesis to the Old Testament "Decalogue" - the Ten Chief Commandments of Judaism. The new ethics of the Sermon on the Mount continues the Old Testament and argues with it. However, a number of passages are precisely the denial of the commandments of the Old Testament.

The Sermon on the Mount allows us to present the features of early Christian preaching: the universal and eschatological scale of the sermon, its preoccupation with the "last questions" of being; its simplicity, naturalness, sincerity; its emphatically non-bookish, "street" and purely oral, unlearned character.

Early Christian preaching was called homilia (Greek omilia - meeting, community; conversation, teaching). Later, the term homiletics arose - "the rules for compiling sermons; the science of church eloquence." Information has been preserved that Origen also compiled practical guides to homiletics.

Sunday preaching in medieval Western Christianity, especially in large churches, was quite common. At the same time, normative guidelines for preaching were absent for a long time.

In the universities, in the faculties of theology, they taught the so-called "thematic" sermon, distinguishing it from the homily as a "free", unsophisticated sermon. "Thematic" sermon (it was also called "university") for several centuries was felt as the pinnacle of church-rhetorical learning.

Sermon, in a certain sense, is opposed to worship proper (liturgy). If the order of services is strictly prescribed by the Missal and the Typicon, then preaching is a free genre.

There is unpredictability in preaching and therefore the risk of being unorthodox. Therefore, the Orthodox and Catholic churches, especially in the past, in one way or another, limited the possibilities of preaching. For example, in Orthodoxy the right to preach liturgical sermons is given only to bishops and presbyters (priests), but not to deacons.

Protestants, on the contrary, actively developed preaching, seeing in free preaching a return to the purity and religious creativity of early Christian times. Rejecting all the sacraments except baptism and communion, it was precisely in preaching that the Protestants strove to see a kind of new sacramentum audibile, that is, an audible sacrament.

The flourishing of Catholic preaching, especially Jesuit preaching in the era of the counter-reformation, was partly a reaction to the successes of Protestant preaching, the search for "its own" counterbalance to what attracted Christians to Protestantism.

33. Dogma about the Trinity

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity of God developed in the XNUMXth century, in heated disputes with religious differences. The dogma of the Holy Trinity is recognized as the basis of Christian doctrine and the main theological problem of Christianity. At the same time, the dogma of the Holy Trinity "is a dogma that is mysterious and incomprehensible at the level of reason" (Dogmatic theology).

According to Christian teaching, the Holy Trinity is the three persons (three hypostases) of God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They are "uncreated" and "unborn", "consubstantial", i.e. they have one Divine Essence, and "equilibrium".

Arius (256-336), a priest from Alexandria, taught that the Son of God was created by God the Father, i.e., is a creation of God, and therefore not God. But the Son is "revered by the Godhead", endowed with Divine power, therefore he can be called the "second God", but not the first. According to Arius, the Spirit is the highest creation of the Son, just as He Himself is the highest creation of the Father. Arius called the Holy Spirit "grandson." Theology recognizes that the teaching of Arius arose as a result of the fact that the texts of Scripture, which speak of the subordination of the Son to the Father, were attributed inappropriately high importance. In other words, the "Arian heresy" that shook the Eastern Church is a misreading, an inadequate interpretation of the sacred text.

Arius was condemned by the First Ecumenical (Nicene) Council in 325 and died in exile. New anti-Arian decisions were made at the Second Ecumenical (Constantinople) Council in 381. The "Arian heresy" was a bogey back in the XNUMXth century. for Russian Old Believers.

Differences between Western and Eastern Christianity in the interpretation of the Trinity led to the emergence of two different editions of the Christian Creed. The Western change in the Creed - added the filioque (and from the Son) - reflects a different, not "equilibrium", more subordinate understanding of the Trinity: the Son is younger than the Father, the Father and the Son are the sources of the Spirit. This opinion was advocated by St. Augustine, separating the Father from the Son as sources of the Spirit. To the former formula: The Spirit proceeds from the Holy Father. Augustine added, "and from the Son." The local council in Toledo (589) included this combination - "and from the Son" - in the 8th article of the Creed:

"And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, who gives life to all, who proceeds from the Father and from the Son, who is honored and glorified equally with the Father and with the Son, who spoke through the prophets."

It was this dogmatic divergence, expressed in the Western addition of the words "and from the Son", that later (in 1054) became a partial reason and reason for the division of Christianity into the Western (Roman Catholic) Church and the Eastern (Greek Orthodox) Church.

34. Islam

Islam, the youngest of the world religions, developed under the strong influence of the religions of neighboring peoples - Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism. Like these traditions, Islam belongs to the religions of Scripture. At the same time, the features inherent in the religions of Scripture, and, above all, the non-conventional interpretation of the linguistic sign (literalism in the interpretation or translation of the sign; conservative and protective attitude towards the sacred text; fundamental indistinguishability of some signs and what they denote), are expressed in Islam with the greatest fullness and strength. This originality of Islam is manifested in various events in its history, as well as in a number of dogmas and special regulations regarding the practice of using the Koran in worship, its translation, interpretation, study at school, etc.

Islam is often written about as a simple religion, inheriting the mentality of a clan or a neighboring community and accessible to the masses of ordinary people. Indeed, in Islam there are no such supernatural paradoxes as the Virgin Mother of God and the Immaculate Conception, the God-man or God the Son as the sent down Word of God the Father. Therefore, it is natural that many of the problems that worried Christian theologians for centuries, and the essence of which boiled down to the need to rationally comprehend the super-rationality of Scripture, simply did not arise in Islam.

Islam is not only faith and religion. Islam is a way of life, the Qur'an is an "Arabic law book", and it is this "interlacing" of Islam in everyday and responsible life situations that creates the fundamental originality of Islam and explains the main collisions of Islamic theology. In comparison with Islam, Christian theology appears to be extremely speculative and abstract, far from life.

Islamic theology, in comparison with Christian, seems to be much more concerned with jurisprudence and daily rituals in everyday life than with disputes about the attributes of Allah, the uncreation of the Koran, or the Divine predestination of human destiny. In addition, the extreme and radical monotheism inherent in Islam immediately ruled out the very possibility of Muslim analogues of the Holy Trinity.

The originality of Muslim theology is sometimes seen in a certain semantic disintegration of the picture of the world.

The Islamic complete creed is called aqida (Arabic for "faith, dogma"). There is also an abbreviated Creed - "Shahada" (from the Arabic "shahida" - to testify).

The two main tenets of Islam are:

1) there is one, only, eternal and almighty God - Allah;

2) Allah chose an Arab from Mecca, Mohammed, as his messenger.

35. Quran

The Koran is from the Arabic kuran - literally - "reading what is read, pronounced." The Qur'an is also called the words "mushaf", "kitab" (in Arabic "book"); in the Qur'an itself, the Qur'an also uses the word "dhikr", i.e. "warning, reminder".

Its entire text is a direct speech of Allah (from the 1st person), addressed to the prophet Muhammad or through the prophet to people. "Deity in the first person" is the "main effect" of the style of the Qur'an and the secret of its inspiring power.

It is clear that the degree of sacredness of the direct word of God is higher than the sanctity of the "indirect".

The Qur'an was sent down to the prophet Muhammad by the angel Jibril on behalf of Allah on the night of the month of Ramadan 610. Everything he heard that night and in many subsequent days and nights for almost 20 years, Muhammad repeated word for word to his fellow tribesmen, preserving the "direct speech" of the Revelation of Allah.

Islamic teaching regards the Qur'an as a "complete prophecy" and sees in this its superiority over the holy books of the Jews and Christians. According to the Koran, Jews and Christians believe in the same God as Muslims - this is the ancient faith of the forefather of Arabs and Jews Abraham (Arabic Ibrahim), and God has already sent his prophets and Revelation to people.

According to Islamic doctrine, the Koran is the final word of God addressed to people, Muslims are a special people chosen by God for the last Testament, and Islam, which goes back to the ancient faith of the forefathers and at the same time contains a "completed prophecy", occupies an exceptional position in the circle of religions. peace.

According to the original and orthodox conception, the Quran was not created: it has always existed, from eternity, and was kept in the seventh heaven in anticipation of the arrival of the one who would be most worthy to receive the word of God. This man was Muhammad, the prophet of Allah.

The dispute about the nature of the Qur'an was not a narrowly theological discussion among scholastic scholars. In the IX-X centuries. it agitated wide circles of Muslims and often became so acute that it caused imprisonment, corporal punishment and even armed rebellion.

The final consolidated text of the Koran was established in 856 after studying and selecting a number of lists on the orders of Osman, the son-in-law of Muhammad, chronologically the third caliph of the prophet. The "Ottoman Quran" became the official text adopted in Islam even today. Non-canonical lists of the Qur'an have not been preserved, and information about their features is extremely scarce. In the X century. seven most authoritative theologians recognized seven ways of reading the Koran as canonical. Of these seven options, only two are currently in practical use.

36. Sunnah. Prophet Muhammad

For Muslims, the role of the Holy Tradition, designed to supplement and explain the Koran, is played by the "Sunnah" - the biography of the creator of religion.

The life of Muhammad could form a kind of Islamic sacred history and at the same time serve as an example of a righteous life and struggle for Islam. This text became the "Sunnah of the Prophet".

In functional terms, the "Sunnah" is a doctrinal source of the "second order", while in terms of content it is a biography of the prophet. The Arabic word sunna, which has become the designation of the biography of Muhammad and the Islamic Holy Tradition, literally means "path, example, model." The Sunnah contains stories about the actions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. The religious and ethical norms approved by the "Sunnah" reflect the customs and rules of the Arab urban community, supplemented by the norms of Muslim orthodoxy. This is the second foundation of Islamic law. The expression "observe the Sunnah" means to imitate Muhammad, to lead a correct Muslim life. There was also a stable formula "In the name of the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of his prophet."

In Islam, there are almost no known conflicts related to differences in understanding the opposition "Holy Scripture (Koran) - Holy Tradition (Sunnah of the Prophet)". In the IX-X centuries. "Sunnah" is beginning to be read almost on a par with the Koran. The "Sunnah of the Prophet" was called very early to supplement the word of Allah. As a sign of reverence for the "Sunnah," legitimate Muslims began to call themselves Ahl Assunnah, that is, "people of the Sunnah, or Sunnis." However, the Shiite currents and sects opposing the Sunnis also revere the "Sunnah of the Prophet" along with the Koran. The first distributors of the "Sunnah" were the companions of Muhammad, who, in various conflicting or difficult cases of life, began to recall the actions of the prophet as an argument in a dispute.

Traditions from the life of the prophet began to be called hadiths (Arabic for "story"). Early oral hadiths date back to the second half of the XNUMXth and early XNUMXth centuries. In the VIII-IX centuries. Hadith began to be written down. The "Sunnah" as a whole took shape by the XNUMXth century. The first and main difference between the "main" collections of hadiths and the "non-main" ones is the degree of authority of the narrator.

The two main directions in Islam - Sunnism and Shiism - differ from each other in the antiquity of the hadiths they recognize as sacred and, therefore, canonical sources of law. Shiites recognize only those hadiths that go back to Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law Caliph Ali and his two sons. For the Sunnis, the circle of sacred collections of hadiths is much wider, and they recognize not only Ali, but also some other caliphs as the legitimate successors of Muhammad.

37. Islamic worship

Every Muslim knows the Arabic sound and meaning of the Symbol of the religion of Islam: "La ilaha illallah wa Muhammadun rasulullah" - "I testify that there is no deity but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." The threefold pronunciation of this formula in the presence of an official, and not necessarily in the temple, constitutes the ritual of accepting Islam. There is no catechesis: the convert to Islam is not required to undergo prior training in the basics of faith.

In everyday Muslim life, various verbal formulas are used, which are regarded as symbolic signs of loyalty to Allah. For example, the exclamation of Allahu akbar "Allah is the greatest" is both the battle cry of Muslim warriors, and everyday exclamation, and a common inscription on buildings.

In comparison with Christianity and especially Orthodoxy, Muslim worship may seem almost ascetically simple and monotonous. It is strictly regulated, there are no sacraments, chants, music in it. One of the five most important ritual duties of every Muslim is the canonical prayer-worship - salat (Arabic), or in Persian - prayer. Salat is performed five times a day, at certain hours (according to the sun). At the appointed time, a special minister of the mosque - a muezzin from the tower of the minaret or just a hillock calls the faithful to obligatory prayer. The call consists of several formulas, repeated without change. A Muslim can pray not only in a mosque, but also in any ritually clean place and on a special rug.

Prayer must necessarily be preceded by ritual ablution, for which special small pools are arranged near the mosque. Prayer is led by an imam - the primate at prayer, the spiritual leader, the head of the Muslim community. He reads prayers, the mullah says a sermon.

Ritual movements are very important. First, standing and raising his hands to shoulder level, a Muslim pronounces the formula of praise "Allahu Akbar!". Then, continuing to stand and putting his left hand into his right, the worshiper reads the Fatiha, the first sura of the Koran, in 7 verses of which the main tenets of Islam are contained. Then the worshiper bends down so that the palms touch the knees. Then he straightens up and raises his hands, saying: "Allah listens to the one who gives him praise." Then he kneels down and puts his palms on the ground. Then comes the climax of the ritual: the worshiper is prone on the floor (on the rug), and so that the nose touches the ground. Then the worshiper sits down without getting up from his knees, after which he again prostrates himself on the floor.

38. Arabic Code of Laws

Suras 2, 4 and 5 contain instructions on religious, civil and criminal matters. The second primary source of Islamic law is hadiths, i.e., stories about the actions and statements of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions.

The main difficulties in the legal use of the Koran and the Sunnah of the prophet were as follows. Firstly, the suras of the Qur'an heard by the prophet at different times often contradict each other, not only in metaphysics, but also in specific legal or ritual issues. Secondly, turning to hadiths as a source of law was hampered by the fact that the degree of authenticity of different hadiths was different and, most importantly, not universally recognized. There was a need for textual examination of hadiths, for an authoritative assessment of the antiquity and reliability of their isnads. Thirdly, the direct use of the Qur'an as an "Arabic code of law" was hampered by the fact that the legal norms in it were often formulated too abstractly and concisely, as if in a collapsed form.

Comprehensive commentary and development of the legislative guidelines of the Koran and hadith became the main content of Isam theology. There are two main types of legal interpretation of sacred books: tafsir and fiqh. Tafsir, which became widespread already in the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries, is a special scholarly interpretation, using, on the one hand, the methods of purely religious reasoning, and, on the other hand, all sorts of data on the chronology and history of sacred texts. Here, methods were developed for verifying the authenticity of hadiths, and biographical information about their transmitters was collected. Fiqh is more practical. This is Muslim canon law, include the theory of Islamic law. Fiqh deals with the direct legal interpretation of the Koran and hadiths, their interpretation in relation to the practical life of the Muslim society. Since the Law is understood as the main content of the Qur'an and Sunnah, the term fiqh is sometimes used broadly to refer to the totality of religious disciplines.

Sharia is a complex of legal norms, principles and rules of conduct, religious life and actions of a Muslim; Sharia is actually embodied in works on fiqh and in the practice of Muslim courts. The main task of Sharia was to evaluate the various circumstances of life from the point of view of religion. Fiqh complemented Sharia in purely legal aspects.

In the modern world of Islam, only collections of fiqh have the force of law, while the Koran and hadiths are books primarily for edifying reading, hard-to-understand primary sources of law and morality.

39. Arab religious philosophy

Arab religious philosophy developed in parallel with the development of early scholasticism. The main meaning of Arab philosophy was to protect Islam and its church dogmas, therefore, in its main features and starting points, it coincides with scholastic philosophy.

At the beginning of Islamic philosophy are two great thinkers. The first of them is the Arab adherent of the ideas of Aristotle al-Kindi. Al-Farabi was a staunch follower of Aristotle in the 10th century. However, he begins to interpret Aristotle's system in the spirit of the Neoplatonists, taking from Aristotle a clear and logical division of reality into separate areas of scientific interest.

In relation to Christian scholasticism, the work of the great Aristotelians of Arab philosophy is of great importance: in the East it was Avicenna, in the West - Averroes.

The main philosophical work of Avicenna was the encyclopedic treatise "The Book of Healing", containing the foundations of logic, physics, mathematics and metaphysics; besides this he wrote commentaries on Aristotle and many other books. Avicenna's philosophy was theocentric. He understood the world as a product of the divine mind, but in no case of God's will. The world was created from matter, not from nothing; matter is eternal. The material world has the character of a concrete possibility and exists in time. The world in its real multiplicity was not created once and directly by God, but arose gradually.

If Avicenna was the king of Arabic philosophy in the East, then the king of the Arab West, who significantly influenced European philosophy, was Averroes.

He is the author of famous commentaries on Aristotle. According to Averroes, the material world is eternal, infinite, but limited in space. God is as eternal as nature, but he did not create the world out of nothing, as religion proclaims. Forms do not come to matter from outside, but in eternal matter all forms are potentially contained and gradually crystallize in the process of development. He adopted the concept of universal gradation and hierarchy of beings between God and man from Avicenna. He also denied the immortality of the individual soul. The individual soul dies with the body, because with the death of the body, the specific sensory representations and memory inherent in each individual person disintegrate.

The representative of the mystical direction was al-Ghazali. Al-Ghazali's main interest was in faith, which he sharply contrasted with science and philosophy. He demonstrated his skeptical approach in the treatise "Refutation of the Philosophers".

40. Satanism

Modern Satanism is one of the trends in Black occultism and the most developed form of "left hand religions" - demon worship, its quintessence.

For the Initiate of the Right Path, God is always in the center, the Initiate of the Left Path is egocentric, that is, the center of the Universe for him is his own Ego - the lower, temporary, false "I", which he opposes to the higher, immortal, absolute "I" - the spark of God in man .

In the direction of Black occultism, to which satanism belongs, the main role is played by painful bloody sacrifices. The point here is not in the sadism of satanic priests, but in the fact that satanists, like their predecessors in the pagan world, believe that the torment and blood of innocent victims are the main guarantee of the success of their rituals. According to the teachings of Satanists, blood is not only a symbol of life, but life itself, a receptacle of astral energy, which is released at the time of death and becomes available for use in magic.

In addition, blood is the carrier of vitality and the source of the so-called gavvaha - subtle radiation of human suffering, which absorbs most categories of infernal entities to make up for the loss of their vitality. For these reasons, in all demonic cults, during ritual sacrifices, the priests do their best to ensure that the torment of the victim is as terrible as possible, and the sacrifices are as bloody as possible.

Ritual murders and magical actions with the blood of victims in order to worship Satan and gain his favor, received the name "black masses" from Satanists. At present, "black masses" have acquired a more independent character, ceasing to be just an occult caricature of the Catholic service.

The most famous Satanist of the 1930th century and the founder of the Church of Satan was the Hungarian Anton Lavey (born in XNUMX), a spiritual student of the most famous black occultist of the XNUMXth century, Aleister Crowley. A. Crowley is one of the brightest figures in the "occult Renaissance" of the late XIX - early XX century. Anton LaVey compiled two handbooks for every modern Satanist, The Satanic Bible and The Satanic Ritual.

In March 1970, the Church of Satan was admitted to the US National Council of Churches. At the Pentagon, along with other denominations, the chief chaplain of the Church of Satan was represented, under whose leadership about a hundred Satanist chaplains served to satisfy the corresponding spiritual needs of the personnel of the US Armed Forces.

41. Hierarchical levels of Satanism

American priest Jeffrey Steffon, who has studied Satanism specifically, believes that there are seven levels of approach to Satan.

At the first level of Satanism are those who practice divination and simple forms of practical magic. This group also includes those who from time to time engage in spiritualism.

The second level of Satanism includes those who are addicted to séances, various kinds of drugs, hallucinogens, psychedelics, hard rock music, etc.

At the third level of Satanism are well-organized satanic groups, whose leaders are figures like A. Lavey.

The fourth level of Satanism includes Satanists who are members of closed occult societies such as the "Church of Satan", the "Temple of Set", the "Order of Dagon" and other similar organizations.

The fifth level of Satanism is made up of "hard-core" Satanists - the "inner circle". This includes all those who are actively engaged not only in theoretical but also in practical Black occultism, that is, Black magic, and have reached a certain, very high level of qualification in this field. Two directions can be distinguished here, the representatives of which can be conditionally called Satanists-"individualists" and Satanists-"collectivists". Satanists "individualists" are solitary sorcerers, a kind of satanic hermits. Satanists-"collectivists" are sorcerers who have united among themselves in occult groups to perform joint magical operations.

It should be noted that in Satanism the difference between Black and White magic is categorically denied.

Level XNUMX Satanists are called "Black Adepts". In addition to the fact that they are all black magicians of a very high level, they have such developed spiritual sight and hearing that they are able to see and hear Satan, that is, Gakhtungr (the planetary demon of the Earth) in his parallel world. And they can communicate with him with the help of spiritual sight and hearing directly.

Satanists of the highest - the seventh level are called "Saints of Satan". These are the Messiahs of Evil, who constantly communicate with Satan (Gakhtungr) in his parallel world, through spiritual vision and spiritual hearing, and are directly involved in the development of the atheistic plan, along with the "Evil's chosen ones" who are in Digma - the world where Satan lives. Their main task is to lead the implementation of the God-fighting plan in Enrof - our parallel world. "Holy Satans" are available to an extremely limited circle of people from among the largest representatives of the highest satanic elite of the planet.

42. Church of Satan

The main temple of the Church of Satan in the USA in the 1970s and 80s was located on California Street in San Francisco. Later, the main Satanic temple moved to Los Angeles, but the old temple also continues its service to Satan.

As stated in the "Satanic Bible" by A. LaVey - "The greatest of all holidays in the satanic religion is your own birthday." This is the exact opposite of the saints from the holy days of other religions, deifying some anthropomorphic god, created in the image and likeness of a human. The Satanist celebrates his birthday as the most important holiday of the year.

Joseph Brennan, in his book The Kingdom of Darkness, gives a complete list of satanic holidays. The most significant of them are the days of Saints Walpurgis, Vinebald, Eikhatard, satanic and demonic amusements, spring and autumn equinoxes, summer and winter solstices.

If your own birthday is the greatest holiday for each individual Satanist, then the main Satanic holiday common to all Satanists is celebrated every year on April 26th: according to Satanists, this is the day of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Satanists celebrate this day as the first victory of Satan over the incarnate God: this is how they interpret the events of Holy Week and the execution of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Participants of the demonic services come one by one, leaving their cars two or three blocks from the place of service. However, such a conspiracy is already redundant: today the telephone number of the Satanic Temple can be found in the directory in any telephone booth in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and other US cities.

According to the researcher of Satanism J. Brennan, about eight thousand satanic "assemblies" are actively functioning in the United States, uniting about one hundred thousand Satanists. American Satanists have many branches of their organizations in most countries of Western Europe, Latin America, as well as in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

After the American branch of Satanism, the most developed is the English branch.

The founder of the English branch of Satanism was Gerald Gardner (1921-1964), the author of Witchcraft Today, an authoritative book among witches and sorcerers. Gardner's organization was broken up into so-called "families" or covens. The English Satanists placed great emphasis on practical magic and the process of demonic Initiation.

Recently, Satanism is becoming more widespread in Russia. Russian Satanists are the most fanatical and consistent of all Satanists in the service of Evil.

43. Eschatology. The Kingdom of the Antichrist and the Last Judgment

All variants of eschatological teachings (teachings about the End of the World) have similar features. As a rule, the onset of the End of the World is associated with the coming of the Messiah - Jesus Pantocrator (in Christianity), Mahdi (in Islam), Maitreya (in Buddhism), Kalki (in Hinduism), Saoshyant (in Zoroastrianism), Mashiach (in Judaism). The Messiah comes to defeat Evil and make the Last Judgment. The background of the Last Judgment is a global catastrophe - a global flood, a global fire and other universal cataclysms, through which the world is cleansed of everything sinful and vicious. After cleansing - the world is reborn again.

Daniil Andreev, the author of the book "Rose of the World" predicts the inevitable accession of the Antichrist, somewhere at the beginning of the XXIII century. This reign will last 100-150 years. As a result, "devil-humanity" will be formed.

The catastrophe will come unexpectedly for the prince of Darkness and contrary to his absolute faith in his boundless victoriousness and his impunity. The essence of the catastrophe will be that the prince of Darkness will suddenly begin to fall through all the layers of the underworld, cut through, like lightning, the worlds of Retribution, Magma, the Core and fall to the timeless Bottom of the Galaxy, from where there is no way out until the end of time.

The catastrophe in our world will break out clearly, before the eyes of many living people, at the moment of one of the most magnificent apotheoses of the anti-Logos. To the shocked crowds, this event will appear as if the body of this creature, which had just been invulnerable, would suddenly begin to lose visible density and slowly turn into a kind of fog. At the same time, the ruler of the world will suddenly comprehend what is happening and behave in a way that no one has ever seen him before: in unearthly despair, shouting in a frantic voice, he will begin to grab at anything, rush about, howl like a beast, and so gradually, for an hour, disappear from people's eyes.

Chaos will reign in the world. Power will pass to the satanic elite, but it will not last long. The moral level from the very beginning of this era will be as low as it was not even in prehistoric times. Not under the Antichrist, but precisely two or three decades after him, the rampant Evil on the surface of the Earth will reach its climax.

Christ will appear in as many forms as there will be then in Enrof (our parallel world) of perceiving consciousnesses, showing himself to each of them and communicating with each individually. And the prophecy about the Last Judgment will be fulfilled. Evil will no longer remain in humanity, but the dark forces will still resist in the demonic worlds. No one, except the Omniscient, knows how many millennia the reign of the righteous will last on earth.

44. Mystic

Mysticism is in the nature of religion. Mysticism is unity with God on the basis of personal supersensible and superlogical knowledge, through an ecstatic impulse towards the Absolute, without the visible mediation of a church or a religious community. Mystical practice also includes physical actions and states (ascetic self-discipline, abstinence, bows, certain postures, special drinks, special ways of breathing, etc.), which purify the seeker of union with God and prepare him for the perception of "illuminating grace." The mystical component is present to some extent in every religion.

In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, mystical currents, opposed to the main doctrine, take shape on the periphery of the doctrine and sometimes quite late - like, for example, Kabbalah (VIII-XIII centuries) and the Hasidic movement (from the beginning of the XVIII century) in Judaism. On the contrary, in the East, abstract and "taciturn" mysticism is just the original core of the teachings.

Mysticism is a zone of freethinking, religious searches and possible discoveries. Mysticism is fraught with heresy, therefore the official church is always cautious in relation to mysticism.

Mystics tend to consider (proclaim) themselves as God's chosen ones, possessors of the knowledge of the Truth through extreme mental states and processes (ecstasy, trance, visions, prophetic dreams, inspiration, etc.). They are often distinguished by contempt for conventions to one degree or another - indifference to the canonical cult. Mystical teachings and doctrines are characterized by distrust of knowledge and the word.

If mysticism is opposed to religious rationalism and religious positivism, then the main features of the mystical attitude to the word can be presented as follows:

1) The Christian mystic will speak out in favor of an apophatic (negative) theology. Dogmatic theology takes a somewhat broader view: the divine essence is incomprehensible. Therefore, Christian theology recognizes, along with apophatic, kataphatic (positive) knowledge about God, however, it considers that apophatic knowledge is superior to kataphatic knowledge, and silence is even higher and closer to the Absolute;

2) the mystic is not satisfied with verbal communication and is looking for other channels of communication - including intuitive, non-rational, paranormal, pathological ones;

3) the mystic prefers simple and clear speech to metaphor, paradox, allegory, double meanings, blurred boundaries of categories, reticence;

4) the mystic does not seek to be understood. Perhaps he does not aspire to esotericism, but if his texts turn out to be incomprehensible, then he will not take a step towards the student.

45. Kabbalah

The oldest part of the Talmud, the Mishnah, is called in Judaism the "soul of the Law." In Kabbalah, the secret mystical teaching of Judaism, the "rank" is even higher: it is "the soul of the soul of the Law."

Kabbalah, along with the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus and Tarot cards, is one of the foundations of Western occultism. The basis of Kabbalah is made up of two books: "Sefer Yetzira" - the Book of Creation (about the creation of the world and the deep laws of the Universe); and "Zohar" - the Book of the Chariot, or the Book of Radiance (about the Divine Essence, the ways and forms of its manifestation).

Tanakh (Old Testament) is considered in Judaism as a symbolic, deepest Revelation of God about the Universe, the key to which is Kabbalah.

As for the origin of the Kabbalah, some argue that it comes from the biblical patriarchs, Abraham and even Seth; others are from Egypt, others are from Chaldea. This system is no doubt very ancient, but like all major systems, both religious and philosophical, the Qabalah descended directly from the original Secret Doctrine of the East; through the Vedas, Upanishads, Orpheus, Thales, Pythagoras and the Egyptians.

The core of Kabbalah, its "backbone", is the famous Tree of Sephiroth (Tree of Life), which is a compact presentation of scientific, psychological, philosophical, theological and esoteric knowledge, given in a schematic form.

The Kabbalistic Tree of Sephiroth, along with the Tarot cards, is a glyph, a composite symbol, on the basis of which those who have chosen the Western Path of spiritual ascent comprehend esotericism. This glyph is a diagram of ten circles arranged in a certain order and connected to each other by twenty-two lines. The circles are called the Sephiroth, the lines are the Paths.

Meditations on the Tree of Sephiroth, as well as meditations on Tarot cards, open access to the unconscious and make it possible through its highest sphere - superconsciousness - to enter into direct contact with the Higher Forces.

The Sephira, listed from top to bottom, have the following names: Keter (Crown), Chokmah (Wisdom), Binah (Intelligence), Chesed (Mercy), Geburah (Severity), Tiferet (Beauty), Netzach (Victory), Hod (Glory) ), Yesod (Foundation), Malkuth (Kingdom). There is also an invisible Sephira - Daat, it is located above Tiferet, in the middle of the Path, going from Chesed to Bina.

In addition to positive Sephiroth, there are also negative Sephiroth - Qliphoth.

According to Kabbalah, the biblical text is a symbolic (ciphered) deepest revelation of God about the world.

Kabbalistic doctrines are important as a key to Masonic esotericism.

46. Sufism and hesychasm

The first Muslim mystics - Sufis (from Arabic suf - "wool". Clothes of Sufi ascetics - sackcloth) - appeared already at the end of the XNUMXth century, and Sufism as a doctrine and practice of Islamic mysticism finally took shape in the XNUMXth century. in. Until the XI-XII centuries. Sufis were persecuted as heretics in official Islam.

The central concept of Sufism - tariqa (Arabic "way, road") - goes back to the Koran and means religious and moral self-improvement as a path to mystical comprehension of God (including with frequent special prayers, with an ascetic image).

The most famous Sufi Hallaj (al-Hallyaj) was executed in 922 in Baghdad. Experiencing mystical union with Allah, he ecstatically proclaimed: "I am the true one" (i.e., "I am God"), which, of course, sounded blasphemous to orthodox ears. The Sufi was the famous mocker and paradoxist Khoja Nasreddin, who became the hero of Arab folklore.

In early Sufism, as in almost every mystical teaching, there was much that was vague, illogical, and chaotic. The mystical fog of the Sufis was opposed by the sobriety of official Islam. And, nevertheless, official Islam did not suppress Sufism, did not force it into heresy, but, unlike mature Christianity, it included the main mystical ideas in itself, in its main doctrine. It happened thanks to Ghazali in the XNUMXth century. Ghazali acted not only as a critic of Sufism, but also as an outstanding reformer of Islam. He successfully reconciled the traditional rationalism of Islam and the mysticism of the Sufis, thus introducing mystical ideas into official Islam.

"Hesychasm" in Greek means "peace, silence, detachment"; hesychasts - "those who are at rest." The mystical-philosophical doctrine of the hesychasts took shape in the 1296th-1359th centuries. in the ascetic practice of Egyptian and Sinai monks. In the XIV century. it was significantly updated in the writings of the Byzantine theologian Metropolitan of Thessalonica, St. Gregory Palamas (XNUMX-XNUMX). In a polemic with Western rationalist theologians, defending the thesis of the uncreated (non-creature) of the "light of Tabor", Palamas taught to see God with "spiritual eyes", that is, mentally, with inner vision; taught to turn to God with a mental, i.e., mental (silent) prayer and in concentrated silence to achieve merging with God.

As is usual with mystics, hesychasts combined special psychosomatic and breathing exercises with silent prayer. Prolonged concentration on one word or verbal formula, as well as silence, led Hesychasts to a pietic perception of the main verbal-linguistic symbols of the teaching.

47. Codification of Scripture

The term codification is legal in origin; this is the systematization of laws in a single legislative code by eliminating inconsistencies, filling in gaps, and abolishing obsolete norms.

In the history of religion, codification is understood as an ordering of confessional books carried out by church authorities and accepted, approved by the church, including both aspects or levels of ordering - "micro" and "macro":

1) establishing the "correctness" of certain texts (i.e., the linguistic fabric of the text - its constituent words, statements, their order);

2) the establishment of a "correct" list of texts, that is, those works that form the canon.

These two tasks of codifying Scripture are usually solved at the same time.

In a number of religious traditions, part of the "correct" books, namely the books of Scripture, are recognized by the church as sacred. Sacred books form the religious canon of a given religion. The books included in the religious canon constitute the Holy Scriptures, the most important part of confessional literature.

The word canon has many meanings. In Greek kanon - at first it is a straight stick used as a ruler, that is, as a measuring tool to maintain the desired proportions, direction. However, the word early began to be used figuratively - in the meaning of "rules, institutions, recognized norms, patterns of any activity; guiding principle, basic provisions, dogmas of any doctrine."

In addition to canonical books, confessional literature includes many other kinds and types of church books, including Holy Tradition and other extremely important church texts.

Thus, the concept of "codification" in relation to confessional literature is broader than the concept of "canonization".

In the history of religious tradition, disputes about the canonicity or non-canonicity of certain works begin at a time when the teaching was basically formed or, in any case, reached its peak. There is a desire to "draw a line", to summarize the disparate, to bring into a system and prevent the ideological erosion of the doctrine.

The question of the canonicity of a work was decided depending on the religious authority of its author. The older the work, the earlier the author lived, the closer he is to God, the prophet or the apostle, the more undeniable the sanctity of the book and the higher its authority.

Although the terms "text canonicity", "apocrypha" and the somewhat later related "rejected books" or "Index of forbidden books" refer to the history of Christianity, the very principle of selecting information depending on the name of the author is by no means characteristic only of Christianity, but for all religions.

48. Religious canon in Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism

The expressions sacred canon, religious books of the Buddhist canon, canonization of Confucian teachings, and the like are quite common in literature on the history of oriental religions and literatures. Using such terminology, however, it should be borne in mind that its meaning in relation to the East differs significantly both from the Christian ideas of the same name, and in general from the concept of the sacred canon in the religions of Scripture. For the teachings and religious practice of Buddhism and Taoism in their various variations (Lamaism, Zen Buddhism, late Taoists), for Confucianism and non-Confucianism, a fideistic attitude to the word is not typical, including non-conventional (unconditional) perception of a linguistic sign, usually associated with fideism in relation to the word - a phenomenon whose diverse manifestations and cultural consequences have become the main subject of this book. Therefore, in relation to the named religions of the East, the terms religious canon and the like should be understood, of course, adjusted for a completely different attitude to the word.

The canonization of Buddhist or Confucian writings is rather a historical and textual codification of monuments, their relatively uniform rewriting, editing, and reduction of circulating manuscripts into a more or less visible system.

For the followers of the Buddha or Lao Tzu, the authority and even the sacredness of the teachings were not as closely connected with language and text as in the West. Therefore, they did not identify spelling with orthodoxy, did not burn books that differed from the canonical ones by several verbal formulas, and did not execute for "heretical" translations.

As for Buddhism, he apparently never knew a single language. At first, sermons were distributed orally, with the Buddha himself instructing his followers to present his teaching in their native languages. In Buddhism, it is not necessary to believe even in the Buddha - it is important to believe in the teachings of the Buddha. One of the themes of meditation adopted by the monks of a Chinese or Japanese monastery is to doubt the existence of the Buddha.

A complete version of the Buddhist teachings has been preserved in the Pali language; the entry was made in the XNUMXst century BC. BC e. on about. Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The Pali canon is called "Tripi-taka", i.e. "Three baskets (laws)" - they say that in ancient times the teachings were written on palm leaves and these texts were kept in wicker baskets.

Buddhist and Taoist distrust of the word, the ability of language to help intuition, is continued in the school of Jiddu Krishnamurti and the ethical and mystical teachings of the East close to him.

49. Religious canon in Christianity and Judaism

The formation of the religious canon in the Jewish and Christian traditions was a long, centuries-old process. In Judaism, the most important part of the Tanakh, its first five books, the Torah, was the first to be canonized. A fully Jewish Bible code (the so-called Palestine canon) was established by the Jamnia Council of Rabbis around 100 CE. e. And although the work on the lexical-semantic and spelling codification of the Tanakh continued for another 14 centuries by the Masorites, the composition of the works of the Jewish canon was already determined 2 years ago.

The basis of the Christian Old Testament canon is the "Septuagint" - the Greek translation of the Old Testament, made in the III-II centuries. BC e. Hellenized Jews in Alexandria. The "Septuagint" includes about 10 new biblical translations from Hebrew, as well as new works, not translated, but written by the Jews in Greek ("The Book of Wisdom of Solomon", "Maccabean Books", perhaps some more). However, the non-traditional texts of the Septuagint were not included in the Jewish Palestinian canon. Since there were 50 works in the Septuagint, the Christian Old Testament exceeds the Jewish one. On the other hand, historically there have been differences in the composition of the Old Testament canon between the Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants.

The Orthodox, although they publish in the Bible all 50 books that were part of the Septuagint, consider 39 of them canonical. There are 46 books printed in the Catholic "Old Testament". Protestants, and above all Martin Luther, proclaiming the priority of primary sources and the original text, in their translations of the Scriptures relied in principle on the Jewish canon. Thus, in the Protestant Old Testament canon, as well as in the Jewish Tanakh, there are 39 works.

However, some Protestant publications publish non-canonical Bible books (in a separate list, after the canonical ones). In general, the unequal composition of the books that form the religious canon is one of the noticeable differences between close confessions. The composition of the canonical books of the New Testament is the same in all Christian denominations. The gospels were recognized as canonical before everyone else, the last being the "Revelation of John the Theologian", although it was written relatively early - around 85. At the same time, the attribution of the "Revelation" to the Apostle John, the beloved disciple of Christ and author of the IV Gospel, is not generally recognized.

The Christian biblical canon was adopted in 393 at the Council of Hippo. But since this council was local, it took the adoption of the canon at the ecumenical council, which happened only in 1546-1563, at the XIX (Trentent) council.

50. Book Genres in the Religions of Scripture

In the history of the formation of genres of confessional literature between the individual religions of Scripture, there are common patterns. There is a similarity, firstly, in the composition of genres and, secondly, in the relative chronology of the addition of individual genres in their system. However, this is a similarity, not a coincidence.

The main directions in which the genre development of confessional literature proceeded are as follows.

A record of the teaching originally distributed by word of mouth. It's not really a genre change.

The addition of the religious canon; the result is a list of canonical books and works.

The addition of the second most important (after Scripture) opus of highly authoritative texts that fill in the meaningful gaps in Scripture and provide a detailed commentary on it. These works, like the Scriptures, are attributed a sacred character.

The development of theology, or theology.

On the basis of dogmatic theology, the church hierarchy develops a summary of the dogma - a creed and a catechism.

A special genre subsystem is formed by texts used in worship. These are various liturgical books and collections of prayers.

The mystical principle, which lives to some extent in various religions, is associated with a special, most whimsical and poetic layer of confessional literature - mystical and esoteric texts.

The sermon is initially present in the religious communication of people, before any written fixations of religious content. The introduction of people to the Revelation of God sent to people through a prophet begins with a sermon.

All religions of Scripture come to the need for a certain interpretation, explanation of the sacred text - due to their inherent increased attention to the authoritative word and the desire to retain its original meaning. Elements of commenting on the sacred text, sometimes appearing already in Scripture, over time become the main content of works of a special genre - interpretations.

In Judaism and Islam, a set of fundamental legal norms is already formulated in Scripture. In the future, as the legal needs of societies grow, this initial connection between dogma and law will become the basis for the formation of special church-secular jurisdiction and the corresponding confessional genres and texts.

In cultures based on the religion of Scripture, around the "core", the fundamental texts of the dogma, a diverse and extensive literature of a transitional or mixed, confessional-secular character is formed.

51. Non-canonical literature

In the circle of Jewish and Judeo-Christian religious literature, which, however, turned out to be outside the Jewish canon, two meaningfully different groups of monuments are best known:

1) writings in which the Septuagint (Christian Old Testament) differs from the Tanakh (Jewish Old Testament);

2) works of unorthodox Judaism, already fraught with Christianity, as it were, written in the Qumran sect of the Essenes in the XNUMXnd century BC. BC e. - I century. n. e., in villages near the Dead Sea.

Eleven Jewish writings included in the Septuagint, but not included in the Jewish religious canon, were written between the XNUMXth century BC. BC e. and I c. n. e.

According to the Palestinian canon, the last books of the Old Testament are four books written by the "great teacher" Ezra: "The Book of Ezra", "The Book of Nehemiah" (about the return from Babylon and the restoration of the commandments and the cult of Yahweh) and two books with a summary of the history of the Jewish people - I and II "Books of Chronicles". However, in patristics (among the Christian Fathers of the Church), Ezra was considered the author of two more works, closely related in content to the canonical ones. These are II and III of the Books of Ezra.

Not included in the "Tanakh" and the book, inscribed with the name of another famous Old Testament character and writer, "The Book of Wisdom of Solomon." Outside the "Tanakh" there are two works associated with the name of Solomon - "The Book of Wisdom of Solomon" and "Psalms of Solomon".

The boundary between canonical and non-canonical Jewish writings essentially coincides with the differences of the monuments in terms of language: non-canonicity approaches the foreign language or, in any case, the absence of the Hebrew (or Aramaic) original of the work. In other words, the canonicity of a work is associated with its ethnic and ethno-linguistic features.

The Jewish canon had a significant influence on the attitude towards these books in Christianity. Despite belonging to the Septuagint, works not included in the Tanakh are not recognized as canonical in Orthodoxy, although they enjoy high authority.

The second group of non-canonical Jewish writings, chronologically close to the Palestinian (Yamnian) canon of the Tanakh, dates back to 150 BC. e. to 68 AD e. These monuments are usually referred to as the Dead Sea manuscripts, or Qumran texts.

According to their content, the Qumran manuscripts were divided into three groups:

1) biblical texts and apocrypha;

2) interpretation of biblical texts;

3) liturgical or legalistic texts. Further analysis of the finds showed that among them were previously unknown works by the Essenes, members of a closed and ascetic Jewish sect.

52. Religious cult

A religious cult is a set of religious rites. Rite is a specific element of religion. Every ritual is a stereotype of collective actions symbolizing certain social ideas, norms, ideals and ideas.

The specificity of religious rites lies in their ideological content and orientation, i.e., in what kind of ideas, ideas, myths and images they embody in symbolic form. On the contrary, a cult is only a social form of the objectification of religious consciousness, the realization of religious faith in the actions of a group of individuals.

Between the supernatural forces or beings in which a person believes, and the believer himself, special bilateral relations are formed, which we called above "illusory-practical". They are illusory, since the object of religious faith does not objectively exist, but they are practical in nature, since they are realized in a religious cult.

A religious cult, therefore, is a real, socially-objectified form of influence on the object of religious faith. It follows from this that it cannot be considered outside and apart from religious beliefs, of which it is a symbolic embodiment. It is characteristic, for example, that the same cult actions in terms of their natural, material content acquire fundamentally different ideological, symbolic and figurative content in different religious systems. In a religious rite, it is not the ritual actions themselves that are of primary importance, but their comprehension, interpretation by believers and clergymen.

From a scientific point of view, any rites, including religious ones, have a social nature. In foreign literature, the psychoanalytic interpretation of religious rites is quite widespread, according to which the latter are either forms of manifestation of unconscious aggressive or sexual urges, or the objectification of certain "archetypes" that exist in the collective unconscious.

Rites in general, and religious rites in particular, are by no means spontaneous manifestations of the unconscious impulses of the individual. Religious rites are an important form of practical joint life of believers. Through it, their influence on supernatural forces and beings is realized. In other words, religious rites, like religion in general, are entirely a social product.

It is through religious rites that an individual joins one or another confessional community, it is cult actions that are an important means of "catching souls" for religious organizations.

53. The impact of a religious cult on believers

The influence of a religious cult on believers is carried out in several main directions.

One of these areas is the formation and renewal of stereotypes in the minds and behavior of members of a religious community. Cult actions themselves, as already mentioned, are stereotypes of actions embodying in symbolic form certain religious ideas, myths and ideas.

Each religious organization in the process of its evolution develops a whole system of cult stereotypes.

Religious rites are canonical, that is, they are not subject to any arbitrary changes. Any changes in the cult system are considered by the church as heresy, as a distortion of the "true faith". In the history of religions, numerous cases are known when the question of the order of cult actions became one of the main reasons for the split of the church.

Stereotypes of cult behavior suggest a certain repetition of them within different time periods: days, weeks, years. In Orthodoxy, for example, there are three so-called "worship services": daily, weekly (weekly) and annual. Such repetition of cult actions connects them with the cycles of labor activity, with certain seasons, and thus forms very stable cult traditions among believers.

Stereotypes of consciousness and especially behavior, which are developed in individuals in the process of repeating their cult actions, disappear very slowly. Sometimes it happens that the old religious beliefs are eroded and lost, but the traditions in the sphere of ritual behavior are preserved, and very steadfastly.

There are many people in Russia who do not have any deep religious beliefs, but a certain part of them celebrate religious holidays and fulfill some of the most important ritual instructions of the church. There are especially many such people among followers of Orthodoxy and Islam. The formal ritualism that is inherent cannot be considered, as some do, a harmless matter.

Through the system of rituals, a religious worldview penetrates into the consciousness of a person. It is not uncommon that the ideological "cultivation" of a person, his introduction to the community of believers, begins precisely with initiation into a cult.

The conservatism of the cult poses complex socio-psychological problems for modern churches. On the one hand, cult traditions, as noted, contribute to the formation and renewal of stereotypes of religious consciousness and behavior among the mass of believers. On the other hand, in the system of religious traditions, especially in such churches as the Catholic and Orthodox, there are many archaic elements that are alien to modern man.

54. Modern civilizational crisis

In the conditions of the collapse of the Marxist-Leninist worldview, worldview concepts of various kinds, primarily religious ones, poured into the resulting "empty" spiritual space. Their range is extremely wide - from Catholicism and Protestantism to Scientology and Dianetics. A person who is inexperienced in worldview is sometimes lost in this abundance of "spiritual food", is unable to clearly realize the deep social and cultural differences that exist even between individual Christian denominations.

When new generations grow up in the bosom of one church or another, the question of worldview choice is resolved, as it were, by itself. Those for whom religiosity becomes the norm of moral life perceive the canons and cults of religion traditional for a given society, simply under the influence of upbringing and education. Those who are inherent in non-religious morality, not accepting the relevant canons and cults, nevertheless, by the system of education and upbringing, are usually attached to those moral feelings, concepts and values that are inherent in the culture of a given society and are expressed in a specific religious form for it. When there are several religions in a society, as, for example, in China or Russia, and then the interaction of the corresponding religions also creates a certain moral atmosphere, which is perceived by the non-religious part of the population, which is thus included in the integral cultural context of a given country, group of countries, civilization.

The peculiarity of the current historical conditions is such that everyone faces a fairly wide range of different possibilities, and any choice is his and only his right. Everyone is free to make his own spiritual choice, but everyone must fully realize the significance and responsibility of this choice.

However, the choice facing today not an individual, but the whole of humanity, is essentially different - after all, the crisis experienced by our country is only a concentrated expression of a global, general civilizational crisis. And this crisis, in turn, is the result of the crisis of the leading Western civilization in the modern world.

Meanwhile, the values that led to this result are the values of Western civilization based on the notorious "Protestant ethic" that is now being so aggressively imposed on the Russian people.

Anxiety for the future has forced Western humanists to put forward a number of concepts that quickly replace each other - from the idea of "zero growth", "catch-up development" and further, up to the current benchmark - "sustainable development".

55. Features of Russian spirituality

A special role in the development of the worldview of the new era belongs to Russia - due to its special metaphysical status. The point of view has already been expressed more than once that Russia is a kind of bridge between East and West and has features of both East and West. There is no need to talk about the closeness of Orthodoxy, with its principles of mystical contemplation, to Eastern doctrines. This closeness has already been investigated more than once, and it is all the more significant as it concerns mainly spiritual practice, and not just dogmas, although in the theory of deification and in the theory of dogmatic restraint Orthodoxy obviously approaches Eastern teachings.

If we talk about Russian spirituality, then quite deep areas of intersection with the Eastern approach are clearly visible here. This is, first of all, the problem of the inner "I" of a person - Russian tradition, as you know, is inherent in the search for "I" - the abyss and secrets of the human soul. The trends of this search in Russia differ in many respects from those in India. However, this search for the true inner "I" of a person has a number of similarities with the Eastern approach.

Russia, while remaining an Orthodox country, has absorbed and can still absorb, both on the esoteric and exoteric levels, the deepest features of the thinking of the East, especially India. These features, these features of thinking and spirit, which go deep into the spiritual relationship between Russia and India, can become and are becoming part of modern Russian culture. Without a doubt, this "Easternness" is refracted and processed in a peculiar way in accordance with Russian spiritual experience.

However, despite its deep inner closeness to the East, Russia is not spiritually separated by the "Chinese wall" from the West - if only because it has been a Christian country for a thousand years and the "collective unconscious", that is, the "soul" of the Russian people, was formed under the decisive influence of the Christian religion in its most authentic - Orthodox form.

Thus, the Russian people spiritually reworked and, as it were, fused within themselves into a single organic whole, both East and West, while retaining all their spiritual identity and not belonging to either one or the other. It is natural, therefore, that the most significant attempts at a global worldview synthesis of East and West, as well as religion, philosophy, science and creation on this basis, meeting the needs of the time of the worldview of the new era, were made, first of all, by thinkers who were formed in the bosom of Russian culture. .

56. Russian spiritual renaissance of the late XIX - early XX centuries

A wide range of ideas subject to spiritual synthesis was intensively discussed by the majority of representatives of the Russian spiritual renaissance of the late XNUMXth and early XNUMXth centuries.

Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), the greatest Russian religious philosopher and mystic, stood at the origins of the Russian spiritual renaissance, who undertook the most grandiose attempt in the history of world religious philosophy to unite Christian Platonism, German classical idealism (mainly Schelling) and scientific empiricism in the "great synthesis" . It is symptomatic that the first significant work of V. Solovyov - his master's thesis, successfully defended by him in 1874 - was called "The Crisis of Western Philosophy (against the positivists)"

Elena and Nicholas Roerich. The Roerichs' teaching - "Agni Yoga" or "Living Ethics" - continues the theosophical tradition.

Alexander Klizovsky. The first experience of a large-scale comprehension of the cosmic evolution of mankind and the unified laws of life on the basis of the teachings of Agni Yoga and Theosophy is given in the book "Fundamentals of the New Epoch World View".

Tatyana Basova. One of the most striking examples of the creative development and effective practical application of Agni Yoga is the activity of the Saratov esoteric society "Lyceum of Enlightenment", working under the leadership of T. A. Basova.

Sergey Lazarev. A clear example of the very effective use of Agni Yoga in everyday life is the medical and educational activities of Sergei Lazarev.

Grigory Mebes. Author of the work "The course of the encyclopedia of the occult".

The fundamental work of Valentin Tomberg (1900-1973) "Meditations on the Tarot" is also dedicated to the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus.

Of undoubted interest is also the widely known Teaching of George Gurdjieff (1873-1949), which found its theoretical generalization in the well-known works of Peter Ouspensky in Russia (1878-1947).

The esoteric teaching of the Eastern Church is devoted to the three-volume work of Boris Muravyov "Gnosis. Experience of commentary on the esoteric teaching of the Eastern Church" - one of the closest friends and associates of G. Gurdjieff and P. Uspensky.

Daniil Andreev became the creator of a unique syncretic worldview system, created on the basis of his own visionary experience, deeply Orthodox in its essence, and at the same time, absorbing the achievements of Eastern metaphysics and fully corresponding to the spiritual demands of the modern era. "Rose of the World" is a grandiose treatise on the secret structure of the Universe, on the mystical background of the entire history of earthly civilization and on the future destinies of mankind.

Author: Pankin S.F.

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Dr. John Bienenstock and his colleagues at McMaster University found that giving clinical (low) doses of penicillin to pregnant mice and their offspring resulted in long-term behavioral changes. In particular, the level of aggression increases and the level of anxiety decreases. All this is accompanied by characteristic neurochemical changes in the brain and an imbalance in the intestinal flora.

However, giving these mice a lactobacillus strain of the bacteria helped prevent these effects. "Penicillin at low doses, taken late in pregnancy and early in life, altered the behavior and balance of microbes in the subjects' guts. Although these studies were done in mice, they support growing concerns about the long-term effects of antibiotic use," Dr. Bienenstock said.

Previously, in 2014, a study had already been conducted showing that giving clinical doses of penicillin to mice late in pregnancy and at an early age resulted in increased vulnerability to dietary induction of obesity.

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