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

Lecture notes, cheat sheets
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History of world religions. Cheat sheet: briefly, the most important

Lecture notes, cheat sheets

Table of contents

1. Religion in the structure of public consciousness

People and groups of people differ in many heterogeneous features. Some of them are genetically embedded in a person: these are innate signs and do not depend on the will of people - such, for example, are gender, race, mental makeup, abilities. Other signs are socially determined - for example, citizenship, education, profession, social and property status, religious affiliation.

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

In the circle of these dimensions of a person and society, three features occupy a special place: language, ethnicity (nationality) and confessional affiliation.

Religion, from the point of view of philosophy (more precisely, ontology, whose subject matter is "the most common essences and categories of being"), refers to the categories of the spiritual culture of mankind. This is a form of social consciousness (along with ordinary, or mass, consciousness, language, morality and law, art, science, philosophy, ideology), i.e., a reflection of the world in the consciousness of mankind.

The most essential features in the content of religion can be characterized in terms of semiotics.

Semiotics (from the Greek. semeion - a sign, a sign) allows you to see in religion a way of communication, that is, a communication system that has its own content and its own capabilities to transmit, communicate this content.

In various, internally complex and colorful objects, with many diverse features, properties, characteristics, semiotics makes it possible to single out the main and essential.

The cognitive value of the semiotic approach is as follows:

1) the essential functional aspect of the relevant objects is taken into account - their communicative purpose;

2) in each semiotic object, the plane of content and the plane of expression are distinguished;

3) in each semiotic system, two ontological levels are distinguished:

a) a set of semantic possibilities;

b) the realization of opportunities in specific communicative acts.

With regard to religion, the opposition between a "set of semantic possibilities" and "their realizations in acts of communication" appears as an opposition between a system (a particular religion as a complex of ideas, institutions and organizations) and individual facts of the religious behavior of individuals, individual phenomena, events, processes in a particular the history of the respective religion. Theoretical religious studies include philosophical, sociological and psychological problems of the study of religion.

2. Objective-idealistic concepts

In modern religious studies, four main concepts can be distinguished that explain the essence and origin of religion: objective-idealistic, subjective-idealistic, naturalistic (biologising), atheistic.

Objective idealistic concept

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

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.

Thomas Aquinas, using the works of 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.

The first proof starts from the fact of universal movement in the world and on this basis formulates the conclusion about the necessary existence of the "first mover", which is God.

The second proof, relying on the universal causality of phenomena in the world, appeals to their "first cause", which is identified with God.

The third proof states the presence of random phenomena in the world, however, the latter cannot exist on their own, they must be generated by a necessary cause, that is, God.

The fourth proof comes from the premise that things exhibit varying degrees of perfection. But one can speak of various degrees of perfection only in comparison with something perfect, that is, with God.

The fifth proof comes from the fact that there is some higher goal-setting principle as a source of the expediency of things and phenomena. That beginning is God.

We must resolutely admit that all the traditional proofs of the existence of God - ontological, cosmological and physical-theological - are not only untenable, but also completely unnecessary, and rather even harmful. Kant's criticism of these proofs of the existence of God is very convincing and is not refuted by traditional apologetics.

Much stronger is the evidence that could be called anthropological. It consists in the fact that man is a being that belongs to two worlds and does not fit into 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.

3. Subjective-idealistic concept and naturalistic (biological) concept

Subjective-idealistic concept explanation of the essence of religion originates in the writings of the German Protestant priest and theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher. The most consistently subjective-idealistic concept was carried out by the representative of pragmatism W. James. James believed that everything that is useful to the individual is true. Since religion is useful for the individual, it means that it is the true form of worldview. Thus, 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.

Naturalistic (biologizing) concept of religion. According to this concept, religion is born from the internal needs of the human body - its instincts, drives, and physiological reactions.

Psychoanalysis has also created one version of the naturalistic explanation of religion. Sigmund Freud tried to apply psychoanalysis to explain the rise of religion. Freud considered all social phenomena as a system of prohibitions, with the help of which society suppresses a person's hostile desires and his sexual instinct - "libido". In general, Freud 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."

Modern neo-Freudians have moved away from Freud's “pansexualism” and tried to synthesize a sociological approach with a psychoanalytic one (socio-Freudianism).

Some psychoanalysts believe that faith in God is necessary for a person. Jung opposed Freud's rationalism and freethinking with a doctrine based on irrationalism and fideism. These methodological attitudes were manifested in his concept of the "collective unconscious", which, in his opinion, is present in the psyche of every person.

The "collective unconscious" contains "archetypes" - certain symbols, ideas and representations that are allegedly characteristic of the entire human race. Among the most important "archetypes" Jung included religious symbols and images. According to Freud, the unconscious is basically that in us that is bad, suppressed - that which is incompatible with the requirements of our culture and our higher self.

4. Atheistic concept

Atheistic religion concept received its most consistent, complete development in Marxism. According to Marxism, the main reason for the existence of religion is the spontaneity of social development, when people are not able to consciously manage social relations. Unknown and hostile to people, the laws of social development are personified and become "divine providence." Separate historical events are considered as predestinations of "divine providence".

According to Marxism, "religion will disappear to the extent that socialism develops. Its disappearance must occur as a result of social development, in which education plays a major role."

In addition to the social roots of religion, Marxism considers its epistemological and psychological roots.

The epistemological roots of religion - these are the possibilities of forming a religion associated with the knowledge of the world.

According to Marxism, the epistemological roots of religion are not specific to it, but are common to any "illusory, false consciousness, be it religion, idealistic philosophy, or any other form of false consciousness."

The emergence of religion is associated not only with the peculiarities of human cognition, but also with the peculiarities of human emotions, in this regard, they are talking about the psychological roots of religion.

Psychological roots of religion - are in the emotional sphere of the human psyche.

A special role, according to atheists, belongs to such an emotion as fear in the emergence of religion. "Fear created the gods" - this expression of the poet Station was repeated over the centuries by many authors. But if the pre-Marxist atheists reduced the reasons for the emergence of religion to fear of the forces of nature, then Marxism puts "social fear" in the first place. Fear in the face of death is not overcome by faith in the immortality of the soul.

Individual immortality - an illusion, true immortality can only be social and is determined by the contribution that a person has made to the development of society.

The psychological roots of religion are not limited to a permanent sense of fear in an antagonistic society. Favorable ground for religion is also created by other negative emotions - grief, grief, loneliness, which are also socially conditioned. Speaking of negative emotions as the psychological roots of religion, Marxism emphasizes that by themselves these feelings do not lead to religiosity, everything depends, first of all, on social reality, on personality traits, on living conditions, upbringing and environment.

5. Esoteric and exoteric component of spiritual knowledge, "right" and "left" paths of spiritual development

Currently, there is an increasing need for an integral concept of the origin and essence of higher Knowledge, which would represent an organic synthesis of scientific, philosophical and religious approaches. The concept that claims this role is the esoteric concept of the origin and essence of religion. Its essence is as follows.

The need to gain knowledge about the essence of the Universe and Man, or, as the ancient sages said, about the Macrocosm and Microcosm, is one of the fundamental needs of man as an entity created "in the image and likeness of God."

Esoteric Knowledge - this is knowledge about the fundamental laws of the Universe, that is, our physical reality.

Exoteric Knowledge are designed to introduce the overwhelming majority of people to the spiritual Cosmos.

As the esoteric doctrine says, in ancient times there was no division of teachings: all teachings were publicly available. As a result of the action of certain laws of evolution, a differentiation of people into those who chose the "right" or "left" path of spiritual development appeared.

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 hidden parts of knowledge were called esoteric - accessible only to "chosen ones".

The open parts of knowledge began to be called exoteric, that is, accessible to all.

Occultism refers to purposeful actions, methods, procedures that:

1) attract secret or hidden forces of nature or the cosmos that cannot be measured 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 - disciplines based on objective data: date of birth, physique, skull shape, palm lines, handwriting, etc. Such disciplines include astrology, graphology, chorology, palmistry, and fingerprinting.

The second group occult sciences operates with subjective data, that is, data that a person provides about himself. These are some images of the subconscious that a person himself cannot interpret. This includes primarily various mantric disciplines, that is, methods of divination.

The third group occult sciences - various types of magic, the main purpose of which is the impact on nature and man using occult methods.

6. The main stages in the history of esotericism, the esoteric traditions of the East and West. Esotericism and religion

Beginning with the Roman emperor Constantine, esoteric knowledge became officially forbidden. The revival of the esoteric tradition in the West followed the line of "Templars-Rosicrucians-Masons-occultists of the late XIX - early XX centuries - modern occultists."

In the East, the esoteric tradition was not interrupted. On the basis of the Eastern tradition, with the involvement of the restored Western esotericism, such teachings arose as the theosophy of E. Blavatsky and the anthroposophy of R. Steiner that emerged from it, as well as the Agni Yoga (Living Ethics) of the Roerichs.

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 and Eastern esotericism are divided into a number of directions and schools.

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.

The highest spiritual ideal in the East is God-realisation, which means complete identification with God. In the West, the highest spiritual ideal is limited to the "salvation of the soul." In the West, a person is only "God-like" and the maximum that he can count on here in a metaphysical sense is "getting into Paradise." In the East, man in his ultimate depth is God, and here his metaphysical goal is to become God himself.

Esotericism is the core of any religion, its deepest essence. Religion is intended for those who choose the "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.

Every serious religion has its esoteric seed. So, for example, in Orthodoxy it is hesychasm, in Islam it is Sufism, in Judaism it is Kabbalah, etc.

Esotericism and philosophy. Philosophy is a rationalistic form of worldview, and therefore it is not capable of penetrating beyond the Dense World. Esotericism, with the help of supersensible methods of cognition, explores all Planes of Existence, that is, the Subtle Worlds, and not just the Dense World.

Esotericism and parapsychology. Parapsychology is a “scientific” 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.

7. Scientific knowledge, supersensible knowledge, Higher Knowledge, traditionalism

Man lives in an ocean of supersensible information and constantly uses it. 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 a 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 of each person individually.

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 - 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 in cycles, and in each cycle humanity goes from complete perfection to complete decline.

At the beginning of the cosmic Cycle, man, created by God, is fully attached to the Primordial Tradition, as he further progressive decline, he is increasingly moving away from this Tradition, losing its innermost meaning.

Essence of traditionalism consists of the following. The fundamental principle of true metaphysics is the principle of the Unity of Truth. Hierarchical subordination results from this Unity: One Truth - Primordial Tradition, Secondary Truths - separate religious and traditional forms, denial of the One Truth - the modern world of anti-tradition.

The only truth of humanity is the Primordial Tradition, which is the synthesis of all the truth of the human world and the human cycle.

Secondary, applied truths in humanity are traditional and religious forms that are not similar to each other externally, but internally leading to the same goal in the event that the path laid down in them is passed to the end.

The temporal and logical sequence in the metaphysical vision of the human Cycle is as follows: first - the fullness of the "paradise" state, then - a long period of partial ups and downs, and, finally, a complete decline.

All metaphysical and traditional sacred doctrines are based on this logic.

8. The variety of forms of mythological and religious consciousness (images, logic and irrationalism, mysticism)

The plan for the content of religion (i.e., mythological-religious consciousness) includes a number of components that have different psychological and cognitive natures.

These are the components:

1) faith as a psychological attitude to accept certain information and follow it;

2) mythopoetic (visual-figurative) content;

3) theoretical (abstract-logical) component;

4) intuitive-mystical content.

Theology (from the Greek theos - God, logos - word, doctrine) - theology, a system of religious theoretical knowledge about God, his essence and being.

If the origins of Christianity had mythopoetic legends, visual, emotionally rich, artistic and expressive and therefore easily penetrated the soul of ordinary people, then the core of the religious consciousness of Buddhism or Taoism, on the contrary, is a mystical-theoretical doctrine, concept, idea.

The abstract-theoretical component of religious consciousness in different traditions can be significantly different in terms of the ratio of the speculative (rational-logical) 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.

Mysticism (from the Greek mustikos - mysterious) is:

1) what happens in ecstasy (trance) is direct, i.e. without intermediaries (priests, shamans, clergymen, mediums) communication or even unity of a person with God (Absolute);

2) teachings about mystical communication with higher powers and mystical knowledge.

Mystical communication means that a person hears the answer of God, knows, understands what was said to him from Heaven.

Anthroposophy - (anthropos - man, sophia - wisdom) - an occult-mystical teaching about the secret spiritual powers and abilities of a person, as well as about the ways of their development based on a special pedagogical system.

Mystical experiences and "luminous revelations of the meaning of life", apparently, are associated with a sharp activation of subconscious mental forces, all the possibilities of sensual and intellectual intuition. A common feature of mystical experiences is their "inexpressibility" - the incredible difficulty of presentation, in fact, the impossibility of conveying "the acquired impressions in the usual language of this world."

Thus, the content of religion in its psychological nature is extremely heterogeneous. This is connected with the general high degree of logical and verbal (verbal-conceptual) blurring of religious meanings and, as a practical consequence, the need for constant philological efforts when referring to the texts of Scripture.

9. The content of the mythological and religious picture of the world. Mythological and religious consciousness

If we specify in relation to religion the opposition "library of meanings (language)" - "library of texts (all information expressed with the help of language)", then the content of religion is "a library of confessional texts".

The main "thematic" sections in this "library" (i.e. content areas in the entire array of confessional knowledge) are as follows:

1) the idea of God (the Absolute or the host of gods), his history and / or theory (teaching) about God;

2) ideas about the will of God, about his Testament or requirements in relation to people;

3) ideas (doctrine) about a person, society, the world (in some religions - also about the end of the world, about the ways of salvation, about the afterlife or other other world), depending on the ideas about God;

4) religious-ethical and religious-legal ideas and norms dependent on ideas about God;

5) ideas about the proper order of the cult, church organization, the relationship between the clergy and the world, etc., as well as ideas about the history of development and the solution of these problems.

Naturally, the above list of the main areas of religious consciousness is quite general and therefore abstract, but it is needed precisely for the most general outline of the entire semantic sphere of religion.

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:

1) religion is looking for answers to the most important questions of life;

2) 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.

R. Bella emphasized the uniqueness of the knowledge, the meanings that religion conveys to a person: “The experience of death, evil and suffering leads to the posing of deep questions about the meaning of all this, which are not answered by everyday categories of cause and effect. Religious symbols offer a meaningful context in which this experience can be explained by placing it within the grander framework of the universe and providing emotional consolation, even if it is the solace of self-denial... Man is a problem-solving animal.What to do and what to think when other ways of solving problems fail is the realm religion."

10. Mythological and artistic (aesthetic) principles in folklore

In modern language, the words "mythological consciousness" are understood in different meanings. In this sense, mythological consciousness is a primitive collective visual-figurative representation of the world with an obligatory divine component.

In non-terminological usage of the word mythological consciousness, mythology designate certain fragments, links, features of the mythological worldview, preserved in the minds of later eras. In the history of religions terms myth, mythology are used only in a special first meaning: in relation to the collective syncretic consciousness of a primitive or archaic society.

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":

1) opposed to other forms of social consciousness;

2) more complex than the mythological representations of antiquity: it includes a theological or dogmatic component, church morality and other components;

3) it is individualized and present in the minds of individual members of society, while mythological representations were mainly of a collective nature.

Thus, mythology is, as it were, a “pre-religion” of antiquity.

Mythology (mythological representations) is historically the first form of the collective consciousness 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. These differences between mythology and folklore are fundamental, but their genetic commonality is also significant:

1) folklore develops from mythology and necessarily contains mythological elements in one form or another;

2) in archaic societies, folklore, like mythology, is collective in nature, that is, it belongs to the consciousness of all members of a particular society.

Mythology nourished folklore. Myths crumbled into components, combined in new combinations, absorbed new components.

The countless changes hidden by time do not allow us to reconstruct the most ancient myths with sufficient reliability. Mythological thinking is characterized by a special logic - associative-figurative, indifferent to contradictions, striving not for an analytical understanding of the world, but, on the contrary, for syncretic, holistic and comprehensive pictures.

11. The main forms of mythological and religious worldview

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 official church has always clearly seen the fideistic basis of folklore.

The development of materialistic ideas and the strengthening of the principles of rationalism led to the weakening and partial displacement of mythological and religious ideas in the cultures of various peoples.

The peculiarities of fideistic communication and the very phenomenon of the fideistic attitude to the word make it possible to understand a lot both in the content of oral folk art and in the patterns of its genre evolution.

The heroic epic in the artistic development of each people is the oldest form of verbal art, directly developed from myths.

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.

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 epos - a story (song) about the heroic, important and reliable, but not about the sacred.

The sacredness of mythological texts is connected with the fact that they tell about the beginning, the origins of everything that exists, while the very reproduction of the myth includes the one who reproduces the myth, and the one who listens to him, in a wider temporal context.

In comparison with myth, the communicative attitudes of the folk epic are much more modest: this is a story not about the sacred and eternal, but “only” about the heroic and the past. It is easy to see that a fairy tale consists precisely in a series of trials that the hero overcomes. Sometimes trials include death (a journey to the underworld, or death on the battlefield followed by revival by living and dead water, or “bathing” in three boiling cauldrons, etc.), but end with a wedding, i.e. the hero enters into the world of adult life. Apparently, the myths of initiation rituals were based on the likening of those undergoing initiation to heroic ancestors, providers of all the natural and cultural benefits of the tribe. However, “as we move from myth to fairy tale, the “scale” narrows, and interest shifts to the personal fate of the hero.” In a fairy tale, the objects obtained and the goals achieved are not elements of nature and culture, but food, women, wonderful objects, etc., which constitute the well-being of the hero; Instead of the initial occurrence, there is a redistribution of some benefits obtained by the hero either for himself or for his limited community.

12. Ethnic groups and religious affiliation

The mythological and religious sphere of the primitive world was characterized by variegation and fragmentation. However, primitive religion is not limited to the worship of natural forces.

The recognition of the otherworldly nature of God distinguishes theism from pantheism (identifying God and nature).

In the history of religions and in cultural studies, several main classes, or types, of such religious forms are distinguished - animism, totemism, fetishism, shamanism, polytheism, ancient pantheism. Polytheistic and pantheistic religions are practiced in many countries of the modern world.

Animism (from lat. anima, animus - soul, spirit) is a belief in the existence of souls and spirits.

Totemism - this is the belief of the tribe in its relationship with a plant or animal.

Фетишизм (from the French fetiche - an idol, a talisman) - a cult of inanimate objects.

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" stood out from the team of fellow tribesmen, who, in the ecstasy of a trance, became a clairvoyant and medium.

All manifestations of belief in the supernatural can be called a fideistic attitude to the world, or fideism (from Latin fides - faith). The new religions had books that contained the Revelation of God.

Around the new religions, their sacred books, apostles, supra-ethnic cultural and religious worlds are emerging that go beyond the boundaries of ethnic and state associations.

In the history of culture, the languages in which this or that creed was expounded and subsequently canonized began to be called "prophetic".

There are few such languages. Among the Hindu peoples, the first cult language was the Vedic language. The apostolic languages of the Christian peoples of Europe are Greek and Latin, among the Orthodox Slavs and Romanians - Church Slavonic.

The uniqueness of linguistic situations in the Middle Ages was largely due to the existence of supra-ethnic religions with their special languages, which in most cases did not coincide with local folk languages.

Confessional supra-ethnic languages created sufficient opportunities for communication within the boundaries of their cultural and religious worlds. The communicative significance of supra-ethnic languages becomes especially evident if we take into account another essential feature of the linguistic situations of the Middle Ages - the strong dialect fragmentation of languages.

In general, in the Middle Ages, the dependences between religions and languages were especially diverse and deep. In comparison with modern culture, the Middle Ages are characterized by a closer and more biased attention to the word. These are all traits of the cultures that developed from the religions of Scripture.

13. Ancient Greek mythology

The first signs of understanding the world can be found already in the works of Homer. Homer speaks of three first causes and calls them Nyx, Okeanos and Tethys. Nyx is the primordial state, the stage that precedes anything else. Okeanos represents the primordial sea, and Tethys represents a certain life-communicating force that is connected to water. The so-called early Orphic period also dates back to Homer. Orphism is a religious movement that dates back to the mythological singer Orpheus. Music - harmony - played a significant role in his mythological understanding of the origin of the world and the Gods. From the first principle of Nyx, heaven and earth are derived, and from them everything else (Okeanos is here understood as an essential component of the earth).

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 contains all possible potencies.

Along with cosmogonic and theogonic views, we also find in Hesiod a certain reflection of social reality. The later thinker Akusilai ascends to the cosmogonic views of Hesiod. A certain completion of cosmogonic concepts in Ancient Greece in the period preceding the formation of philosophy proper are the views of Pherekides and Epimenides from Syr.

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.

For the first time, Pherekydes attempts to create a certain comprehensive system covering the entire field of phenomena known at that time.

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

All these cosmogonic views, in principle, did not go beyond mythological constructions. However, in some of them (in Hesiod, Pherecydes, Epimenides) one can find tendencies to turn to nature. These "pre-philosophical" views were an attempt in the form of a myth to answer questions about what is the basic principle of the world (or cosmos) and what principles or forces determine its development. The desire to rationally answer these questions, to find a way out of magical and religious addictions is at the origins of Greek philosophy itself.

14. Ancient Chinese mythology

In Chinese mythology, we meet with the deification of the realities that form the environment of human existence. 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 the cult of ancestors and contributed to the conservative thinking in ancient China.

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.

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 classical books of Chinese learning are different from the texts written in the so-called new script. A dispute began about the interpretation of their content, about the meaning of old and new texts.

The creator of orthodox Confucianism as a state ideology, Dong Zhongshu, considered the author of the classic books of Confucius. However, supporters of the old texts assigned Confucius only the role of an interpreter. The book of songs (XI-VI centuries BC) is a collection of ancient folk poetry.

The Book of History (beginning of the 1st millennium BC) - also known as Shang shu (Shan documents) - is a collection of official documents describing historical events. The Book of Order (XNUMXth-XNUMXst centuries BC) includes three parts: the Order of the Zhou era, the Order of Ceremonies, and Notes on Order.

It contains a description of the proper organization of ceremonies.

The Book of Spring and Autumn, together with the commentary of Zuo (XNUMXth century BC), is a chronicle of the state of Lu.

The Book of Changes (XII-VI centuries BC) is the most important. It contains the first ideas about the world and man in Chinese philosophy.

The "Book of Changes" laid the foundations and principles for the development of philosophical thinking in China.

The source texts are based on 64 hexagrams, i.e. symbols formed by combinations of six lines.

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. However, this is not a dualistic explanation, for yin and yang cannot reveal their action without each other.

15. Confucianism

As a specific theory of the organization of society, Confucianism focuses on ethical rules, social norms and regulation of government, in the formation of which it was very conservative.

Thinker Confucius (551-479 BC) (proper name Kong Qiu) is considered the first Chinese philosopher. Confucius' thoughts have been preserved in the form of his conversations with his students.

The records of the sayings of Confucius and his disciples in the book "Conversations and Judgments" are the most reliable source for the study of his views.

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. The original meaning of the concept of order, as the norm of specific relations, actions, rights and obligations in the era of the Western Zhou Dynasty, Confucius rises to the level of an exemplary idea.

To maintain subordination and order, Confucius develops the principle of justice and serviceability. A person must act as the order and his position dictate. Correct behavior is behavior with respect for order and humanity.

Mencius (371-289 AD) - the successor of Confucius, defended Confucianism from attacks from other schools of that time.

As part of the development of Confucianism, Mencius developed the concept of human nature.

The good in every person can be realized by the four virtues, the foundations of which are humanity, serviceability, politeness, knowledge.

In the concept of Mencius, the principle of filial and fraternal virtue put forward by Confucius is consistently carried out.

Xun Tzu (XNUMXrd century BC) was the most prominent Confucian of the Hundred School period.

He understood the sky as permanent, having its own way 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.

Noteworthy is the division of nature by Xun Tzu:

1) inanimate phenomena;

2) living phenomena, possessing life;

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

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

Xun Tzu, although he is considered a Confucian, transcends the classical understanding of order in Confucian social ethics.

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.

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. Taoism

One of the most important directions in the development of worldview thought in China, along with Confucianism, was Taoism. Taoism focuses on nature, the cosmos and man, however, these principles are comprehended not in a rational way, by constructing logically consistent formulas, but with the help of direct conceptual penetration into the nature of existence.

In ontological teaching, it is the concept of the path of Tao that is central.

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. In principle, it is nameless, it manifests itself everywhere, because there is a "source" of things, but it is not an independent substance or essence.

The ontology of the Tao Te Ching is atheistic because, according to the Tao, the world is in spontaneous, unpredetermined motion.

Everything in the world is on the move, in motion and change, everything is impermanent and finite. This is possible thanks to the already known principles of yin and yang, which are in dialectical unity in every phenomenon and process. The ontological principle of sameness, when a person, as a part of nature from which he emerged, must maintain this unity with nature, is also postulated epistemologically.

Compliance with the "measure of things" is the main life task for a person. Sensory cognition relies only on particulars and "leads a person off-road."

Zhuangzi (369-286 BC), real name Zhuang Zhou, is the most prominent follower and propagandist of Taoism. He individualizes the knowledge of Tao. Fatalism is inherent in Chuang Tzu. He views subjective indifference, first of all, as getting rid of emotions and interest.

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-zi" is the next of the Taoist texts and is attributed to the legendary philosopher Le Yukou (300th-XNUMXth centuries BC), was written about XNUMX BC. e.

From the point of view of later development, three types of Taoism are generally distinguished: philosophical (tao 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. The Taoists viewed death as a regrouping of certain "seeds" so that a person or part of him becomes a plant or animal or part of them. Taoists developed the theory of the origin of man from lower animals.

If Confucianism is Chinese exotericism, then Taoism is Chinese esotericism.

17. Vedic literature. Religion of the Vedas

Vedic texts It is primarily religious literature.

Vedic literature was formed over a long and complex historical period, which begins with the arrival of the Indo-European Aryans in India, their gradual settlement of the country (first in the northern and middle regions) and ends with the emergence of the first state formations uniting vast territories.

Traditionally Vedic literature is divided into several groups of texts. First of all, these are the four Vedas (literally: knowledge - hence the name of the entire period and its written monuments); the oldest and most important of them is the Rigveda (knowledge of hymns) - a collection of hymns, which was formed for a long time and finally took shape by the XNUMXth century. BC e.

Somewhat later are the Brahmanas (dating from about the 10th century BC) - the manuals of the Vedic ritual, of which the most important is Shatapat-habrahmana (the Brahmana of a hundred paths). The end of the Vedic period is represented by the Upanishads, which are very important for the knowledge of ancient Indian religious and philosophical thinking.

Vedic religion - this is a complex, gradually developing complex of religious and mythological ideas and their corresponding rituals and cult rites. Partially archaic Indo-European ideas (dating back to the times when the Aryans lived together with other Indo-European tribes on a common territory long before coming to India) of the Indo-Iranian cultural layer (common to the Indian and Iranian Aryans) slip through it.

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, through which the Hindu who professes the Vedas makes sacrifices and thus addresses the other gods. 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, we meet with the desire to find a general principle that could explain the individual phenomena and processes of the surrounding world.

18. Vedic cult. Upanishads

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. The sacrifice is omnipotent, and if it is correctly brought, then a positive result is ensured, because the principle "I give so that you give" works in the Vedic ritual.

Important in this regard is the hymn in which the primordial being Purusha appears, which the gods sacrificed and from whose body parts the earth and sky arise. The sun, the moon, plants and animals, people and, finally, social classes (varnas), ritual objects, as well as the hymns themselves.

In the later Vedic texts (Brahmanas) there is a statement about the origin and emergence of the world. In some places, old provisions are being developed about water as the primary substance, on the basis of which individual elements, gods and the whole world arise. The process of genesis is often accompanied by speculation about the influence of Prajapati, who is understood as an abstract creative force that stimulates the process of the emergence of the world, and his image is devoid of anthropomorphic features. The Brahmins are primarily practical guides for the Vedic ritual; cult practice and related mythological expositions are their main content.

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. In general, the Old Indian tradition has 108 of them, today about 300 different Upanishads are known.

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. 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). An inseparable part of this teaching is the concept of the cycle of life (samsara) and the closely related law of retribution (karma).

Here is a peculiar attempt to explain the property and social differences in society as a consequence of the ethical result of the activity of each individual in past lives. Thus, one who acts in accordance with existing norms can, according to the Upanishads, prepare for himself a better lot in some of the future lives.

The cycle of life is eternal, and everything in the world obeys it. The Upanishads are basically an idealistic teaching, however, it is not holistic in this basis, since it contains views close to materialism.

19. Jainism

In the middle of the XNUMXst millennium BC. e. great changes begin to take place in the Old Indian society. Agrarian and handicraft production, trade are developing significantly, property differences between members of individual varnas and castes are deepening, the position of direct producers is changing.

Traditional Vedic ritualism and old, often primitive mythology do not correspond to the new conditions. A number of new doctrines are emerging, fundamentally independent of the ideology of Vedic Brahmanism, rejecting the privileged position of the Brahmins in the cult and approaching the question of a person's place in society in a new way.

Mahavira Vardhamana is considered the founder of Jainism.

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, in which religious speculation is mixed with philosophical reasoning, 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.

Jains developed the concept of karma in detail and identified 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. Jains believe that a person, with the help of his spiritual essence, can control and manage the material essence. 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.

An integral part of the Jain canon are also various speculative constructions, for example about the ordering of the world. The cosmos, according to Jains, is eternal, it was never created and cannot be destroyed. Ideas about the ordering of the world come from the science of the soul, which is constantly limited by the matter of karma. The souls that are most burdened with it are placed the lowest and, as they get rid of karma, gradually rise higher and higher until they reach the highest limit.

It contains, among other things, mythological legends that relate to the life and accomplishments of individual tirthankaras, and legends associated with the personality of Vardhamana, and descriptions of the underworld and the middle world (our Earth).

Over the course of time, two directions were formed in Jainism, which differed, in particular, in their understanding of asceticism.

20. Buddhism

In the VI century. BC e. in Northern India, Buddhism arises - a doctrine founded by Siddhartha Gautama (approximately 583-483 BC), the son of the ruler of the Shakya clan from Kapilavast (region of Southern Nepal). At the age of 29, dissatisfied with life, he leaves his family and goes into "homelessness". After many years of useless austerity, he achieves awakening, that is, comprehends the correct path of life, which rejects extremes. This discovery of the main knowledge (dharma) was like a sudden insight, enlightenment, hence the new name of the prince: Buddha means "enlightened", literally - "awakened".

Salvation, the Buddha taught, consists in attaining nirvana - complete peace and tranquility that come after you manage to overcome all human desires, passions and fears.

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, which the Buddha proclaims at the very beginning of his preaching activity. According to them, human existence is inextricably linked with suffering. Birth, illness, old age, death, encountering the unpleasant and parting with the pleasant, the impossibility of achieving the desired - all this leads to suffering. The cause of suffering is thirst (trshna), leading through joys and passions to rebirth, rebirth. The elimination of the causes of suffering consists in the elimination of this craving.

The path leading to the elimination of suffering - the wholesome eightfold path - is: right judgment, right decision, right speech, right living, right aspiration, right attention and right concentration. Both a life devoted to sensual pleasures and the path of asceticism and self-torture are rejected.

The Buddhist canon of the Four Noble Truths is commented on in detail, developed and expounded in various aspects.

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 (sangha) can prepare the prerequisites for entering the path of salvation in one of the future existences and numerous groups of secular Buddhists.

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.

21. Zoroastrianism

Name Zoroastrianism associated with the name Zoroaster (in the Greek transmission - Zaroaster), the prophet of the god Mazda and the founder of religion; the same religion is sometimes called Mazdaism - by the name of the main god Agur Mazda (Lord Omniscient); there is also the term fire worship, since fire was considered the main cleansing element and occupied a central place in the rituals of the Zoroastrians (including their modern followers).

The name of the holy book of Zoroastrianism "Avesta" did not appear at the time of Zoroaster.

Apparently, 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.

In the person of the ancient God of light and truth, Ahura Mazda, he discovered the one God and Creator and therefore acted as a militant opponent of polytheism. 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."

Zoroastrian texts contain one of the most ancient written evidence of how people represented the triad "thought - word - deed". According to Zarathushtra, the word occupies a central, key position in this chain (or, more precisely, in the ring): "it embodies the thought (spirit) and, having magical power, merges, is identified with the deed" (Braginsky).

The highest gods - both Good and Evil - are gods with the power of the Word.

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. The sermons, prayers and sayings of Zarathushtra were memorized for almost a thousand years and passed down from memory in an already dead language. Thus, at least two thousand years lie between the preaching of Zarathushtra and the first recordings of sacred texts! At the same time, the earliest surviving texts belong to an even later time.

Liturgical rhythmic texts, directly related to the name of Zoroaster, were "Ba-ty" (literally songs, chants). This is the oldest part of the sacred book of Zoroastrianism. The millennium of oral existence of the "Avesta" led to the fact that no more than a quarter of its estimated volume has survived. That is why in the history of culture "Avesta" refers to those relatively rare monuments that are incredibly difficult to understand and impossible to fully understand.

22. Judaism as a world religion. Holy Tradition of Judaism

Judaism, along with Christianity and Islam, belongs to the Abrahamic religions, which trace their origins to the biblical patriarch Abraham. Judaism 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 the conviction that the world belongs to God, and people should behave in accordance with His will.

The main document of Judaism is the Torah. The Torah includes the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) and the "Pentateuch of Moses": the first five books of the Old Testament - the Tanakh. This is the main document of Judaism and the basis of all later Jewish law.

The "Torah" ("Pentateuch of Moses") in the Jewish tradition has another name - the Written Law, because, according to legend, God, through Moses, gave the people the "Torah" (613 commandments of the Law) in scrolls, and the Ten Most Important Commandments ("The Decalogue ") were inscribed by God's finger on stone slabs - tablets. However, the Jews believed that God gave Moses not only the Written Law, but also told him the Oral Law - a legal commentary explaining how laws should be followed in various, including unforeseen, circumstances.

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 encyclopedic complete set of all kinds of prescriptions based on the Tanakh.

The Talmud has two main parts:

1) legislative code "Halacha";

2) “Haggadah” is a collection of folk wisdom of semi-folklore origin.

There are two striking features in the law-making of the Talmud authors; firstly, the desire for the most accurate reading of the "letter of the law"; secondly, the desire for maximum detail of the general legal norm established by the "Torah" - on the basis of foresight and analysis of all conceivable controversial and difficult particular cases that should be regulated by this norm.

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

About the Mishna, the oldest part of the Talmud, the Jews said: “If the Torah is the Law of Israel, then the Mishna is the soul of the Law.” Kabbalah, the secret mystical teaching of Judaism, has an even higher rank: it is the soul souls of the Law."

Since mystical studies were considered dangerous for people who were immature and not firm enough in faith, in the Jewish tradition, works on Kabbalah were allowed to be read only by married men over forty years old, who were well acquainted with the Torah and the Talmud.

23. Apophatic tendencies in the Talmud. Judaism creed

In Judaism, theology as a theoretical doctrine of God began to develop after the addition of the religious canon. This is the natural logic of the deployment of religious content: faith is strengthened by knowledge.

After the tragic defeat of the Jews in two anti-Roman uprisings (66-73 and 132-135), the task of the book "strengthening the faith" was recognized in Judaism as a kind of spiritual overcoming of the catastrophe, giving hope for the revival of the Jewish people. The rabbis of the "great assembly" bequeathed to subsequent generations of scribes "to erect a fence around the law," and this defense of the doctrine was seen precisely in its theological development.

In the Talmud, the theological component proper was relatively small and not entirely separated from the endlessly detailed legal and explanatory commentary on the Torah.

Apophatic theology (from the Greek apophatikos - negative) comes from the complete transcendence of God (that is, his transcendence in relation to the world and inaccessibility to human knowledge).

Cataphatic theology (kataphatikos - positive) allows for the possibility of characterizing God with positive definitions and designations.

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. According to legend, God revealed his true name only to Moses.

In the "Talmud" there are no longer those numerous characterizing names-epithets of God, with which the "Tanakh" abounds.

After the Talmud, Jewish theology develops in the works of many generations of scholars, including the outstanding thinker of the 1878th century. Martin Buber (1965-XNUMX), humanistic mystic and existentialist.

The most famous Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages is Moses Maimonides. Maimonides systematized and supplemented the methods of interpretation of the Torah developed in the Talmud. For example, such turns of Scripture as the finger of God, etc., Maimonides taught to understand not literally, but figuratively, since God, of course, does not have physical flesh.

The genre idea, the very idea of the Creed belongs to Christianity, and, strictly speaking, only in Christianity the term symbol of faith quite organic. However, apparently, 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. Scholars who grew up in a Christian culture tend to call such texts Articles of faith, although in the religions themselves (specifically in Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Islam) these texts were called differently.

24. Jewish sermon

"Torah" ("Pentateuch of Moses"), the main book of Judaism every year must be fully read in the synagogue.

Even the sages of the Talmud and partly the Masoretes divided the Torah into weekly readings, and each weekly reading into seven parts (according to the number of days in the week). A passage from the Torah is performed by one of the community members, called man reading. In reality, he does not read, but sings the “Torah” according to special notes that he must know by heart.

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, should be a scroll (and not a book-code) and must be written by hand.

The basis of the Jewish prayer book is the psalms - 150 hymns of the Old Testament book "Psalter". (from the Greek psalmos - singing with music on a stringed instrument. The title of the book "Psalter" is also Greek, but later.

In religion, preaching is as organic as prayer. This is the fundamental, primary genre of religious communication. If the Word of God heard by the prophet is a mystical "first push" in the birth of religion, then the sermon in which the prophet (mentor) conveys God's Word to people is the "second push", and at the same time not mystical, but quite observable.

In relation to the Word of God, every sermon is a "second-order" text, the word of a mentor about the word of God. The purpose of preaching is to bring the meaning of the word of God to the minds of people. Such a transfer of meaning is one or another adaptation of the primary text (the word of God) to the possibilities of the human mind. Adaptation may consist in full or partial translation of the primary text into a more understandable language, while the secondary text may be an extension of the original and, conversely, its compression.

The elements of a sermon may already be present in Scripture. Ancient Jews in the XNUMXth c. BC e. return from Babylonian captivity to Jerusalem. They are restoring the Jerusalem fortress wall, and here on it the pious and learned priest Ezra, a zealot of Jewish orthodoxy, a restorer of the religion of Yahweh, for eight days in a row (the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was just in progress) loudly reads the Torah to the people. He reads in Hebrew, but this language is poorly understood by the people, several generations of which, while in Babylonian captivity, have already switched to Aramaic. Therefore, other priests here translate or retell the "Torah" in an understandable language, while Ezra interprets what is incomprehensible. It was these public, from the city wall, readings of the "Torah", translation and interpretation that helped to restore Judaism in the post-captive Jerusalem.

25. Jewish religious philosophy

In the religions of Scripture, preaching early began to fulfill another communicative task - to interpret the "difficult places" of the sacred text. 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. However, very soon the interpretations go beyond the boundaries of what the oral word of the priest can accommodate.

In Judaism, various commentaries on the "Torah" begin to be compiled even before the canonization of the "Tanakh" ("Old Testament") - in texts that will later become sections and books of the "Talmud".

"Talmud" comprehensively develops the technique of philological commenting on the text, methodically defining and demonstrating 32 methods of interpreting the text with examples. Some of the techniques were associated with the need to eliminate contradictions in the interpretation of the various provisions of the Torah, including by allowing an allegorical word or phrase. Thus, the Talmud and the Jewish school brought up readiness for a non-literal understanding of the word and taught to understand different layers of meaning in one word.

The most famous commentator on Jewish sacred books - Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchach, or Rashi for short (1040-1105) - is recognized in Judaism as the greatest Jewish teacher of the Middle Ages. Rashi's commentary on the Torah became the first book printed in Hebrew in 1475 - even before the Torah itself. Knowledge of the "Torah" with Rashi's commentary became the norm of traditional Jewish education and became part of the mandatory weekly reading.

Rashi did more than anyone to make the Talmud accessible to the reader. For 900 years, everyone who studies and publishes the Torah and the Talmud has used his commentaries.

The third of the classic sets of commentaries on the Torah and the Talmud is the Midrash (Hebrew, "interpretation, study"). In the codified version of the Midrash, the individual commentaries are arranged to match the order of the verses in the Torah. Thus, a continuous, verse by verse, interpretation of the entire "Pentateuch of Moses" was created.

Jewish philosophy in the Middle Ages also developed in parallel with Christian and Islamic philosophy, and here, too, the starting points are Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism.

The largest thinker of this movement was Ibn Gebirol. His teaching was one of the most consistent in the Middle Ages. Among the Jewish Aristotelians, the most prominent was Moses ben Maymun. He said that, except for the prophets, no one came as close to the truth as Aristotle.

In the spirit of the ancient Eleatics and Neoplatonists, he argues that truth is not multiple, but one, creates itself, moves and preserves itself.

26. Revelations in the Holy Scriptures of Christians. Canonization of Christian texts

The revelation of God, begun in the Old Testament, is completed in the New Testament.

The communicative triad of "participants in communication" (God - the Messenger of God - People), to whom the Revelation of God is addressed, becomes more complicated in the New Testament. Each "participant of communication" appears in several images.

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, and, moreover, God the Holy Spirit.

On the other hand, the functions of 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 named apostles.

To present the structure of Revelation in Christianity, let's try to answer three questions.

What is the direct speech of God the Father in Christian Scripture? First, it is the Revelation inherited by Christianity from the Old Testament. Secondly, the Word of God sent to people is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. According to Christian theology, "the love of the Father, witnessed to men by the message of His Son, is the main revelation brought by Jesus."

What is the direct speech of Jesus Christ? First, the instructions and parables of the Sermon on the Mount, which supplements the Old Testament Ten Commandments with the commandments of love, meekness and humility. Secondly, other gospel parables, speeches and sayings of Jesus, among which his "Farewell speeches and prayers" are sometimes singled out as a definite whole.

What does the word Gospel mean in the New Testament (Greek euangelion - good, joyful news; gospel)? This word is included in the titles of the four canonical Gospels: “The Gospel of Matthew,” “The Gospel of Mark,” “The Gospel of Luke,” and “The Gospel of John.” Therefore, in these contexts, the Gospel is the narrative of Christ's followers about the earthly life and death of the Teacher.

In Christianity, work on determining the canonical text of the books of the "New Testament" began in the 185nd century. The famous Christian theologian and philosopher Origen (254-70), the son of a Greek, who lived in Alexandria and Palestine, carried out a grandiose systematic comparison of six different texts of the Bible. According to legend, there were 70 translators (interpreters) who created the Septuagint. Each of them independently translated the text of the Old Testament and then it turned out that all XNUMX translations matched letter for letter. Origen consistently noted all the omissions, discrepancies and distortions of the text with special signs.

27. Holy Fathers of the Church and Patristics, Scripture or Tradition

According to Christian biblical studies, the New Testament (actually the Christian part of the Holy Scriptures) was written by four evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and the apostles James, John, Judas and Paul, i.e. eight people (Apostle John the Theologian, author of two "Epistles "and" Revelations "and the author of the Gospel of John - one and the same person). In the hierarchy of Christian authorities, the authors of the New Testament occupy the top place, 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.

But Christianity expanded in cities and countries, gradually turning from a persecuted sect into a state religion, the Christian church was built and strengthened, the doctrine developed intensively and in different directions. The reference ipse dixit - "said himself" - should have been extended from the apostles to new authors. They began to be called church fathers or holy fathers of the church, and their works - patristic works, or patristics (lat. rater - father). This is how the second (after the apostles and evangelists) circle of Christian authorities - the church fathers - emerged, and the patristic writings became the second most important (after the Holy Scriptures) body of Christian doctrinal texts - the Holy Tradition.

The pinnacle of Eastern patristics are the works of the so-called Cappadocian circle (XNUMXth century) of theologians and poets - Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa.

The most prominent representative of Latin patristics was Augustine Aurelius, recognized by subsequent tradition as the "teacher of the West."

The Byzantine theologian St. John of Damascus and Pope Gregory the Great, the initiator of the Christianization of England.

Two main lines are clearly visible in the development of patristics.

Firstly, official church definitions, rules of church service, rules for pastors and laity, as well as conciliar rules for understanding the most important and difficult verses in Holy Scripture were developed.

Secondly, there was a kind of extensive development of the doctrine; Christian essays were written on the main branches of medieval humanitarian knowledge.

As a result, a contradiction arose between the status and role of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition.

Orthodox theology upholds the equal value of Scripture and Tradition, while considering Scripture as part of Tradition.

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.

28. Christian theological thought and dogmatic theology

In Christianity, theological theory was developed to a much greater extent than in other theistic religions (Judaism and Islam).

Of course, Christianity was a powerful generator of theological knowledge. The mysterious and paradoxical world of Christian ideas, its living connections and disputes with Judaism and Greco-Roman polytheism - all this gave rise to many questions, and even more conflicting answers.

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. Theology is one of the secondary formations in relation to faith and Holy Scripture.

The first theologian after the apostles, the Christian Church calls St. Irenaeus, a contemporary of the Apostle John and Bishop of Lyons, who was martyred in 202.

Tertullian (160-220), presbyter of Carthage, was the first to formulate the principle of the trinity of God and introduced the concept of the persons of the Trinity. Tertullian was the first to define what the seven deadly sins were. This list (pride, greed, fornication, envy, anger, gluttony, laziness) was approved by church councils, entered into the initial Christian teaching of the law of God.

Origen (185-253 or 254) headed the Christian school in Alexandria, and after the church condemnation - in Palestine (in the city of Caesarea), however, in the VI century. was declared a heretic. Origen proved the inevitability of complete salvation, merging with God of all souls and the temporality of hellish torments.

St. Augustine developed an ontological proof of the existence of God. The name of Augustine is associated with the beginning of religious intolerance in Christianity.

Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) went down in history as an outstanding church organizer and politician. In the field of theology, the doctrine of purgatory is associated with his name.

However, already in early Christianity, the rapid development of theology was met with intra-confessional restrictions and prohibitions.

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 Christian Church has always been cautious about the free discussion of dogmas.

29. What Every Christian Should Know

With the spread of dogma in breadth and as it develops, a certain hierarchy of meanings is formed - the distinction between the main and the secondary and the tertiary. The Christian Church quite early felt the need to define the corpus of the main, universally recognized and obligatory truths of the dogma - dogmas. However, books on theology were difficult and inaccessible to the masses of believers. The common people needed a kind of ABC of dogma.

There are two main genres of such texts in Christianity:

1) creed (listing in the established sequence of 12 articles of faith);

2) catechism (statement of the foundations of faith in questions and answers).

The Creed, still canonical for Orthodoxy, was compiled by the fathers of the I and II Ecumenical Councils in the city of Nicaea (in 325) and in Constantinople (381), which is why it is called Niceno-Constantinople.

The first Protestant catechism - "A summary of the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer" - was compiled by Martin Luther in 1520.

In the East Slavic tradition, the first catechism, and in the vernacular (simple language), was published by the famous Belarusian Protestant Symon Budny (Nesvizh, 1562).

The first Orthodox catechism among the Eastern Slavs was developed by the "didaskal" of the Lvov fraternal school Lavrentiy Zizaniy.

This catechism Lavrentiy and his son brought in 1627 to Moscow, to the Sovereign's Printing Yard for printing.

As we can see, the catechisms are composed by church leaders-reformers and higher hierarchs. Functionally close to the Creed and the Catechism are the so-called symbolic books, or confessions of faith.

All Christian communal services, including the main of them - the liturgy - include common prayers, singing and reading passages from sacred books.

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;

3) in the Easter cycle.

The circle of those texts that are read and sung in Christian worship includes almost all the texts of the New Testament (excluding the "Revelation of John the Theologian" - the Apocalypse), a number of texts of the "Old Testament" (especially the "Psalter"), further prayers and hymns of the apostolic times.

In terms of the composition of texts and composition, those books of Holy Scripture that are read in divine services differ significantly from the extra-liturgical books of the Christian canon.

Another genre of liturgical books, compiled from selected fragments of Scripture, is the Paremiinik. It is a collection of stories from the Old or New Testaments that are read at the evening service.

30. "Sermon on the Mount" and early Christian homily

The famous "Sermon on the Mount" is both a parallel, and an addition, and an antithesis to the Old Testament "Decalogue" - the Ten Chief Commandments of Judaism. However, a number of passages are precisely the denial of the commandments of the Old Testament.

If the Ten Commandments of the "Old Testament" by their genre-communicative nature is a "quote", "fragment" from the Revelation given by God, then the New Testament "Sermon on the Mount" of Jesus Christ is both the Revelation of God and the Sermon of the Teacher.

The Sermon on the Mount allows us to imagine the features of early Christian preaching: its communicative-rhetorical power and skill, most likely, are not prudent, but spontaneous and therefore all the more effective.

Historical sources testify that in the first centuries of Christianity, a sermon was a common accompaniment to the actual service to God (liturgy) and collective prayers.

The early Christian preaching was called homily (Greek omilia meeting, community; conversation, teaching). Later came the term homiletics - "rules for the composition of sermons; the science of church eloquence."

"Thematic" sermon (it was also called "university") for several centuries was felt as the pinnacle of church-rhetorical learning. 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.

Protestants, on the contrary, actively developed preaching, seeing in free preaching a return to the purity and religious creativity of early Christian times.

Among Orthodox Eastern Slavs, learned liturgical sermons have been part of church life since the XNUMXth century, while overcoming considerable resistance from conservative clerical circles.

terms exegesis и hermeneutics go back to Greek words with a close meaning (albeit distant roots) and therefore are translated almost the same way: exegesis (from the Greek. exegetikos - explaining) - this is an explanation, interpretation; hermeneutics (from the Greek hermeneutikos - explaining, interpreting) - art, technique of interpreting classical texts.

As a result, a special type (or genre) of canonical texts has developed - the Explanatory Gospel, the Explanatory Psalter, the Explanatory Apostle. Books of this type included the biblical text and interpretations of it.

In modern times, Christianity has developed interpretations of all the books of the Old and New Testaments.

31. The fate of canon law in Christianity, the dogma of the Holy Trinity and the "Arian heresy"

Unlike Judaism and Islam, in Christianity, the most important principles of law are contained not in confessional, but in secular texts dating back to pre-Christian sources.

If in Judaism and Islam the basic principles of confessional law (as well as civil law) are contained in Holy Scripture - in the Tanakh and the Koran, then the sources of canon law among Christians are associated not with Scripture, but with Tradition.

In Byzantium, the first codification of church rules was carried out by an outstanding lawyer, before being tonsured - by an Antiochian lawyer, and then by the Patriarch of Constantinople John Scholasticus (565-571).

The collection of church rules and imperial decrees concerning the church prepared by him was called "Nomocanon". "Nomocanon" in the edition of Patriarch Photius (IX century) was translated into Old Church Slavonic by St. Methodius.

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity of God developed in the XNUMXth century. in heated debates with religious dissent. 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 of God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Arius (256-336), a priest from Alexandria, taught that the Son of God is a creation of God, and therefore not God. But the Son is endowed with Divine power, and therefore can be called the “second God.” According to Arius, the Spirit is the highest creation of the Son. Arius called the Holy Spirit "grandson."

The "Arian heresy" was a bogey back in the XNUMXth century. for Russian Old Believers.

Arianism as a current of Christian thought to the VI century. has lost its meaning. However, disagreements in understanding the Trinity in the Holy Trinity continued to excite theologians.

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 - they added the filioque (from the Latin 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. To the previous formula: “The Spirit proceeds from the Father” by St. Augustine added: "and from the Son."

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

32. The Qur'an: the uncreated Book sent down from Heaven

Islam, the youngest of the world religions, developed under the strong influence of the religions of neighboring peoples - Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism. Koran - from the Arabic "kuran" - literally - "reading what they read, pronounce." The Qur'an is also called the words mushaf, kitab (in Arabic "book", remember that the word Bible is also translated from Greek as "book").

The entire text of the Qur'an is a direct speech of Allah addressed to the prophet Muhammad or through the prophet to people.

For almost 20 years, Muhammad repeated everything he heard at night to his fellow tribesmen, word for word, while maintaining "direct speech".

The "broadcasting" of Allah from Heaven and the "broadcasting" of his words by the prophet to the people continued from 610 to 632, first in Mecca, then in Medina.

Islamic teaching regards the Qur'an as a "complete prophecy" and sees in this its superiority over the sacred 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 people his prophets and Revelation: Jews - Moses (Arabic Musa) and Torah, Christians - Jesus (Arabic Isu) and the Sermon on the Mount. However, both Jews and Christians broke the Covenant, distorted and forgot God's word, and thus became unfaithful. Then God sent them his best prophet - the "seal of the prophets" Muhammad - and through him transmitted his Testament in the most complete and complete form - the Koran.

Thus, 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. within the religions of the world.

The increased cult of Scripture in Islam was clearly manifested in the dogmatic dispute about the creation or non-creation of the Koran. According to the original and orthodox concept, the Koran was not created: it, as well as the Arabic letters, always existed, from eternity, and were kept in seventh heaven awaiting the coming of the one who would be worthy to receive the word of God. This man was Muhammad, the prophet of Allah.

Rationalist-minded opponents of the dogma denied the thesis of uncreation under the banner of defending monotheism. Assuming the eternity and uncreatedness of the Koran, they taught, is tantamount to endowing this book with the properties of God.

The dispute about the nature of the Qur'an excited wide circles of Muslims and often became so acute that it caused imprisonment, corporal punishment and even an armed rebellion. In the end, the dogma of the uncreatedness of the Koran won.

33. "Collector of the Quran" Osman, "Sunnah" of the Prophet Muhammad and hadiths

The first records of individual speeches of the prophet were made during his lifetime. Their complete set was compiled in 655, that is, less than a quarter of a century after the death of the founder of the religion. 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 (Arabic caliph - successor, deputy), who entered the history of Islam as the "collector of the Koran."

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

There is no story about Mohammed in the Qur'an comparable in biographical content to the Torah's information about Moses or the Gospels about Christ. Meanwhile, it is the life of Muhammad that could constitute a kind of Islamic sacred history and at the same time serve as an example of a righteous life and the struggle for Islam.

In functional terms, the “Sunnah” is a doctrinal source of “second order”, while in terms of content it is a biography of the prophet.

Arabic word sunnah, which has become a designation for the biography of Muhammad and the Islamic Holy Tradition, literally means “path, example, example.” The Sunnah contains stories about the actions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.

Expression "observe the sunnah" means to imitate Muhammad, to lead a correct Muslim life.

As a sign of reverence for the "Sunnah", devout Muslims began to call themselves Ahl al-Sunnah, i.e. "people of the Sunnah, or Sunnis." However, the Shiite movements and sects opposing the Sunnis also revere the “Sunna of the Prophet” on a par with the Koran.

In Islam, it is customary to distinguish six main collections of hadith.

The first and main difference between the “main” collections of hadiths and the “non-main” ones is the degree of authority of the narrator.

In Muslim science, a special research discipline has developed - identifying the degree of reliability of hadiths by criticizing the reliability of isnads.

How important the principle of antiquity and the chronology of isnad is is evidenced by the fact that the two main directions in Islam - sunnism и Shiism - differ among themselves in what antiquity the hadiths they recognize as sacred and, therefore, canonical sources of law.

Shiites (from Arabic Shia - "group, party, supporters") recognize only those hadiths that go back to Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law Caliph Ali and his two sons. According to these hadiths, only the direct descendants of Muhammad can continue the work of the prophet, protect religion and manage worldly affairs.

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.

34. "Spiritual armor" of Islamic theology

Islam is not only faith and religion. Islam is a way of life, the Qur'an is an "Arabian judicial 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 as an extremely speculative and abstract, intellectual "art for art's sake" far from life.

Specifically, Muslim dogmatic problems are connected with the question of the creation or non-creation of the Koran. After a century and a half of discussions, the fundamentalist opinion about uncreatedness won: the Qur'an "before the creator is not created."

Theology has always occupied an exceptionally prestigious place in Islamic civilization. Muslims saw in it not only high wisdom, but also practically important knowledge, the key to the Revelation of Allah and the "Sunnah" of the Prophet, to Islamic law - Sharia. At the same time, the high prestige of knowledge or occupation, as a rule, does not get along with its mass character and accessibility. This circumstance, as well as the conservative-protective tendencies essential for Islam as a religion of the Scriptures and for the early Muslim society in general - all this strengthened the features of the closed and authoritarian system of "Islam's spiritual armor" in Islamic theology.

The desire to narrow the circle of theologians and hinder access to theological information already in 892 caused a special decree of the caliph in Baghdad banning booksellers from selling books on dogmatics, dialectics and philosophy.

The regulation of theology in Islam was achieved, firstly, by limiting access to information and, secondly, by early and strict dogmatization of the main doctrinal truths.

The Islamic full creed is called akida (Arabic "faith, dogma"). The Sunnis have several sets of dogmas: the most popular is attributed to Abu Hanifa (VIII century), then the code of the XIII century. and the end of the XNUMXth century.

There is also an abbreviated Creed - "Shahada" (from Arabic shahida - to testify).

"Shahada", like the Christian Symbol, begins with a verb in the 1st person singular, translated as "I testify."

The Islamic Symbol contains a concise summary of the two main tenets of Islam:

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

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

There is no catechesis: the convert to Islam is not required to undergo prior training in the basics of faith. Muslims do not have the clergy as a class with special grace.

35. Prayer canon of Islam "Arab Code"

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 - muezzin (literally - "inviting, announcing") from the tower of the minaret or just a hillock calls the faithful to obligatory prayer.

There are no requests in the ritual prayer of a Muslim. Salat expresses and confirms loyalty and submission to Allah.

A Muslim cannot pray by the way. Salat is a separate, independent act of the soul and will, completely dedicated to God.

Devout Muslims are required to pray five times a day. However, once a week, on Fridays, Muslims must pray in the mosque, then the main weekly sermon, the khutba, is delivered.

The main difficulties in the legal use of Islamic Scripture and Tradition were as follows.

Turning to hadiths as a source of law was difficult because the degree of reliability of different hadiths was different and not generally recognized. 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.

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 - this is a special scientific interpretation, using the methods of purely religious reasoning and all kinds of data on the chronology and history of sacred texts.

Fiqh is more practical in nature. This is Muslim canon law, including the theory of Islamic law. “Fiqh is also a theoretical justification and understanding of Shariah - the correct way of life for a Muslim; therefore, the terms “Shariah” and “fiqh” often replace each other.”

Sharia (from Arabic Sharia - the right way, road, - a set of legal norms, principles and rules of conduct, religious life and actions of a Muslim. The main task of Sharia was to assess various circumstances of life from the point of view of religion. Fiqh supplemented Sharia in purely legal aspects.

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

36. Arab religious philosophy

Arab religious philosophy developed in parallel with the development of early scholasticism.

The main meaning of Arab philosophy was to defend 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 (800 - ca. 870), a contemporary of Eriugena, translator and commentator of Aristotle. A staunch follower of Aristotle in the 870th century was al-Farabi (950-900), who lived and worked in Baghdad, Aleppo and Damascus in 950-XNUMX. However, he also 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.

Avicenna's philosophy was theocentric, but in a different sense than Christian. He understood the world as a product of the divine mind, but in no case of God's will.

If Avicenna was the king of Arabic philosophy in the East, then the king of the Arab West was Aver-roes (Arab. Ibn Rushd, 1126-1196). 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.

Averroes distinguishes between passive and active mind. The passive mind is associated with the individual sensory representations of a person, the active mind has the character of a universal, individual intellect, which is eternal.

Averroes understood the relationship between religion and philosophy as follows: the highest and pure truth, which the philosopher knows, in religion manifests itself in sensual images, which can be useful for the intellect of simple, uneducated people. Religious ideas, as interpreted by philosophers, are understood differently by ordinary people, which is the content of the starting point of the doctrine of the so-called dual truth, one of the creators of which was Averroes. It is not surprising that Averroes' philosophy was harshly condemned by Islamic orthodoxy, and his treatises were ordered to be burned.

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 approach in the treatise "Refutation of the Philosophers", against which Averroes opposed. In this treatise, al-Ghazali also rejected the principle of causality, which manifests itself in the world in a natural way.

37. Satanism is a type of Black Occultism

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

Black occultists can be divided into two groups - those who deliberately say to Evil: "Become Good to me," and those who have strayed onto the Left Path through negligence, due to insufficient occult competence.

First of all, let us consider the first group of black occultists, as they are a vivid illustration of the activity of spiritual Evil. Representatives of the second group personify all degrees of modification of the principles of Evil.

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. This is their main difference. This is the point that determines where the soul will turn when entering the Path - "to the right" or "to the left."

The Initiate of the Left Path strives to master occult powers for the gratification of his personality. It is dangerous to make contact with him, as he seeks to use all people in his own interests.

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 believe that the torment and blood of innocent victims are the main guarantee of the success of their rituals.

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 win his favor were called "black masses" by 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 centuries. He was the main occult authority not only for the occultists of the Third Reich, many of whom were his students, but also for the British Prime Minister W. Churchill. Based on the work of Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey compiled The Satanic Bible and The Satanic Ritual.

In March 1970, the Church of Satan was admitted to the US National Council of Churches.

38. Ten Commandments of Satan, the essence of Satanism

For his followers, A. Lavey formulated the "nine commandments" of Satan.

1. Satan represents indulgence, not abstinence!

2. Satan personifies the essence of life instead of pipe spiritual dreams.

3. Satan represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deception!

4. Satan represents mercy to those who deserve it, instead of love spent on flatterers!

5. Satan personifies revenge, and does not turn the other cheek after being hit!

6. Satan represents responsibility for those responsible instead of involvement with spiritual vampires.

7. Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, often worse than those who walk on all fours; an animal that, due to its "divine, spiritual and intellectual development" has become the most dangerous of all animals!

8. Satan represents all so-called sins as they lead to physical, mental and emotional fulfillment!

9. Satan has been the Church's best friend of all time, supporting her business all these years!

To the "nine commandments" of Satan, formulated by A. Lavey, the "tenth commandment" is added: "What You want, Then Do - that's the whole Law, there is no other Law, except: What You want, Then Do!". Thus, the ten commandments of the Bible are opposed to the "ten commandments" of Satan.

"The Tenth Commandment" is a literal quote from A. Crowley's "Book of the Law", which was dictated to him in the Cairo desert by the "demon Aiwas", a servant of Harpocrates - the ancient Egyptian god of silence.

In the "ten commandments" the essence of Satanism finds its expression, however - only on the external exoteric level.

As for the esoteric essence of Satanism as one of the directions of Black occultism, the problem of determining the metaphysical, deep essence of Black occultism in general and Satanism in particular is directly related to the problem of the origin of world Evil.

As for the psychological aspect of the origin of Evil, at this level Evil is expressed in the rebellion of the Ego, as a lower, false, temporary "I" against a higher, immortal, Absolute "I".

For a Satanist, “God” is his own Ego: “All religions of a spiritual nature were invented by man. He created an entire system of gods with nothing other than his carnal brain. Man has an ego, his hidden “I” and, only because he is unable to come to terms with it, he is forced to isolate it outside himself in some great spiritual creature called “God.”

39. Absolutization of the Ego and Its Consequences

"Every man is a god if he thinks he is one." This most important provision of A. Lavey's "Satanic Bible" is, in fact, the development of the thesis of F. Nietzsche, who declared through his Zarathustra that "God is dead", as well as the development of the most important provision of A. Crowley's "Book of the Law" - "Every man and every woman is a star."

Bringing to its logical conclusion the deification of the Ego - the lower, false, temporary "I", Satanism proclaims its immortality. It is the Satanist's own Ego, and not Satan himself, that is considered in Satanism as God.

As we can see, the position of Satanism here completely coincides with the position of "godless humanism", on which the entire civilization of the West has been based since the time of the so-called "Renaissance". That is, Satanism became the actual spiritual basis of the "modern civilized world" at the beginning of its inception, at the dawn of the New Age.

The degree of absolutization of the human Ego in Western countries and especially in the USA has now reached such proportions that in fact the teaching of Satanism on this issue has already become here, at least at the level of everyday consciousness, the generally accepted point of view.

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.

The second level of Satanism includes those who experience a steady addiction to various kinds of drugs, hallucinogens, psychedelics. That is, to everything that is used to influence the lower "satanic" levels of the subconscious in order to release the ancient instincts.

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 fifth level of Satanism is made up of the "inner circle" Satanists. This includes all those who are actively involved not only in theoretical but also in practical Black occultism.

Sixth level Satanists are called "Black Adepts". Besides the fact that they are all black magicians of a very high level, they have such a developed spiritual sight and hearing that they are able to see and hear Satan.

Satanists of the highest - seventh - level are called "Saints of Satan". These are the Messiahs of Evil, who constantly communicate with Satan in his parallel world through spiritual vision and spiritual hearing and are directly involved in the development of the God-fighting plan.

40. "Seven Towers of Satan" - seven centers of higher demonic

In the modern world, there are seven higher centers of counter-initiation - centers of higher demonic Initiation, which at the same time are the poles of diabolical influences on the modern world - the so-called Seven Towers of Satan (it is from there that the "Saint Satans" manage the implementation of the atheistic plan).

The largest esoteric of the XX century. René Guénon characterized these centers as follows:

The Towers of Satan “are located in the shape of an arc, encircling Europe at some distance: one is located in the Niger region, about which already in the times of the ancient Egyptians they said that the most terrible sorcerers come from there; the second is in Sudan, in a mountainous region inhabited by “lycanthropes” ( people who can turn into wolves) in the amount of 20 thousand people; the third and fourth are located in Asia Minor - one in Syria, the other in Mesopotamia; the fifth - in Turkestan; and the last two should be located even further north, closer to the Urals or in the Western part Siberia.

As we can see, three of the seven Towers of Satan are located on the territory of the former USSR - in Turkestan, in the Urals and in Western Siberia. From which we can conclude about the great importance attached by the "Saints of Satan" to the destruction of our country.

The main temple of the Church of Satan in the USA in the 1970s and 80s. located on California Street in San Francisco. Outwardly, it was a small black house with a gabled roof, surrounded by a high wire fence. In fact, the High Priest of Satanism A. Lavey served in it.

Later, the main Satanic temple moved to Los Angeles, but the old temple also continues its service to Satan. A. Lavey himself eventually moved to Israel, where, apparently, he remains to this day.

As stated in the "Satanic Bible" by A. LaVey, The greatest of all holidays in the satanic religion is your own birthday. The Satanist thinks: "Why not be honest with yourself, and if God is created in my image and likeness, why not consider me this god?" After one's own birthday, the two main satanic holidays are Walpurgis Night (the night of May 1st) and Halloween (the eve of All Saints' Day, the night of November 1st)."

If one’s 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 26: according to Satanists, this is the day of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Satanists celebrate this day as the first victory of Satan over God incarnate: this is how they interpret the events of Holy Week and the execution of Jesus Christ on the cross.

41. Spread of Satanism in the world

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.

In the shortest possible time, A. Crowley wrote the famous “Book of Shadows,” which became a reference book for all demon worshipers. The rituals described in this book are now used by most Satanists.

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

In Russian Satanism, there are three hierarchical levels: ordinary Satanists, priests, the master and his queen.

In order to become a priest, an ordinary Satanist must have outstanding intellectual data and broad knowledge in the field of Black occultism. Ordinary Satanists unquestioningly obey the priests.

The master and the queen have absolute power over life and death of both ordinary Satanists and priests. They have clear enough spiritual vision and spiritual hearing to see and hear Satan in his parallel world.

In addition to international open exoteric satanic organizations, there are closed Orders in Black occultism, in which those who have chosen the Left Path pass the steps of occult Initiation.

The Reagan administration made a number of decisions that expanded the rights of Satanists:

1) prevent violations of the rights of Satanists when hiring for public service, including government posts;

2) to involve "leading American soothsayers, occultists and necromancers" in consulting the president and government bodies;

3) not to allow in state documents and materials words and expressions that offend the feelings of Satanists.

The constant increase in the role of Satanism in the life of the United States, that is, the subordination of man to “lower, subhuman principles,” is thus an inevitable result of the spiritual development of Western monetary and technological civilization. It is the “outpost of the civilized world”, the USA, and not the mythical “axis of evil” invented for the sake of saying by American President D. Bush Jr., that is the main carrier and distributor of spiritual Evil in the modern world.

42. The concept of eschatology

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 arrival of the Messiah (Savior, the Last Messenger) - 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. After cleansing, the world is reborn again.

Eschatology is most fully expounded in the world religious literature in the "Rose of the World" by the Russian thinker, mystic and visionary Daniil Andreev.

Following the Christian Apocalypse, Daniil Andreev predicts the inevitable reign of the Antichrist, somewhere at the beginning of the 100rd century. This reign will last 150-XNUMX years. As a result, "devil-humanity" will be formed. Daniil Andreev characterizes him as follows: “It is not so difficult to imagine a spiritual portrait of those generations that will turn out to be almost the only inhabitants of the Earth by the XNUMXth century. With eyes accustomed from infancy to everyday spectacles of the most sophisticated debauchery, new and new types of sensual pleasure, or to the final devastation of nature, with a conscience stifled by centuries of preaching of amoralism, with sprouts of the highest movements of the soul, trampled down to the root by public mockery, with a consciousness emasculated from the slightest guesses about other values and about other ideals of illuminated epochs, these the unfortunate, already by the years of their youth, will not be people, but terrible and pitiful caricatures of them.

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.

43. Apotheosis of Evil, the second coming of Christ and the Last Judgment

The death of the one who reigned supreme over humanity for over a hundred years, the most extraordinary, incomprehensible of this death, will cause an unprecedented confusion among the population of the globe, which has no precedents. The more sovereign the kingdom of Antichrist is, the more mankind will become after his death like a wheel, from which the axle is torn out, the spokes are scattered in all directions, and the rim rushes in meaningless zigzags anywhere, without control and purpose.

Soon these outbursts of passions will develop into skirmishes of different cliques, semi-gangster societies that instantly arose everywhere and simply angry crowds. Everything associated with the name of the deceased will be subjected to furious mockery and destruction by the very mob, on the moral corruption of which he spent his life.

It is not known how many years this period will last - from the death of the Prince of Darkness to the change of eons, at least not for long, and by the end of it, society on the surface of the Earth will plunge into general chaos.

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. Inexplicable phenomena will begin in nature, inspiring horror, as a harbinger of some kind of cosmic catastrophe, which has not yet happened and, perhaps, is final. Only an insignificant handful of those who stand firm, scattered to all ends of the earth, will understand these phenomena. Overcoming all obstacles, a hundred or two hundred faithful will gather together, and the last of the supreme guides will lead them. In the revelation of John the Theologian, this place is called "Armageddon".

Christ will appear in as many forms as there will be then perceiving consciousnesses, showing himself to each of them and communicating with each individually. These images, incomprehensibly identifying, will at the same time be merged into one, supreme, coming on the clouds in inexpressible Glory.

And the prophecy about the Last Judgment will be fulfilled. Those whom this hour finds living in Enrof (parallel world) will not suffer death, but one of two opposite transformations. The few people who remain faithful will be physically transformed, their material garments will be instantly enlightened. These will remain in Enrof. The majority, however, all those who make up devil-humanity, will face the reverse transformation: without dying physically, they will change bodily so that they find themselves in the worlds of Retribution. First - in the upper purgatories, then - down and down, each according to his karma.

The animals that survived the extermination of the Antichrist, whom the Last Judgment will find in Enrof, will be rewarded for all suffering: they will experience the same transformation as the human minority, and will complement the number of inhabitants of the earth in the second eon.

44. The second eon - the thousand-year kingdom of the righteous, the third eon - the redemption of Satan

The second aeon, to which the prophecies testify as a thousand-year kingdom of the righteous, will come into its own. His goal is to save everyone, without exception, who fell behind, who fell behind, who fell into the depths of the worlds of Retribution and the transformation of the entire Shadanakar (a system of parallel worlds of our planet with a total of 242).

For the forces of Gagtungr (one of the names of Satan), expelled from Enrof, will still hold power in some other worlds, and because in purgatory and suffering there will still be many who have made a fatal mistake in recent historical epochs. And the task will arise - the completion of the transformation of the dark worlds, begun by Christ in the three great days between Golgotha and the Resurrection, the transformation of hopeless suffering into temporary purgatories, and purgatories into the worlds of spiritual healing and lifting all sufferers through these layers into the worlds of Enlightenment.

On earth, God-manhood, no longer knowing separation from Christ, but led and guided by him, will begin to transform and spiritualize what is left of his predecessors in Enrof: crippled nature, cities and civilization. The second aeon will know neither human birth, nor sickness and death, nor suffering of the soul, nor enmity and struggle: it will know love and creativity for the sake of redeeming the dead and enlightening all layers of matter.

For this we incarnate here, in a dense, not yet illuminated materiality.

Evil will no longer remain in humanity, but the dark forces will still resist in the demonic worlds.

If the planetary demon, abandoned by his comrades-in-arms, persists in evil, left face to face with the beginning of Light among the transformed bramfatura, no forces of Lucifer are able to help him continue the fight against the forces of Providence. Then he, defeated, leaves the bramfatura completely, looking for new havens and new ways to his tyrannical dream in other parts of the universe.

If Gagtungr, left alone in the transfigured, jubilant Shadanakar, finally says to Christ and God "Yes!" - Shadanakar will enter the third aeon. He will disappear from the cosmic Enrof, as the planet Daiya once disappeared, in order to solve the problem of the third eon in higher, unimaginable forms of being: the redemption of Gagtungr.

Thus, ascending from light to light and from glory to glory, all of us who inhabit the earth now, both those who have lived and those who will come to live in the future, will rise to the ineffable Sun of the World in order to sooner or later merge with Him and will be immersed in Him for rejoicing and for co-creation with Him in the creation of universes and universes.

45. Mystical transcendence of the word: "the darkness that is above the mind"

Mysticism - this is unity with God on the basis of personal supersensible and superlogical knowledge, through an ecstatic impulse to the Absolute, without the visible mediation of a church or a religious community. 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.

Mysticism is fraught with heresy, therefore the official church is always cautious in relation to mysticism.

Mystics tend to consider themselves God's chosen ones, possessors of the knowledge of Truth through extreme mental states and processes. They are often distinguished by contempt for conventions in one way or another - indifference to the canonical cult.

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) a Christian mystic will speak out for apophatic (negative) theology. Therefore, Christian theology recognizes, along with apophatic, cataphatic (positive) knowledge about God, but at the same time believes that apophatic knowledge is superior to cataphatic knowledge, and even higher and closer to the Absolute is silence;

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) simple and clear speech the mystic prefers reticence;

4) the mystic does not seek to be understood. Rather, he will try to captivate the neophyte with the beauty of mystery and the poetry of misunderstanding.

Early Christianity, living on the recent memory of Jesus Christ and faith in his imminent second coming, in unity with God, was profoundly mystical in its aspirations.

In the post-apostolic history of Christianity, almost every age, and especially the time of crises, upheavals and transitional epochs, is marked by mystical quests. In modern times, the search for other, closer and more personal ties with God led to the formation of new mystical teachings and movements.

Among them, in particular, are the Jansenists (heterodox Catholics of France and Holland in the 2th-XNUMXth centuries); quietists (Catholic opponents of the Jesuits in France in the XNUMXth century); Pietists - a conservative anti-intellectualistic unorthodox movement in German Protestantism; the Quaker movement - radical Protestants and complete pacifists; Russian sects of so-called spiritual Christians, ascetics and opponents of ritual belief, which arose from the XNUMXnd half of the XNUMXth century. (Khlysty, Molokans, Doukhobors, Skoptsy).

46. Kabbalah - "the soul of the soul of the Law" of Israel

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 (other - Jewish) - literally: "tradition, tradition."

Kabbalah, along with the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus and the Tarot cards, is one of the foundations of Western occultism. The basis of Kabbalah consists of two books: “Sepher Yetzirah” - the Book of Creation; and "Zohar" - Book of the Chariot.

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

The Mishna in Judaism is called the “soul of the Law.” Kabbalah, the secret mystical teaching of Judaism, has an even higher “rank”: it is “the soul of the soul of the Law.” A complement to the Sepher Yetzirah and the Zohar are the Keys of Solomon, which form the basis of practical magic.

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 that shows ten circles arranged in a certain order and connected to each other by twenty-two lines.

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.

With the development of humanism and Hebraic studies (ancient Jewish philology) in Europe, interest in Kabbalah among a number of Christian authors increased. According to S.S. Averintsev, in modern times the influence of Kabbalah mysticism was directly or indirectly experienced by Hegel, Vl. Soloviev, Berdyaev, Jung, Buber. Kabbalah influenced some later mystical movements in Judaism (Sabbatianism, Hasidism).

Kabbalistic doctrines are important as a key to Masonic esotericism.

As for the popular consciousness, it was attracted by the so-called practical Kabbalah - magic designed to influence the world ("for every excitement "from below", from a person, causes excitement in the upper spheres of the universe..."), to guess the hidden and predict the future (often by rearranging letters in names, operations on numerical correspondences of letters, etc.).

So the words Kabbalah и Kabbalistics even entered a number of European languages in an expanded sense: secret knowledge, magic; something incomprehensible to the uninitiated.

47. Kabbalah as a system of spiritual development

Many seekers of Higher Wisdom and spirituality from among the representatives of the Western peoples are currently guided by the esoteric teachings of the East. However, by doing so, they violate their karmic destiny. Since the peoples of the West are mainly engaged in the "conquest of nature", and not in its transformation and spiritualization, they, for the most part, fulfill their karmic task extremely unsatisfactorily. As a result, some representatives of Western peoples who are completely focused on their spiritual development, in order not to bear the burden of the collective Karma of the West, are forced to go through the steps of spiritual ascent in line with one or another esoteric tradition of the East.

The evolutionary destiny of the peoples of the East is karmically quite different from that of the peoples of the West. Accordingly, representatives of the Eastern peoples have different psychophysical characteristics, a different spiritual warehouse, adhere to a different way of life compared to the peoples of the West.

It should be clearly understood that any system of spiritual ascent, involving a departure from the egregore (spiritual cover) of one's people, cannot lead to anything good, with its universal application, in principle. Since a system of this kind initially conflicts with the law of Karma, which, in the end, inevitably leads to severe karmic consequences.

Any system of spiritual development, in order to be acceptable to the peoples of the West, must meet certain requirements.

Firstly, its methods should be easily perceived by people with a rationalistic mindset.

Secondly, the techniques must be effective enough to penetrate the dense outer shell of a Western man, which does not allow subtle vibrations to pass through.

Thirdly, the proposed systems of spiritual development should take into account that the representatives of the West will be able to devote only a small amount of time to these activities, found at the expense of current affairs.

As practice shows, Kabbalah fully corresponds to the psychophysical characteristics of Western people. Studying Kabbalah, even from books, without the help of an experienced Teacher, does not traumatize their psyche and does not lead to various nervous disorders at the initial stage, as is often the case with neophytes who decide at their own risk to experiment with Eastern esoteric systems, without prior preparation. and proper guidance from an experienced guru.

Kabbalah is the best system of spiritual development for the people of the West and provides them with a sound basis for spiritual ascent.

48. Sufism - Islamic mysticism, Hesychasm in Byzantium and among Orthodox Slavs

The first Muslim mystics - the Sufis - 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.

The central concept of Sufism - tarika means religious and moral self-improvement as a way to mystical comprehension of God.

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," which, of course, sounded blasphemous to the faithful ears.

The Sufi was the famous mocker and paradoxist Khoja Nasreddin, who became the hero of Arab folklore.

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. This happened thanks to Ghazali in the XNUMXth century.

Ghazali successfully reconciled the traditional rationalism of Islam and the mysticism of the Sufis, thus introducing mystical ideas into official Islam.

Sufism, which spoke the language of parables, paradoxes and metaphors, had a great influence on Arabic and especially Persian poetry.

"Hesychasm" in Greek means "peace, silence, detachment"; hesychasts - "those who are at rest." The mystical-philosophical doctrine of the hesychasts took shape in the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries. in the ascetic practice of Egyptian and Sinai monks.

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.

The second bright outbreak of the Byzantine-Slavic hesychasm occurs at the beginning of the XNUMXth century. - in the teaching of the name-Slavs, or in imyaslavie.

The imyaslavtsy were objected to by the imyaslavists - positivist and rationalistically minded monks-intellectuals.

Official Orthodoxy came out against the name-slavists. A public discussion arose, Bulatovich published several brochures in Moscow and St. Petersburg; The collection “Imyaslavie according to the documents of the Imyaslavers” was also published. The dispute was ended by force: according to the Synod, several hundred Athonite monks were taken to Russia on a Russian warship and settled in distant monasteries and parishes.

They sympathized with the Imyaslavtsy, without even sharing their beliefs. Many, however, not only sympathized with the victims, but also believed in name glory. Among them are the most prominent figures of the Russian religious revival of the beginning of the century: S. N. Bulgakov, V. F. Ern, P. A. Florensky. They defended in print the very idea of imyaslavie, although they were not satisfied with the level of theologizing of the "simple" ones.

49. Correctness of the text and correctness of the corpus of texts of Revelation

With the exception of the Koran, which is all Revelation, the text of Holy Scripture in different religious traditions usually does not begin with Revelation itself. Scripture is sacralized, that is, it is recognized by believers as sacred. The sacralization of not only the dogma, but also the text itself containing the Revelation, and even the language in which the Revelation is written, creates the psychological and communicative originality of confessional practice, which is characteristic of the religions of Scripture.

That "main knowledge about the world", which was the informational first impulse of the new religion, became the content of the Revelation and the meaning of the sermons of the Messenger of God.

Usually the teaching was written down after the death of the Teacher by his disciples, sometimes after almost a millennium. Some rationalistic teachings were written down by the Master himself. In particular, Confucian books were compiled primarily as school manuals, and he did it himself.

In the history of various writing and religious traditions, a complex of similar problems arises related to the "correctness" of the main religious texts, their fidelity to the original source. First, whether this or that text is distorted. Secondly, doubts arose in the composition of the entire corpus of confessional texts: were there any important records missing?

The term "codification" is legal in origin; it 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;

2) establishing the "correct" list (composition) of texts that form the canon.

Sacred books form the religious canon of a given religion (church). The books included in the religious canon (i.e. canonical books) constitute the Holy Scripture, the most important part of confessional literature.

The writings that constituted the religious canon, over time, acquire an outstanding, incomparable glory.

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.

In Islam, the question of the canonicity of the Scripture itself did not arise, which is associated with the early and rigid codification of the Koran. Thus, the principle of relying on authority in the selection of significant information in Islam is manifested not to a lesser, but to a much greater extent than in Christianity.

50. Principle ipse dixit ("he said"), whether there is a religious canon in Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism

In general, in cultures based on scriptural religions, in the management of communication, the question is "Who said (this)?" was and is of fundamental importance. Since the time of Pythagoras (i.e., from the XNUMXth century BC), the principle of judgment, argumentation, and evaluation has been known, denoted by the Greek turnover autos epxa (in Latin ipse dixit, in Russian "he said", i.e. " someone in charge - a teacher, a leader, a master - said").

The composition of the religions of Scripture, as well as the principle, ipse dixit, are among the protective formations of human consciousness.

Expressions sacred canon, religious books of the Buddhist canon, canonization of Confucian teachings and the like are fairly common in the literature on the history of Eastern 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. Therefore, in relation to the named religions of the East, the terms religious canon and similar ones should be understood, of course, adjusted for a completely different attitude to the word - so soft and free that in a medieval Christian scriptorium it would seem like "blasphemous negligence", sacrilege, the culprit of which is subject to anathema at best.

The canonization of Buddhist or Confucian writings is rather a historical and textual codification of monuments.

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 teaching his followers to present his teachings 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.

In India, the teachings of the Buddha began to be codified shortly after his death, at the first councils of Buddhists in 483, 383, 250. BC e., the texts of this time have survived only in small fragments.

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".

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.

51. The main stages in the formation of the religious canon in a number of confessions

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 was established by the Jamnia Council of Rabbis around 100 CE. e.

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.

Since there were 50 works in the Septuagint, the Christian Old Testament exceeds the Jewish one. 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".

The Protestants, and above all Martin Luther, 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. 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 council. In the history of the formation of genres of confessional literature between the individual religions of Scripture, there are general patterns:

1) a record of the teaching originally distributed orally;

2) addition of the religious canon;

3) the addition of the second most important opus of highly authoritative texts that fill in the content gaps;

4) the development of theology, or theology;

5) on the basis of dogmatic theology, the church hierarchy develops a creed and a catechism;

6) a special subsystem is formed by texts used in worship;

7) mystical-esoteric texts are associated with the mystical principle;

8) preaching is initially present in the religious communication of people;

9) elements of the sacred text become the content of interpretations;

10) in cultures based on the religion of the Scriptures, around the "core", the fundamental texts of the dogma, a diverse and extensive literature of a transitional, or mixed, confessional-secular character is formed. Church themes were combined here with the themes and tasks of didactics, polemics, historiography, philology, and natural science.

The above list of genre-thematic areas of confessional literature is not chronological.

52. Non-canonical religious literature

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

1) writings in which the Septuagint differs from the Tanach;

2) works of non-orthodox Judaism, already, as it were, fraught with Christianity.

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, and two books summarizing the history of the Jewish people, I and II Chronicles.

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."

The boundary between canonical and non-canonical Jewish writings essentially coincides with the differences in the monuments in terms of language.

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

The second group of non-canonical Jewish writings is 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. The corpus of non-canonical works, but in terms of the conditions of creation, chronology, themes and genres close to the works of the Old Testament canon, is ten times larger than the volume of the New Testament. This is explained by the high intensity of religious communication, characteristic of the early Christian era, with relative religious tolerance and freedom of religious communication and self-expression.

In the circle of early Christian apocrypha, all genres known from the New Testament canon are represented. Thus, there are about 50 early non-canonical Gospels. They are attributed to various New Testament characters - the evangelists Matthew and Mark, the apostles, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene.

About 40 early apocrypha are known, in which only the speeches of Christ are collected - words, parables, sayings attributed to Christ, but without stories about the events of his life.

In theological and content terms, the early apocrypha is heterogeneous.

The tradition of early Christian apocrypha, which arose as paraphrases on New Testament themes, partially absorbed the "gnostic heresy", received a significant and multidirectional development in subsequent centuries.

53. The essence of a religious cult

A religious cult is a set of religious rituals. The specificity of religious rituals lies in their ideological content and orientation, i.e., exactly what ideas, ideas, myths and images they embody in symbolic form.

religious cult - there is a real, socially-objectified form of influence on the subject 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.

From a scientific point of view, any rites, including religious ones, have a social nature. Rituals are compromises that create symbolic conditions for the realization of desired activities.

Rites in general, and religious rites in particular, are by no means spontaneous manifestations of the unconscious impulses of the individual. 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.

The impact of a religious cult on believers is carried out in several main areas. Religious rites are canonical. Any changes in the cult system are considered by the church as heresy. 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 "circles of worship": daily, weekly (weekly) and annual. The daily circle includes church services that take place daily at different times of the day.

As religious studies have long noted, the cult is the most conservative element of the religious complex. 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.

Cult traditions contribute to the formation and renewal of stereotypes of religious consciousness and behavior among the mass of believers. On the other hand, there are many archaic elements in the system of cult traditions that are alien to modern man. In the system of Catholic worship, for example, for many centuries only a dead Latin language was used, which was not understood by the parishioners. The Second Vatican Council replaced the Latin language of worship with national languages. However, as some researchers note, this reform also revealed consequences that were unexpected for its initiators: the translation of the service clearly revealed archaic and absurd elements in the text of Catholic services that had previously remained hidden to the worshipers.

54. Dominance of official atheism in Soviet Russia

Even in recent times, religious, mystical, esoteric, occult and similar literature was practically unavailable in Russia. Readers were abundantly treated to only one truth: “scientific-atheistic.” Nevertheless, Soviet society remained deeply religious - in style and way of thinking. The texts of the “classics of Marxism-Leninism” were the ultimate body of truth, a source of wisdom for any occasion. The Marxist-Leninist “scientific-atheistic worldview” was in fact one of the varieties of “left-hand religions” - the “religion of man-theism” - with its sacred texts, a staff of god-fighting priests, a bloody court of the Inquisition, an essentially satanic cult, inextricably linked with the system of unseen in the history of mass bloody human sacrifices, which were mainly ritual in nature.

Currently, much is written that Orthodoxy is being revived, since a stream of converts has poured into it - people who are now supposedly imbued with religious ideas, have seen spiritually and have come to the realization of God. In fact, it is still hardly possible to talk about a genuine revival of Orthodoxy. New converts in reality, for the most part, do not truly profess Orthodoxy.

Religious faith can only be truly deep among those who have their own spiritual, or, to put it scientifically, “parapsychological” experience and therefore know absolutely definitely that the heavenly world really exists. However, for a person who grew up in an atheistic environment, all channels of spiritual perception are, as it were, tightly “clogged” and he does not and cannot have any not only conscious spiritual experience, but even a subconscious perception of the heavenly world. Many "new converts" do not bother with any spiritual pursuits and bring with them to church the culture of imitation that they have internalized in society. As a result, the church is undermined from within by a huge number of people who have externally joined it, but have not acquired genuine religious faith. Under the guise of “revival,” the collapse of the Orthodox religion may occur—Orthodoxy may be vulgarized in the same way that “classical Marxism” was vulgarized in Russia at one time.

One can treat religion in general and Orthodoxy in particular differently, but one should not forget that in all modern civilizations it is religions that form the conceptual basis of spiritual life, shape and mediate the basic system of values.

55. Modern civilizational crisis

Meanwhile, in the conditions of the collapse of the Marxist-Leninist worldview, ideological 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 inexperienced in worldview is sometimes lost in this abundance of "spiritual food", is unable not only to recognize the "recipes for cooking" various "spiritual dishes", but also to clearly recognize the deep social and cultural differences that exist even between individual Christian denominations, not to mention about the realization of the fact that, despite seemingly insignificant theological differences, the differences between them in the way a person’s spiritual life is arranged are enormous.

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. World social development cannot continue in the same direction, since in this case, irreversible catastrophic changes on the scale of the entire planet will occur in a maximum of 30-50 years, and the complete and final death of all mankind will only be a matter of time.

Conscious self-restraint in the name of the common good, as historical experience shows, cannot be widespread - the same Christianity has been preaching it for two millennia and has not achieved any serious success, even under the fear of eternal otherworldly punishment. Attempts to extend the past into the future are untenable, neither in the form of religious fundamentalism, which opposes the West, nor in the form of Western fundamentalism, which is now acting as the idea of a "golden billion." Awareness of the dead-end nature of Western civilization became in the XNUMXth century. the leitmotif of European social thought - from Oswald Spengler's "The Decline of Europe" to the works of the "Club of Rome" and a number of other areas related to the analysis of global problems.

Disappointment in traditional religious values gave rise to a search for non-traditional forms of religiosity, largely built on borrowing the ideas and motives of Eastern religions, as well as on the transformation of Christianity itself.

The internal contradictions of Western civilization have led to the fact that, despite its success in material, purely material prosperity, a number of spiritual problems have arisen that threaten the very existence of mankind.

56. 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, they say, is a kind of bridge between East and West and has features of both East and West. However, in our opinion, those authors who claim that Russia has its own deepest essence, which distinguishes it both from the East and, in particular, from the West, are much closer to the truth. At the same time, undoubtedly, Russia has both some Western features and Eastern features, the latter, of course, to a greater extent. There is no need to talk about the closeness of Orthodoxy with its principles of mystical contemplation to Eastern doctrines.

The fact that the problem of the true "I" is at the center of the Eastern tradition is also well known. Of course, the tendencies of this search in Russia differ in many respects from those in India, all the more so since the Russian search is by no means finished yet, while in India everything that is within its metaphysical limits is already almost completed. In the subtext of classical Russian literature lies the deepest metaphysics and philosophy. Russian literature is rightfully considered the most philosophical literature in the world. It is no coincidence that Friedrich Nietzsche considered F. M. Dostoevsky the greatest connoisseur of the human soul and considered acquaintance with his works one of the greatest successes of his life. Russia, while remaining an Orthodox country, has absorbed, both on the esoteric and exoteric levels, the deepest features of the thinking of the East, especially India.

These traits, these peculiarities of thinking and spirit can and do become part of modern Russian culture. Without a doubt, this “orientalism” is uniquely refracted and processed in accordance with Russian spiritual experience. But its depth, given the spiritual kinship of Russian and Indian cultures, can give a completely new and unexpected color to future Russian thinking and culture and help their original development.

However, despite its deep inner closeness to the East, Russia is spiritually close to the West as well, if only because it has been a Christian country for a thousand years and the "collective unconscious" 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 both the East and the West into a single organic whole, while retaining all their spiritual originality and not belonging to either one or the other.

Authors: Pankin S.F., Mortova E.A.

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Plessey Semiconductors produced its first gallium nitride-on-silicon LED at its Plymouth factory.

As the company's chief engineer, Barry Dennington, said, "We can offer entry-level product samples and are already discussing other products." "Product batches can be ordered now, with a typical lead time of 6 weeks," Dennington said. "Basically, we are about 80% cheaper than silicon carbide LEDs," he added, saying that the cost of both the package and the die is about half the cost of the finished device in these small packages.

Before launching lighting LEDs, Plessey launched indicator LEDs, where price is more important than efficiency. The LEDs emit 2 lm at 20 mA in a 2 x 3,5 mm PLCC-2,7 package. The LEDs are made on 150 mm silicon wafers. Unlike the smaller and more expensive sapphire or silicon carbide LEDs used primarily for white, blue and green LEDs, "they are very cheap," Dennington said, without stating their selling price.

A family of four or five of these low-power devices will be available "in a month or two," said Chief Technology Officer Dr. Keith Strickland. What type are these devices? Plessey doesn't give answers. "Planning one for 4 lumens," was all Strickland could say. "When we reach 60 lm/W, we will introduce our first lighting products," said Strickland. "We will reach 100 lm/W in the next 12 months." The first lighting LED, he stressed, will probably have a power of 1 watt.

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Last May, Toshiba and Bridgelux announced plans for 200mm GaN-on-silicon wafer lighting LEDs, and announced 150mm wafer production late last year, though no production is yet to be seen.

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