N. A. BERDYAEV (BERDIAEV)
THE PROBLEM OF EAST
AND WEST
WITHIN THE RELIGIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS
OF VL. SOLOV’EV
(1911 - #53)
I
The
figure of Vl. Solov’ev remains for us quite enigmatic, and his image
is twofold. He evokes towards himself a twofold attitude, he charms
and he repulses. We sense his immeasurable, his prophetic significance
as an event, an event in Russian life and in the life of the world.
It suffices but to glance at his face, to get a feel for all his
unusualness, his strangeness, his uniqueness. But for the vexed
and the critic there is the challenge of his philosophic-theological
tractates. It is discomfiting to find in a mystic a rationalistic
manner of writing, a sort of glibness, a dullness of contraction,
the absence of acuity and the paradoxical. Everything is too smooth,
felicitous and schematic in the philosophising and theologising
of Vl. Solov’ev. But indeed the religious life is essentially, and
first of all antinomic. And the paradoxality of philosophising is
perhaps an accurate reflection of the antinomic in religious experience.
Solov’ev wrote thus, as though the unknown were of the abyss, he
did not know contradictions, and everything was for him felicitous.
But we know, that Vl. Solov’ev was profoundly a mystic, that he
was antinomic in his religious experience, paradoxical in his life,
and that for him things were not felicitous. We know, that there
was a by-day and a by-night to Solov’ev. It becomes quite clear
for us, that in his philosophic-theological schemata Solov’ev obscured
rather than revealed himself. It is necessary to seek out the genuine
Solov’ev in separate lines and between the lines, in particular
verses and small articles. His genius is most of all reflected in
his verses, in his "Legend about Anti-Christ", in such surprising
articles, as "The Meaning of Love" and "The Poetry of Tiutchev",
and from his larger works as in "The History and Future of Theocracy",
-- of one extraordinary, penetrating, altering to the utmost limits
the schemata into mystical insights. The largest, the most famed
works of Solov’ev as regards philosophy, theology, and the journalistic
-- are brilliant and talented and serve their various ends, but
they are not of the same genius and they do not speak about things
ultimate, they rationally obscure the irrational mystery of the
life of Vl. Solov’ev.
In the figure
of Vl. Solov’ev there is strikingly one contradiction, which for
him is fundamental. Within him there was a sort of aethereal quality,
a detachment from all the matters of life. He was not sprung up
from the earth, he was not organically connected with it, he was
not rooted in the soil. He was from elsewhere, a newcomer from other
worlds, in everything almost foreign, to nothing and to no one was
he of kindred blood. How earthy, and organic, and of the soil and
emergent from the depths of the bosom of Russian life and Russian
history stands forth Lev Tolstoy, in comparison with the newcomer
and wandering stranger Vl. Solov’ev, for whom it is not possible
always even to say, whether he is Russian. And while here in Tolstoy
the anarchist negates everything historical, organic, kindred, of
the soil, while he renounces his ancestral inheritance, he casts
a challenge to that, begotten of the bosom of his native earth.
But Solov’ev justifies and provides a basis for everything, for
everything he finds a place: whether for the state, for nationality,
for war, for everything, and for everything. He accepts the ancestral
precepts, he wants to be true to these precepts, and neither to
rebel nor to break from them. In "The Justification of the Good"
he attains to virtuosity in this justification of everything, that
organically was created by history, in the safeguarding of all the
historical entities. And it remains enigmatic, why such an aethereal,
a non-earthy man not of the soil should justify and safeguard everything
historic, sprung up from the soil, connected with the land. Motifs
both rational and irrational interweave mysteriously within the
person of Vl. Solov’ev.
There were
several periods in the life and creativity of Vl. Solov’ev. And
the final period is keenly distinct from the preceding ones. In
the first period, when Solov’ev wrote his large and greatest systematic
and philosophic and theological treatises, he was very much the
gnostic-idealist and his Christianity was optimistic and rosy. Solov’ev
did not yet sense all the terror and all the power of evil, he did
not see the tragedy, connected with evil. He conceived of evil too
rationally, not mystically, he expounded on evil gnostically, he
did not penetrate down to the ultimate mystery of evil, the evil
unfathomable, without foundation, irrational, incomprehensible,
engendered of freedom. It seems furthermore, that for Solov’ev evil
was but of the lack of understanding, an insufficiency of perfection,
a mistaken consciousness and hence easily overcome. Characteristic
of this period was "The Lectures on God-manhood", wherein the matter
is a very scholastic, rationalised mysticism, in which the theory
of the progress of mankind is with genius interwoven with the mystical
idea of God-manhood, and providing as it were a theological interpretation
of optimistic progress. In "The Lectures on God-manhood" everything
is too felicitous, there is not the tragic end, there is no dismaying
anguish afront finality. The optimistic attitude towards evil permeates
all the first period of the creativity of Solov’ev. In this period
rational philosophy and rational theology predominate over the mystical.
Solov’ev brings into Christianity both humanism and progress-ism,
he enriches human consciousness with the progressive humanism of
modern times. And he believes in the easy attainment of Christian
righteous-truth upon the earth, in human life, he believes in a
Christian politics and he appeals to it, he constructs a theory
and its practice of a Christian progress towards the good. He underestimates
the power of evil and sin. But life dealt Vl. Solov’ev blow upon
blow, wound after wound, it shattered all his rosy hopes. Evil avenged
itself on him for insufficient attention and acknowledging of it.
The isolation of Vl. Solov’ev in this world grew all the more and
more. With no one and with nothing was he able to unite himself.
In the middle period of his life he devotes himself primarily with
militant journalism, in which he struggles with empirical evil.
In his final period of life, when Solov’ev returned again to his
basic religio-philosophic themes, he is captivated by an apocalyptic
terror of the end, he is engulfed by the terror of the growing power
of evil and the approaching ultimate embodiment of evil. He senses
the failure of history within the dark abyss, and there perishes
his rosy faith in the possibility of Christian politics, in the
realisation of the truth of Christ on earth, in theocracy. The very
idea of God-manhood was shaken, and in this idea a transcendent
Christianity was separated off from the immanent humanism. For this
period the most characteristic work was the "Three Conversations",
with its "Legend about Anti-Christ". Solov’ev proceeds through to
an apocalyptic consciousness, and he posits eschatological problems.
We shall see, that also the fundamental problem for Solov’ev of
East and West is different for him in the different periods. And
it ought always to be remembered, that just as there is a Vl. Solov’ev
both by day and by night, so also there is a Vl. Solov’ev of the
first period and another of the final period.
_______________________
Quite extraordinary
within Solov’ev, ingrained, threading through the whole of his life,
-- is his sense of oecumenicity, his universalism. There
is in him no sort of individualism, no sort of particularism. Any
sort of sectarianism and splitting-away were contrary and foreign
to him. Vl. Solov’ev never was able to belong to any sort of school
or party, nor to any current or circle. Russian life and thought
of the second half XIX Century does not know of another, so oecumenical
and universal a man, for whom always there but existed Russia, mankind,
the world soul, the Church, God, rather than just circles and trends.
The oecumenicity and universalism of Solov’ev have led to this,
that to the present day they do not know what camp to dispatch him
off to. They dispute, about whether Solov’ev was a Slavophil or
a Westerniser, whether Orthodox or Catholic, whether a conservative
or a liberal. In actuality he was first of all an universalist,
filled with an oecumenical feeling, and in this was all his uniqueness.
Solov’ev was neither Slavophil nor Westerniser, neither Orthodox
nor Catholic, since he dwelt his whole life genuinely within the
oecumenical Church. He lived in unity with the spirit of the world,
like a true knight, he wanted to set it free from captivity. 1 The saying of Dostoevsky, that Russian man -- is
preeminently the all-man, most of all applies to Solov’ev. This
Russian anguish as regards all-mankind, as regards oecumenicity,
leads to the positing of the problem of East and West. The problem
of East and West, the problem of re-uniting the two worlds in a
Christian all-unity, in God-manhood, -- is the fundamental problem
for Vl. Solov’ev, tormenting him all his life. But with this is
also the greatness of Solov’ev, in this also is his significance,
that the problem of East and West -- that this is not only his fundamental
problem -- this is a fundamental problem of Russia, a problem not
only of the Russian philosophy of history, but also of Russian history.
The Russian national self-consciousness was begotten in the positing
of the problem of East and West. And over the course of the whole
XIX Century Russian thought struggles over this problem. Even the
fact alone, of the struggle of Slavophilism and Westernism, with
which Russian literature is filled, as well as Russian philosophy
and Russian social-thought, -- testifies to the centrality of this
problem. Slavophilism was the first experience of national self-consciousness
and of our national ideology. The Slavophils posited the problem
of East and West as foremost a religious problem. Russia -- is the
Third Rome. This proud awareness courses through almost all of Russian
history. And in the XIX Century, the century of self-consciousness
preeminently, in the person of its greatest thinkers and doers Russia
pondered the awareness of itself as Third Rome. With the problem
of East and West is connected Russian messianism, which assumes
various forms. Russian messianism for Solov’ev was connected with
the anguish over the re-unification of the Church. In this re-unification,
Solov’ev sees the great vocation of Russia. Having started out with
the Slavophils, with Dostoevsky, he here fundamentally parts from
them.
Vl. Solov’ev gained
wide reknown in the capacity of a critic of Slavophilism, as an
exposer of Slavophil sins, as a champion of nationalism. His "National
Question" was read more than his other books and gained him great
popularity. In the "National Question" Solov’ev -- is a Westerniser.
And his Catholic sympathies strengthened all the more his Westerniser
reputation. Yet in everything -- Solov’ev was a Slavophil in his
sources. From the Slavophils he received his themes, his faith in
the great mission of Russia. In accord with the Slavophils he set
at the centre of everything the Christian faith, the religious motif
he made the stirring motif of all his thought. The Slavophil problem
of East and West became his fundamental problem. The Slavophil negation
of "abstract principles" and the affirmation of the life of the
spirit was placed by Solov’ev at the foundation of his own world-concept
and his own attitude towards life. As regards emergent ideas, as
regards themes and motifs, Solov’ev belongs to the Slavophil current
in the history of our thought. In the Russian Westernism these themes
do not exist. Russian messianism always indeed assumes a form of
Slavophilism, even though it bear a Westernist tint. For Solov’ev
it was a domestic quarrel with the Slavophils, as to what he should
do. On the pages of Aksakov’s "Rus’" emerged Solov’ev with his new
understanding of the vocation of Russia. He was a new consciousness
within Slavophilism, a new developement within Slavophilism. And
if there had not occurred this advance of Slavophilism in Solov’ev,
then there would have occurred the gradual dying and decay of Slavophilism.
In the personage of its own faithful epigonal descendents Slavophilism
declined, and it developed only further in Dostoevsky and Vl. Solov’ev,
in whom survived everything, that in Slavophilism had been great
and vital. But nonetheless it mustneeds be said, that Solov’ev’s
consciousness is profoundly distinct from that of the Slavophilic,
that the problem of East and West was decided by him otherwise,
and that the Russian messianism in the person of Solov’ev entered
into a completely new phase. The attitude towards the West and towards
Catholicism with Solov’ev was completely otherwise, than with the
Slavophils. He is closer to Chaadaev. The Slavophils looked on the
East, on Eastern Orthodoxy, on Russia, as the possessor and preserver
of Orthodoxy, the fullness and the wholeness of Christian truth.
In the West, in Catholicism, they saw only the betrayal of Christian
truth, only the breaking up of the spiritual wholeness, only rationalistic
dissection. For them there was no need of an unifying of the world
of the Eastern-Orthodox with the Western-Catholic, since in Orthodoxy
was the fullness of truth, and in Catholicism only a deviation from
this truth. Only in the Orthodox East, in Russia, was there possible
the supreme type of Christian culture. Western culture -- was anti-Christian,
rationalistic, and hence false and in decay. There was nothing for
us to learn from the West. The Slavophils understood Russian messianism
in this sense, that only with Russia stood a great future, as the
sole Christian land. For them the Russian nation was a chosen people
of God, and their messianism brings to mind the times of the ancient
Hebrews. Slavism will supersede the Western cultures, which are
inclined towards collapse and becoming decrepit. It is proper only
to speak about the re-unification of Catholicism with the Orthodox
Church, the return of the prodigals to the bosom of the Church.
In the West there are no self-sufficient principles, having significance
for the fullness of truth. The Eastern-Christian world presented
itself for the Slavophils as already that of all-mankind. Vl. Solov’ev
sensed the danger of the Slavophil national self-affirmation, and
he saw, what such self-satisfaction led to. He saw, that the fundamental
error and the one-sidedness of Slavophilism was concealed in its
false attitude towards Catholicism, in churchly particularism and
nationalism. The jumbling together and identification of the Orthodox
Church with Russian nationalism seemed to him improper. He saw great
truth in Catholicism and he felt anguish as regards Catholicism.
For him the problem of East and West became the problem of the unification
of the two one-sided truths into an higher fullness, mutually-fulfilling.
The great mission of Russia -- was to overcome by love and self-renunciation
the sin of the thousand-year rift of East and West, to conquer the
enmity, and moreover of everything else impeding the work of Christ
on the earth. Solov’ev always posits the universal Logos in contrast
to the force of the national element. And churchly nationalism and
particularism is always the result of the resurgence of the national
element -- the feminine element, over the universal Logos -- the
masculine principle.
A great truth of Vl.
Solov’ev is in this, that in his anguish regarding Western Catholicism
he thirsts for the Church to be free and militant. He awaited the
active relationship of the Church to history and to social matters.
The activeness of Catholicism captivated him and the passiveness
of Orthodoxy repulsed him.
But afront the jaws of the dragon
Thou didst realise: cross and sword -- be one.
Holy war was near
to the heart of Solov’ev. With great power he justified the religious
and moral meaning of war. But the "sword" -- is a symbol of war
not only in the strict sense, it is the symbol of everything militant,
of every militant struggle with evil and the militant defense of
truth. In Solov’ev there was the knight-chivalrant, and the insufficiency
of the knightly-chivalrous spirit in the Orthodox East tormented
him. With his usual penchant for schemata Solov’ev sees in the East
the prevailing of God without man, and in the West the prevailing
of man without God. This happens already from out of the pre-Christian
separation of East and West, but it left its mark also on the division
of Christianity, Eastern and Western. In the East and in Christianity
there remained the prevailing of the Divine over the human; in the
West -- it was the prevailing of the human over the Divine. But
the religion of Christ is the perfect union of the Divine and the
human, it is the religion of God-manhood. Solov’ev sensed the Monophysite
slant of the East and he was distraught by this. He thirsted for
the fullness of the Christian truth about God-manhood, about the
perfect transforming of the human will to the will of God, about
the perfect theosis or deification of the human. This union of the
human and the Divine, which transpired within the Person of Christ,
should transpire also within mankind. Christ -- is the God-Man,
and the Church -- is God-manhood. Before Christ the world made its
way towards the God-Man, after Christ the world makes its way towards
God-manhood. Christianity saves not only individual souls, but mankind
and the world as well. It seemed to Solov’ev, that in the West,
within Catholicism, the idea of God-manhood was more clearly expressed,
than in the East. The churchly organisation of Catholicism seemed
to him adapted for the active Divine-human process of history. Solov’ev
was captivated by the anthropologism of Catholicism, by the humanism
of the West. The passiveness of the East, the complete absence of
human activeness result in Byzantinism, in the Russian Old Ritualism,
but indeed also Russian Orthodoxy, nationalism and particularism,
to the subjugation of the oecumenical Church to the state and the
national element. In the East Solov’ev sees exclusively a contemplative-prayerful
religiosity, whereas in the West it is active-working. In the East
there is no such organisation of the Church, there is not such an
unity of the Church, without which there is impossible the active
and militant realisation of the truth of Christ on the earth, in
the earthly history of mankind, and there is impossible the Divine-human
process. In the West, in Catholicism there is this oneness, there
is this organisation, which all the more attracts Solov’ev to it,
and persuades him of the truth of Catholicism. Peter, the rock of
the Church, is necessary for the Kingdom of Christ. And Solov’ev
bows down before the Peter of the Catholic Church, before the Roman
first-priest, before the active-militant hierarchic order of the
West. Resolutely and triumphantly Solov’ev repudiates the Slavophil
and national-Orthodox attitude towards Catholicism as heresy. The
opinion of theologians -- is not the opinion of the Church. The
Church oecumenical yet therefore cannot condemn Catholicism as heresy,
since after the splitting of the Church there were no more oecumenical
councils.
But the fundamental
mistake of Solov’ev was in this, that he assigned too great a significance
to the agreements of churchly governance, to the formal talks of
the Russian Synod and the Russian government with the Vatican. For
him the unification of the Eastern and Western Churches was first
of all the unification of a Christian tsar with a Christian high-priest,
a theocratic union of realm and church. He worked out a project
of union. In his French book, "La Russie et l’eglise universelle",
Solov’ev defends papalism with the usual Catholic arguments, which
can be found by those fond of Catholic theology. The only original
thing was in this, that these arguments were made by a Russian.
In this book, Solov’ev shows himself essentially an adherent of
the medieval papal theocracy. 2 In this book, remarkable as regards its pervasive
oecumenical spirit, is the disagreeably striking abundance of the
scholastic, the scholastic schematism, the scholastic formalism.
The very hierarchical structure of the Church he understands too
formally, he compares too much its powers to those of the state.
The Catholic tendency, in regard to equating the Church with the
state, existed also in Solov’ev. In the depths of his mystical experience
Solov’ev was a member of the Church oecumenical, he was both Orthodox
and Catholic, and he strove for the Church to come. But in the superficiality
of his consciousness and in his practise he was an uniate, i.e.
an adherent of formal negotiations and agreements. And foremost
of all he wanted a formal co-subjugation of the Church to an Orthodox
pope, a vicar of Peter. For him, the oneness of the Church oecumenical
was connected with the formal subjugation of the churchly hierarchy
to the pope. He went astray in the conception of the Church as priestly
authority. The letter of Solov’ev to bishop Strossmeier is especially
characteristic for its uniate tendencies. In this letter he writes,
that in the Russian nation the pope would find a pious nation. But
Khomyakov was right, that an unia in the Church is impossible. An
unia, regarded as formal negotiations and agreements, with reciprocal
concessions and pretensions to receive as much as possible the more
for oneself, is possible only in politics, only in the relationships
between states, and not within the Church. No sort of political
connivings are proper in the life of the Church. There is nothing
in the Church to concede away, the Church -- is one. Strictly speaking,
it is not possible to speak about the re-unification of the Churches,
it is possible only to speak about the re-unification of the two
human worlds, the world of the Eastern-Christian and the world of
the Western-Catholic. The Church -- is one, and is the fullness
thereof. The divisions and the non-fullness are but of people, only
but human history. And the division separating apart Orthodox and
Catholic mankind is an human sin, a limitedness that is human. But
the redeeming of the human sin and the overcoming of human limitedness
is not to be gained by formal unias, by negotiations and agreements,
by mutual concessions or reciprocal pretensions, only but by a transformation
of the mutual attitudes of the two Christian worlds within the very
deeps of the religious experience. Khomyakov was right, repudiating
the unia, but he was not right in his dislike for the Catholic world,
in his human one-sidedness and limitedness. The oneness of the Church,
as the Body of Christ, does not possess formal tokens, and the Church
never was disunited nor can be disunited. The one Church is both
in the East and in the West. Only people are divided, and people
ought to be re-united. But Solov’ev inclined towards the Catholic
formal understanding of the oneness of the Church and therefore
he was compelled to admit, that Orthodoxy is schism. Khomyakov more
accurately viewed the essence of the Church and he was correct in
his repudiation of the unia. But his harsh attitude towards the
Western Catholic world was a religious sin, his defect. Solov’ev
inaccurately looked at the oneness of the Church and he was not
right, in allowing for the possibility of an unia. But his loving
attitude for the Western Catholic world was his great truth. Vl.
Solov’ev was right in this, that he acknowledged the possibility
of dogmatic developement, that he saw a Divine-human process with
the Church. For him the Orthodox perfection has not yet occurred.
It would be almost a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit to affirm,
that the Orthodox perfection has occurred, that religious developement
has reached its end, that there is nothing more to await. In this
is the great significance of Solov’ev. He saw within Christianity
not only the priesthood, but likewise prophecy and the kingdom.
In this he is far off ahead in comparison with the Slavophils. With
all his being, Solov’ev was pervaded by Christian prophecies about
the City of God, the Coming City. In this he was the new man, the
man of a new religious consciousness.
II
The Church will be re-united
only through the mutual love of the Orthodox world and the Catholic
world, only through the mutual striving and reciprocal pervasion
of the two types of religious experience. It is in mutual love,
and not in formal agreements, that the true re-union of the two
Christian worlds will be accomplished. In each Orthodox and in each
Catholic, with love not only for their own world, but also the other
world, with a feel for the oecumenical brotherhood in Christ, with
the surmounting of one-sided self affirmation, the Churches will
re-unite, the Church oecumenical will triumph. It is in the mystical
churchly depths, and not upon the superficiality of agreements of
churchly powers that authentic re-union will be accomplished. But
for this re-union it is not necessary to forsake the native Church
of one’s fathers, so as to change one’s confession of faith. In
this also is included a worldly task, that the Orthodox from within
Orthodoxy should love Catholicism and acknowledge the truth of Catholicism,
so that then it be wrought Catholic in relation to Orthodoxy. The
going over from Orthodoxy to Catholicism cannot be a triumph for
the Church oecumenical, in this there is no re-union. The going
over of Russian Orthodox to Catholicism does not address the resolution
of the problem of East and West, it always impedes and would blur
the very problem, it would debilitate the consciousness of Russian
messianism. Vl. Solov’ev was too inclined to go over to Catholicism,
although a Catholic he never was. But this tendency to resolve the
great problem, so rightly tormenting him, by a going over into Catholicism,
distorts the whole Solov’ev matter. It is true, he speaks not about
the annexation of the Eastern Church to the Western, rather instead
about the re-unification of the Eastern and Western Churches. But
he is always tempted by Catholic formalism in his understanding
of the oneness of the Church, and by Catholic imperialism in his
understanding of the hierarchic structure of the Church. At the
basis of this temptation is a true thirst to behold the Church militant.
But the times and seasons ensue when the militancy ought to become
otherwise, and new. The indeed great truth of Solov’ev remains his
genuine love for the Western-Catholic world, for the entire other
half of the Christian world. This love, the feeling of brotherhood,
the feeling of the oneness of Christian mankind, -- to our woe,
rarely is it met with in the Russian Orthodox world. With this love
of his, Solov’ev does far more to re-unite the Churches, to resolve
the problem of East and West, than by his projects of formal agreements
and negotiations, than by his uniatism. The mystic and the scholastic-rationalist
struggle eternally within Solov’ev.
Vl. Solov’ev
nonetheless did not go sufficiently deep into the problem of the
separation of Orthodoxy and Catholicism, he did not get down to
the final, the mystical level of experience of East and West. Indeed,
the sources of the separation of the Orthodox East and the Catholic
West, and their mutual re-union, mustneeds be sought out not in
dogmatics nor in churchly organisation, but in the depths of the
religio-mystical experience. The study-manuals of dogmatic theology
and canonical rules are unable to provide anything for deciding
the problem of East and West. And the debates of official Orthodoxy
and official Catholicism on the basis of dogmatics and churchly
administration hold little value. Not from hence is light gained.
The differences in dogmatics and church organisation -- are secondary,
they are by-products, these differences issue forth from differences
in religious experience, in the primordial mystic communion with
God. The Orthodox world and the Catholic world are so estranged
and they so poorly understand each other not because, that the filioque
clause separates them, or purgatory, or the Immaculate Conception
of the Virgin Mary, or the pope, but because their religious experience
is deeply divergent, because these worlds have different attitudes
to Christ, because of Orthodox mysticism and Catholic mysticism,
i.e. the mysteried tap-roots of religious life, are deeply divergent.
Solov’ev was little interested in Catholic mysticism, and it held
no attraction for him. What attracted him most of all in Catholicism
was the hierarchic churchly structure, and papism, as an active
organisation, suitable to the struggle for the truth of Christ upon
the earth. In Solov’ev nowhere is it possible to find an attentive
penetration into the mystical in Catholicism, into the unique life
of Catholic saints. And too, Solov’ev poorly understood and little
valued the Eastern ascetic mysticism. When Vl. Solov’ev speaks about
the Orthodox East, there is no indication of the countenance of
St. Seraphim of Sarov, that summit-point of Eastern Christianity,
and key to the riddle of the mystical mission of Orthodox Russia.
Quite moreso is Solov’ev taken up with the improper relationship
of church and state in Russia, the passivity of the Orthodox hierarchy,
etc. But indeed the Catholic West -- is not only the militant hierarchical
structure of the Church, it is not only Peter, it is not only in
power, rather, this is also St. Francis of Assisi, St. Theresa,
this is also the "Imitation of Christ", mystical sensitivity, romantic
hunger, stigmata and sweet rapture over the Lord’s sufferings. And
the Orthodox East -- is not only the passivity of the churchly hierarchy,
the Byzantine subjugation of the Church to the state, conservatism,
the impeding of God-manhood upon the earth, rather this is also
St. Isaac the Syrian, St. Makarios of Egypt and St. Maximos the
Confessor, this is the valiant and white mysticism of St. Seraphim,
this is the deification-theosis of human nature from within, a mystical
fullness. It definitely mustneeds be said, that in the mystical
problem of the reciprocal relationship of the Orthodox East and
the Catholic West, Solov’ev relied too much on the political aspect
and he pursued values too merely public. In his book, written in
the French language and intended for the Western world, Solov’ev
failed to show to this other world the holy things of the Orthodox
East, with which only could there be connected the world mission
of Russia. His characterisings of the Orthodox East are almost exhaustingly
extracts from I. Aksakov, with excellent exposures of the ulcer
of our churchly structure, and indeed his particular exposures of
our improper relationship of church and state. It is possible to
conceive, from the reading of this book, that the Orthodox East
consists only in improper relationships of church and state, as
the consequence of the breaching of hierarchical subordination to
the pope of Rome. In what consists the uniqueness of the religious
path of the East, Solov’ev gives no indication. From this book of
Solov’ev, the West does not learn, in what consists the mission
of Russia, nor in what is the great purpose of the Orthodox East.
Within Eastern ascetic mysticism Solov’ev sees something India-like,
almost yoga-ism, i.e. a deviation from the Christian religious experience.
He failed to appreciate the
holy things of Orthodoxy, he did not understand, that in the Orthodox
East, in the lives of the saints, in the individual mystical experience
there is done the work of God, from which will come the transfiguration
of the world. Solov’ev is a thousand times right in his exposures
of our ulcerous church structure, the false relationships of church
and state, the un-Christian nature of our national self-smugness.
But there are things incomparably far deeper, connected with the
resolution of the problem of East and West, and Solov’ev failed
to touch upon them in his book, "La Russie et l’eglise universelle":
he did not tell the West the truths of the East, without which the
world cannot come to its graced end. It is necessary to go deeper
into the mystical separation of Catholicism and Orthodoxy and therein
also to search out the sources of the discord and the possibility
of reconciliation.
In the West, in
Catholicism -- God is an object, external to man and over man. Man
is drawn outwards towards God, and yearns for Him. In this yearning
is an hunger and a languishing. This being drawn outwards is sensed
in the architectural style of the Gothic. In the Catholic temple
man is so drawn upwards, towards God, that in the actual temple
it is cold. Christ -- is the object in Catholicism, the object to
be in love with, the object of imitation. Catholic mysticism --
is sensual, in it there is a blazing, a rapture with passions, a
pining with delight, a swooning. Human nature comes out of its languor
in accord with the Divine nature. The receiving of stigmata -- is
thus characteristic for Catholic mysticism. The imitation of the
Lord’s sufferings, the being in love with Christ -- all this is
possible only then, if Christ be an object, outside of man and over
man, the object of yearning, not inwardly innate. The Holy Grail
Chalice is characteristic of Catholicism and the romantic longing.
Catholic mysticism is an hunger and a passionate yearning. The sensuousness
of Catholic mysticism is particularly evident with St. Theresa.
There is something feminine in Catholic mysticism. Almost all the
Catholic mystics and saints speak about a sweetness, about a fatigue,
almost about a sweet-suffering religious experience in imitation
to Christ and love for Christ. This hunger, this striving, this
being drawn out upwards gives birth to creativity, it creates the
beauty of Catholic culture. The mystical experience of Catholicism
-- is anthropologised, within it strains and vibrates the human
element, man is drawn towards the object of his love -- to God,
and therein reaches an ecstasy of intoxication, of passion. In the
Catholic mystic there is a being fired up and at the same time there
is a coldness, there is passion and at the same time there is discipline,
there is a strangely combined ecstatic intoxication and severe discipline.
In the Catholic temple there is sensed cold and longing, in it there
is much of the human and there is also the departing of everything
human upwards, towards God. There is never the feeling, that we
remain in the temple with God, Who has come down for us, wherein
we draw warmth from this. God has not come down for us, rather we
ought to be drawn up to Him, in the manner that the Gothic temples
stretch upwards. There is this Gothic in all of Catholic mysticism,
in every dimension of the religious experience of the West. Out
of the Gothic religious experience was begotten all the Western
Catholic culture. All the great accomplishments of Western Catholic
culture, all its captivating beauties are created by the passionate
striving of man upwards, by a Gothic manner of being drawn out upwards.
Within the very structure of the Catholic religious experience there
is a dynamic process, directed outwards, towards the object of the
yearning. This is an experience of the empty-hungering of man, of
a longing love for an object. This a creative and dynamic love.
Without it there would not be all the richness of God’s world, of
God’s artistry. From it came the activeness of the West, the anthropologism
of the West. The West was never religiously satiated, and always
it longed for the chalice of the Holy Grail with the Blood of Christ.
The West never advanced from Christ, as an inner fact of mystical
experience, it did not proceed forth from the givenness of the Divine,
it lovingly yearned for Christ, it climbed from man upwards towards
God. Already with Blessed Augustine it is possible to find this
type of religious experience, this anthropologism and psychologism,
this loving passionateness. In the West, in Catholicism there was
always not so much a marriage-like coming together of man with God,
as rather just the being-in-loveness of man. And the great mission
of the Catholic West, perhaps, consisted in the uncovering of the
mystical truth about the being-in-loveness as a creative power.
This being-in-love fashioned Western culture, and with it is connected
the knight-chivalrant power of the West. The knights in love went
on crusade and created beauty. The military power of the West and
the creative culture of the West reflect a particular religious
experience, in the relationship to God as object.
In
the Orthodox East there was a different religious path, a different
mystical experience. In the East, and in Orthodoxy -- God is a subject,
and from within man. It is there that God comes down to man and
man receives Christ within himself. In Orthodoxy man does not stretch
himself out towards God, but rather stretches himself out before
God. In an Orthodox temple God makes His way down to the people,
and therefore in this temple it is warmer, than in the Catholic
temple. Within Eastern Orthodoxy there is not that being-in-love
with Christ, there is not that being in imitation to Christ, since
that Christ is not an object, but rather subject, an inward fact.
Orthodox mysticism is not sensuous, but rather primarily volitional,
and within it there is a characteristic spiritual sobriety. In Eastern
Orthodox mysticism, the Divine is an issuing-forth, coming from
within, and is not an object yearned and longed for. For Eastern
mysticism, a characteristic idea is that of theosis, the
deification of human nature from within, the pathway of receiving
Christ within oneself. In Eastern Orthodoxy there is not that romantic
longing, begotten of mystic hunger, within it rather there is a
mystical satiation. In the Christian East the activeness is directed
inward, upon the illumination and deification of human nature, and
not externally, not upon creativity of culture, nor upon a place
in history. The history of the East does not know the knightly chivalry
of the West, but rather instead the valour and activeness are transferred
over into an inward spiritual activity, not visible at the surface
of history. Inwardly, in its type of communion with God, the Eastern
mysticism is more masculine, whereas the Western is more feminine.
The Eastern type of religious experience is not conducive to creativity,
to creative activeness within history, since that everything is
directed into the inward ordering of man in relation to God, to
the creativity of a new nature in Christ. The East is less anthropologised
than is the West, in the East the Divine is preserved, while the
human however is not objectified within the dynamic of the historical.
St. Seraphim of Sarov -- was not a great creator, but rather a great
creation by God, a great fact of being, a great vital attainment.
In the East there is a deeper structuring of the relationship of
man to God, and herein are all the great attainments of the East.
The West is strong in relation to the world and to man. Therein
is attained creative culture, which is weak in the East. Eastern
Orthodox mysticism is not a being-in-love, but rather marriage-like,
a marital union of man and Divinity. In the Eastern theosis
there is realised a marital-like mystery, human nature from within
is pervaded by the Divine. In this is the great truth and the great
mission of the East. Only the Orthodox East preserves the mystical
mystery of union with God, i.e. the principle of the transfiguration
of the world. In the West God remains quite external to man. The
mystical plenitude of the East deifies human nature, but this Christian
deification has nothing in common with Indian pantheism, with the
annihilation of person, in it rather person is saved. The mystical
hunger of the West creates great culture. In the East there are
not the historico-cultural dynamics, but rather the dynamics of
an inward communion with God. Being in love would seem to be more
dynamic, more creative, than being married. The mystical experience
of being in love has its own great mission and its own particular
creative achievements. But the mystical experience of marriage has
no less a great mission, and in it is a particular inward dynamics.
Gothic culture -- the culture of being-in-love creativity, with
it is connected the historical path of the West. The Eastern, the
Russian culture -- is a culture of Divine marital-union, and with
it is connected the historical path of the East. The historical
destiny of the Orthodox East is defined by its relationship to God,
as to a subject. For the mysteried purposes of Divine Providence
the religious life of mankind split onto two experiences and two
pathways. Both experiences and both pathways have their own mission
and they complement each the other. It would be impious, it would
be godless to say, that truth is exclusively here or exclusively
there. In the house of our Father are many habitations. These varied
experiences and varied pathways remain within the bounds of oecumenical
Christianity, of the one Church of Christ; the enmity however and
division are but an human limitation, only historical relativeness.
Why in the East there was relationship to God as to a subject, and
in the West as to an object, -- this is a mystery not given us to
comprehend, a mystery of the freedom of man and the grace of God.
But to comprehend these different experiences and to overcome the
enmity in our varied pathways, we both must and should.
Vl. Solov’ev acknowledges
the great mission of Slavism and Russia, he was a philosopher of
Russian messianism. Everything, that was creative and remarkable
in the history of the Russian thought of the XIX Century, was connected
with an acknowledgement of the mission of Russia. But faith in the
world mission of Russia presupposes faith in the truth, preserved
in the depths of the Russian spirit, which Russia is called to relate
to the world. This truth can be only but a truth religious, a truth
Christian, a truth of the mystical experience of the Orthodox East.
About the existence of this great religious truth, which the West
alters all more and more, is witnessed to by the Russian great literature.
The whole of the creativity of Dostoevsky is a document of the Russian
soul, a disclosing of its religious torment. Everyone in Rus’ is
tormented by the question about the religious meaning of life, God
torments from the early years right up to the grave. All the spiritual
energy of Russians goes inward, into the inner relationship of man
to God, and not matters external for them, there does not remain
for them the powers for historical activeness, for the practical
ordering of life, for cultural developement. Even politics for us
takes the form of visionary exaltations and religious maximalism.
This might betoken bell-tollings for the future of Russia. But it
is impossible not to see the unique religious character of Russia.
Vl. Solov’ev devoted all his life to the ultimate religious questions,
to Russian questions, and all his life he dreamed about an organic
religious culture. But within everything however in the religious
constructs of Solov’ev, in his schema, in his rational mindset,
there remains almost no place for a self-sufficient mission of Russia.
A great service of Solov’ev was in this, that he revolted against
the Slavophil limitedness, he surmounted the Slavophil self-smugness
and the Slavophil nationalism, with love he turned towards the West,
to the Catholic Church. He demanded of Russia Christian love and
Christian self-denial. In him the Slavophil consciousness became
dynamic, and not static. He called Russia to an awareness of its
sins and to repentance. The terming of Russia as Third Rome for
Solov’ev was interlaced with a sense of the sinfulness of Russia
and with the calling to repentance. In this he was right. In this
we ought to go beyond Solov’ev and accept his tradition in regard
to the Catholic West, and not the Slavophil tradition. Russia ought
to acknowledge its sins, to repent, to renounce its national self-satisfaction
and national chauvinism. This is a preparatory stage, an inevitable
asceticism and purification for a great and positive work in the
world. What does Russia bring to the tragedy of world history, what
sort of truth does it relate to the world? This truth ought to be
positive and creative, it cannot be exhausted by repentance alone,
by the overcoming of sins alone. The truth of the Third Rome, the
truth of Russian messianism cannot be exhausted by a reunification
with Catholicism, by a subordination of our churchly structures
to the pope. The truth of Russia cannot be merely the acknowledgement
of the truth of Catholicism. In this instance Russia will have a
world mission, if it bears into the world its own truth, a truth
unknown to the West, and preserved only in the East. If Russia cannot
live and realise its purpose without the truth of the West, so then
also, the West cannot do without the truth of Russia, the truth
of Eastern Orthodoxy. The very positing of the problem of the East
and the West presupposes a reciprocal completing of the two experiences
and the two pathways. Russia bears forth the holy things, without
which the goals of world history are not to be realised. Solov’ev,
certainly, was filled with these messianic hopes, but in his concepts,
with the building of schemes and formal agreements, he went astray
in acknowledging the sole tasks of Russia to be the subordination
to the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church. But Solov’ev
does not consist merely in his rationalistic schema and formal constructs,
there is incomparably more to him. And the final period of his life
bespeaks this. The very fact of the existence of Vl. Solov’ev, his
very being was a tremendous dynamic in deciding the problem of East
and West.
III
In the final period
of his life, his attitude to the problem of East and West also changed
for Vl. Solov’ev. All the creativity of Solov’ev of this period
is without that rationalistic hue, which was so disagreeable in
the periods preceding. The Solov’ev of this period is filled with
an apocalyptic terror before the growing powers of evil. He no longer
constructs schema so sweet and optimistic, he makes prophesies.
There was potentially always within Solov’ev a prophetic awareness,
and he always affirmed the prophetic side of Christianity, but only
at the end of his life did the prophetic irrational conquer within
him the reason of this world. He makes bold to write his "Legend
about Anti-Christ". In this tale each utterance possesses a deep
and singular meaning, it is filled with symbolic realism. The prophetic
power of the "Legend about Anti-Christ" already is evidenced and
will prove itself all more and more. But how frustrated are all
the rosy hopes of Solov’ev, what a failure there is of the Divine-human
process upon the earth! In the "Legend about Anti-Christ" there
is chiliasm, there is the thousand-year reign of Christ, but it
does not have a connection with history, it is not so much the favourable
result of history, as rather the radical repudiation of history
as evil. For Solov’ev the very idea of God-manhood was shaken. He
ceased to believe in the Divine-human work upon the earth. If he
began by under-estimating the power of evil, then he finished by
being quite terrified by the power of evil, which took its revenge
on him for ignoring it, and he sensed, that it was not the kingdom
of the truth of Christ, but rather the kingdom of the lie of the
Anti-Christ -- which is the chief result of the historical process.
With his prophetic feeling he sensed the approach of the end of
history. Eschatological themes became fundamental for his prophetic
awareness. In the "Lectures on God-manhood" there was no actual
eschatology, the Divine-human process was too felicitous. But now,
in the "Legend about Anti-Christ", the problem also of East and
West is presented by Solov’ev in a new light, in an apocalyptic
consciousness, in a consciousness of the end of history. Solov’ev
loses faith in the good, the Divine-human, Christian works in history.
He no longer believes that the re-unification of the Churches, the
cherished vision of all his life, will transpire within the bounds
of history. In the "Legend about Anti-Christ", the re unification
of the Churches will occur beyond the bounds of history, it will
occur in a supra-historical process, on an apocalyptic plane. The
unification of the Churches and the chiliastic Kingdom of Christ
-- are transcendent, and not immanent to history. Earlier on for
Solov’ev, chiliasm had been optimistically transferred into the
historical processes of mankind, and it was an immanent thing for
him that within history would be realised the re-unification of
the Churches, that the truth of Christ would triumph upon the earth
in a theocracy. But now the chiliastic moment is pessimistically
detached from history, and rendered transcendent, and theocracy
is no longer presented as attainable within earthly history. The
idea of theocracy falls apart for Solov’ev. It began to disintegrate
already then, when he wrote his "National Question" and by his liberal
journalism he unmasked the lie of nationalism and reactionary statecraft.
At the end, the imperial function of theocracy passes over to the
Anti-Christ. The kingdom is already no longer the Kingdom of Christ,
but rather, that of the Anti-Christ.
Terror afront
the Anti-Christ re-unites the Churches, beyond the bounds of history.
Herein Solov’ev more profoundly grasps hold the sanctity of Orthodoxy.
The mission of the Orthodox East, unclear for him within the bounds
of history, became clear for him beyond the bounds of history, within
eschatological perspectives. It became clear, why the Orthodox East
had preserved the sanctity of Divine truth. In the several lines
of the "Legend about Anti-Christ", Solov’ev better grasps the differences
between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, than he did in his large philosophic-theological
tracts. Starets Ioann (John) -- is the final and blest result of
the Eastern Orthodox religious path. Just indeed as Pope Peter II
-- is the final and blest result of the Western Catholic religious
path. In the very names there is already the sense, that for Solov’ev
Orthodoxy is preeminently the Christianity of John, and Catholicism
-- the Christianity of Peter. Starets Ioann is bestown by Solov’ev
with a mystical clearness of vision. Emerging from the depths of
the Orthodox East, Starets Ioann is the first to recognise the Anti-Christ
and name him. All the mystical experience of the Eastern Church
with the elders on the heights of their summits results in that
utmost foresight, that ultimate perspicacity, which recognises the
Anti-Christ in the world. Without the Christianity of the East the
Anti-Christ cannot be recognised. In the West there would not be
this power of Johannine perspicacity, for not such is the path of
the West. In the East, little active in history, there burns an
apocalyptic consciousness of the end. Pope Peter II only actively
anathematises the Anti-Christ, and in this bespeaks the militant
spirit of Catholicism, but in the recognition of the Anti-Christ
he follows after Starets Ioann. The mystical clear-vision and perspicacity
of Starets Ioann is a sacred thing of the East, the truth of the
East, and it is not dependent on the hierarchical subordination
of Starets Ioann to Pope Peter II. Starets Ioann and Pope Peter
II are reunited,, in already having recognised the Anti-Christ and
having anathematised him. Here Solov’ev attains to genius, and to
truly prophetic foresight. How much more profound the images are
of the last elder of the East and the last pope of the West, than
is all the scholasticism of his French book. Only in his new, his
apocalyptic consciousness, is Russian messianism grasped by Solov’ev.
The apocalyptic terror at the approaching
end was connected for Vl. Solov’ev with terror at an Eastern-Mongolian
threat. The problem of East and West presented itself before him
in all its fullness, and this problem included not only Russia and
the West, not only Orthodoxy and Catholicism, but likewise also
the Far East, Mongolianism. The role of the Mongol East in the historical
destinies of mankind usually is too lightly ignored, and the Far
East forgotten. The stirrings of the Mongol Far East, which Vl.
Solov’ev calls Panmongolism, were for him a foreboding of
God’s judgement, directed upon the apocalyptic destiny of mankind.
Panmongolism. Though wild a name,
But to me melodious it to hear
As though in foreboding filled with
The judgement great of God...
For Christian Russia and Christian
Europe, as chastisement for sin, for betrayal of Christ and the
Christian revelation about man, -- there threatens Panmongolism,
that of the Far East, til now aslumber, the East, by us forgotten.
For Russia Solov’ev’s verse, "Panmongolism", has already proved
prophetic, for in it was predicted the Japanese War and the defeat
of Russia. I think, that this is not the full extent defining the
prophetic forebodings of Solov’ev. In the pending dangers of Panmongolism
there is a mystical anxiety, a presentiment of the end. But the
great significance of Panmongolism is first of all in this, that
by it is sharply put the question: what intends Russia to be, a
Christian land, an organic part of the Christian all-humanity, or
a borderland and un-Christian East? Whether Russia should preserve
the Christian revelation about person or betray it and suborn it
to the Eastern-Mongolic element of impersonality? Only a Christian
Russia, united with a Christian Europe, can have the strength to
repel a Panmongolism. The Eastern-Mongolic element of impersonality
has penetrated also into Western civilisation under the form of
a leveling Americanism. The Far East and the Far West coincide.
The problem of the Orthodox East and the Catholic West is decided
in the problem of the relationship of a Christian all-humanity,
of a true Christian revelation about man and humanity, towards the
non-Christian humanity, either not having accepted the Christian
revelation or having betrayed it. The Christian Churches, or more
accurately, the two Christian worlds, conjoin in the external danger
of the impersonal element of the East and the internal danger of
the impersonal element of an anti-Christian civilisation. Afront
Russian messianism there stands Solov’ev’s question:
O Rus’. In foresight august
Thou with proud thought art taken;
What sort the East intendest thou to be:
The East of Xerxes or of Christ?
The danger threatens
Russia to become the East of Xerxes, if it conquers not within itself
the Tatarism, i.e. the element of the Far East pervasive in its
depths. With the Christian and the cultural surmounting of the Tatar
element and the Far East is connected first of all the altering
of the attitude towards the Christian West. Christian Russia ought
to surmount the hostility and rather to love the Christian West,
to behold the one truth of Christ, the truth of the oecumenical
Church, both in Orthodoxy and in Catholicism. The oecumenical Christian
culture ought to be contrast opposite to every, whether external
or internal, Tatarism, Mongolism, and impersonalism, whether barbaric
or civilised. Against the anti-Christian spirit, Starets Ioann acknowledges
the truth of Pope Peter II, who in turn follows after the clear-vision
of Ioann. Panmongolism serves to the re-uniting of East and West.
Vladimir
Solov’ev -- was a prophet of a new religious consciousness, an apocalyptic
consciousness. In light of the new consciousness he prophesies about
Russian messianism, he continues the work of Dostoevsky. For the
scholastic-formalist consciousness the mystery of the re-unification
of East and West was obscured, and it is clarified only for the
apocalyptic consciousness. Solov’ev prophetically overcomes both
Slavophilism and Westernism. The problem of the prophet -- was fundamental
within the life of Solov’ev. All his life he sensed himself fulfilling
a prophetic function, rather than sacerdotal. He was the potentialised
prophet, the prophetic spirit tormented him, and all his whole being
was oriented towards propheticism. Towards the end of his life this
took an extreme form and led to a dangerous bent. But it is impossible
to understand Solov’ev and all the works of his life, if one were
to view his teachings about the prophet, as contrast to the high-priest
and tsar, as merely his usual penchant for schema. The whole of
the religious world-feeling of Solov’ev was such, that the Christian
religion had for him not only the sacerdotal side, but also the
prophetic side. He always lived in a prophetic spirit, but this
spirit only towards the end of his life was fully manifest and given
expression. Vl. Solov’ev stands at the borderline of a new cosmic
religious epoch. He sees already the rosy dawn. And the tragedy
of his life was a tragedy of the cosmic heights. He sensed, just
like Dostoevsky, and like all the heralds of Russian messianism,
that Russia stands at the centre of the world, that through it the
world advances towards a new cosmic epoch. Not in vain is the image
of Sophia the Wisdom of God preserved primarily in the East, in
Orthodoxy. In his feeling for Sophia, his feeling for the cosmic
within Christianity, Solov’ev had a greater connection to Eastern
Christianity than he himself realised. And in this feeling of the
world soul, of eternal femininity, he belongs to a new religious
consciousness. But the apocalyptic consciousness of Solov’ev was
too biographic and therefore it was tinted in too pessimistic a
light. Indeed within the apocalyptic consciousness there should
be the revelation of a new earth, a new Jerusalem, the City of God,
and this joyful expectation should conquer in us the terror at the
approaching kingdom of the Anti-Christ; Dostoevsky more profoundly
than Solov’ev sensed this joy of the new land, the City of God.
But with genius in his "Legend about Anti-Christ" Solov’ev reveals
the immeasurable freedom in Christ, and the great vocation of Russia,
as the repository of Orthodoxy, and he sees it first of all in this,
that it relate to the world the mystery of freedom.
Catholicism identifies the
Church with a city of God, with a realm upon the earth. This tendency
further still comes from Blessed Augustine, who recognised the Church
as the beginning of the thousand-year reign of Christ upon the earth.
The whole of papism arose out of this confusion of the Church with
a city, a realm. This pretension to be the realisation of the City
of God, the Kingdom of Christ within the Church, the hierarchic
churchly structure, impedes within the Catholic world the engendering
of the apocalyptic consciousness of the City-to-Come, and obscures
the prophetic future. The Catholic world does not seek for the City-to-Come,
it has its own city in the hierarchic structure of the Church and
in its pretensions to be the kingdom. But sacerdotal hierarchism
is an hierarchism that is angelic, and not human. It is impossible
upon sacerdotal hierarchism alone to construct the kingdom based
on God-manhood, for in it there is still yet no anthropologic revelation
about the City. Therefore the pretensions of the Catholic priesthood
to be the kingdom of a Divine humanity upon earth beget a demonic
deviation, for it creates an order not Divine-human, but rather
angelo-beastly. Orthodoxy has not confused its kingdom with the
City, for Orthodox hierarchy had not the pretensions to be an human
kingdom, and in Orthodoxy was no sense of having realised the City.
Therefore in the Orthodox East it is easier to have a thirst for
the City-to-Come, an apocalyptic consciousness. For us the prophetic
spirit is greater, than in Catholicism. And the prophetic spirit
of Solov’ev was not a Catholic spirit.
Dostoevsky, in his "Brothers
Karamazov", through the lips of Paisii and from the bosom of Orthodoxy,
prophesies about the Church as kingdom, as the City of God. "From
the East this land will be radiant". The whole of the life of Solov’ev
and all his creativity were strivings for the City-to-Come, for
a new earth. Afront the prophetic fact of his being, the failings
of his consciousness become as naught. The appearance of Vl. Solov’ev
in our life instructs us and draws us to follow after him. But our
following after him ought not to be static, but rather dynamic,
upon the path of resolving the problem of East and West.
Nikolai Berdyaev
1911
© 2000 by translator Fr. S. Janos
(1911 - 53 - en)
PROBLEMA VOSTOKA I ZAPADA V RELIGIOZNOM SOZNANII VL. SOLOV’EVA.
Berdyaev article contributed to the Solov’ev Anthology-Sbornik entitled,
"O Vladimire Solov’eve". Publishing House Put’, Moscow, 1911,
p. 104-128. Sbornik is republished also in 1997, izdatel’stvo
"Vodolei", Tomsk.
Reprinted by YMCA Press Paris in 1989 in Berdiaev Collection: "Tipy
religioznoi mysli v Rossii", (Tom III), ctr. 214-241.
1 Vide
as regards this the article by A. Blok, "The Knight-Monk" ("Rytsar
monakh").
2
In a certain unpublished letter to L. P. Nikiforov, Vl. Solov’ev
writes: "About my French books I can inform you nothing. Their fate
is of little interest to me. Albeit in them was nothing the contrary
to objective truth, but that subjective state of mind, those feelings
and expectations, with which I wrote them, with me are already out-lived".
Permission granted for non-commercial distribution
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