Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета: Серия I. Богословие, философия (Dec 2019)
Triadology of Joseph Volotsky
Abstract
This article deals with the Trinitarian doctrine of Joseph Volotsky. This doctrine has not yet been described by scholars in a detailed and systematic way. The article shows that Joseph followed the traditional ontology of the Trinity, which he presented systematically in the fi rst section of Просветитель (Russ. ‘Enlightener’). In order to describe the general in the Trinity, he uses the terminological pair естество (‘nature’) and существо (‘substance’), and for the hypostases such terms as состав, собство, лице, образ, ипостась are used. In order to clarify the obscurities in the hegumen’s terminology, it was necessary to address the main patristic texts translated into Slavonic (Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nazianzus, John of Damascus), which allowed us to demonstrate important shades in the philosophical use of these words. It became clear that the similarity of terms related to hypostases goes back to Clement of Ochrid. The hegumen interprets the nature of the deity by means of apophatic myscticism, which conditioned signifi cant aspects of human knowledge of God. On the whole, in questions of Trinitarian ontology, Joseph takes quite a traditional position. Afterwards, the Enlightener with its doctrine was proclaimed “Luminary of Orthodoxy” at Moscow council against heretics of 1553‒54. The hegumen was also developing the topic of divine names, and in his reasoning the following types of names can be distinguished: (1) general, (2) hypostases, (3) common actions and properties in the Trinity. Joseph’s polemic with the Judaisers led him to revising the rational argumentation in favour of the existence of the Trinity based on analogy with the “image of God” in man. Joseph’s arguments are also interesting in that they make it possible to reconstruct some philosophical views of heretics and relate them to specifi c texts of the Judaisers. At the end of the article, the conclusion is made that the emergence of the triadology of Joseph Volotsky demonstrates that the intellectual level of culture of Moscow Rus’ rose considerably in the 16th century.
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