Upon what spiritual basis does Orthodox individualism base itself, by what is its understanding of Christianity justified, as a religion of personal salvation, indifferent to the fate of society and the world? Christianity in the past was extraordinarily magnificent, manifold and many-sided. In the Gospel, in the Apostolic Epistles, in the Patristic literature and in Church tradition it is possible to find the basis for varied comprehensions of Christianity. The understanding of Christianity, as a religion of personal salvation, mistrustful towards any creativity, rests itself exclusively upon the Patristic ascetic literature, which neither is the whole of Christianity nor is it the whole even of Patristic literature. The “Dobrotoliubie-Philokalia” would as it were screen out for itself everything remaining. In the ascetic is expressed eternal truth, which enters into the inner spiritual pathway, as an inevitable moment. But it is not the fullness of Christian truth. The heroic struggle with the nature of the old Adam, with the sinful passions, promoted a certain aspect of Christian truth and exaggerated it to all-encompassing dimensions. The truths, revealed in the Gospels and the Apostolic Epistles, were set aside onto a secondary plane, and were stifled. At the basis of all Christianity, at the basis of all the spiritual pathway of man, the pathway of salvation for life eternal, was put humility. Man needs to be humbled, and all the rest then happens by itself. Humility is the sole method of inner spiritual activity. Humility screens out and stifles love, which reveals itself in the Gospel and manifests itself as the foundational basis of the New Testament God with man. The ontological concept of humility consists in a real victory over the self-affirming human self-centredness, over the sinful disposition of man to situate the centre of gravity for life and the source of life in himself alone, — this is the meaning of the overcoming of pride. The concept of humility is in the real change and transfiguration of human nature, in the mastery of spiritual man over the man of soul and flesh. But humility ought not to stifle and snuff out the spirit. Humility is not external obedience, submission and subordination. Man can be very disciplined, very obedient and submissive, and yet have humility not at all. We see this by way of example in the Communist Party. Humility is an efficacious change of the nature of the soul, and not external subordination, leaving nature unchanged, its own inner working over itself, its deliverance from the power of the passions, from the lower nature, which man is wont to accept as his true “I”. In humility is affirmed the true hierarchy of being, spiritual man takes precedence over soulful man, God receives precedence over the world. Humility is the pathway of self-cleansing and self definition. Humility is not the annihilation of the human will, but rather the illumination of the human will, the free submission of it to Truth. Christianity cannot negate humility, as a moment of the inner spiritual pathway. But humility is not the whole of spiritual life. Humility is a genuine means. Yet humility is not the sole means, it is not the sole pathway of spiritual life. Inner spiritual life is immeasurably more complex and multi-facetted. And it is impossible to give answer to all the inquiries of spirit by the preaching of humility. And humility can be conceived of falsely and too externally. To the inner spiritual life and the inner way there applies an absolute primacy, it is more primary, more profound, more primordial than all our relations to the life of society and the world. In the spiritual world, from the depths of the spiritual world is defined all our relationship towards life. This — is a religious axiom, an axiom of the mystic. But a concept of humility is possible, distorting all our spiritual life, not accommodating the Divine truth of Christianity, the Divine fullness. And in this is all the complexity of the question.
The construction of life upon the sole spirit of humility creates also an external authoritative- hierocratic system. All questions of social form and cultural creativity are decided in conformity to humility. This would be a fine arrangement of a society, in which people humble themselves the most, and be obedient the most. It would censure every array of life, in which is given expression to the creative instincts of man. Thus in essence there is resolved not a single question, but is merely as regards to this, whether it promotes the humility of man. Deterioration of humility leads to this, that it ceases to be understood inwardly, to be secretly-treasured as a mystical act, as a manifestation of inner spiritual life. Humility is transformed into an external system of life-arrangement, repressing man. Humility in its mystical essence is altogether not contrary to freedom, it is an act of freedom and presupposes freedom. Only free humility, the free subordination of soulful man to spiritual man has religious significance and value. Compulsory humility, imposed humility, is determined by the external structure of life and possesses no significance for spiritual life. Slavery and humility — are variant spiritual conditions. Humbling myself in my inner spiritual pathway, in a free act I posit the source of life to be in God, and not in my own selfness. For phenomenological analysis there is disclosed, that my freedom precedes my humility. Humility is more inner, secretly-treasurative a spiritual condition. But having decayed, a degraded humility, an humility become deteriorated transforms itself into an external compulsively imposed system of life, negating the freedom of man, coercing man. In soil humility readily sprouts forth hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness. At that selfsame moment when the ontological concept of humility would consist in the liberation of spiritual man, a deteriorated humility holds man in a condition of restraint and oppression, it chains down his creative powers. The great ascetics and saints accomplished an heroic act of spiritual liberation of man, of opposition to the lower nature, to the power of the passions. Corrupters of humility negate the heroic act of the spiritual liberation of man and hold man in subjection to an authoritative system of life. When I humble myself before the will of God, when I conquer in myself the slave’s revolt of selfness, I come from out of freedom and I go towards freedom. Selfness enslaves me, and I want to be liberated from it. Humility is one of the methods of transition from a condition, in which the lower nature governs, to a condition, in which the higher nature governs, i.e. it signifies the growth of man, his spiritual ascent. Deteriorating humility desires however a system of life, in which liberation never enters, in which spiritual ascent is never to be attained, in which the higher nature never shews itself. The liberation of spirit, spiritual ascent, the manifestation of the higher nature would be declared a non-humble condition, a deficiency of humility. Humility is transformed from being a means and a way into an end in itself.
They begin to set humility in opposition to love. The way of love is considered as the not- humble, as the audacious way. The Gospel is ultimately replaced by the “Dobrotoliubie- Philokalia”. Where then is it for me, a sinner and unworthy, to pretend to love for neighbour, to brotherhood. My love will be infected by sin. First I should humble myself, and love should appear, as the fruition of humility. But I could be humble all my life yet never attain a sinless condition. Therefore also love would never appear. Where then is it for me a sinner to dare to spiritual perfection, to valour and sublimity of spirit, to the attainment of utmost spiritual life. At first it is necessary to vanquish sin by humility. But this takes up all of life and there remains neither time nor strength for creative spiritual life. It is possible only in this world, indeed here also unlikely, if in this world however only humility be possible. The degenerated humility creates a system of life, in which life that is everyday and commonplace and of bourgeois-manner, is more honoured than the humble, than the Christian, than the moral, than the attainment of a still higher spiritual life, and love, contemplation, perception, creativity, always there is the suspicion of a deficiency of humility and of pride. To haggle at the shop-counter, to live in a very egoistic familial life, to serve in the ranks of the police or excise-duty office — humbly, not presumptuously, not boldly. And here then otherwise is the aspiration towards the Christian brotherhood of people, of the realisation of the truth of Christ in life, or to be philosopher or poet, Christian philosopher or Christian poet — not humbly, proudly, presumptuously, boldly. The shopkeeper may be not only covetous of gain, but also dishonourable, yet less subject to the peril of eternal perishing, than that one, who his entire life seeks after truth and verity, who thirsts for a life of beauty, than for example Vl. Solov’ev the Gnostic, the poet of life, the seeker of true life and the brotherhood of people who is subject to the danger of eternal perishing, since he is insufficiently humbled, he is proud. It becomes an hopeless, and a vicious circle. The yearning for the realisation of the Truth of God, the Kingdom of God, of the spiritual heights and spiritual perfection, is proclaimed a spiritual imperfection, a lack of humility. In what then is the basic defect of deteriorated humility and its system of life? The basic defect lurks in the false concept of the correlation between sin and the pathways of liberation from sin or the attainment of higher spiritual life. I cannot reason thus — the world lies in evil, I am a sinful man and because my yearning towards the realisation of the Truth of Christ and towards brotherly love amidst mankind is a proud pretension, a deficiency of humility, — therefore every authentic impulse in the direction of the realisation of love and truth is a victory over evil, is a deliverance from sin. I cannot speak thus — the yearning for spiritual perfection and the spiritual heights is pride and an insufficiency of humility, an insufficient consciousness of the sinfulness of man, — therefore every advance towards spiritual perfection and the spiritual heights is the way of victory over sin. I cannot speak thus — I am a sinful man and therefore my audacity to apprehend the mystery of being and to create beauty is already a victory over sin, a transfiguration of life. It is impossible to say: sin distorts and perverts both love, and spiritual perfection, and cognition and everything, and therefore there is no victory over sin along these pathways. Therefore it is completely possible to say likewise: the way of humility is distorted and perverted by human sin and greed and is a distorted, degenerate, perverted humility, an humility, transformed into slavery, into egoism, into cowardice. Humility is no more a guarantee from distortion, and degeneration, than love or cognition.
Sin is conquered with great difficulty and it is conquered only by the power of grace. But the pathways of this victory, the pathways of the acquisition of grace are manifold, and they encompass all the plenitude of being. Our love towards neighbour, our cognition, our creativity, is ultimately distorted by sin and bears within itself the seal of imperfection, but indeed so too the way of humility is distorted by sin and bears within itself the seal of imperfection. Christ commanded first of all to love God and to love neighbour, to first of all seek after the Kingdom of God, and a perfection in likeness to the perfection of the Heavenly Father. The “Dobrotoliubie-Philokalia”, — into which were not included the most remarkable mystical works of St. Maximos the Confessor, nor of St. Simeon the New Theologian among others, — is first of all a collection of moral-ascetic directives for monks, and not the expression of the full plenitude of Christianity and its pathways. Not only the spirit of the Gospel and the Apostolic Epistles, but also the spirit of the Greek Patristic fathers in the most profound of their currents, — is otherwise than this, than for example the one-sided spirit of the Orthodoxy of Theophan the Hermit. Ultimately, in Theophan the Hermit there is much that is true and eternal, particularly in his finest book “The Way to Salvation”, but its attitude towards the life of the world — is depressingly-timid, its Christianity withered and impaired. The central idea of the Eastern Patristic fathers was the idea of “theosis”, of deification (“obozhenie”) of the creature, of the transfiguration of the world, of the cosmos, and not the idea of personal salvation. Not by chance were the greatest Eastern teachers of the Church inclined towards the idea of “apokatastasis” [trans. note: cosmic restorative return], not only St. Clement of Alexandria and Origen, but also St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Maximos the Confessor. The juridical conception of the world process, the juridical conception of expiation, the building up of hell, the salvation of the chosen and the eternal perdition of all the rest of mankind is expressed mainly in Western Patristics, in Blessed Augustine, and then in Western Scholasticism. For the classical Greek Patristic fathers, Christianity was not only the religion of personal salvation. It was directed towards a cosmic apprehension of Christianity, it proposed the idea of the illumination and the transfiguration of the world, the deification of the created. Only later did the Christian consciousness hold in greater esteem the idea of hell, rather than the transfiguration and theosis of the world. This occurred, perhaps, as the result of the prevalence of barbaric nations with their fierce instincts. These nations needed to be subjected to severe discipline and intimidation, since their flesh and blood, their passions threatened ruin to Christianity and to every form of order in the world. Christianity, taken as a religion of a personal salvation from eternal perdition through humility, led to panic and terror. Man lived under the horrible stress of terror of eternal perdition and would consent to anything, if only he might avoid it. The authoritarian system of obedience and submission created an affective emotion of the dread of perdition, a panicked dread of the eternal torments of hell. Under suchlike a spiritual arrangement, under suchlike a state of mind, a creative attitude towards life is very difficult. There is no time for creativity, when destruction threatens. The whole of life is put beneath the sign of terror, of fear. When pestilence rages, and every second — death threatens, man has no time for creativity, he is exclusively occupied by measures of salvation of the pestilence. Sometimes Christianity is also conceived of, as salvation from a raging pestilence. Creativity and the building up of life were rendered possible only thanks to a system of dualism, which granted moments of oblivion about salvation from perdition. Man devoted himself to science and art or to the social order, having forgotten at the time about the threatening destruction, revealing for himself another sphere of being, separate from that sphere in which perdition and salvation are accomplished, and with these two spheres being not at all connected. The understanding of Christianity, as a religion of personal salvation from perdition, is a system of transcendental egoism, or transcendental utilitarianism and eudemonism. K. Leont’ev, with a boldness typical for him, professed such a religion of transcendental egoism. But this is particularly because his attitude towards the life of the world was fully pagan, and he dualistically conjoined within himself the man of Athos and the Optina ascetic-monastic Orthodoxy, together with the man of the Italian Renaissance of the XVI Century. With a transcendental consciousness, man is preoccupied not by the attainment of higher perfection in life, but by concern about the salvation of his own soul, by thought about his own eternal receiving of bliss. Transcendental egoism and eudemonism innately negates the way of love and cannot be faithful to the Gospel command, which bid us to perish one’s own soul for the sake of finding it, to give it up for one’s neighbour, to teach first of all love, unconditional love for God and neighbour. But to posit Christianity as a religion of transcendental egoism, not knowing the unconditional love towards Divine perfection, means to blaspheme Christianity. This is either a barbaric Christianity, a Christianity humbling the wildness of the passions and distorted by these passions, or it is a Christianity degenerate, and impaired, and impoverished. Christianity always was, is and will be not only a religion of personal salvation and fear of perdition, but it is likewise a religion of the transfiguration of the world, the deification of the creature, a religion cosmic and social, a religion of unconditional love, a love for God and for man, the covenant-promise of the Kingdom of God. Under the individualistic-ascetic understanding of Christianity, as a religion of personal salvation, of concern only about one’s own soul, the revelation about the resurrection of all creatures is unintelligible and unnecessary. For a religion of personal salvation there is no world eschatological perspective, there is no connection with personhood, nor of the individual human soul with the world, with the cosmos, with all creation. An hierarchical order of being is negated by this, in which all is bound up with all, and from which the individual destiny cannot be detached. An individualistic understanding of salvation is more proper to Protestant pietism, than to a Christianity as Church. I cannot be saved by myself, in solitude, I can be saved only with my brethren, together with all of God’s creation, and I cannot think only about my own salvation, I ought to think also about the salvation of others, about the salvation of all the world. And indeed salvation is but an external expression for the attainment of the spiritual heights, of perfection, of like-to-God, as the supreme value of worldly life.
III.
