Короткий опис(реферат):
У дисертації досліджено погляди візантійських церковних авторів на проблематику стосунків людини з природним довкіллям. На основі оригінальних текстів зіставлено «екологічні» рефлексії різних напрямів - антиохійського, александрійського, каппадокійського - та простежено їх розвиток в різні періоди візантійської культури. Виявлено, що аскетика східних отців Церкви, тісно пов’язуючи антропологію з космологією та з богослов’ям, створює сприятливі умови для розвитку «екологічного» мислення. Показано, що в ранньовізантійський період це мислення безпосередньо залежало від специфічних підходів різних шкіл до космології, а отже помітно відрізнялося в різних авторів. Емансипація науки, якою був позначений середньовізантійський період, призвела до актуального досі розриву між богословським та природознавчим підходами, що певним чином збіднює обидві сфери. Водночас, ігнорування отцями космологічної конкретики сприяло синтезуванню «екологічних» поглядів ранніх діячів різних шкіл, практично несумісних у своєму природничонауковому вимірі. Зрештою, в пізньовізантійських отців сформувалося складне й гармонійне бачення стосунків людини з довкіллям, що було, втім, незрозумілим для схоластичої науки та філософії свого часу, а отже, виявилося приреченим на ізоляцію в мовах мистецтва - іконопису й літургійної поезії.
Суть розробки, основні результати:
The thesis deal with the Byzantine patristic“ecology” - the discource of universe viewed as a home (οικος) . Using the original Greek texts as the base, the author tries to compare the “ecological” reflections of the main theological schools of Preiconoclastic period - Antiochian, Alexandrian, and Kappadokian. The contribution of each trend into the mature Byzantine thought is also under examination. The ascetics which particularly closely connects anthropology with cosmology on the one hand, and with theology on the other hand is in the focus of the research.
Relying mostly on the original texts of Greek-speaking Syrian fathers (and also on some Syrian texts in modern translations) the author demonstrates the great dependence of Antiochian “ecological” thought upon the traditional Near Eastern cosmology. Attributed to the Bible, the ancient notion of the world in the form of a house became the inevatable framework for the rich and manifold environmental conceptions of the Syrian Сhristians. These conceptions, however, show their truly Scriptural inspiration in their reflections on man’s mystical management (οικονομια) in the inhabited world (οικουμενη), on the mutual dependence between human and the environment, on the gnoseological limits imposed by humans position inside cosmos etc. This fruitful “ecological” thought was largely isolated from the rest of the Church due to its strong tie with the specific Syrian cosmology, guarded as quasi-dogma. However, in the texts of the most outstanding Antiochian thinkers, such as St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephrem or St. Isac of Nineveh, we do not find any dogmatical approach towards the cosmological models, while their environmental reflections are extremely developed.
The identification and investigation of the environmental discours among the theological, anthropological and physical texts of Alexandrian school showed the Platonic and Neoplatonic genesis of its few ecological motifs - i.e. the reflections on the existance inside the flow of matter, on the place of man in the entire hierarchical structure of the created beings, the view on man as the only and important bind of the contrary qualities of the world, the analysis of human cognition of the lower and of the higher levels of the created world. However, investigating St. Maximus the Confessor’s notion of man as the mediator, usually apprehended as a purely Neoplatonic insight, the author retraces in it the elements of the dynamical and hystorical vision intrinsic to the Scriptural thinking.
The place and function of cosmological knowledge, rather than its contents, are investigated in the physical treatises of Cappadocian current. The environmental approach, associated with the Scripture, is provided here with much greater respect than merely cosmological data, associated with Hellinistic science (particularly by St. Basil of Ceasarea), even though it is latter that obviously dominates in the texts. The phychosomatic problem (tracing back to different Greek philosophers) is viewed as the centre of the ecological thought of the Сappadoсian theologians and of some other Christian scientists, such as Nemesius of Emessa. So, the author’s position consists in stating the multiplicity of ecological approaches recorded in the patristic writings of the Early Byzantine period.
The mutual emancipation of science and theology, occuring since the 11th century is assesssed as the cause of separation between the patristic cosmology absorbed by the scholastics, and the patristic ecology ignored by the University and preserved only in the ascetical and mystical treatises. Meanwhile, the indifference towards the cosmological models, showed by most of the Church fathers of that time and later on, might have impoverished their vision, but permitted them to syntesize the best ecological achievements of their predecessors, formerly incompatible due to the difference of their cosmological foundations. Though Alexandrian Neoplatonism is sure to make the base of the new synthesis, the Antiochian insights are also present here, particularly in the writings of St. Symeon the New Theological and of his disciple St. Nicetas Stethatos. This fruitful synthetic view of human in the environment stayed unintelligible for the language of the scholastics (including the more scholarly treatises of its authors themselves), and proved to be isolated in few genres of religious literature and reflected in the languages of the church arts.