Introduction to Noomakhia (lecture 7) Christian Logos

The seventh lecture is dedicated to Christian Logos. So now we are going to make a short Noological analysis of Christianity and Christian tradition. I would like to say that, that is not dogmatic. We are regarding Christianity as cultural, social, political, structural, philosophical phenomenon. So we don’t defend or accuse Christianity, being I presume mostly Orthodox Christian as myself, we are going to treat Christianity in the correct way but not insisting too much on our confessional preferences. That is a kind of Noological analysis. We don’t discuss the truth or heresy or what was accepted as dogmatically correct or heretic. Everything we are going to speak of will be regarded from the Noological point of view, the structural analysis.

First of all, when we consider Christianity and Christian doctrine from a Noological point of view, basing on geosophy and basing on the Three Logos, we could easily, from the very beginning, formulate some general principles concerning Christianity. First of all, the Logos of Christianity is clearly Apollonian. First of all, that is verticality. And the concept of God the Father, the Heavenly Father, the Holy Trinity, and the transcendence of the Creator in front of creation all creates a kind of traditional Logos of Apollo that we already know. That is pure vertical organization of the metaphysical space. There is the Heavenly Father (Father not Mother) that is in the Heaven, that is in transcendence, that has created the world. So that is a kind of coming down from top to down. Creation is from eternity to time, from Heaven to the earth, from God to the man and the other creatures. There is purely Apollonian logic in basic dogmatical principles. All three person of Holy Trinity are considered to be male, masculine. That’s very important. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All three are considered as male figures. That in the symbolical way is very important. The relation between the creature and the creator are hierarchical. The created things should be submitted to the creator. So that is a kind of hierarchy. And this verticality is the basic feature of Christian tradition. That is the essence of Christian tradition. That is patriarchal.

And affirming that, we could say that it is not the chance that this tradition has developed in the Indo-European world first of all (in Greece, in Rome, in Europe.) Christianity became a normative tradition for Indo-European society. Not for all but for Western part of Indo-European society where the concept of God and its main features of Christian God (Father) was more or less correspondent to Zeus, to Jupiter, to the male deities of pre-Christian time. In the popular consciousness it was easy to replace one Heavenly Father by another. Because the figure in German language is the word, ‘Gestalt.' That is the figure; the image that is not the precise person that we know its qualities. Gestalt is a kind of frame of Heavenly Father that was the same. So that was a kind of continuity from pre-Christian tradition and Christian tradition. It was a continuity that was based on the structure, on the frame, on Gestalt, on the typology of the civilization. So that is very important. We could see how Greeks, Latins, Germans, Celts, Slavs accepted one figure of Heavenly Father instead of the other. So that was a kind of transformation that didn’t touch the structure of world vision of Indo-European people. So that is very important. There was a kind of continuity.

That was explained in the philosophy of some first Christian apologetics and saints, for example, Justin Martyr or Clement of Alexandria, that said that there were two branches of tradition, (not only Judaic tradition before Christianity.) There was as well Hellenic tradition. That was the second branch of that. And that was also sacred. But both Judaic tradition and Hellenic tradition in Christianity were transformed and were enlightened, were transformed into something more correct and more true, according to Clement of Alexandria and Justin philosopher. There was as well, in the first stages of elaboration of Christian doctrine, the concept that Christianity has two sources, not only Judaism but as well Hellenic (so Indo-European source). That was reflected above all in the Christian Platonism. Christian Platonism started first with the apostles themselves. Because the Gospel of John; “In the beginning was the Word.” In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos is not the word only as we translate. The Logos is not only the word. It is intellect. It is Nous in some aspect. It is a very very complicated concept of Greek philosophy. The fact that we know the Gospels only in Greek, so they maybe were written in Greek and not translated from Aramaic, because the Greek was the Hellenistic koiné, the language that was distributed in the Mediterranean world because Christianity was born in Hellenism, in the Hellenistic context. Platonism begins not with exegetic tradition. It begins with the apostles themselves. Many aspects of Christian traditions from the very beginning was based on some Greek concepts because in Aramaic and Hebrew, there is no word equivalent to Logos, but that is the beginning of our Christian teaching. ‘In the beginning was the Logos.’ And we don’t know the Aramaic Semitic word used for such concept. So with the beginning of Christianity, Christian theology was the Logos and Greek philosophy. That was developed later by Justin philosopher, Clement of Alexandria, and basically in Alexandrian school, with the great Origen, who was a Platonist. There was created the whole building of Christian theology, with the Holy Trinity, the transcendence of the creator and so on. Everything was based on Platonism, on the teachings of Plato. They say that Origen was the pupil, the disciple of Ammonius Saccas. Alexandria was Hellenistic. That was Egyptian in the traditional sense. That was Greek Hellenistic city. And there was Ammonius Saccas, who was the first teacher of Neoplatonism, of the so called fifth academy. He was the founding father of Neoplatonic tradition and Origen was his pupil. So that was the pure Platonic affiliation and continuity.

We have already spoken about the relations between the Logos of Apollo and Plato’s teaching. They are almost the same. Platonism is the best and most accomplished, excellent, perfect expression of the Logos of Apollo. The elaboration of Christian dogmatism reflects this cultural continuity of pre-Christian tradition and Apollonism was in the center of it. But we remark as well, in some Christian dogmas, Dionysian features. For example, there is the clear logic, pure celestial heavenly logic of Apollo in some aspects, but treating with Christology we are dealing with a Dionysian concept. Christ is the man and the God. So that is something Dionysian, something dialectical. There are two natures and one person in Christ. In the Holy Trinity, there is unity and trinity, so as well a kind of internal divine dynamic in that. And the relations of the creature and the Creator as well is something dialectic. The relations between them is not only the cause and the effect. They are intermingled. The God is present inside of creation and the incarnation of the Christ is the most important moment of the history of creation according to Christian doctrine, and that is Dionysian element that is embedded in the Christian dogmatic teaching. As well, Dionysian, Christ dies, resurrects, comes down to Hell to liberate the ancestors. He comes down and comes up and there is ascension in the Christian holidays and the saint moments, so He rises from the death and He still continues to go to the Heaven after that, after staying 40 days with the apostles. So there is pure Dionysian cycle. He comes down from Heaven to the earth. He dies and comes to the center of Hell. He destroys and wins the Hell. And after he liberates the saint souls of the ancestors and everybody goes to the common general resurrection with Christ, in the Easter, in this ascension moment, Christ returns to the Heaven, being the Son of God and ruling in the Heaven. So any aspects of this Christian narrative are purely Dionysian concerning Christ and purely Apollonian concerning the basic structure of the world which all these events are put in.

But what kind of Dionysian logic do we have? We have already said that in Indo-European tradition, the point of Dionysus is not exactly in the center between the Logos of Apollo and the Logos of Cybele. It is rather a bit higher than this dividing line. It is Apollonian reading of the figure of Dionysus and in the figure of Christ it is absolutely transparent, it’s clear. So all chtonical, all negative aspects or dialectical, nocturnal aspects in the figure of Christ are not present. So that is purified Dionysus, Apollonian Dionysus. He is pure, immaculate. He has no sin. And coming to the center of the Hell to win the Hell and His power, He still rests God and absolutely pure. We are dealing with the normative, two figures of classical Indo-European structure. That is Indo-European religion with Indo-European theology, with the pure victory of the patriarchy over the Logos of Cybele. There is no sign of Logos of Cybele in this concept. And the Holy Virgin, the Mother of God is represented as Demeter much more than purely earthly figure. It is complete purification of the female nature. She’s considered to be the head of the angels. It is the purity and virginity of the Holy Mother because she did not know the husband in the normal way, and she was bride of Holy Spirit, of God. So veneration of Holy Mother is purely Indo-European. It is the concept of the virgin, the heavenly celestial virgin and there is nothing chthonic in this image.

So all the principal figures of Christianity are Apollonian and Dionysian in the Apollonian reading of Dionysus. All these elements were present before Christianity, and not in the Semitic tradition. They were the basic concept of the Hellenistic world that was based on this alliance with Logos of Apollo with Logos of Dionysus. And in the periphery, there were some chthonic aspects in Hellenism, not dominating, but they were present as the traces of the Great Mother culture. But in Christianity there were no such things. That was the pure formula, pure version of Indo-European Logos, restored to put in its brilliance, in absolute affirmation. And that is why Christianity became the tradition of the European West. In our cultures, our people have accepted Christianity because they were Christian before the Christ. So they were prepared for this revelation that was new, that was something completely different from the past, but there was the clear structural continuity. The existential horizon of Indo-European society was the same, was prepared, and was ready to receive the good news. So that is very important. In other civilizations, it is almost impossible to explain what is the Christ. It is universal but universal figure in the context of this Apollonian Logos. If the Apollonian and Dionysian Logos is present in other civilizations they could understand Christianity but it is not always the case and we need to make serious work to prepare the other cultures, the other existential horizons to Christianity. And in Hellenistic existential horizon, everything was ready to receive Christianity. That is very important.

Christianity is not our new tradition of the last 2000 years. That was continuation of the old Indo-European tradition. This structure with triads, trinity, everything was prepared. Not exactly because with any reform of religion, of mythology, of tradition, of the church, there are new elements but nevertheless the essence was the same. As well, for example, communion was the moment when the wine becomes the blood of God and the bread becomes the body of God. That is Demeter and Dionysus, prefiguration of it. So we could see prefiguration of Christ in the Old Testament that is completely legitimate. But as well we could see as Justin philosopher, Clement of Alexandria, or Origen, a kind of prefiguration of Christian mysteries in Greek mysteries, not exactly but a prefiguration, the images, anticipation of Christianity. And we have the same tri-functional tradition as Christianity. There are priests and patriarchs, there are kings and warriors, and there are peasants. So we have in the Christian society, all three Indo-European functions. And this structure of society lasted in the pure form up to the beginning of the Modernity, up to the end of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. So, there is continuity as well in the social structure. There is continuity in Empire. There is some continuity in the rites, in the worship practice. So structurally, that was unity and continuity between pre-Christian Indo-European existential horizon and Christian existential horizon. So that is very important.

But at the same time, we see in the early Christianity, two very contradictory centers of elaboration of Christian doctrine. There is Alexandrian School and there is Antiochian School. Normally they say that everybody agrees about the philosophical and metaphysical quality of Alexandrian School founded by Saint Apostle Mark and developed by Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Tradition of the Origenism came after to the Cappadocians; to Saint Basil the Great, Saint Gregory, and the other. And that was the dogma accepted in the first three Ecumenical councils. That was the kind of victory of Alexandrian School. And the conceptual axis of it was Neoplatonism, in different form. The highest point of Christian Neoplatonism is Dionysius the Areopagite and his works. That is pure Christian Platonism; the creation of nine orders of supernatural angels, powers, and all the Christian mysteries were explained in this Platonic symbolism. So there is clear Alexandrian tradition and that is one part of Christian teaching.

There is Antiochian School that gave many heresies, (such as Arius, Nestorius, and the others) that was opposed to Alexandrian School. And they say that was a kind of Semitic spirit orientated against Greek or Indo-European spirit. Alexandrian tradition was based on the symbolical allegorical reading of the Old Testament and New Testament and that is normal for Platonism. Plato’s teaching regards everything that existed as symbol of the ideas. So everything should be read as symbolical text. Every thing, every event, every person should be regarded as an icon, as an image of the paradigm. (Hence the symbolical allegorical reading of Alexandrian School of any sacred text.) That is completely normal. And they say that in the case of the Antiochian School, that was a different approach; literal. And they say that is Semitic because it was not so much Greek with Platonism but that was historic. That was the history and that is sometimes called Judeo-Christian reading of Christianity. And we could say that Alexandrian School is Indo-European reading or Greek (Hellenistic) reading of Christianity. I thought the same before I had started to study it more closely. Because the Antiochian School was situated in Syria, Antiochia, that was considered where the main Semitic population was, it was considered to be Semitic. But starting to study the Antiochian School and the phenomenon of Judeo-Christianity that was opposed to Alexandrian School, and after writing the book on Semitic Logos (I have one volume of Noomahia dedicated to Semitic Logos, the Logos of Semites), I have discovered that that is not so.

Semitic Logos is quite different. It is based on a kind of Titanism of Baal in the pre-Judaic tradition. There was a very patriarchal version of the Eastern Semitic tradition of Akkadian and Assyrian in Babylonia that was similar to Hittite tradition or later to Iranian tradition. And there was Judaic tradition that was in some way anti-Semitic because the Judaic Logos (by traditional Judaism) was against all the people living in the Canaan (mostly Semites) with the cult of Baal, the Titanic deity that demanded bloody sacrifices of the children. And Judaism was absolutely opposed to it but not affirming something special. That was a kind of counter-identity. So the most anti-Semitic tradition historically was Jewish tradition, because that was opposed to any Semitic cultural horizon of Canaan. That was anti-Canaan in any senses. So, the Jews blamed all people living around them because they were supporters of Baal’s cult. And they opposed to them, in the early stage of Jewish tradition, something very special. We could call that ‘old God’ because the Baal was considered by the most Semitic people as ‘new God,’ a kind of lesser God that didn’t receive the heritage and has started a revolt against the ‘old God,’ So the mostly Semitic traditions, western Semitic traditions, were on the side of the new God Baal, with some Titanic Dionysian features. That was the black double of Dionysus (we have spoken about that). And the Jewish tradition was against this new God, against Baal, in favor of old God that was dethroned by Baal. But that had nothing to do with Christianity, not Baal nor old God. So Christianity was completely different.

In Antiochian School, I have found not this inter-Semitic drama of Western Semites (Assyrian, Aramean [not Jewish], and Jewish tradition) but something completely different. I have discovered there, Iranism in pure form. That was Iranistic tradition. And if we consider the late Judaism, the Judaism after Babylonian captivity (so called Second Temple Judaism), we could easily identify in that, Iranian topics. That was a kind of original Judaic tradition transformed in the Zoroastrian Iranian context. Hence the concept of Messiah that was absent in the early Judaism, the history, the salvation, and the resurrection. All that appears during Babylonian captivity, in the late stage, in the second temple Judaism. So the late Judaism was Iranized form of Judaism and not so Semitic, in Jewish (originally Jewish) or not Jewish (other Semitic people) sense. That is very important. And Antiochian tradition was much more dualistic and Iranistic as well (not Iranian but Iranistic) because Semitic people, after the Achaemenid Empire, lived, including during the Hellenistic time, under great influence of Iranian Logos. And this dualism (in Manichaeism later) had all kind of Messianic tendencies, very similar to Christianity. That was the logical result of the concept of the war of light and the appearance of, at the end of the time, the figure of the last king and the savior. All that is, in our eyes, completely Christian or Jewish (in the late Judaism) but only in Iranian tradition does all that obtain the real metaphysical and structural meaning. All Iranian metaphysics explains why (because of the history, because of the war between the light and darkness.) So the Antiochian tradition was an Iranistic school.

We have in Christianity, a kind of world between the Greek advaita, non-dualistic Platonism (in the case of the Alexandrian School that we could call mostly Greek and Platonic) and we have Iranistic, dualist, historic version of it, which is not so much symbolic but historic in the sense of Messianism. But Messianism is not Jewish. Messianism is Iranian (metaphysically Iranian). So we have a kind of discussion or debate on the new stage between two Logos, both of them Indo-European, both of them vertical, both of them patriarchal, but with different editions. So that was the dialogue not between Judaism and Hellenism. That was the dialogue between Hellenism with Greek domination, and Iranism with Iranian dominations. All that was also the part of Christianity. In Christianity, in Christian doctrine, we have two poles. We could be more Platonic or more Iranistic and Messianic. And Judeo-Christianity is not Jewish spirit. It is Iranian spirit. Judeo-Christianity is Iranistic version of reading of Christianity.

That defines all history of Christian dogmatic councils. Of the first seven councils, the first three councils were victories of Alexandrian School over Antiochian School; over Arius in the first council, over Nestorius after that, and defeat of the Antiochian tradition that was much more inclined toward dualistic version. That is why Christ wasn’t considered as God. He was considered as saint, as prophet, as the last savior, but not God, because there was a kind of difference, opposition between the material world and spiritual world. There is dualism, Nestorianism, and Arianism developed in the Antiochian Iranistic School, and spiritual Monism developed in the Alexandrian School. Both of them had heretic versions that were outside the Christian dogmatic orthodoxy. Antiochian School gave Arius and Nestorius and they were considered to be heresies. As well, the radicality of Alexandrian Platonism gave the other extremity; Monophysite heresy represented by the disciples of Cyril of Alexandria, Eutyches, and the others. So the Monophysite heresy was a kind of purely excessive Platonism (Greek version), and excessive Iranism (Nestorian version). They were heretical extremities of the legitimate orthodox point of view. The other parts of the Alexandrian School with the Cappadocians (Basil the Great, Saint Gregory, and the other Cappadocian teachers), and the other part of the Antiochian School (Saint John Chrysostom who was representative of the Antiochian School) were considered to be absolutely orthodox. So there were heretic versions and there were completely orthodox versions of both of them.

And when they say that during Justinian that Platonism and Origenism were blamed (that is the fact) and considered to be heresy, it concerns only radical parts of this Platonism. For example, it didn’t concern the teachings of Saint Basil the Great or Dionysius the Areopagite, who were accepted as orthodox authorities. Or for example, the excommunication of Nestorius didn’t affect John Chrysostom who was considered a most orthodox figure in the Orthodox Church but he was representative of this historical (not symbolical) Iranian, Iranistic version of Christian doctrine.

The first three councils were victories of the Alexandrian School and the second three were a kind of revenge of the Antiochian School. After the end of the pure Antiochian School, the Antiochian School was destroyed and defeated but the tendency to moderate this Alexandrian neoplatonic version still existed. And the next three (the 4th, 5th, and 6th ecumenical councils) were a kind of victory of the Antiochian spirit because that was moderation of the pretensions of most radical representatives of Alexandrian School. That was a kind of balance. And that was a kind of victory of the Hellenism (but this time Christian Hellenism) where the two forms of Iranian and Hellenistic, historic and non-dualist, symbolic, all were united in the context of the orthodox dogma. And the seventh Ecumenical Council was not so important concerning metaphysics. That was about iconoclasm. (That had relations to this as well but no so directly.)

So, we have in Christianity, a continuation of the Mediterranean Hellenistic existential horizon with two poles (Iranistic and Greek poles.) And that was a kind of new form or new ideology of the traditional Indo-European horizon. We could say that there was a difference regarding the woman in Christianity. We see two approaches, as well very proper to Indo-European society. On one side there is a kind of ‘anelygynia’ that I’m calling. There is recognition of the full dignity of woman and a kind of spiritual equality between man and woman in Christ. There is the saying of St. Paul that ‘there is no man, no woman but only Christ.’ So that is a recognition of the dignity of the soul of woman that is equal to the soul of man. That is a kind of partnership, friendship, traditional Turanian friendship between the female warrior and male warrior in the defense of the identity. That is female warriors and male warriors as warriors of Christ. That is spiritual equality of the souls. At the same time, there was the second relation between man and woman that was a reflection of this coming of the nomadic Indo-European over matriarchal society where there was a kind of submission of the woman to the man. That was reflected in the other sayings of St. Paul, when for example women cannot teach in church, women should be submitted to the husband, and the others. That is hierarchy and equality, both versions of gender archetypes traditionally for Indo-European society in its historic relations with the matriarchal society. There is a kind of hierarchical submission and on the other level, a kind of friendship and equality and spiritual dignity. That is a kind of best solution, a more organic and natural solution for the concrete historical society we are dealing with (not with the abstract.) In our tradition, how these horizons, spiritual and cultural spaces and civilizations were created during their historical and existential development that was the best solution that satisfied both demands of equality and hierarchy in a very concrete way. That was reflected in the Christian tradition. That was not casual. As Platonism was a reflection or expression of this Logos of Apollo, Christian tradition was an excellent and perfect reflection of this Apollonian, Dionysian style of civilization. That is the reason why we are Christians. We were not obliged to be Christians. We have accepted that as something that we knew before. That was a kind of remembrance of our identity. That is identity of Christian tradition that was recognized by the people of the Mediterranean, Hellenistic context because that was continuation of the same relations in the best way.

At the same time, we see continuity in empire because Christianity was accepted as religion and ideology of empire with Constantine the Great. There was developed a very important concept that is this time Iranian by its origin; the concept of Katehon (Greek name for 'that who supports.’ Katehon is participle of Greek word κάτω έχουν. κάτω is under, έχουν is to have.) This figure appears in the second epistle letter of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, where there is concrete phrase; ‘the son of perdition, the anti-Christ, will not come until the supporter, Katehon, (that who supports, who keeps) will be taken out of the way.' That was an enigmatic phrase. So, there is some figure that resists the coming of anti-Christ. Because there is a historical vision of Christianity, Messianic vision of Christianity, and that reflects not Platonic version of the eternity of the world, but dialectic of history that is Iranian. There appears some figure that fights against anti-Christ and that figure is key figure in the Iranian historical sequence, Iranian Logos. That is represented by the sacred emperor in Iranian tradition. In Iran, there is Iranian Kingdom and the sacred King of this Kingdom is that who fights the forces of the darkness and doesn’t let them invade the world. That is a purely Iranian figure that didn’t exist in the Greek concept. In the Greek idea, there was not such a figure. But in Roman ideology, in the Roman Empire there appears something like that, not so clearly defined, under influence of Iranian because Iranism was the part of the Hellenism and Hellenism was the main culture of the Roman Empire. That was a Latin empire. That was the Roman Empire that was based on the Hellenistic culture (we have spoken about that.) What is important is that this figure mentioned in St. Paul’s 2nd letter to Thessalonians was identified clearly by Saint John Chrysostom (as well very important because he was representative of Iranistic branch of Christian theology, of the Antiochian School) but it is clear that before him as well, was identified as the figure of Roman Emperor.

So Katehon was the Roman Emperor, the King of the Empire. And there was theology of empire linked to the eschatology - the end of time, the resurrection, and the final apostasy. All the cyclic historic vision of the Christian Church was based on this figure (above all in Byzantium but not only Byzantium). In Byzantine Empire that was dogmatic ideology of Byzantines. In Byzantine existential space, in Byzantine culture, the Katehon was Emperor but Christian Emperor. He was considered to be a kind of Bishop of the Church. So he was the key figure of the sacred King that fights against the coming of anti-Christ. And he was with the Patriarch. They made a kind of symphony (the term is from Christian Orthodox tradition), symphony of the powers. Symphony of the powers was based on the alliance between the Patriarch (the representative of the spiritual authority) and the Emperor (not normal king, nor knyaz, nor prince.) The Emperor was not only a secular ruler. The Emperor was the sacred figure of Katehon. He was linked to the historical cycle where there is empire with emperor as the head. There is no anti-Christ. We are living in the Christ’s world. So, empire obtains with emperor a new dimension. It’s not only a political organization. It is the sacred organization that is Christian, Apollonian, Dionysian (at the same time) version of organization of political reality as cosmic reality. Because the anti-Christ, the son of perdition (as in the St. Paul) is not only a historical person. It is manifestation of the darkness. It is manifestation of the cosmic, political, historical, metaphysical form. And dualism is not Christ against anti-Christ. That is completely artificial. There was not the case. Christ is God and was considered a God. He could not be put on the same level as anti-Christ. But emperor was the figure that was symmetric to anti-Christ. The Christian Emperor was the obstacle and the resistance and was a symbolic figure that united the Christian world and gave to it its vertical axis. That was a very important figure, continuing the same pre-Christian tradition.

But in Christian situation; empire, church, theology, patriarchy, dogmatic tradition, orthodoxy, all that forms the Christian Orthodox ideology as a new form of all elements that pre-existed, that existed before Christianity. That is very important. If we put together all these elements of verticality, of the Dionysian nature of Christ, of historical messianism of Iranism, and the figure of the sacred Emperor, we have in all that a full teaching that reflects not new teaching of Christianity but reflects the eternal moment of Noomahia of Indo-European society. At this time there was the figure of Satan that represented Chthonic forces or the Babylonian whore, the red Babylonian woman (Babel) that is the Great Mother in that context. That is the figure of Cybele (Babylonian, that was kind of close to Anatolia). Symbolically, we had all these Logos in Christian context. There is the scarlet woman (the great Babel, the Babylonian whore) that was a kind of figure of the Logos of Cybele. There is Satan or anti-Christ as a representation of Satan as ‘Titan.’ In some Christian texts they both were used, ‘Titan’ or ‘Satan,’ were considered to be very close. So that is a kind of serpent, dragon, dragon that is consort of the Great Mother (traditional). So they try to overthrow the Christian Empire that is under power of the spiritual figure of the Patriarch or Bishop and the sacred King Emperor. That was a reorganization of the Indo-European existential space in Christian time.

So we have a new ideology (Christian ideology), a new religion (Christian religion), and we have a very old tradition that was reflected in that. So Christianity was based on the victory over Satan. Satan was chained for a time being and put under the control of the Empire. The figure of Tsardom, Kingdom, the figure of Tsar and sacred King was a kind of seal, a kind of sigil (печат) over this victory of the Christian Church over Satan and Cybelian world. The situation was sealed with the King. So the King was seal. If we put together the seal, everything is destroyed and there is a kind of explosion because this Christian Kingdom, Christian civilization, Christian society was constructed on the prison of Satan or the shoulder of the chthonic power, controlled and domesticated and submitted by the Logos of Apollo, chained in the Hell, but always alive. And when the King or the Emperor will become too weak (the subject of classical Iranian tale), he could not resist the appearance of the anti-Christ, anti-Christ will appear and Satan will liberate (liberalism) itself from the Hell in order to come to the human society. And that was explosion of the underground or a kind of return of Cybele with dragon as scarlet woman, as Babylonian whore with the serpent that should destroy the Kingdom, destroy the Church and create a completely new civilization that belongs to other existential level.

That all was and is the normal world vision of Christian Orthodoxy. It was preserved much more in the Eastern Church. In Byzantine tradition, in Orthodoxy, it is still normal. So if we come to Mount Athos and speak with the monks (for the man it’s possible to come to Mount Athos, for women not) we could find exactly the people with the same consciousness. They will repeat exactly what I have said today and that is normative world vision of Orthodoxy; the meaning of the Katehon, the meaning of the sacred Roman Empire, the concept of the Church and God and dignity of man, a fight against evil, against Satan, against daemons. What normally the monks of Mount Athos do there is they fight. They are fighting against demons day and night. They are in fight. And that’s concrete. And if we are reading Paisios from Mount Athos, we see that the fight obtains physical dimensions as well. It is a physical fight, a struggle against the powers of darkness. It still continues in Mount Athos. It still continues in politics (we will see it later). But was is important is that we have a complete world vision with all aspects of normative laws and relations between man and nature, political laws, social laws, based on Christian teaching. So Christian teaching is not only Church, not only cult and worship. It is world vision. It includes political normative ideas. It includes a kind of Monarchism, inner, embedded. You could not be normally democrat and be Christian. You should be in some way, in that context you should recognize the validity of teaching of the Katehon. It is not a preference or political opinion that you could form basing on your own position. It is the Orthodox point of view. And that is obligatory in some way. That is Indo-European root of Christianity. As well, we have some norms, some social relations, gender relations, family relations that are normative and Christian and that reflect this complete world vision. So Christianity is much more than cult, worship, and Church. That is, we could say, ideology, or Indo-European world vision, in new and actual form that lasts still up to today. When we have Christian Church with normal traditional priests and parish and normal man, we have the same today. Today, in Russia, in Mount Athos, in Serbia, in Bulgaria, in Macedonia, in Romania, in Ukraine, in Greece where there is traditional Orthodoxy, we have the same vision, culture, and civilization.

That was as well the case for the Latin Church but with much more accent on the power of spiritual authority over Emperor. But there was, after Charles the Great, as well (in our eyes), usurpation of the identity or the status of the sacred Emperor by Charles the Great. And that was the split in Catholic tradition between Emperor and Pope of Rome. But the dominating tendency in Catholicism was much more opposition between two kingdoms, formulated in Saint Augustine who was Manichean. The idea that the Pope of Rome is representing of the spiritual is vertical as well (but once more Indo-European, everything is Indo-European). Verticality was represented by Rome and the kings were not sacred. That was the idea that the Roman sacred Pope should rule over purely secular kings. But with the institution usurped (in our eyes), by Charles the Great, that was as well the figure of Emperor. That was reflected in the Ghibelline tradition (the fight of the Guelphs against the Ghibellines in Western history). So there was as well a kind of Katehon for them. And this Katehonian Western Christian tradition lasted up to the Habsburg, up to the Austrian Empire. So the Habsburg Emperors were considered to be continuators of this Katehonian function. So, this was Austrian Empire in the Catholic version.

We didn’t recognize the status of Charles the Great. We had at the time Byzantine Empress Irene. And that was the anti-feminist move of the Catholics. They considered that the woman cannot rule a sacred Empire and that is why they have appropriated the title of the Emperor in the case of Charles the Great (Charlemagne). But at the same time, we don’t speak about who was right. We are speaking about how structurally that worked and functioned. And that concept of this sacred Emperor was certified from the beginning of the 9th century in the Emperor tradition of the Kings of Frank. And after that the Habsburg and Austrian Empire was the last moment of this Western Katehonian tradition. That was the kind of emperor line. It was not so much accepted by Popes of Rome but what is interesting is that it was nevertheless recognized by Catholics and by Guelphs as well (with not such interpretation as in the case of Ghibellines). Guelphs (the partisans of the absolute power of the Pope of Rome over secular Kings of Western Europe), in their tradition, recognized the status of the Emperor as a Katehonian figure (not so clearly, but recognized). So that was interesting that the Western Church as well recognized that.

So we had two versions of Christian civilizations - Eastern that is closer to the original version, with all the proportions conserved up to now. That was a kind of uninterrupted tradition of this Indo-European heritage coming to Christianity from Hellenism as I have explained, and fixed in the form of seven Ecumenical Councils. And there was much more, I would say, contradictory Western Christian tradition but in the same limits. And Catholicism has conserved that almost up to the Second Vatican Council. After that began a kind of collapse of Western Christianity. But nevertheless there was a kind of a continuation of tradition. So Catholicism and Austrian Empire were two forces of this Christian conservatism, of this middle ages tradition of Western Europe.

The collapse came with Protestantism. Protestantism was the third form. That concerned only Western Christianity. In order to think about Protestantism, this third branch of Christianity, we need to put ourselves not with the context of Orthodox against Catholic but Catholic against something else (so take Orthodox out of the picture. They didn’t participate in anything in that conflict). It is interesting that at the origins of the Protestantism, we could find very very correct ideas. First of all, there is the idea that the Roman Church is totally corrupted and has usurped relations between the man and Christ. That was reflected in the concept of what is the Church in Catholicism. For Catholics, the Church is the community of the priests. And what are the other Christians? They are semi, quasi, almost-Christians. They were a kind of outside circle around the Church and not inside the Church. That is very very important. For us, it’s strange because the dogmatic Orthodox understanding of what is Church is that it is the community of all baptized people. So not only priests but as well any Christians. Church is the community of the baptized Christians, not only priests. Catholic tradition was quite different. There was a kind of hierarchy but in a spiritual sense. There was a hierarchy that interrupted direct relations between man, the ordinary Christian with God that should pass through priests and through the Pope of Rome. That was a kind of intermediary obstacle. Maybe that was necessary, maybe not. We don’t speak about good or bad. We try to understand or describe it structurally. But nevertheless there was a kind of interruption between the relations of man and God.

The early Protestants, and above all, the German mystics (Meister Eckhart, Heinrich Seuse, and at a lesser scale Albertus Magnus) affirmed that there should be inner relation between the heart of the man with the Christ. It should not pass through exterior relations. For us there is no problem because in Orthodox tradition we recognize both. We recognize completely the authority of the Church and completely this direct relationship because we have the other concept of the Church. For us, the problem could not exist because we could not understand that. In our situation, there is no split. There are both. We have both ways - inner and outer. But for Western Christian tradition, there was a problem. And the first pre-Protestant mystics said ‘good, let us accept the outer exterior form but let us proceed in an inner way.’ And they were Platonic because they said that we have the direct relations with God and God could speak inside of us and that is our inner dimension. So they were purely Christian. In our situation they were closer to Orthodox in some ways. There were excesses, as well, of Platonism. For example, Meister Eckhart said that there is something beyond the Trinity, unity beyond the Trinity. That is not too much Orthodox. But nevertheless the main idea was so. This radical subject concept, the concept of the inner self that is living in the heart, and the ‘inner Christ’ as they called it was at the origin of Protestantism (in Wycliffe, Hussites, Czechs, German mystics). So that was legitimate up to some point.

But when they tried to oppose this teaching with Luther and Calvin to Catholic tradition they had lost the tradition itself. They have lost icons, monks, monasteries, and Church as such. Trying to clear the direct access from man to God, they destroyed the sacredness. And they took what we could call radical subject (the inner self that is living inside of our soul) and replaced that with normal individuality, with profane individuality. So that was a kind of religious individualism instead of this mystical dimension. Because when Protestantism began to expand itself, it appealed to the masses that could not have this special inner experience. And that was full perversion. That was destruction of Christianity. Because from the legitimate starting point of the early Protestantism or maybe pre-Protestant mysticism of Wycliffe or European Platonists, that was a kind of destruction of the traditional Catholic society. And that was Titanic.

There is an inner self that is divine. But if we affirm not this radical interiority, where in the center of our heart Christ lives, and shift to the exterior aspect instead of the real subject (radical subject), we are receiving positive subject. This is not the third man in the mystical language of Johannes Tauler. He has said there are three men in one of us. There is the man as beast (that is exterior), the rational man (second man), and there is hidden mysterious secret man inside of us (that is radical subject) and it is he who has relations with God. It is mystery man (third man) inside of us, inside of inside. It is not only inside of body but inside of the soul. It is the mysterious point that is hidden in our mind. This third man and second man (rational man) are not the same. They are in opposition. And the first mystics defended this third man (hidden secret mystery man). And normal Protestantism made a shift from the third man to the second man. They affirmed the dignity of something that shouldn’t have such dignity because there is no possible direct relation between second man (rational man, positive subject) and God. It should always have some intermediary. Direct relation is impossible. And the pretension to have such relation is purely titanic.

So that was transformation of the Logos in that. In the early Protestantism was a kind of legitimate claim to have relations between third man (hidden man inside of us) and God. And in the normal, profane Protestantism there was a completely different approach. That was fatal and that was the destruction of traditional society because of this titanism appearing in Lutheran teaching but above all in Calvinism. Calvinism is much worse than Lutheranism. Calvinism is radical absence of any sacredness in the world. It is glorification of the second man as the only one. It is profane and destruction of sacredness. That was the premise for the occasion of Modern post-Christian civilization. Protestantism was the break in the great wall of Christian civilization. That was the destruction of Western Christian tradition.

In order to prepare for the next lecture about Noological analysis of Modernity, we could make a very short analysis of what is dechristianization of modern society. That was destruction of Logos of Apollo and Logos of Dionysus. That was destruction of Indo-European heritage. That was not only an exchange or replacement of one religion (Christian religion) by secular version. That was a catastrophe that is much deeper than only the fall of Christianity. That was the fall of the Logos that was ours before Christianity. That was destruction of all form of verticality. That was the real coming of anti-Christ, liberation of Satan from the chains of Hell, and eruption, intervention, invasion of Titanic power in existential horizon of European culture. So now we could evaluate what was done with Protestantism and dechristianization. So that is new moment of Noomahia because Noomahia had the same moment (the victory of the Logos of Apollo with the Logos of Dionysus against the Logos of Cybele.) That was the beginning of our civilization. That was the first chart. That was the first basic event. That was a kind of reign. We lived during thousands of years, basing on this moment of Noomahia, having contradictory existential horizons inside of our society, but lived in the victory of light over darkness. And that didn’t begin with Christianity. That continued with Christianity. We were happy during many thousands of years, being the sons of the light to live in the kingdom of light, with all the problems, with all the dramatic aspects, all the Dionysian aspects, dying, resurrecting, being destroyed and winning anew our Noomahia, our battles. With the dechristianization came something absolutely radical from a Noological and geosophical point of view. We are going to see what in the next lecture.

video: https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/studio/introduction-noomahia-lecture-7-christian-logos

italian translation