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Chapter 7. Christianity
The image of the future revealed in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke [Евангелия от Матфея, Марка и Луки] resemble in broad outline [в общих чертах] the Jewish utopia [еврейскую утопию], to which Jésus places the crowning touch [???]. Although the teachings of Jésus are concerned with [связаны с] future salvation in a re-created earth, and give less
emphasis to a transcendental salvation than did the Jews [и ставят меньший, нежели евреи, акцент на трансцендентное спасение]. His appearance
does not represent a breach in time, but rather a high point in
the development of Israël [но скорее высокую точку в развитии Израиля]. The disciple Paul was the first to try to
interpret the arrivai of Jésus as a breach in history [Апостол Павел первым попытавшимся интерпретировать пришествие Христа как разрыв в истории]. In doing so he
encouraged the transcendentalizing of the image of the future [При этом он потворствовал транцендентализации образа будущего], as we
see both in his epistles [посланиях] and in the fourth Gospel [и в четвертом Евангелии]. But a return to the Jewish prophetic-apocalyptic [пророчески-апокалиптический] image of the future is unmistakable [несомненно] in the Révélation of John [Откровении Иоанна].
Ail of the Gospels are rooted in the Judaic matrix [Все Евангелия укоренены в иудейской матрице], and Jésus, the
сircumcised [обрезанный], is in spirit a typical Old Testament figure [по духу есть типично Ветхозаветная фигура]. He considered
Himself, and was considered by His disciples, the Messiah of Jewish
prophecy—Immanuel, the long-awaited Son of David, the King of the
Jews, the Son of Man, the Christ [Он считал Себя, и рассматривался своими учениками как Мошиах еврейского пророчества – Иммануилом, долгожданным Сыном Давида, Царем Евреев, Сыном Человеческим, Помазанником]. Both Jésus and His disciples knew
the books of the Covenant intimately [И Иисус, и его апостолы близко знали книги Завета]. At the beginning, Jésus
founded a new Jewish sect [Вначале Иисус основалновую еврейскую секту], and directed [направил, адресовал] most of His teaching to His
fellow Jews. He was accustomed [привык, приучен] to attending synagogue on the
Sabbath [посещать синагогу в субботу], and His first preaching took place in the synagogues of
Galilée and Nazareth [Его первая проповедь состоялась в синагогах Галилеи и Назарета]. The early Christian communitites [христианские общины] were, in fact,
patterned after the synagogue [по образцу синагоги]. Christian teachings were spread
abroad largely through the Jewish diaspora [через еврейскую диаспору], and the language of
Jésus, especially in His use of images [особенно используемых Им образов], is very consciously the language of the Jewish prophets [совершенно намеренно является языком еврейских пророков]. If Jésus can only be understood as a link in
the chain of succession [звено в цепи преемственности] from the Jewish prophets, whom He de-
scribed as the "key of knowledge,'" the same must be true of the
image of the future that was central to His teachings [то же должно быть верно и для образов будущего, что были центральными в Его учении].
The God of Jésus is unquestionably [несомненно] the One God, the Other God
of the Jewish Covenant [Иной Бог еврейского Завета]. The multitude [массы], beholding His miracles [видя его чудеса],
"glorifîed the God of Israël." [славили Бога Израиля] 2 But with Jésus a new and gentler [более мягкий]
Covenant, proclaimed [объявленным, возвещенным] by the prophets, has been introduced. The
Other God undergoes a further change [претерпевает дальнейшие изменения]. The accent is the love of God
and love toward God [любовь к Богу]: "You shall love the Lord your God with ail
your heart, and with ail your soûl, and with ail your mind. This is the
great and first commandment." [Вы должны возлюбить Господа Бога вашего всем своим сердцем, всей душой вашей и всем своим разумением]3 Unconditional obedience [Безусловное подчинение] is not
absent [не отсутствует] ("Thy will be done" [Да будет воля Твоя]), but the relationship of God to His
people is more that of a generous [щедрый] and loving father to His children.
The sparseness of references [редкость упоминаний] by Jésus to the nature of the Kingdom
He proclaimed may be explained by the fact that the people of
His time understood so well what He meant that no explanations
were necessary—the Kingdom proclaimed was basically the then current [был в основном далее развивающийся]
Jewish image of the future. This implies that for Jésus the
divine Kingdom of the future must hâve had the same strongly
utopian characteristics as the Jewish prophecies [те же сильно-утопические характеристики, что и в еврейских пророчествах].
A few words should be said about "Kingdom of God" [Царство Божие] and "Kingdom
of Heaven." [Царство Небесное] Matthew always refers to the Kingdom of Heaven,
which could be misunderstood as excluding the Kingdom of God on
earth [Матфей всегда ссылается на Царство Небесное, которое может быть неверно понято как исключающее Царство Бога на земле]. The Jews, however, avoided using the direct word for God [евреи, однако, избегали использовать непосредственное слово для Бога],
and often replaced it with the spatial circumlocution "heaven," [часто заменяли его пространственным иносказанием «небеса»]
where the throne of God was supposed to reside [где, предполагалось, базировался Божий престол], as in "The Lord is
in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven." [Господь во святом храме, престол Господа – на небесах]4 This did not
mean that His Kingdom was only in heaven. Even Paul, who tended
to spiritualize [имел склонность «одухотворять»] the teachings of Jésus, speaks of Him as delivering [говорил о Нем как доставляющем] "the
Kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every
authority and power," [Царства Бога Отца после уничтожения всякого начальства, власти и силы]5
Jésus translates some of His own symbolism as referring spatially
to this world [Иисус расшифровывает некоторые из Его собственных символов как относящихся пространственно к этому миру]. He explains the parable of the weeds in the field [притчу о плевелах на поле] by
calling the field the world, the good seed the sons of the Kingdom [хорошие семена как сыновые Царства],
the harvest the end of the world [жатву как конец мира], and the reapers the angels [жнецов какангелов]. It is not
to be wondered [Неудивительно], then, that Jésus compares the Kingdom of God to a
wedding feast [свадебный пир], a pearl [жемчужина], a vineyard [виноградник], or a field [поле], nor that at the Last Supper [на Тайной вечере] He foretelîs [предсказывает] that "I shall not.drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the Kingdom of God." [Я не буду пить от плода виноградного до того для, когда буду пить его вновь в Царстве Божьем]6
Jésus was not an ascetic [Иисусне был аскетом]. Nothing human was strange to Him [Ничто человеческое не было ему чуждо].
Whoever leaves house and field for His sake will be repaid a hundredfold
in houses and fields [Кто оставит дом и поле ради Него будет вознагражден домами и полями стократно]. Thèse things are not surprising when
considered in the context of the Jewish image of the future, which
speaks of material abundance side by side with spiritual perfection [которая говорит о материальном изобилии бок о бок с духовным совершенством].
No later interprétations or conflicting texts can erase the fact that
Jésus thought the Kingdom was coming very soon [Никакие позднейшие интерпретации и противоречащие тексты не могут стереть того факта, что Иисус считал, что Царство наступит очень скоро]. The Jewish
prophecies and the apocalypses also contain this idea, but in the
teachings of Jésus it acquires urgency and tangibility. When He sends
His disciples to preach the Kingdom to the lost sheep of the House of
Israël, He tells them that the Son of Man will corne even before they
hâve gone to ail the cities of Israël and returned again. Jésus drastically
shortened the time-span between présent and future; everything
points to a fast-approaching climax.
The image of man as seen through the teachings of Jésus is the
mirroring of Christ's image of God: "You, therefore, must be perfect,
as your heavenly Father is perfect."7 Onîy a holy man is fit for
the new Covenant with the holy God. In principle this was true
under the old Covenant too, but the concept of holiness has changed.
Jésus requires more than a yearning after the great moment. No
prophet or teacher ever demanded so much activity or set such high
goals for men to fulfill before they could be accounted worthy to
enter into the Kingdom. Beyond deeds, Jésus makes clear that the
God of love asks love from man. Repentance and conversion, the
unreserved, passionate turning or returning to God are basic in the
new view.
It is in His teachings about the relationship between man and man,
however, that Jésus most clearly defines His utopia. The "reversai of
the signs"—of minus into plus, of plus into minus—the turning upside
down of ail the usual social behaviors, is so radical and complète that
religious scholarship has bent ail its efforts through the âges to blur
the openly utopian character of thèse teachings and blunt their
impact by transferring them to the realm of eschatology. The teachings
of Jésus are startling because He inverts everyday assumptions
and thus shows them in a completely new light. Man must learn to
think and act in an entirely différent way, as if he lived in another
world. He must love his neighbor as himself, and treat every man,
6 Mark 14:25.
7 Matt. 5:48.
including the enemy, as a brother. He must give, lend, and ask
nothing in retum. He must be merciful and judge not. The requirement
is perfection in love, forgiveness, justice, and piety.
Jésus travels the road first taken by the prophets of Israël to its
ultimate destination, utopia. His concern, too, is for the humble and
the oppressed, and it is above ail among them that He finds true
dévotion. Preaching good news to the poor, Jésus émerges as the
great revolutionary, as différences of class and condition fall away.
Before God ail men are equal, the children of one Father. Jésus
stresses in a new way the old Jewish proverb that God "makes his
sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and
on the unjust."8
Christ preached the brotherhood of man and the community of
possessions as it would be practiced by the first Christian collectives.
The feeding of the five thousand becomes the model of sharing. As a
social idealist and utopist He had no equal. He was concerned also
with the exercise of human power of man over man: "Blessed are the
meek, for they shall inherit the earth."9 And again they wLfl inherit
it by a reversai of the usual behavior; instead of the armed rébellion
practiced by the Zealots, Jésus preaches the opposing of violence by
nonviolence. Passive obédience to the temporal authorities (incarnation
of the Evil One) who placed an image of the Emperor in the
imageless temple of Jehovah, was far more effective than open
rébellion and disobedience. Pontius Pilate sensed this. Hère indeed
was "truth."
For a place in the Kingdom man must stake nothing less than his
whole life. The puzzling text "From the days of John the Baptist
until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of
violence take it by force,"1 ° makes sensé in terms of this concept of
strenuous exertions on behalf of the Kingdom. No man is exempt
from the responsibility to take up his own task and follow in the
path of revolutionary leaders like John the Baptist and Jésus Himself.
Jésus complètes and perfects the indirect influence-optimism of the
Jewish image of the future, the unshakable faith in God coupled with
invincible human détermination. He who asks will receive, he who
seeks will find, and he who knocks will find the door opening.
8 Matt. 5:45.
9 Matt. 5:5.
10 Matt. 11:12
Transcendence in the Image of the Future
In the New Testament we see the same process of transcendence
and spiritualization taking place in the image of the future as was
observed in the Old Testament. The Gospel of John and the Epistles
of Paul provide the main supports. Jésus no longer recognized the
authority of dogma laid down by the Jewish priesthood. Christology
and the cuit of the church were, of course, developed well after His
time, as His simple teachings were interpreted and elaborated. Avoiding
as far as possible the theological problems of Pauline and other
interprétations, we will confine ourselves to a few observations
directly pertinent to our thème.
Paul systematically went about separating the teachings of Jésus
from their Jewish antécédents. Most of his Epistles reflect this,
particularly those to the Romans and the Hebrews. He sets Jésus
above Moses, for Christ is the end of the law.1 ' He is the new priest
of the new Covenant: "... Christ has obtained a ministry which is as
much more excellent than the old as the covenant he médiates is
better, since it is enacted on better premises. For if that first
covenant had been faultless, there would hâve been no occasion for a
second.'" 2 Jésus, then, is the caesura between Judaism and Christianity.
For Jésus the Kingdom of God is central, but for Paul, Christ and
the Kingdom of Christ stand central. Jésus taught the triptych of
repentance-conversion-forgiveness, but Paul taught that of sufferingresurrection-
redemption. Paul provides the point of departure for a
Christology that overlays and eventually stifles the Judaic image of
the future. For Paul the new order has already arrived with the
appearance of Jésus. He who lives in Christ is already another man,
even under the présent earthly dispensation.1 3 With Paul, the future
passes into the background. Already, in accepting Jésus, man cornes
to fullness of life in Him.1 4 The proximity of the time has been
exchanged for the proximity of the person.
Along with the emphasis on the person of Christ comes the
doctrine of original sin. Committed by one man and visited upon ail,
it is now taken away by one man for the sake of ail. The first Adam
was of the dust, the second Adam is of heaven.15 This doctrine
" Rom. 10:4.
12 Heb. 8:6,7.
13 2 Cor. 5:17.
14 2 Cor. 2:10.
15 1 Cor. 15:45-7.
strengthens the concern for saivation and weakens the individual will
to action. To live in Christ through baptism and to be crucified with
Christ in the flesh gives a new life now, immediately, and a promise
of résurrection with Christ and eternal life after death. The emphasis
on life after death is in deliberate contrast to Jewish agnosticism on
this point. Saivation of the human spirit from its earthly chains, or
immortality, becomes of more importance than saivation from suffering
on earth. When the Kingdom cornes it will be by the hand of
God, and not as a resuit of man's striving. Good works, retained by
Jésus from the Jewish tradition, make way for faith and grâce. Paul's
influence-pessimism leads directly to the Augustinian teachings of
prédestination.
Is the Kingdom of God to come on earth? The Kingdom of God,
says Paul, does not mean food and drink, but righteousness and
peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.16 Flesh and blood cannot inherit
the kingdom of God.1 7 Little is said about the signs of an earthly
advent. The tendrils from the vine of Jewish prophecy that were
entwined in the teachings of Jésus begin to wither a way.
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of
things not seen."1 s Again and again the early Christians are told to
persévère in hope. Had Paul perhaps grown wiser through the unrealized
expectations of Jésus for the near future? Was he himself
disappointed over the Second Coming that never came? In his
Second Epistle to the Thessalonians he tries to quiet the rising
excitement over the Coming, but nevertheless still writes as one who
in principle shares thèse expectations.19 Four or five years later,20
thèse expectations are still very real to him. He writes with urgency
to the Corinthians not to waste time in dealing with matters of this
world, for "the appointed time has grown very short... the form of
this world is passing away."2 ' The tone of one of his last letters,
written to the Ephesians, is very différent. Expectations of an imminent
Coming are not even mentioned, and the letter is full of
16 Rom. 14:17.
17 1 Cor. 15:50.
18 Heb, 11:1.
19 2Thess. 2:1,2.
20 The chronology of the épis Lies is not the same as their order of appearance in
the New Testament. Thus, the Epistle to the Thessalonians cornes first
historically, probably written in 52 A.D. The first Epistie to the Corinthians has
been dated at approximately 56 or 57 A.D., and the Epistle to the Ephesians at
62 or 63 A.D.
21 1 Cor. 7:29—31.
long-range advice concerning how the Christians ought to conduct
themselves on earth.
Is Paul then no longer primarily concerned with the future? This
can certainly not be said. "One thîng I do," he writes to the
Philippians, "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to
what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal."7 2 The goal, however,
has shifted its focus from earth to heaven.
While Paul is passionate enough in his zeal for the Kingdom, his
view of man's rôle in determining his own destiny and bringing about
this Kingdom is passive to an extent that later opened the way for
the development of Quietism. The heroic, revolutionary, and utopian
ethic sinks gradually to the level of a comfortable middle-class
outlook on life. The utopta of Jésus makes way for the nonworldly
eschatology of Christ. This Une of development is drawn even more
sharply in the Gospel of John. Not only does Christology become
increasingîy the central focus of the teaching, but other éléments are
added through Hellenistic influences. One can now speak of the
Christ-mysteries and the /ogos-metaphysics.
Jésus is no longer primarily the Prophet who announces the
renewal of human society on earth, but rather the-.Redeemer. It
follows that the center of gravity of the future shifts into the past
(the time of Jésus), with a corresponding emphasis on the life of the
présent as rooted in history. This régression is pointed up by the fact
that the Kingdom of God is only mentioned twice in the entire
Gospel of St. John. Its earthly aspect, as well as the idea of a coming
breach in time, hâve been completely sublimated. The well-known
text "My kingdom is not of this world"23 has, moreover, been
further narrowed by the interprétation "My kingdom is not for this
world." The net resuit is that the eschatological expectation of a
cosmic re-creation at the end of time, already stripped of its utopian
content, becomes a spiritually empty expectation. The realm now
referred to is not a new order, but is rather the eternally existing
divine order. Both the utopian expectations for the future, and the
eschatological ones, welded together by Jésus, are seriousîy weakened
hereby. Jésus, Prophet of the future, has, according to this
Gospel, prophesied Himself. For this reason John is able to portray
Jésus as saying "I hâve overcome the world" in the past tense. The
Jésus of John does not cry out on the cross the messianic lacération,
"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me," but breathes the
22 Phil. 3:13, 14.
23 John 18:36.
serene words of fulfillment, "It is finished." The great overturning
has already taken place; the kairos is behind us.
We may ask of John, as of Paul: Is he no longer concerned with
the future? Again, this can not be said. John's mysticism, however,
no longer has a cosmic, but rather an individuai, focus. Expectations
for the future bec orne concentrated on the individuai soûl and on the
ecclesiastical community, to which the coming spirit of truth wiil
reveal ail things. This is a thought which will find its completion in
St. Augustine. The later church sacrament of partaking in the mystical
body of Christ is suggested hère: "He who eats my flesh and
drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last
day."24 The symbolic body of Christ thus cornes to obscure His
actual reign. The radical ethics and social utopism of the Sermon on
the Mount are no longer visible.
Perhaps the fate of the image of the future would hâve been sealed
for once and for ail, if it h ad not flamed up with renewed intensity in
the Book of Révélation, that much-disputed last book of the New
Testament which after a long struggle was finally accepted into the
canon. Révélation, generally assumed to be of the same date as the
earliest gospel writings, is probably a Jewish apocalypse in a Christian
adaptation.2 5
Written in esoteric language, the révélations in this book of St.
John the Divine parallel the traditional apocalypse. The descriptions,
with many quotations from the prophets of coming catastrophes, are
also true to the tradition of "blessings through doom." Hère they are
related both to the battie with the Antichrist (the dragon with seven
heads) and to the struggle with Rome (represented as Babylon, the
mother of harlots, and also as the Great Beast).
What is unique in Révélation, however, is the remarkable synthesis
between Jewish and Christian delineations. The first four chapters,
with the seven letters to the seven churches, and the final admonition
in Chapter 22, form the Christian framework. In between stands
Jewish mythology with Christian interpolations, They do not always
form a harmonious whole. The threads of two différent conceptions
of the Messiah seem to run right through the book; one is the Jewish
vision of "he who is stiîl to corne," the other is the Christian image
of "he who has corne." The first is a portent, a woman with child
(Israël), "clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on
24 John 14:2-7; 12:32.
2 5 This is also presumed by some scholars to be true of such pseudoepigraphic
writings as the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Sibylline Oracles.
her hand a crown of twelve stars."2 6 The second, which has already
appeared, is the Lamb. It is the Lamb that is meant in the repeated
call for return, mara natha, Corne, Lord Jésus; and in the repeated
affirmation, "I am coming soon."2 7
ïn addition to the image of a return at the end of time to earthly
paradise, Révélation contains an analogous expectation of a utopian
intermediary stage, which will provide a foretaste of eternal bliss: the
Thousand Years' Reign of peace during which Satan will be seized
and chained, finally to be released and thrown into the pool of fire
with the people of Gog and Magog at the time of the Last Judgment.
This divine intérim, with its first judgment and first résurrection,
was what most captured the fascinated attention of believers as
coming first and soon. The final end was much more remote. The
Révélation of St. John thus became a continuing source of inspiration
for ail later chiliastic and adventist movements. It was the
smoldering fire that blazed forth again and again, particularly in the
Middle Ages, in fiery expectations for an imminent earthly Coming.
The Christian Image of the Future
To speak of the Christian image of the future, as we hâve spoken
of the Jewish image of the future, is impossible. There are several
Christian images of the future, differing in character and influence.
At two extrêmes stand the Gospel according to St. John, with its
strongly Hellenistic orientation, and the Révélation of St. John, with
its intensely Jewish strain. In the first, the horizon of the future does
not extend far beyond individual salvation and the Christian community,
and this Gospel becomes the bastion of the established
Church. In the second the horizon expands to include both the
descent of God's Kingdom to earth and the Thousand Years' Realm
which is to précède it; Révélation thus provides authoritative support
for the more dynamic sects.
In the exegesis of the New Testament, according to the point of
view, either the Gospel of St. John or Révélation is devalued. It is
not possible to do this with the teaching of Jésus in the Synoptic
Gospels. Instead, His teachings are skillfully shunted aside by reclothing
the rebellious Jésus, who turned the world upside down, in
the garments of Christology. Thus Jésus the violent revolutionary, as
26 Rev. 11:15 — 12:17.
2 7 Rev. 22:7, 20.
described by Flavius Josephus, is hidden behind the mystical mask of
the Christ.
Paul, whose position lies midway between the two extrêmes,
makes the best of both worlds. He is indeed the first Jewish-Christian
theologian. His theology, however, contains the éléments which in
their further development will undermine Jesus's image of the future,
both in its utopian and eschatological aspects. But not yet. Not in
the time of the earliest Christians, when the visions of Jésus and Paul
evoked the spiritual transports of martyrs and saints, the potent
witness of the Christians of the catacombs.
Such is the propulsive power of thèse images that it brings about a
new era, in which ail the signs are reversed again: a time in which the
church can daim to incarnate the Kingdom of Christ on earth,
whereas Jésus Himself had inveighed strongly against the Jewish
tendency toward ecclesiasticism; a time in which the Roman Empire
is granted the attribute of divinity as the Holy Roman Empire,
whereas the teachings of Jésus contained a libération from temporal
power and the Book of Révélation had directly attacked Rome. So
phénoménal was this original power that the centuries-long process
of watering down the core of the image of the future that Jésus
evoked has to ail appearances not damaged the future of Western
Christianity. To ail appearances!
When Nietzsche flung his fell accusation at the world, "There was in
fact only one Christian, and he died on the cross," it was, in a certain
sensé, an understatement. After Christ's bodily death on the cross
His own disciples executed him once more spiritually.
At first it was Jésus, the Nazarene, that was preached. On the road
to Damascus Jésus transformed Saul into Paul—and then Paul in his
turn transformed Jésus into Christ. Jésus, the mortal man, had His
share of human imperfections and failings. During thirty years He
grew toward his inescapable future, into the Christ sent by God.
Later the picture is reversed, and the eternal Christ, infallible, divine,
and omniscient, becomes the predestined and metaphysical Jésus,
appearing on earth in the flesh. In the first centuries baptism was
done in the name of Jésus; after the Council of Arles in 314, it was
performed in the name of the Trinity. The hope is no longer for a
return of Jésus in the flesh, but for a return of Christ in the spirit.
The gospel, the Glad Tidings of Jésus, is painfully compressed in the
transition, and possibly in the long run doomed to death.
The Jewish image of the future has managed to survive throughout
centuries of historical ups and downs and even of fundamental
altérations in structure, with its power and elasticity unbroken and
its core basically unharmed, or perhaps even better adapted and
strengthened. Christianity, on the other hand, we will see undergoing
serious crisis after a history of less than two thousand years. First it
purtfied itself of Jewish and apocalyptic utopism and then tried to
rid itself of synoptic and mythical eschatology. The resulting crisis
would hâve dangerous conséquences both for the Christian faith and
for the foundations of our culture.
Chapter 8. The Real m of the Future in the Middle
Ages
The passage of more than a thousancl years from the first beginnings
of Christianity through the Middle Ages encompasses a variety
of developments which defy brief description. Even when the Middle
Ages are viewed as a structurally unified cultural period, great contrasts
présent themselves. It is a period of growth from immaturity to
overripeness, from grossness to refinement. The contrasts ail stem
from the basically split nature of the era. The very term Middle Ages,
the idea of a média tempestas, cornes from an outdated classification,
product of the humanistic Protestant image of the future that divides
historical time into antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modem times.1
The Middle Ages are clearly stamped with Roman Catholicism, a fact
that prédisposes to oversensitivity on the one hand and undervaluation
on the other.
One or another of the preceding facts may in part account for the
scant attention that médiéval images of the future hâve received. The
gap cannot be closed hère, but we do wish to stress that this period
forms an indispensable link in the historical chain of ideas concerning
the future and to summarize certain aspects of the era:
1. Any évaluation of the Middle Ages as a static period is unjust.
On the contrary, it was a dynamic epoch with its own spécial
picture-gallery of the future.
2. The expectation of the coming Kingdom of God is central to
1 Most historians of utopism pass lîghtly over the Middie Ages or ignore it
entirely, jumping nearly two thousand years from Plato to More. W. J. Aalders in
his Toekomstbeetden van vijf eeuwen (Images of the Future of Five Centuries)
(Groningen: J. B. Wolters, 1939), deals almost exclusively with modem times.
médiéval thought, though thèse expectations underwent remarkable
undulations, with alternations of tension and relaxation. Irreconcilable
views of the relationship between man and the world, man and
the church, and man and God existed side by side.
3. It is the médiéval images of the future that carry the Hellenistic-
Persian-Jewish-Christian héritage over into Western culture. Thèse
projections become the building blocks of the new postmedieval
culture.
4. In counterpart to the aforementioned continuity is a dialectic
which carries the potential of the dissolution of médiéval images of
the future. The same images that represented a religious intégration
of transcendent and eschatologicai points of view gave rise to the
later areligious or even antireîigious humanist and socialist images of
the future. Through its images, the Middle Ages begot not only the
Reformation but the Renaissance and even the Révolution, as well as
the later romantic Neomedievalism.
In order to gain [получит] a comprehensive grasp [всеобъемлющее понимание] of the image of the future
of the Middle Ages, we will limit ourselves to the study of only two
outstanding, partly parallel lines of development, which are médiéval
extrapolations of biblical images already described [средневековые экстраполяции уже рассмотренных библейских образов]. One image stems
from [вытекает из] the Apostle Paul and the Gospel according to St. John [Евангелие от Иоанна] blended
with [смешанный с] a Gospel-like evangelism [???] and Hellenistic ideas. The other has the
Book of Révélation [Книга Откровения] as its Magna Carta [Великая хартия вольностей], blending Jewish and Persian
influences [сочетая в себе иудейские и персидские влияния]. Two independent images of the future are finally crystallized.
In the first, the thread moves from this world toward the
Other [нить ведет из этого мира в Иной]; through the image, the world is remade and raised to heaven.
In the second, the thread moves toward this world from the Other [нить ведет к этому миру из Иного];
through the image, heaven spreads like a tent over earth [рай, небеса простираются над землей как шатер, куща???]. The first
represents an increasing spiritualization, the second an increasing
materîalization [первый представляет собой растущую спиритуализацию, второй – растущую материализацию].
Related to this différence of transcendence versus immanence is
another, more profound distinction [С этим различением трансцендентного и имманентного соотносится иное, более глубокое различение]. In the first image the tone is
deterministic [детерменистическая тональность]; history is preordained [предопределена], and the rôle allotted [выделенная, предназначенная] to man a
passive one. In the second, history is liable [подлежит, пожвержена] to change through the
application of human power, and man's rôle becomes active. It
would not yet be entirely accurate to apply the labels of eschatology
and utopia [Однако все же применять маркеры “эсхатология” и “утопия” не было бы до конца правильно]. Despite the essential différence between thèse two
images of the future, each contains a combination of both eschatologicai
and utopian éléments. Nevertheless, in one the accent [акцент] is on
eschatology, in the other it falls on utopia. The Middle Ages demonstrate
that the current conflict [теперешнее противоречие] between utopia and eschatology does
not exist in logic and has not always existed in reality [не существует логически и не всегда существовал эмпирически].
Spiritualization [Спиритуализация, одухотворение]
Spiritualization is not a natural process [естественный процесс] but an artifact of scholars
and metaphysicians [атефакт ученых и метафизиков]. In the Middle Ages the Kingdom of God is
spiritualized through the successive opérations [последовательные операции] of a small intellectual
élite of theologians, ecclesiastics, and mystics [теологов, церковников и мистиков]. Three aspects of this process of reshaping [преобразования] the image of the future can be observed in the
church, the world, and the realm of the spirit [в духовной сфере].
The Church
Ideas and concepts from gnostic and neoplatonic [гностической и неоплатонической] philosophies
were introduced by the earliest Christian teachers and skillfully
woven [умело вплетены] into the teachings of Paul and John to produce the so-called
eclectic /o^os-mysticism [эклектический мистицизм логоса]. Some of thèse teachers were sainted [причислены к лику святых], others
were declared heretic [объявлены еретиками]. The distinction between saint and heretic,
which tends to become fluid with time's passage [имеет тенденцию изменяться с течением времени], is not always
relevant [имеющий значение, уместный] in assessing [оценке] the influence of the ideas involved, either on
their contemporaries or on posterity [равным образом на современников и на потомков]. Church fathers [отцы церкви] sometimes proclaimed
false doctrines.
Origen of Alexandria was one of the early spiritualizers [Ориген Александрийский был одним из первых спиритуализаторов]. Opposing
the Jewish apocalyptic-utopian ideas concerning a material Kingdom
of God on earth, his heavenly Jérusalem takes on the appearance of
Plato's idéal state and of Homer's Elysian Fields [его Небесный Иерусалим берет на себя воплощение платоновского идеального государства и полей Элизиума Гомера]. The Jewish idea in
Révélation of the Thousand Years' Reign of Peace is also abandoned [также заброшена].
What is important is personal salvation after death [личное спасение после смерти]. Cosmic eschatology
retreats in favor of individual eschatology [Космическая эсхатология отступает в пользу индивидуальной эсхатологии]. St. Augustine brings
this idea into sharper focus [более пристальное внимание]. There is a pronounced platonic influence
noticeable in The City of God [ясно выраженное платонической влияние заметно в Граде Божьем].
There is much disagreement over the writings of Augustine,2
whose ideas changed radically during his lifetime. The allegorical
terminology [аллегорическая терминология] in The City of God lends itself [поддается] to divergent interprétations [различным интерпретациям.
Historians of utopism and eschatology both claim him for their
own [преподносят его по-своему]. It would be more productive to note the often-ignored duality [Возможно было бы более продуктивно отметить часто игнорируемую дуальность в Августине]
in Augustine, weighted though it is in the direction of transcendence [???].
Fundamental to the Augustinian image of the future is a split between
this worîd and the Other world. The political kingdom of earth and
the devil on one hand [Политическое царство на земле и дьявол с одной стороны], and the redemptive heavenly Kingdom [искупительное небесное Царство]on the
other, represent, respectively, the fall of Adam and salvation through
Christ [падение Адама и спасение через Христа]. During his earthly pilgrimage [земное странствие] man is necessarily a citizen of
two worlds [непременно является гражданином двух миров].
St. Augustine's contribution is his interprétation of the events
leading to the mysterious leap into the Other realm [его интерпретация событий, ведущих к мистическому прыжку в Иную сферу]. The leap is
twofold: first, the leap of the individual man, and only second, that
of mankind as a whole. The last day on earth of the individual man
takes precedence in Augustine's thinking over the last day for the
species man [Последний день отдельного человека на Земле имеет в мышлении Августина приоритет перед последним днем рода человеческого]. Death and hell receive increasing attention during this
period and ultimately become the major obsessions of médiéval man [главными навязчивыми идеями средневекового человека].
To the question "What must I do?" Augustine's frank [чистосердечный] and outspoken [откровенный]
answer is "Nothing, beyond maintaining complète faith in
and utter obédience to God." [Ничего, кроме поддержания полноты веры и послушания Богу] ïn contrast to Origen, Augustine sees
sinful [грешный] man as helpless in spite of [беспомощного, несмотря на] himself and his own will.3 Since the Fall [Со времени падения], every man belongs to the mass of the damned [к массе проклятых] (massa damnata).
Aug ustine's doctrine is symptomatic of a highly important régression [упадок, возвращение, упадок духа];
it almost annihilâtes the nascent idea [уничтожает зарождающуюся идею] of independent human
power acting for the good. Human faith and divine grâce are the
pôles between which life on earth moves [Человеческая вера и божья благодать есть полюса, между которыми движется земная жизнь]. God détermines, through
Christ, who shall enter His City [Бог определяет через Христа, кто должен войти в его Град].
Does the sin-laden créature [обремененная грехом тварь] thus stand utterly alone [совершенно одна] in this life?
No, on this point the apostolic-charismatic tradition is maintained [по этому вопросу апостольски-харизматическая позиция сохраняется].
The Church dispenses grâce for the earthly existence through its
mediators, and administers the last sacraments at the time of passing
into the beyond [Церковь раздает благодать для земного существования через своих посредников, и отправляет последние таинства во время ухода в инобытие]. The Church's îater attempts at self-déification [самообожествления] are
firmly [прочно] based on Augustine. The Church as a kingdom cornes to
embody the pilgrimage of the Kingdom over the earth through time
until the moment of élévation arrives [Церковь как царство возникает для того, чтобы воплотить странствие Царства по земле через время до наступления момента вознесения]. According to thèse conceptions
the Kingdom of God is at once that which is to come and that
which has already come [Согласно этим концепциям Царство Божие есть одновременно нечто, что должно прийти и нечто, что уже наступило]. If the Kingdom of God has already appeared
on earth through the First Coming of Christ, and if the
Christian Church is really bringing about [обеспечивает] the évolution of this Kingdom
into its ultimate and final state through its dedicated actions [специальные действия]—
then, says St. Augustine, drawing the logical conclusion [изображая логический вывод], the last
times hâve come!
Augustine is chiliasm's4 sharpest opponent [резкий противник хилиазма], not through déniai of
its claims [не из-за отвержения его претензий], but by proclaiming that they hâve already been realized [а из-за своего утверждения, что они уже реализованы].
This point of view relegates the remaining course of history to a
minor place in the perspective of imminent divine fulfillment of time [отводит оставшемуся пути истории на незначительное место в перспективе скорого божественного исполнения времени]
and also permits Augustine to remain somewhat aloof from the Holy
Roman Empire [дает возможность Августину остаться несколько в стороне от Священной Римской Империи]. The kingdoms of this world corne and go [приходят и уходят]. Even Holy
Rome could become a second Babylon [вторым Вавилонов]. The Kingdom of God will
corne independently of the civitas terrena [???] and in conflict with it. The
City of God and the earthly city are now existing concurrently [здесь - одновременно],
interpenetrating one another [взаимопроникая друг в друга], locked in an intense struggle [захваченные напряженной борьбой]. The last
Judgment [Страшный Суд] will bring the final separating out [конечное разделение] through the establishment
of the dominion [владычество] of the Kingdom of God.
On balance [в итоге], though Augustine's image of the future is indeed an
ingenious mix of utopia and eschatology [действительно гениальное сочетание утопии и эсхатологии], as an image it has lost
much of its power [как образ он потерял значительную часть своей мощи]. The task imposed on [миссия, порученная] the Roman Catholic Church [Римская Католическая Церковь]
is the utopian striving toward perfection on earth [утопическое стремление к совершенству]. On the other hand, the doctrine of the grâce of a God who intervenes in the course
of history [вмешивается в течение истории] is an eschatological one. However, both utopian and
eschatological images of the future are weakened. The eschatological
system pushes this world into the background as a temporary but
necessary evil. This deprecation in advance [Осуждение наперед, авансом] of ail historical kingdoms
diminishes [уменьшает] the meaning of the human struggle. Further, préférence [предпочтение] is
given to eternal life for the îndividual, above a renewal of earthîy life
for mankind.
We are hère concerned with very subtle shifts [тонкие сдвиги] in accent whose
effects are only noticed much later. In the Middle Ages proper [здесь - свойственный, присущий], as
already stated, Christian expectations for the future were still overwhelmingly
upward-directed [ожидания были все же подавляющим образом обращены на небеса]. Also, the Holy Roman Empire, considered
the partial crystallîzation of thèse expectations [рассматривавшаяся как частичная материализация этих ожиданий], was designed
to further this nonearthly goal [была создана для преследования этой неземной цели].
The World
Despite the potential weakening of St. Augustine's modernized
image of the future, the older image retained its influence undiminished
in one respect [прежний образ сохранял свое влияние неослабленным в одном отношении], the belief that the end of the world was close at
hand [близок как на ладони]. The graduai overvaluing of the présent [постепенное повышение оценки настоящего] in the thinking of the
Church could not extinguish man's profound longings for the future [погасить глубокую человеческую тоску по будущему].
The hoofbeats [стук копыт] of the approaching apocalyptic riders [всадников апокалипсиса] are repeatedly heard as echoes from that Other, coming world.5 The terrible "How
much longer?" [Сколько еще?] was the haunting spectre [преследующий призрак] that tortured [подвергал пыткам] the médiéval
mind. Quo usque tandem? [Как долго?]
From earliest times eminent [выдающиеся] Christian thinkers hâve pondered [задумывались]
deeply the end of the world and the dawning of the last days [наступление последних дней]. Only a
few illustrations of this facet [аспект] of the médiéval image of the future can
be considered hère.
Origen devised [разработал] a scheme of five periods [схема из пяти периодов] based on the parable of
the workers in the vineyard [притча о работниках в винограднике]:6 the early morning (Adam), the third
hour (Noah) [Ной], the sixth hour (Abraham) [Авраам], the ninth hour (Moses), and
the eleventh hour (Jésus). An analogous division of time into six
âges based on the six days of Création received more attention [получило больше внимания] (this
idea is Jewish in origin). Each of thèse six periods is conceived [поняты как] as
being one thousand years long, since in the sight of God a thousand
years is as a day;7 the seventh period, corresponding to the day of
rest after the act of Création, is the tempus ultimae quietis [время окончательного отдохновения], the world
Sabbath [мировая суббота]. Many Christian writers, beginning with Barnabas [начиная с Варнавы], recorded
this sixfold classification. Thèse ideas were so firmly imprinted [отпечатаны] on
the minds of people in the Middle Ages that the approach of the year
1000 gave rise to widespread expectations concerning an imminent [неизбежный]
end of time.8
St. Augustine accepted a similar sixfold classification, inferring a
correspondence [подразумевая соответствие] between the six days of Création, the six stages in
the life of man from infant to graybeard [старика], and six stages of history,
consisting of the Création, the Flood [Потоп], Abraham, David, the Babylonian
Captivity [Вавилонское пленение], and Jésus Christ. But he rejected the idea [отверг идею] that each
epoch has an equal duration, also pointing out that the length of the
final epoch, already dawned, cannot be calculated. This view relates
to his opposition to chiliasm.
Side by side with thèse historical classifications we find geographical
classifications influenced by Jewish and Hellenic models. The
best-known example is that of the four kingdoms in the Book of
Daniel [Книга Даниила]. Later Christian interprétations identify thèse Kingdoms as
the successive reigns of Babylonia, Persia, Hellas, and Rome. The
Antichrist was to appear at the time of the fourth and last earthly
kingdom, heralding the beginning of the end [возвещая начало конца]. Augustine also approved [одобрял]
and used this classification. The Roman Empire as the penultimate [предпоследний]
kingdom made a satisfactory geographical counterpart [географический двойник] to his
system of temporal classification.
The spatial delineation [пространственное очертание] in the médiéval image of the future, pointing
toward the idea [указывая на идею] of an earthly utopia, had conséquences that both
weakened and strengthened the utopian idea. Hitherto [До сих пор], the end of
the Roman Empire had been anticipated as the libération from
earthly chains [конец Римской Империи предвкушался как освобождение от земных цепей]. Now the Empire was sanctified under Augustine's
influence [освящена под влиянием Августина], and man turned toward rather than away from this temporal
kingdom [повернулся скорее лицом, нежели спиной к этому временному царству].
Augustine is reputed to hâve [как считается] written The City of God as a
reassurance [заверение] to Christendom [христианского мира] after the fall of the earthly city, Rome,
in 410. Since the end of the world had not yet corne [Поскольку конец мира еще не пришел], the Roman
Empire, the fourth and last kingdom before the eternal Kingdom of
God, could not possibîy hâve ceased to exist [не мог, возможно, перестать существовать]. Further, the Holy
Roman Empire was obviously the only power that could restrain [сдерживать] the
Antichrist in this world.
The idea of the need for maintaining and rebuilding the Roman
Empire gradually won in strength [Идея о необходимости сохранения и восстановления Римской Империи постепенно победила в борьбе]. (Augustine's The City of God is
said to hâve been the favorite reading of the princes of the Middle
Ages, especially Charlemagne. [“Град Божий” Августина, говорят, был любимым чтивом князей Средневековья, особенно Карла Великого]) This resulted in the forced prolongation
of the Empire at ail costs [любой ценой]. Probably Augustine neither foresaw
nor intended [Возможно Августин не предвидел и не планировал] that his efforts to make secure the temporal authority [чтобы обеспечить временную власть Церкви]
of the Church would resuit in the compressing together [сжатие въедино] of the two
worlds, which he had in fact intended to remain sharply differentiated [планировал оставить резко различенными].
The vision of earthly rédemption and renewal [земное искупление и обновление] was not entirely
destroyed by this process of transforming the Kingdom of God into a
secular kingdom, however. The old expectations continued, adapting
themselves to new circumstances [адаптируясь к новым обстоятельствам]. With the shift of focus to this
world, the image of the future once again turned from eschatology to
utopism. Since ail hope now rested on the maintenance [поддержании] of the
présent world kingdom, might not a world savior [спаситель Мира] be called upon to
bring about the long-awaited libération of mankind?
Although hopes for a quick return of Jésus faded away [увяли], a whole
wave of other, and sometimes older, soteriological expectations
surged up [возросли сотериологические чаяния]. Virgil sang [Вергилий воспевал] of the birth of a wonder child who would set a
new world-cycle in motion. Enthusiastic [Восторженные] later interprétations made
this refer to the Roman emperors. Thèse ideas fused [слились] in the later
Middle Ages into a body of thought [???] known as emperor-mysticism [императорский мистицизм?].
The Charleses of France [Карлы Франции] and the Fredericks of Germany [Фридрихи Германии] competed [соревновались]
with one another for the honor [чести] of being named the emperor of
peace [повелитель мира?]. In a more spiritual variation of caesaro-papism [цезарепапизм] there was a
similar expectation of a future angelic pope [ангельский папа], papa angelicus. The
realists, however, seeing how a powerful kingdom could flourish,
staked everything on wielders of temporal power [сделав все ставки на обладателя светской власти]. Thèse were the
men who prepared the way for Machiavelli's The Prince [Государь], for François
Fénelon's Télémaque [для “Телемаха” Франсуа Фенелона], and for the so-called mirrors for princes [зеркала для князей?]' of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In short, they prepared the way
for enlightened despotism [просвещенный деспотизм].
A typical diaîectic had thus unfolded [Была развернута, таким образом, типичная диалектика]. Beginning with spiritualization,
the libération from worldly power, the spiral now ended in a
considérable extension of the temporal power of the ecclesiastical
hierarchy [спираль теперь закончилась на значительном расширении временной власти церковной иерархии]. The more the Church flourished on earth, the further the
end of time was pushed into the future. And yet [Но тем не менее] the spiritual power
of the older images of the future proved to be stronger [оказалась сильнее] than the
combined supremacy [соединенное господство] of temporal and ecclesiastical power. Another
vision arose out of ail thèse conflicting streams of thought [течений мысли]. The time
was ripe [настало время] for a reversai to be led by Joachim [для переворота, возглавляемого Иоахимом], the visionary Abbot of
Fiore [провидец и Аббат Фьоры], who burst open the cocoon of the Middle Ages [который разорвал кокон Средневековья] in the second
half of the twelfth century.
The Spirit
Nearly a thousand years before Joachim, the heretic prophet
Montanus [еретический пророк Монтан] (ca. 150 A.D. [ок. 150 г. От Р.Х.]) offered [предложил] a new division of historical periods
in contrast to the three originally postulated: those of nature, law,
and grâce [природы, закона и благодати]. His periods were labeled the times of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit [Святого Духа], the third having just begun. In Joachim's day
thèse ideas were ready for reincarnation [готовы для перевоплощения, воскрешения], and Joachim used them to
make a new calculation of the end of time based on Révélation.
The first kingdom is that of the Father, Israël, recognizable in the
Old Testament and predominantly of the flesh [и в основном плотский]. The second kingdom
is that of the Son, Jésus, and identifiable [опознаваемый] in the New Testament; it is
partly of the flesh, partly of the spirit [частично телесны, частично духовный]. The third kingdom is that of
the Holy Spirit, prophesied [пресказанное] by Révélation and purely spiritual in
nature. The main différence between the second, currently prevailing [преобладающий в настоящее время],
and third, coming, kingdom is a radical change in respect to the
Church, although Joachim himself remained faithfully [остался верным?] within the
Roman Catholic frame of référence [система отстчета]. However, the Augustinian image
of the future is drastically reshaped [резко изменен]. The second kingdom, made
secure by Augustine, is the kingdom of the Church, the ecclesia
militans [Церковь воинствующая]. The third kingdom, proclaimed by Joachim, is the kingdom
of a totally différent church, the ecclesia spiritualis [Церковь духовная]. In this third,
purely spiritual kingdom, the universal Christian brotherhood [всеобщее христианское братство] will
corne to final fulfillment. In this society there will no longer be any
need for the church of the second kingdom. The ordo clericorum of
the visible and sanctified church, with its priests, will make way for
the ordo monachorum, in which ail men shall be holy. In this new
order even the New Testament, its task complète, wiH no longer be
required. The third kingdom will be that of the new, untaught, and
unwritten gospel.
When will the third kingdom arrive? According to Joachim's
calculations, in 1260, preceded by a two-generation period of préparation
beginning around 1200. With this new vision a new future,
born of the Middle Ages, indeed begins. With the careful séparation
between the second and third kingdom, a real boundary seems to
hâve been drawn across time. This becomes very clear when the
images of the future of Augustine and Joachim are compared. They
both aim consciously at a spiritualization, the one indirectly, through
the church, the other directly, through man. They both basically
reject the chiliastic heresy. Joachim's third kingdom lacks the paradise-
like features associated with earlier images of the millennium.
But neither can he accept Augustine's idea that the church had
already inaugurated the Thousand Years1 Reign.
The fundamental point of différence between them is that Augustine
reckons backward from the end of time, and Joachim reckons
forward to the final state of man. The one writes history, the other
makes it. For Augustine the great turning point came when Christ
appeared. For Joachim the décisive turning point is still to come; he
reaches into the future and inspires coming générations.
Unlike Augustine's platonic city, Joachim's third reign is a kingdom
of flesh-and-blood men, transformed into a new spiritualized
type of man. The question is not one of individual salvation, but
rather one of a cosmic transformation of mankind in history. In his
prédictions, Joachim gives expression to his mystical faith in man as
afully historical being. Thus, he undertakes a utopian turning back to
this world, and at the same time engages in a "forward-struggling
return" to the historical Jésus of the Gospels. Joachim's threefold
division of time marks a break with the orthodox position which
regards Jésus as the immovable center of history. It represents a
révolution of Copernican dimensions, extending man's horizons and
broadening his perspective. For Joachim, Christ and the Church are
