The main quotes of Dostoevsky. Famous aphorisms of Dostoevsky

Great people are great in everything. Often, phrases from novels written by recognized geniuses of the literary world become winged and passed from mouth to mouth for many generations.

So it happened with the expression "Beauty will save the world." It is used by many and each time in a new sound, with a new meaning. Who said: These words belong to one of the characters in the work of the great Russian classic, thinker, genius - Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.

Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

The famous Russian writer was born in 1821 on November 11. He grew up in a large and poor family, distinguished by extreme religiosity, virtue and decency. Father is a parish priest, mother is a merchant's daughter.

Throughout the childhood of the future writer, the family regularly attended church, the children, together with adults, read the Old, Old and Dostoevsky's Gospel was very memorable, he will mention it in more than one work in the future.

The writer studied in boarding houses, far from home. Then at the Engineering School. The next and main milestone in his life was the literary path, which captured him completely and irrevocably.

One of the most difficult moments was hard labor, which lasted 4 years.

The most famous works are the following:

• "Poor people".
• "White Nights.
• "Double".
• "Notes from the House of the Dead".
• "The Brothers Karamazov".
• "Crime and Punishment".
• "Idiot" (it is from this novel that the phrase "Beauty will save the world").
• "Demons".
• "Teenager".
• "Writer's Diary".

In all his works, the writer raised acute issues of morality, virtue, conscience and honor. The philosophy of moral principles worried him extremely, and this was reflected in the pages of his works.

Winged phrases from Dostoevsky's novels

The question of who said: "Beauty will save the world" can be answered in two ways. On the one hand, this is the hero of the novel "The Idiot" Ippolit Terentyev, who retells the words of others (allegedly the statement of Prince Myshkin). However, this phrase can then be attributed to the prince himself.

On the other hand, it turns out that these words belong to the author of the novel, Dostoevsky. Therefore, there are several interpretations of the origin of the phrase.

Fyodor Mikhailovich always had such a peculiarity: many of the phrases he wrote became winged. After all, surely everyone knows such words as:

• "Money is hammered freedom."
• "You have to love life more than the meaning of life."
• "People, people are the most important thing. People are even more valuable than money."

And this, of course, is not the whole list. But there is also the most famous and beloved by many phrase that the writer used in his work: "Beauty will save the world." It still evokes many different considerations about the meaning it contains.

The Idiot novel

The main line throughout the novel is love. Love and inner spiritual tragedy of the heroes: Nastasya Filippovna, Prince Myshkin and others.

Many do not take the main character seriously, considering it a completely harmless child. However, the plot twists in such a way that it is the prince who becomes the center of all the events taking place. It is he who turns out to be the object of the love of two beautiful and strong women.

But his personal qualities, humanity, excessive insight and sensitivity, love for people, desire to help the offended and rejected played a cruel joke with him. He made a choice and was wrong. His brain, tormented by illness, cannot stand it, and the prince turns into a completely mentally retarded person, just a child.

Who Said "Beauty Will Save the World"? The great humanist, sincere, open and infinitely who understood precisely such qualities by the beauty of people - Prince Myshkin.

virtue or stupidity?

This is almost as difficult a question as the meaning of the catchphrase about beauty. Some will say - virtue. Others are stupidity. This is what will determine the beauty of the responding person. Everyone thinks and understands the meaning of the hero's fate, his character, train of thought and experiences in his own way.

In places in the novel there is indeed a very thin line between stupidity and sensitivity of the hero. Indeed, by and large, it was his virtue, his desire to protect and help everyone around him that became fatal and destructive for him.

He looks for beauty in people. He notices her in everyone. He sees the boundless ocean of beauty in Aglaya and believes that beauty will save the world. Statements about this phrase in the novel ridicule her, the prince, his understanding of the world and people. However, many felt how good he was. And they envied his purity, love for people, soulfulness. With envy, perhaps, they said nasty things.

The meaning of the image of Ippolit Terentyev

In fact, his image is episodic. He is just one of many people who envy the prince, discuss him, condemn him and do not understand. He laughs at the phrase "Beauty will save the world." His reasoning on this score is definite: the prince said utter stupidity and there is no sense in his phrase.

However, it certainly exists, and it is very deep. It's just that for limited people like Terentyev, the main thing is money, respectable appearance, position. The inner content, the soul, he is not very interested, therefore he ridicules the statement of the prince.

What meaning did the author put into the expression?

Dostoevsky always appreciated people, their honesty, inner beauty and completeness of the world view. It was with these qualities that he endowed his unfortunate hero. Therefore, speaking about who said: "Beauty will save the world," we can say with confidence that the author of the novel himself, through the image of his hero.

With this phrase, he tried to make it clear that the main thing is not the appearance, not the beautiful features of the face and the state of the figure. And what people love for is their inner world, spiritual qualities. It is kindness, responsiveness and humanity, sensitivity and love for all living things that will allow people to save the world. This is what real beauty is, and people with such qualities are truly beautiful.

Beauty will save the world

Beauty will save the world
From the novel The Idiot (1868) by F. M. Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881).
As a rule, it is understood literally: contrary to the author's interpretation of the concept of "beauty".
In the novel (part 3, ch. V) these words are uttered by an 18-year-old young man Ippolit Terentyev, referring to the words of Prince Myshkin transmitted to him by Nikolai Ivolgin, and ironically over the latter: "? Gentlemen, - he shouted loudly to everyone, - the prince claims that the world will be saved by beauty! And I claim that he has such playful thoughts because he is now in love.
Lord, the prince is in love; just now, as soon as he entered, I was convinced of this. Don't blush, prince, I will feel sorry for you. What beauty will save the world? Kolya told me this ... Are you a zealous Christian? Kolya says that you call yourself a Christian.
The prince examined him carefully and did not answer him. "
FM Dostoevsky was far from his own aesthetic judgments - he wrote about spiritual beauty, about the beauty of the soul. This corresponds to the main idea of \u200b\u200bthe novel - to create the image of a "positively wonderful person." Therefore, in his drafts, the author calls Myshkin "Prince Christ", thereby reminding himself that Prince Myshkin should be as similar as possible to Christ - kindness, philanthropy, meekness, a complete absence of selfishness, the ability to sympathize with human troubles and misfortunes. Therefore, the "beauty" of which the prince (and FM Dostoevsky himself) speaks is the sum of the moral qualities of a "positively beautiful person."
Such a purely personal interpretation of beauty is characteristic of the writer. He believed that "people can be beautiful and happy" not only in the afterlife. They can be so and "without losing the ability to live on earth." To do this, they must agree with the idea that Evil “cannot be the normal state of people,” that everyone can get rid of it. And then, when people are guided by the best that is in their soul, memory and intentions (Good), then they will be truly beautiful. And the world will be saved, and it is precisely this “beauty” (that is, the best that is in people) that will save it.
Of course, this will not happen overnight - you need spiritual work, trials and even suffering, after which a person renounces Evil and turns to Good, begins to appreciate it. The writer talks about this in many of his works, including in the novel "The Idiot". For example (part 1, ch. VII):
“The general's wife for some time, silently and with a certain tinge of disdain, looked at the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, which she held in front of her in her outstretched hand, extremely and effectively moving away from her eyes.
Yes, it is good, - she said at last, - very even. I saw her twice, only from afar. So you appreciate such and such beauty? - she suddenly turned to the prince.
Yes ... such ... - answered the prince with some effort.
That is, exactly like that?
Just like that.
For what?
In this face ... there is a lot of suffering ... - said the prince, as if involuntarily, as if speaking to himself, and not answering a question.
You, however, may be delusional, - decided the general's wife and with a haughty gesture threw the portrait over herself on the table.
The writer, in his interpretation of beauty, acts as a like-minded German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who spoke about the “moral law within us,” that “the beautiful is sim-
ox of moral good ". FM Dostoevsky develops the same idea in his other works. So, if in the novel "The Idiot" he writes that beauty will save the world, then in the novel "Demons" (1872) he logically concludes that "ugliness (anger, indifference, selfishness. - Comp.) Will kill ..."

Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions. - M .: "Lokid-Press"... Vadim Serov. 2003.

See what "Beauty will save the world" in other dictionaries:

- (beautiful), in terms of Holy Russia, divine harmony, inherent in nature, man, some things and images. The divine essence of the world is expressed in beauty. Its source is in God Himself, His integrity and perfection. "Beauty ... ... Russian history

BEAUTY Russian Philosophy: Dictionary

beauty - one of the central concepts of Rus. philosophical and aesthetic thought. The word K. comes from the Proto-Slavic beauty. The adjective is red in Proto-Slavic and Old Russian. languages \u200b\u200bmeant beautiful, beautiful, light (hence, for example, Red ... ... Russian Philosophy. Encyclopedia

Artist. direction prevailing in the West. European culture in the early 60s. 70's 19th century (initially in literature, then in other types of art he will depict., music, theatrical) and soon included other cultural phenomena, philosophy, ... ... Encyclopedia of Cultural Studies

An aesthetic category that characterizes phenomena with the highest aesthetic perfection. In the history of thought, the specificity of P. was realized gradually, through correlating it with other kinds of utility values \u200b\u200b(usefulness), cognitive (truth), ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Fedor Mikhailovich, Russian writer, thinker, publicist. Starting in the 40s. lit. the path in line with the "natural school" as a successor to Gogol and an admirer of Belinsky, D. at the same time absorbed into ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

- (from the Greek. aisthetikos feeling, sensual) philosophy. a discipline that studies the nature of the whole variety of expressive forms of the surrounding world, their structure and modification. E. is focused on identifying universals in sensory perception ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Vladimir Sergeevich (born January 16, 1853, Moscow - died July 31, 1900, ibid.) - the largest Russian. religious philosopher, poet, publicist, son of S. M. Solovyov, rector of Moscow University and author of the 29-volume History of Russia from Ancient Times (1851 - 1879) ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Activity that generates new values, ideas, the person himself as a creator. In the modern scientific literature devoted to this problem, there is an obvious desire to study specific types of T. (in science, technology, art), its ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Valentina Sazonova Sazonova Valentina Grigorievna Date of birth: March 19, 1955 (1955 03 19) Place of birth: Chervone ... Wikipedia

Books

• Beauty will save the world Grade 4 Album of artistic problems in fine arts, Ashikova S. .. Album of artistic problems "Beauty will save the world" is included in the educational complex "Fine Arts. 4th grade". It expands and deepens the material of the textbook for grade 4 (by S.G. Ashikova) .. Contents ...
• Beauty will save the world. Album of artistic tasks in the visual arts. 4th grade. FSES, Ashikova Svetlana Gennadievna. The main task of the album of artistic tasks Beauty will save the world, grade 4, help children see and love the world around them and its colors. The album is unusual in that it contains one more ...

“... what is beauty and why do people deify it? Is she a vessel, in which there is emptiness, or fire flickering in the vessel? " So wrote the poet N. Zabolotsky in the poem "Beauty will save the world." And the catch phrase in the name is known to almost every person. She probably more than once touched the ears of beautiful women and girls, flying off the lips of men fascinated by their beauty.

This remarkable expression belongs to the famous Russian writer F.M.Dostoevsky. In his novel "The Idiot" the writer endows his hero, Prince Myshkin, with thoughts and arguments about beauty and its essence. The work does not indicate how Myshkin himself says that beauty will save the world. These words belong to him, but they sound indirectly: “True, prince,” asks Myshkina Ippolit, “that the world will be saved by“ beauty ”? Gentlemen, - he shouted loudly to everyone, - the prince says that beauty will save the world! Elsewhere in the novel, during the meeting of the prince with Aglaya, she tells him, as if warning: “Listen, once and for all, if you talk about something like the death penalty, or about the economic state of Russia, or that“ the world will be saved by beauty "then ... I, of course, will rejoice and laugh very much, but ... I warn you in advance: do not seem to me later on! Hear: I'm serious! This time I'm serious! "

How to understand a famous saying about beauty?

"Beauty will save the world." How is the statement? This question can be asked by a student of any age, regardless of the class in which he is studying. And each parent will answer this question in a completely different way, absolutely individually. Because beauty is perceived and seen for everyone in a different way.

Everyone probably knows the saying that you can look at objects together, but see them in completely different ways. After reading Dostoevsky's novel, a feeling of some vagueness is formed inside what beauty is. “Beauty will save the world,” Dostoevsky pronounced these words on behalf of the hero as his own understanding of the way to save a hectic and mortal world. Nevertheless, the author gives each reader the opportunity to answer this question independently. "Beauty" in the novel is presented as an unsolved riddle, created by nature, and as a force that can drive you crazy. Prince Myshkin also sees the simplicity of beauty and its refined splendor, he says that there are many things in the world at every step so beautiful, in which even the most lost person can see their splendor. He asks to look at the child, at the dawn, at the grass, in the loving eyes looking at you ... Indeed, it is difficult to imagine our modern world without mysterious and sudden natural phenomena, without the eye of a loved one that attracts like a magnet, without parental love for children and children to their parents.

What, then, is it worth living and where to draw your strength?

How to imagine the world without this enchanting beauty of every moment of life? This is simply not possible. The existence of humanity is unthinkable without this. Almost every person, doing everyday work or any other burdensome task, has often thought that in the usual hustle and bustle of life, as if inadvertently, almost not noticing, he missed something very important, did not have time to notice the beauty of the moments. Yet beauty has a certain divine origin, it expresses the true essence of the Creator, giving everyone the opportunity to join Him and be like Him.

Believers attain beauty through communication through prayers with the Lord, through contemplation of the world He created and through the improvement of their human essence. Of course, a Christian's understanding and vision of beauty will differ from the usual ideas of people professing a different religion. But somewhere between these ideological contradictions there is still that thin thread that connects everyone into one whole. In such divine unity there is also the silent beauty of harmony.

Tolstoy about beauty

Beauty will save the world ... Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich expressed his opinion on this matter in the work "War and Peace". All phenomena and objects present in the world around us, the writer mentally divides into two main categories: content or form. The division takes place depending on the greater predominance of objects and phenomena of these elements in nature.

The writer does not give preference to phenomena and people with the presence of the main thing in them in the form of form. Therefore, in his novel, he so clearly demonstrates a dislike for high society with its forever established norms and rules of life and a lack of sympathy for Helen Bezukhova, whom, according to the text of the work, everyone considered unusually beautiful.

Society and public opinion have no influence on his personal attitude towards people and life. The writer looks at the content. This is important for his perception, and it is this that awakens interest in his heart. He does not recognize the absence of movement and life in a shell of luxury, but he infinitely admires the imperfection of Natasha Rostova and the ugliness of Maria Bolkonskaya. Based on the opinion of the great writer, can it be argued that the world will be saved by beauty?

Lord Byron on the splendor of beauty

For another famous, however, Lord Byron, beauty is seen as a pernicious gift. He sees her as capable of seducing, intoxicating and committing atrocity to a person. But this is not entirely true, beauty has a dual nature. And we, people, it is better to notice not its perniciousness and deceit, but the life-giving force that can heal our heart, mind and body. Indeed, in many respects, our health and the correct perception of the picture of the world is formed as a result of our direct mental attitude to things.

And yet, will beauty save the world?

Our modern world, in which there are so many social contradictions and heterogeneities ... A world in which there are rich and poor, healthy and sick, happy and unhappy, free and dependent ... And what, in spite of all adversity, beauty will save the world? Maybe you are right. But beauty must be understood not literally, not as an external expression of a bright natural individuality or grooming, but as an opportunity to do beautiful noble deeds, helping these other people, and how to look not at a person, but at his beautiful and rich inner world. Very often in our life we \u200b\u200bsay the words “beauty”, “beautiful”, or simply “beautiful”, which are familiar to us.

Beauty as an evaluation material of the surrounding world. How to understand: "Beauty will save the world" - what is the meaning of the statement?

All interpretations of the word "beauty", which is the original source for other words formed from it, endow the speaker with an unusual ability in almost the simplest way to evaluate the phenomena of the world around us, the ability to admire works of literature, art, music; the desire to compliment another person. So many pleasant moments, hidden in just one word of seven letters!

Everyone has their own concept of beauty

Of course, beauty is understood by each individual in its own way, and each generation has its own criteria for beauty. There is nothing wrong. Everyone has long known that thanks to contradictions and disputes between people, generations and nations, only truth can be born. People by their nature are completely different in terms of perception of the world and perception of the world. For one it is good and beautiful when he is just neatly and fashionably dressed, for another it is bad to focus only on appearance, he prefers to develop his own and increase his intellectual level. Everything that in some way relates to the understanding of beauty, sounds from the lips of everyone, based on his personal perception of the surrounding reality. Romantic and sensual people most often admire the phenomena and objects created by nature. The freshness of the air after the rain, the autumn leaf that has fallen from the branches, the fire of a campfire and the clear mountain stream - all this is a beauty that is worth constantly enjoying. For more practical natures who rely on objects and phenomena of the material world, beauty can be the result, for example, of an important deal concluded or the performance of a certain series of construction work. A child will be incredibly pleased with beautiful and bright toys, a woman will be delighted with a beautiful piece of jewelry, and a man will see beauty in new alloy wheels on his car. It seems like one word, but how many concepts, how many different perceptions!

The depth of the simple word "beauty"

Beauty can also be viewed from a deeper point of view. "Beauty will save the world" - an essay on this topic can be written by everyone in completely different ways. And there will be a lot of opinions about the beauty of life.

Some people really believe that the world is based on beauty, while others will say: “Beauty will save the world? Who told you such nonsense? " You answer: “How who? Russian great writer Dostoevsky in his famous literary work "The Idiot"! " And in response to you: "Well, what, maybe then beauty saved the world, now the main thing is different!" And, perhaps, they will even name what is most important for them. And that's all - it makes no sense to prove your idea of \u200b\u200bbeauty. Because you can see it, but your interlocutor, due to his education, social status, age, gender or other racial background, never noticed or thought about the presence of beauty in this or that object or phenomenon.

Finally

The world will be saved by beauty, and we, in turn, must be able to save it. The main thing is not to destroy, but to preserve the beauty of the world, its objects and phenomena given by the Creator. Enjoy every moment and the opportunity to see and feel the beauty as if it were your last moment in life. And then you won't even have a question: "Why will beauty save the world?" The answer will be clear as a matter of course.

A speech written for a speaker contest that I never got to participate in ...

Each of us is familiar with fairy tales in which, one way or another, good always triumphs over evil; fairy tales are one thing, and the real world is another, which is far from cloudless and often does not appear before us in the best light. We so often encounter such negative moments in life as injustice, environmental disasters, wars of various characters and scales, devastation, that, it would seem, have already become accustomed to the thought “this world is doomed”.

Is there a medicine that can save the world, turn back doom?

We are left with one height
Among the heights captured by the darkness!
If beauty does not save the world -
So no one else will save!

(excerpt from a poem by an unknown author)

A medicine called "Beauty will save the world" was discovered by F.M. Dostoevsky. And I believe that only by turning to beauty, you can stop the crazy race for power and money, stop violence, become more humane to nature and sincere to each other, overcome ignorance and licentiousness.

So, beauty ... What does this word mean to you? Perhaps someone will say that this is health or a well-groomed appearance? For some, beauty is determined by the inner qualities of a person. The modern world is simply full of propaganda of excessive enthusiasm for one's appearance, when the true meaning of the concept of "beauty" is greatly distorted today.

According to the ancients, it was believed that the Earth is located on elephants, which in turn stand on a turtle. By analogy with this, elephants can be seen as part of the basis of this world - beauty (turtle).

One of the components of beauty is nature: beautiful and wild flowers in an endless open field, and a ringing trickle, transparent drops of which are streaming among the rocky Ural mountains, and a snow-covered forest, iridescently sparkling in the rays of the winter sun, and a ginger kitten, sleepily rubbing its small paws eyes looking at the world in surprise.
All this is the natural beauty of nature, respect for which is directly related to the full value of life. How many emissions into the biosphere are produced by industrial enterprises? How many animals are on the verge of extinction? What about a sharp change in climate and natural anomalies? Does this lead to beauty ?!

The second, but not least, component of beauty is art - paintings by outstanding artists, architectural monuments, great musical masterpieces. Their beauty has been appreciated and confirmed by history, centuries, life. The main criterion for the significance of beautiful and immortal works is the undeniable splendor, picturesqueness, grace and expressiveness that they possess. They can be understood or not understood, they can be debated about, multifaceted and versatile treatises and assessments can be carried out. It is impossible to be indifferent to them, since they touch the deep strings of human souls, are appreciated by people of different nations and generations.

Culture goes side by side with art. Peace is the coexistence of different peoples who respect someone else's culture (beauty). It is important to respect other people's traditions and customs, to be ready to favorably recognize and accept the behavior, beliefs and views of other people, even if these beliefs and views are not shared by you. There are many historical examples of the lack of respect for other people's customs and mores. This is massive religious fanaticism in medieval Europe, which resulted in crusades destroying foreign cultures (whole generations of such fanatics saw paganism and dissent as a threat to their spiritual world and tried to physically exterminate everyone who did not fall under their definition of a believer). Giordano Bruno, Jeanne d'Arc, Jan Hus and many others died at the hands of fanatics. This is St. Bartholomew's Night - the terrible massacre of the Huguenots (French Protestants), provoked by the ardent Catholic Catherine de Medici in August 1572. More than 70 years ago, a wave of Jewish pogroms, called "Kristallnacht", swept through fascist Germany, which marked the beginning of one of the most horrible crimes against tolerance in human history (the Holocaust) ...

A modern cultured person is not only an educated person, but a person who has a sense of self-respect and is respected by others. Tolerance is a sign of high spiritual and intellectual development. We live in a country that is the center of the intertwining of different religions, cultures and traditions, which sets an example to society of the possibility of uniting representatives of different nations ...

Our country is a center of intertwining of different religions, cultures and traditions, which sets an example to society of the possibility of uniting representatives of different peoples. A modern cultured person is a person who has a sense of self-respect and is respected by others. Tolerance is a sign of high spiritual and intellectual development.

Everyone is probably familiar with Chekhov's favorite quote: "Everything in a person should be beautiful: face, clothes, soul, and thoughts ...". You must admit that it often happens like this: we see an outwardly beautiful person, and upon looking closely, we are alarmed by something in him - something repulsive and unpleasant.
Can we call a beautiful lazy person who spends whole days aimlessly, uselessly in idleness and “doing nothing?” And indifferent? Can he be truly beautiful? Does his face reflect a thought, is there a twinkle in his eyes, how emotional is his speech ? A person with a blank look and a print of boredom on his face attracts you?
But even the most modest, inconspicuous person, who does not possess ideal beauty by nature, but endowed with spiritual beauty, is without a doubt beautiful. A kind, sympathetic heart, useful deeds decorate and illuminate with inner light.

Beauty with its harmony and perfection is fundamental to almost everything that surrounds us. She helps to love and create, she creates beauty, because of her, we accomplish feats, thanks to beauty we become better.

Beauty is the very same perpetual motion machine, which is impossible at the material level, for reasons of physicists and chemists, but works at higher levels of the organization of human life.
"Whoever is tired of dirt, petty penny interests, who is indignant, insulted and indignant, can find peace and satisfaction only in the beautiful." A.P. Chekhov

The illustration for the text was selected using the Internet resource.

Beauty will save the world

"Scary and mysterious"

"Beauty will save the world" - this enigmatic phrase of Dostoevsky is often quoted. Much less often it is mentioned that these words belong to one of the heroes of the novel "The Idiot" - Prince Myshkin. The author does not necessarily agree with the views attributed to the various characters in his literary works. Although in this case Prince Myshkin seems to be actually voicing Dostoevsky's own convictions, other novels, such as The Brothers Karamazov, express a much more wary attitude toward beauty. “Beauty is a terrible and terrible thing,” says Dmitry Karamazov. - Terrible, because it is indefinable, but it is impossible to determine, because God asked only riddles. Here the shores converge, here all the contradictions live together. " Dmitry adds that in search of beauty, a person "begins with the ideal of the Madonna, and ends with the ideal of Sodom." And he comes to the following conclusion: “The terrible thing is that beauty is not only a terrible, but also a mysterious thing. Here the devil fights with God, and the battlefield is the hearts of people. "

It is possible that both are right - both Prince Myshkin and Dmitry Karamazov. In a fallen world, beauty has a dangerous, dual character: it is not only salvific, but can also lead to a deep temptation. “Tell me, where do you come from, Beauty? Is your gaze the azure of heaven or the product of hell? " Baudelaire asks. It was the beauty of the fruit offered to her by the serpent that seduced Eve: she saw that it was pleasing to the eye (cf. Gen 3: 6).

for from the greatness of the beauty of creatures

(…) The culprit of their existence is known.

However, he continues, this does not always happen. Beauty can also lead us astray, so that we are content with the “visible perfections” of temporary things and no longer seek their Creator (Wis 13: 1-7). The very charm of beauty can be a trap that portrays the world as something incomprehensible, not clear, turning beauty from a sacrament into an idol. Beauty ceases to be a source of purification when it becomes an end in itself instead of directing upward.

Lord Byron was not entirely wrong when he spoke of the "gift of wicked beauty." However, he was not completely right. Without for a moment forgetting about the dual nature of beauty, it is better for us to focus on its life-giving power than on its temptations. It's more interesting to look at light than shadow. At first glance, the assertion that “beauty will save the world” may indeed seem sentimental and far from life. Does it even make sense to talk about salvation through beauty in the face of the countless tragedies we face: disease, hunger, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, child abuse? However, Dostoevsky's words may offer us a very important clue, indicating that the suffering and sorrow of a fallen creature can be redeemed and transformed. In hope of this, let us consider two levels of beauty: the first is the divine uncreated beauty, and the second is the created beauty of nature and people.

God as beauty

“God is good; He is Kindness Himself. God is true; He is Truth Himself. God is glorified, and His glory is Beauty itself. " These words of Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov (1871–1944), perhaps the greatest Orthodox thinker of the twentieth century, provide us with a suitable starting point. He worked on the famous triad of Greek philosophy: goodness, truth and beauty. These three qualities achieve perfect coincidence with God, forming a single and indivisible reality, but at the same time, each of them expresses a specific side of divine being. Then what does divine beauty mean when viewed apart from His goodness and His truth?

The answer comes from the Greek word kalos, which means beautiful. This word can also be translated as "kind", but in the above triad a different word is used to mean "good" - agathos... Then, perceiving kalos in the meaning of "beautiful", we can, following Plato, note that etymologically it is associated with the verb kaleomeaning "I call" or "I call", "I pray" or "I call out." In this case, there is a special quality of beauty: it calls, beckons and attracts us. It takes us outside of ourselves and leads to a relationship with the Other. She awakens in us eros, a feeling of intense desire and yearning, which CS Lewis calls "joy" in his autobiography. Each of us has a longing for beauty, a thirst for something hidden deep in our subconsciousness, something that was known to us in the distant past, but now for some reason we are not subject to.

Thus, beauty as an object or subject of our erosBut it directly attracts and disturbs us with its magnetism and charm, so it does not need a frame of virtue and truth. In a word, divine beauty expresses the attractive power of God. It becomes immediately apparent that there is an inherent connection between beauty and love. When Saint Augustine (354-430) began to write his "Confession", what tormented him most of all was that he did not love divine beauty: "Too late I loved You, O Divine Beauty, so ancient and so young!"

This beauty of the kingdom of God is leitmotif Psalms. David's only desire is to contemplate the beauty of God:

I asked the Lord for one thing,

i'm just looking for that

to dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life,

behold the beauty of the Lord (Ps 27/26: 4).

Addressing the messianic king, David states: “You are more beautiful than the sons of men” (Ps 45/44: 3).

If God himself is beautiful, then so is His sanctuary, His temple: "... power and splendor in his sanctuary" (Psalm 96/95: 6). Thus, beauty is associated with worship: "... worship the Lord in His glorious sanctuary" (Ps 29/28: 2).

God reveals himself in beauty: “From Zion, which is the height of beauty, God appears” (Ps 50/49: 2).

If beauty, therefore, has a theophanic nature, then Christ - the highest self-manifestation of God - is known not only as good (Mk 10:18) and truth (John 14: 6), but equally as beauty. At the transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor, where the divine beauty of the God-man was revealed to the highest degree, Saint Peter says meaningfully: “Good ( kalon) we should be here ”(Matthew 17: 4). Here we must remember the double meaning of the adjective kalos... Peter not only affirms the essential good of the heavenly vision, but also proclaims: this is a place of beauty. Thus, the words of Jesus: “I am the good shepherd ( kalos) ”(John 10:11) can be interpreted with the same, if not with greater accuracy, as follows:“ I am a beautiful shepherd ( ho poemen ho kalos) ". This version was adhered to by Archimandrite Leo Gillet (1893-1980), whose meditations on the Holy Scriptures, often published under the pseudonym "monk of the Eastern Church", are so highly valued by members of our brotherhood.

The dual legacy of Scripture and Platonism enabled the Greek Church Fathers to speak of divine beauty as an all-encompassing point of attraction. For Saint Dionysius the Areopagite (c. 500 A.D.), the beauty of God is the primary cause and simultaneously the goal of all created beings. He writes: “From this beauty comes everything that exists ... Beauty unites all things and is the source of all things. It is the great creative root cause that awakens the world and preserves the existence of all things through their inherent thirst for beauty. " In the words of Thomas Aquinas (circa 1225-1274), “ omnia… ex divina pulchritudine procedunt"-" all things arise from Divine Beauty. "

Being, according to Dionysius, the source of being and the "creative root cause", beauty is at the same time the goal and the "ultimate limit" of all things, their "ultimate cause." The starting point is also the ending point. Thirst ( eros) of uncreated beauty unites all created beings and unites them in one solid and harmonious whole. Considering the relationship between kalos and kaleo, Dionysius writes: "Beauty" calls "all things to itself (for this reason it is called" beauty "), and collects everything in itself."

Divine beauty is, therefore, the primary source and realization of both the formative principle and the unifying goal. Although in the Epistle to the Colossians the holy Apostle Paul does not use the word "beauty", what he says, referring to the cosmic meaning of Christ, exactly corresponds to the divine beauty: "Through him everything was created ... everything was created by Him and for Him ... and everything is worth it" (Col. 1: 16-17).

Seek Christ Everywhere

If this is the all-encompassing scale of divine beauty, then what about the created beauty? It exists mainly on three levels: things, people and rituals, in other words, it is the beauty of nature, the beauty of angels and saints, and the beauty of liturgical worship.

The beauty of nature is especially emphasized at the end of the story of the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis: “And God saw everything that He created, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). In the Greek version of the Old Testament (Septuagint), the expression "very good" is conveyed by the words kala lian, therefore, due to the double meaning of the adjective kalos the words of Genesis can be translated not only as "very good," but also as "very beautiful." There is undoubtedly a good reason to use the second interpretation: for modern secular culture, the main means by which most of our Western contemporaries reach from a distant view of the transcendent is precisely the beauty of nature, as well as poetry, painting and music. For the Russian writer Andrei Sinyavsky (Abram Tertz), far from sentimental withdrawal from life, since he spent five years in Soviet camps, "nature - forests, mountains, heavens - this is infinity, given to us in the most accessible, tangible form."

The spiritual value of natural beauty is manifested in the daily cycle of worship of the Orthodox Church. In liturgical time, a new day begins not at midnight or at dawn, but at sunset. This is how time is understood in Judaism, which clarifies the history of the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis: “And there was evening, and there was morning: one day” (Gen. 1: 5) - the evening comes before the morning. This Hebrew approach has survived in Christianity. This means that Vespers is not the end of the day, but the entry into a new day that is just beginning. This is the first service in the daily circle of worship. How, then, does Vespers begin in the Orthodox Church? It always starts out the same way, except for Easter week. We read or sing a psalm, which is a hymn to praise the beauty of creation: “Bless, my soul, the Lord! Oh my God! Thou art wonderfully great, Thou art clothed with glory and majesty ... How many are Thy deeds, O Lord! You have done all things wisely ”(Psalm 104/103: 1, 24).

When we start a new day, we first of all think that the created world around us is a clear reflection of the uncreated beauty of God. Here is what Father Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983) says about Vespers:

“It starts with start, it means, in rediscovery, in favor and in gratitude to the world created by God. The church seems to lead us to the first evening, in which a man, called by God to life, opened his eyes and saw what God in His love gave him, saw all the beauty, all the splendor of the temple in which he stood, and offered thanks to God. And, giving thanks, he became myself... And if the Church - in Christ, the first thing she does is give thanks, return peace to God. "

The value of created beauty is equally confirmed by the threefold structure of the Christian life, as the spiritual authors of the Christian East have repeatedly spoken about, beginning with Origen (c. 185–254) and Evagrius of Pontus (346–399). The secret path distinguishes between three stages or levels: practici ("active life"), physiki ("Contemplation of nature") and theologia (contemplation of God). The path begins with active ascetic efforts, with the struggle to avoid sinful actions, to eradicate vicious thoughts or passions, and thus achieve spiritual freedom. The path ends with “theology,” in this context meaning the vision of God, union in love with the Most Holy Trinity. But between these two levels there is an intermediate stage - “natural contemplation”, or “contemplation of nature”.

"Contemplation of nature" has two aspects: negative and positive. The negative side is the knowledge that things in the fallen world are deceptive and transitory, and therefore it is necessary to go beyond them and turn to the Creator. On the positive side, however, it means seeing God in all things and all things in God. Let us quote Andrei Sinyavsky once again: “Nature is beautiful because God looks at it. Silently, from afar, He looks at the forests, and that's enough. " That is, natural contemplation is a vision of the natural world as the mystery of the divine presence. Before we can contemplate God as He is, we learn to reveal Him in His creations. In our present life, very few people can contemplate God as He is, but each of us, without exception, can discover Him in His creations. God is much more within reach, much closer to us than we usually imagine. Each of us can ascend to God through His creation. According to Alexander Schmemann, "a Christian is one who, wherever he looks, will find Christ everywhere and rejoice with Him." Can't each of us be a Christian in this sense?

One of the places where it is especially easy to practice “contemplation of nature” is Mount Athos, which any pilgrim can attest. The Russian hermit Nikon Karulsky (1875-1963) said: "Here every stone breathes with prayers." It is said that another Athos hermit, a Greek whose cell was on the top of a cliff facing west towards the sea, sat every evening on the ledge of the rock, watching the sunset. Then he went to his chapel for the night vigil. Once he had a disciple, a young, practically minded monk with an energetic character. The elder told him to sit next to him every evening while he watches the sunset. After a while, the student became impatient. “It's a beautiful view,” he said, “but we admired it yesterday and the day before. What is the point of observing every night? What are you doing while you sit here watching the sun go down? " And the elder replied: "I am collecting fuel."

What did he mean? Undoubtedly, this is this: the outer beauty of the visible creature helped him prepare for the night prayer, during which he strove for the inner beauty of the Kingdom of Heaven. Finding the presence of God in nature, he could then easily find God in the depths of his own heart. Watching the sunset, he "collected fuel", the material that will give him strength in the forthcoming secret knowledge of God. Such was the picture of his spiritual path: through creation to the Creator, from "physics" to "theology", from "contemplation of nature" to contemplation of God.

There is a Greek saying: "If you want to know the truth, ask a fool or a child." Indeed, often fools and children are sensitive to the beauty of nature. Speaking of children, the Western reader should recall the examples of Thomas Traern and William Wordsworth, Edwin Muir and Kathleen Ryne. A remarkable representative of the Christian East is the priest Pavel Florensky (1882-1937), who died as a martyr for his faith in one of the Stalinist concentration camps.

“Confessing how much he loved nature as a child, Father Paul further explains that for him the whole kingdom of nature is divided into two categories of phenomena:“ captivatingly gracious ”and“ extremely special ”. Both categories attracted and admired him, some with their refined beauty and spirituality, others with their mysterious uniqueness. “Grace, striking with splendor, was bright and extremely close. I loved her with all the fullness of tenderness, admired her to the point of convulsions, to acute compassion, asking why I could not completely merge with her and, finally, why I could not forever absorb her or be absorbed in her ”. This acute, piercing aspiration of the child's consciousness, of the child's entire being, to completely merge with the beautiful object should have been preserved since then by Florensky, acquiring completeness, expressed in the traditionally Orthodox desire of the soul to merge with God.

The beauty of the saints

“To contemplate nature” means not only to find God in every created thing, but also, much deeper, to find Him in every person. Due to the fact that people are created in the image and likeness of God, they all share in divine beauty. And although this applies to every person without exception, despite his outward degradation and sinfulness, initially and to the highest degree it is true in relation to the saints. Asceticism, according to Florensky, creates not so much a "kind" as a "beautiful" person. "

This brings us to the second of the three levels of created beauty: the beauty of the host of saints. They are beautiful not by sensual or physical beauty, not by beauty, which is estimated by secular "aesthetic" criteria, but by abstract, spiritual beauty. This spiritual beauty is primarily manifested in Mary, the Mother of God. According to the Monk Ephraim the Syrian (c. 306-373), she is the highest expression of created beauty:

“You are one, O Jesus, with Your Mother are beautiful in every way. There is not a single defect in You, my Lord, there is not a single spot on Your Mother. "

After the Blessed Virgin Mary, the holy angels are the personification of beauty. In their strict hierarchies, according to St. Dionysius the Areopagite, they are represented as "a symbol of Divine Beauty." This is what is said about Archangel Michael: "Your face shines, O Michael, the first among the angels, and your beauty is full of miracles."

The beauty of the saints is emphasized by the words from the book of the prophet Isaiah: “How beautiful are the feet of the evangelist proclaiming peace on the mountains” (Isa 52: 7; Rom 10:15). It is also vividly emphasized in the description of St. Seraphim of Sarov, given by the pilgrim N. Aksakova:

“All of us, rich and poor, were waiting for him, crowding at the entrance to the temple. When he appeared at the door of the church, the gaze of everyone present was directed at him. He walked slowly down the steps, and in spite of his slight limp and hump, he seemed and really was extremely handsome. "

Undoubtedly, there is nothing accidental in the fact that the famous collection of spiritual texts of the 18th century, edited by St. Macarius of Corinth and St. Nicodemus the Holy Mountain, which canonically describes the path to holiness, is called “ Philokalia"-" Love for beauty ".

Liturgical beauty

It was the beauty of the divine liturgy held in the great Church of the Holy Wisdom in Constantinople that converted Russians to the Christian faith. “We didn’t know where we were - in heaven or on earth,” the envoys of Prince Vladimir reported upon their return to Kiev, “… therefore we cannot forget this beauty.” This liturgical beauty is expressed in our worship through four main forms:

“The annual sequence of fasts and holidays is time represented by beautiful.

The architecture of church buildings is space represented by beautiful.

Holy icons are images represented by beautiful... According to Father Sergiy Bulgakov, “man is called to be a creator not only in order to contemplate the beauty of the world, but also in order to express it”; iconography is “human participation in the transformation of the world”.

Church singing with various tunes built on eight notes is sound represented by beautiful: according to St. Ambrose of Mediolana (c. 339–397), "in the psalm, instruction competes with beauty ... we make the earth respond to the music of heaven."

All these forms of created beauty - the beauty of nature, the saints, the divine liturgy - have two things in common: created beauty is diaphanous and theophanic... In both cases, beauty makes things and people clear. First of all, beauty makes things and people diaphanous in the sense that it motivates the special truth of each thing, its inherent essence, in order to shine through it. As Bulgakov says, “things are transformed and shine with beauty; they reveal their abstract essence. " However, it would be more accurate to omit the word "abstract" here, since beauty is not indefinite and generalized; on the contrary, she is “extremely special,” which the young Florensky greatly appreciated. Secondly, beauty makes things and people theophanic, so that God shines through them. According to the same Bulgakov, "beauty is the objective law of the world, revealing to us Divine Glory."

Thus, beautiful people and beautiful things indicate that which lies beyond them - God. Through the visible, they testify to the presence of the invisible. Beauty is the transcendental, which has become immanent; according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, she is “both transcendent and abides among us”. It is noteworthy that Bulgakov calls beauty "an objective law." The ability to comprehend beauty, both divine and created, implies much more than our subjective “aesthetic” preferences. At the level of the spirit, beauty coexists with truth.

From a theophanic point of view, beauty as a manifestation of the presence and power of God can be called "symbolic" in the full and literal sense of the word. Symbolon, from the verb symballo - “bringing together” or “connecting” is what brings into the correct relationship and unites two different levels of reality. Thus, the holy gifts in the Eucharist are called “symbols” by the Greek church fathers, not in a weak sense, as if they were just signs or visual reminders, but in a strong sense: they directly and effectively represent the true presence of the body and blood of Christ. On the other hand, holy icons are also symbols: they convey to those praying the feeling of the presence of the saints depicted on them. This also applies to any manifestation of beauty in created things: such beauty is symbolic in the sense that it personifies the divine. In this way, beauty brings God to us and us to God; it is a two-way entrance door. Therefore, beauty is endowed with sacred power, acting as a conductor of God's grace, an effective means of cleansing from sins and healing. This is why one can simply proclaim that beauty will save the world.

Kenotic (diminishing) and sacrificial beauty

However, we still have not answered the question raised at the beginning. Isn't Dostoevsky's aphorism sentimental and life-based? What solution can be offered by invoking beauty in the face of oppression, the suffering of innocent people, the torment and despair of the modern world?

Let's return to the words of Christ: “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11). Immediately after this, He continues: "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." The Savior's mission as a shepherd is endowed not only with beauty, but also with the martyr's cross. Divine beauty personified in the God-man is saving beauty precisely because it is a sacrificial and diminishing beauty, a beauty that is achieved through self-desolation and humiliation, through voluntary suffering and death. Such beauty, the beauty of a suffering Slave, is hidden from the world, therefore it is said about him: “There is neither form nor greatness in Him; and we saw Him, and there was no form in Him that would draw us to Him ”(Isa 53: 2). Nevertheless, for believers, divine beauty, although hidden from view, is dynamically present in the crucified Christ.

We can say without any sentimentality or flight from life that "beauty will save the world", proceeding from the extreme importance of the fact that the transfiguration of Christ, His crucifixion and His resurrection are essentially linked to each other, as aspects of one tragedy, an indivisible mystery. Transfiguration as a manifestation of uncreated beauty is closely related to the cross (see Luke 9:31). The cross, in turn, should never be separated from the resurrection. The cross reveals the beauty of pain and death, the resurrection is beauty beyond death. So, in the ministry of Christ, beauty embraces darkness and light and humiliation and glory. The beauty embodied by Christ the Savior and transmitted by Him to the members of His body is, first of all, a complex and vulnerable beauty, and for this reason it is a beauty that can really save the world. Divine beauty, as well as created beauty, with which God has endowed his world, does not offer us a way bypassing suffering. In fact, she offers a path that goes by through suffering and thus, beyond suffering.

Despite the consequences of the Fall and despite our deep sinfulness, the world remains a creation of God. He has not ceased to be “perfectly beautiful”. Despite the alienation and suffering of people, there is still divine beauty among us, still effective, constantly healing and transforming. Even now, beauty is saving the world, and she will always continue to do so. But this is the beauty of God, who fully embraces the pain of the world He created, the beauty of God who died on the cross and on the third day victoriously rose from the dead.

Translated from English by Tatiana Chikina