Reflection of theological ideas about spiritual and bodily principles in N. Gumilev's triptych "Soul and Body"

Yanenko Anna Mihailovna Senior Lecturer; Department of History of Journalism and Literature; A.S. Griboyedov Moscow University Regent of the professional choir; Religious organization 'The Compound of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia of the Church of St. Nicholas of Myra in Shchukin, Moscow, of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate)' 47 Marshala Zhukova Ave., 315 block, Moscow, 123154, Russia avecanora@list.ru

Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev, by all his judgments, thoughts and beliefs, was a Christian, a man who absorbed the patristic heritage. The triptych "Soul and Body" (1919) reflects Gumilev's views on human nature, and its artistic interpretation, according to our hypothesis, correlates with the problem of human dichotomy and trichotomy, which has been discussed by Christian philosophers for many centuries.

In medieval philosophy, the problem of the relationship between soul and body was one of the traditional anthropological topics. Gumilev was certainly familiar with the poetic tradition of the "Soul-Body Dispute" genre, including Francois Villon's well-known poem "The Dispute between Villon and his Soul." Perhaps he was also familiar with F. D. Batyushkov's book "The Dispute between the soul and the body in the monuments of Medieval Literature. The experience of historical and comparative research". ^[2]

N. Gumilev enters into a dialogue with the theological tradition, tries to express in poetry the essence of this anthropological problem.

The question of the connection between soul and body has been discussed in patristic literature. Is human nature twofold or threefold? Soul and body or spirit-soul-body? The holy Fathers of the Church have been asking themselves all these questions for two millennia.

The dichotomy does not distinguish between the soul and the spirit and considers the soul to be the Divine part of the human being. In the trichotomous doctrine, the soul is responsible for creative and rational abilities, and the spirit is associated with conscience and the desire for God the Creator ^[8].

The first judgment is supported by a number of indications that describe man as a two-part being. The Apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Corinthians, writes: "Therefore glorify God both in your bodies and in your souls, which are God's" (1 Cor.6:20); "Therefore, beloved, having such promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Cor.7:1).

But the apostle Paul also reflects a separate essence - the Spirit - in his following epistles: "For the word of God is alive and effective and sharper than any two-edged sword: it penetrates to the separation of soul and spirit, compounds and brains, and judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).

And here again the question arises about the essence of the spirit: is it a part of the soul, which the trichotomists emphasize separately, or is it a separate substance of the higher world, which is given to a human being by the promise that we are "the image and likeness of God"?

"There is a widespread view that some holy fathers were dichotomists on this issue, unlike other trichotomists. But from the same historical analysis, it should seem obvious that in ancient Christian literature there was no such schematic division, i.e. in the Christian thought of antiquity there were no two schools opposed to each other or one another excluding trends. The history of patristic literature does not know the dispute between dichotomists and trichotomists. If some writers preferred to talk about the twofold nature of man, this did not prevent them from allowing trichotomy in other cases." ^{[1, p. 362]}

The triptych "Soul and Body" (1919), in our opinion, contains the quintessence of theological searches, however, embodied not in speculative philosophical theses, but in lyrical images. The whole cycle is based on the principle of an antinomic dialogue. There are quite a few studies devoted to this poem in literary studies. ^[7] But in this article I would like to pay special attention to a practically unexplored aspect - the theological one.

So, the title of this cycle consists of two words - "Soul and body", which may lead us to a dichotomous version of human nature. Indeed, the first two parts are a kind of dialogue between an invisible questioner and his soul and body, each of which reveals its essence and its idea of purpose in its monologue response.

The night stillness floats over the city,

And every rustle becomes muffled, But you, my soul, you are still silent, God have mercy, marble souls.

^{[4, p. 18]}

Gumilev associates night time with the beginning of the poem, a time of silence and understatement. In analyzing the third part of the poem, we will return to the time of day indicated in the triptych, but there the night will already act with a different associative purpose. Then we can read: "Have mercy, God, marble souls." ^{[4, p. 18]} It can be assumed that at this moment the author asks the Lord to have mercy and forgive souls whose petrification and callousness are as strong as marble. And they need to be woken up and pushed aside, emotionally rocked, so that they remember their purpose.

Further, it can be seen that the soul did not want to wake up in a human body, everything earthly is alien to it, it has lost its meaning and feels like a hostage: "And the globe of the earth has become a core to me, to which a convict is chained." ^{[4, p. 18]}

The last two stanzas of the first poem make you think deeply. "Ah, I hated love, the disease that controls everything in you" - this implies the fact that love is twofold, earthly love often leads to suffering and death.

And if there's anything else I have in common With the past, shimmering in the planetary chorus, It's grief, my reliable shield, Cold, contemptuous grief.

^{[4, p. 19]}

Let's consider these stanzas from the point of view of Christian philosophy. Every living being on our planet is endowed with a soul: both humans and animals. The soul gives you the opportunity to live, develop, and grow. This is the life that fills the body. But the soul itself knows little about the supreme, about the Creator, about the laws of existence. The living beings of our planet have such a soul, and we have the same soul. But we humans are created in the image and likeness of God, and the Lord has breathed the Spirit into us. And it is by the Spirit that our soul comes to life ("By the Holy Spirit every soul lives" (1st Antiphon of the 4th voice) ^{[3, p. 51]}, it begins to understand the meaning of its connection with the body, the essence of earthly life, its purpose. In this triptych, Gumilev consciously paints before us a soul that has long been in a "smoky" state, according to the word of St. Nicholas. St. John of the Ladder, who had forgotten her destiny and was in sorrow.^[6]

That is why the soul says that "cold contemptuous grief" connects it with its past, namely, with everything that was not sanctified by the Holy Spirit, which was supposedly in oblivion, in a state of abandonment to God. And as we can assume, a soul that is devoid of the touch of the Spirit cannot know love, because love is something that is given to us from God, something that unites us with the Creator (because God is Love). And the marble, petrified, and chilled soul will not be indifferent to the state of being in love, it will hate it (as the author describes here), just as after darkness we cannot look at the Sun, we will close ourselves from it because our eyes cannot bear the light.

I would also like to emphasize that the Orthodox Church is categorically opposed to the doctrine of the possibility of transmigration of souls, the existence of the soul before the creation of man. At first glance, N. S. Gumilev's words seem a bit contradictory here, as if the soul existed before. But God the Creator breathed a soul into the first man, Adam, thereby giving us the law of life on Earth and Godlike deification. From the point of view of modern science, the term "genetic memory" is recognized as incorrect and inaccurate, it rather refers to parapsychology and is associated with mystical elements. But in science there is and has been proven another term – "genetic code" - a system for recording genetic information. And it's no surprise that character traits, mental traits, predisposition to diseases, and certain abilities are often genetically determined. We all have family ties, so we dare to assume that our souls also have a common origin, they carry the experience of human existence, the unity of the family, which in no way contradicts the Christian faith.

Next, we hear the monologue of the body in response to everything that was "presented" by the soul. The body responds after almost a day, at sunset, when all the fatigue accumulates, when the day is lived - and you can take stock:

The sunset turned from gold to copper, The clouds were covered with green rust, And then I said to my body: "Answer everything that your soul has proclaimed."

^{[4, p. 20]}

And the body responded the way it should respond to the flesh - the one that was created from the earth, the one that is related to this planet, the one to which this world is essentially close. And here it is important to note that the body does not delve into the depths of wisdom, does not philosophize.: it lists. But he lists exactly what he likes. The body doesn't know, it feels. And in these feelings, it experiences echoes of love, echoes of what, without opening itself to the Body, makes it related to eternity. The body loves life, it is content with life, it seeks love in ordinary earthly joys.:

I like to splash in a salty wave, Listen to the cries of hawks, I like to ride an unbroken horse through a meadow smelling of cumin. ^{[4, p. 20]}

"The body is the soul's closest instrument and the only way to discover it outside in the real world. Therefore, by its very structure it is perfectly adapted to the forces of the soul," wrote St. Theophan the Recluse. ^{[10, p. 326]} Here we can understand the Creator's plan: without the soul, the body cannot exist, it decomposes. But even without a body, the soul cannot find peace in this world, it cannot fully realize God's plan for itself.

The body feels, it cannot know the future, it lives in the present. And in its separation from the grace of God, it understands its imminent demise. Death awaits every living being on our planet. The body is talking about this, concluding its monologue.:

But I will pay for all that I have taken and want, For all the sorrows, joys and delusions, As befits a husband, with the Irreparable death of the last one. ^{[4, p. 21]}

And here the theme of death is introduced into the poem, which was also one of the main themes in the European literary tradition. F. D. Batyushkov wrote: "... we were right in bringing together Western European legends about the lamentations of the soul and its wrangling with the body, namely, with the motive of the exodus of the soul." ^{[2, p. 7]} The poetry of the Silver Age is closely connected with existential searches: life and death, conceptual understanding of the existence of God – all these become the main themes of comprehension. In each direction of modernism, this theme was interpreted in its own way. Directly in Gumilev's work, death is an opportunity for improvement, it is a transition to another world – the continuation of life in a different form ^[7].

And now the night comes again, but not the night of confusion, the night of oblivion, but the night is like eternity. And Gumilev again talks about the Word of God, which "shone from the height of the Big Dipper." And at that moment, when the Light of God illuminated both soul and body, they asked their question: "Who are you, questioner?" ^{[4, p. 22]}

And here the most obvious and incomprehensible thing happens at the same moment. The questioner both relates himself to God, and speaks separately, for himself. Because the questioner is the Spirit, the spirit referred to in the trichotomy, the Spirit that makes us the image and likeness of God, which sanctifies both soul and body, takes us beyond the limits of ordinary earthly existence, brings us closer to the Creator and gives us the opportunity for eternal life.

Do you really want to interrogate me, Me, to whom a single moment is the entire period from the first earthly day to the fiery end of the world?

^{[4, p. 22]}

In this stanza, a version is put forward that the Spirit is the Lord God, that He knows the beginning and the end, that He is timeless. Gumilev also compares the spirit with the Igdrazil tree, which in Scandinavian mythology symbolizes the center of the universe and the basis of all worlds. The text emphasizes that in the Garden of Eden, when God breathed the Spirit into the first man, He related him, thereby, to eternity. And the spirit sanctified both soul and body. He became an indivisible part of this triad, bringing everything else together.

And at the end, the "questioner" addresses the soul and the body.:

I am the one who sleeps, and His ineffable nickname is hidden in the depths: And you are just a faint reflection of the dream Running at the bottom of his consciousness!

^{[4, p. 23]}

The soul and the body cannot separately know all the greatness of their nature, which brings them closer to the Creator. Individually, they are only echoes of the truth. The "faint glow of sleep" is a metaphor that conveys the borderline state of consciousness of human nature in this life - a special level of mental functioning when the possibility of existence is preserved, but it is not possible to fully assess the situation and perceive reality. In this case, Gumilev emphasizes that in oblivion, in the bustle of worldly worries, our condition is just that - incomplete, purposeless. And only when the Holy Spirit touches them, they are sanctified by Him and become one, the image of God. The soul receives the Spirit into itself, but in order to live in God, the human spirit also needs a body, which is, according to the word of Ap. St. Paul's "temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us" (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Everything – heavenly and earthly – must unite for the harmonious glorification of the Triune God, the One Uncreated, Unchangeable Source of all life and being; and man has a high destiny – to be an intermediary between heaven and earth, between irrational creatures and the higher Angelic world. ^{[5, p. 5]}

Gumilev's triptych differs fundamentally from medieval dialogues not in form and construction, but in essence. For example, "The Dispute between Villon and his Soul" is a dialogue between the poet and his soul. A series of questions and answers arise in the work, the soul tries to reason with the poet, and he answers it with bitter irony. The soul calls Villon to rethink life, to spiritual awakening, and the poet responds to this call with obvious fatigue and indifference. ^[11]

In Nikolai Gumilev's poem, everything is different: the soul is tired, it is tired of staying in the body, the joys of life are alien to it, it is tired of the current temporary existence, but it has also forgotten the purpose of its existence. The body treats everything more simply, it enjoys life, empathizes with events, accepts them for what they are. And only the Spirit, as the supreme mind, can give the Soul and Body an answer, show the way, give guidance and fill their common existence with meaning.

"The history of Patristic thought knows of no dispute between dichotomists and trichotomists. Those who taught about the threefold nature of human nature, in fact, singled out its highest part in the human soul and called it spirit, or mind. It should be emphasized that a person is a unity of soul and body. A body without a soul is dead, but a soul without a body cannot be considered complete," writes Archimandrite Isaiah (Belov).^[9]

N. Gumilev's cycle has three parts; his lyrical meta-plot unfolds according to a triadic principle: thesis-antithesis-synthesis. The first poem (thesis) is dedicated to the soul, its torments and doubts; the second (antithesis) is the body's response to all the reproaches of the soul, and the final (synthesizing) poem of the triptych embodies the Spirit, which is separately given to us from above by God, which is part of the Divine word (reason), but which is also part of human nature through which the soul and body find harmony.

It is the fact that only the Spirit sanctifies both the soul and the body, and that it becomes the guide of human nature to eternal life, that is the main thread of the cycle we have studied.