Early Religious Writings, 1903-1909

Pavel Florensky, Boris Jakim

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781467447836
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

Profound writings by one of the twentieth century's greatest polymaths "Perhaps the most remarkable person devoured by the Gulag" is how Alexandr Solzhenitsyn described Pavel Florensky, a Russian Orthodox mathematician, scientist, linguist, art historian, philosopher, theologian, and priest who was martyred during the Bolshevik purges of the 1930s. This volume contains eight important religious works written by Florensky in the first decade of the twentieth century, now translated into English—most of them for the first time. Splendidly interweaving religious, scientific, and literary themes, these essays showcase the diversity of Florensky's broad learning and interests. Including reflections on the sacraments and explorations of Russian monastic culture, the volume concludes with "The Salt of the Earth, " arguably Florensky's most spiritually moving work.

The Salt of the Earth

The Story of the Life of Hieromonk Abba Isidore,
Starets of the Gethsemane Skete

Compiled and Told in Order
by His Unworthy Spiritual Son, Pavel Florensky

Foreword Addressed to My Pious Brother-Reader

Father Isidore is no longer with us. He is no longer with us. He is gone. His fragrance was like a flower’s, and we sorrow because he has faded. He shone to us like a bright little sun, and the light has gone out. He was our rock of faith—where is our support now? Everything about him amazes us: his love, meekness, and humility; his impartiality, directness, and independence; his unpretentiousness, unselfishness, and poverty; his radiance, tranquility, and spirituality; finally, his prayer. But what amazes us most about him is that he transcended the world. He was in the world, but he was also not of this world. He lived among people, but not as a man. He did not disdain anyone or anything, but he himself was above everything; and all earthly things drooped low and pitifully before his gentle smile. With his gaze he demolished all human conventions, for he lived above the world and was free with a supreme, spiritual freedom. It seemed that he didn’t walk on the earth but was suspended by invisible threads from another country. This filled him with inner lightness; and when anything heavy and earthly approached him, it lost its oppressive weight. With a gentle smile, as if playing, he knew how to subvert ordinary human life into joy, and he did this with impunity. He could allow himself things that transcended the righteousness of the law, and he’d do this with such luminous clarity that these acts of his always had a symbolic meaning. Simple and everyday things were for him not just simple and everyday things, but projected long roots into other worlds, to a “new earth.”

And now, reflecting on and exploring with our hearts that “which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled,”¹ we delve deeper and deeper into Father Isidore’s life. The symbolic meaning of his life becomes more and more noticeable, and the labor of writing becomes harder and harder. There are no words to describe the subtle fragrance of spirituality that always accompanied Father Isidore like a cloud, especially since there is very little about his life that can be expressed verbally and externally. For, externally, his life was simple, containing neither interesting events nor captivating words.

Forgive me, gentle reader, for my ineptitude in this work I am undertaking; and if Father Isidore does not appear before you more like an Angel from heaven than a man of earth, the fault will lie not with the revered Starets, but with the inept writer of his life. I have done my best to write truly about Father Isidore, but every time I reread my manuscript an obscure feeling comes over me that I have not grasped his true nature.

Chapter 1

In which the pious reader learns about Father Isidore’s cell

In order to satisfy your curiosity, pious reader, about how Father Isidore lives, let us take a walk together to his cell. We exit the Monastery of St. Sergius of Radonezh, go through the Posad, and cross the field near the Skete ponds. Then after crossing the bridge, going past the Bogoliubivaya Kinoviya Monastery, and traversing the woods, we find ourselves between the Gethsemane and Chernigov Sketes. But before going to the Starets’s home, let us not forget to pray in the underground church of the Chernigov Mother of God, the miraculous icon of these parts. The Starets loves her so much, that without doubt he will ask us if we visited her, a question he poses to every guest.

But now let us go without further ado to the Gethsemane Skete. We climb up a wooden staircase and traverse a graveyard. And over there we see Father Isidore’s little house.

This house, in which Father Isidore lived twice² and in which he died, is situated in the right corner of the Skete (in relation to the main entrance), at the very wall. Previously, this house had belonged to the Athos starets Samuil (called Ioanniky as hieromonk) and then to Father Avraamy, who, before living there, had spent many years beneath the earth, in the so-called “caves” adjoining the underground church of the Chernigov Mother of God. Father Isidore’s house is a tiny log structure consisting of a little cell into which four or five men could squeeze with great difficulty and sit on little benches; a “little vestibule” (Father Isidore’s name for it) in which two men could sit with difficulty; and a tiny entryway. A kind of closet was attached to the “little vestibule,” and Father Isidore set up his samovar there. The entryway and the closet were minuscule; the samovar took up the whole closet, and only two people at a time could pass through the entryway, and only if they were skinny. During the last two years of Father Isidore’s life, a cold entryway was added to the house, but it was so small that two men could barely stand in it at the same time.

But in this toy house there are many nooks and corners. Whenever you enter this house, it’s as if you keep trying to remember, but can’t remember, some sweet half-forgotten dream that is dear to your heart. It’s all so simple and poor, but also special, warm to the gaze, and serene. Things have their eyes; and Father Isidore’s furnishings greet you with such welcoming glances when you enter and escort you with such sweet gazes when you leave. When you enter, holy icons look straight out at you. Each of them has its own story; each of them is associated with some important name, yet important not here on earth, but in the kingdom of heaven. Beneath the icons there is a stand with a mother-of-pearl Jerusalem cross, an old tattered Gospel with a worn and glossy leather cover, and an icon-lamp on a blue glass base. All the walls of the cell are covered with photographs of people associated spiritually with Father Isidore, as well as with pictures, poems, and fruit-drop wrappers. None of it was worth more than pennies, but for Father Isidore everything was fruitful. Everything there was a symbol of the heavenly, a reminder of things on high. The glorious abbot of Mt. Sinai, St. John of the Ladder, says that both worldly and spiritual songs excite joy, divine love, and tears in those who love God, whereas for those who love sensual delights, it is the other way around.

I also think that if Father Isidore had had real paintings on his walls, instead of cheap pictures, his cell would have lost its meek sweetness: God loves humility and his power is manifested in poverty.

So, you enter the cell. To the right of the icons is a window, beneath which there is a little table with books, letters, and papers scattered over it. To the left of the icons stands a little bench; and then there is a little table on which lie a worn epitrachēlion,³ cuffs with tattered edges, and different necessaries; and then a little shelf. Above the table there are two little windows. On the sills Father Isidore has placed what he calls his “flowers”: jars with moss, tin cans with weeds pulled out by the gardener, a corked water-filled bottle to be used as a “vase” for his “flowers,” a bottle with a broken willow branch. It is impossible to remember everything that was on the windowsills.

In the “little vestibule” there is a little cupboard with cups and saucers and a little table on which the tea was sometimes placed. There are also wooden hangers made of dry sticks, resembling a stag’s antlers. Father Isidore would show them to every visitor.

If you take the entryway to the end, you’ll come out into a tiny garden, not more than two yards wide. Lying between the Skete wall and Father Isidore’s house, this garden encircles the house and is enclosed on two sides by a tall plank fence with a gate. Father Isidore calls this his “Inner Hermitage”; there he finds seclusion for prayer and spiritual reflection. Tall willows hang over the “Inner Hermitage,” sometimes whitening it with their flying fluff. And looking round with childlike joy, Father Isidore exclaims: “It’s snowing.” Grass, nettles, onions also grow there, some in tin cans found by Father Isidore in the garbage, and some in the earth. Toads live in Father Isidore’s garden, as well as many other creatures. A little table has been fashioned out of a stump, and there is another stump for sitting, as well as a seat made of stones carried here from various places by the master of the “Inner Hermitage.” Everything the eye sees here has a symbolic meaning: the willow represents the Oak of Mamre, under which our ancestor Abraham received the Holy Trinity; the seat of stones represents the cliff of the Thebaid where hermits lived; the branches with a wooden cross between them which were nailed to the tree in the corner of the “Hermitage” (opposite the gate) and which resembled a stag’s antlers, these branches represented, according to Father Isidore, the vision of St. Eustathius Placidas.⁴ No corner in the “Inner Hermitage” is without meaning. The very air is filled with memories of our holy ancestors and of the saints; and for Father Isidore the events of Sacred and Ecclesiastical History are much closer and much more vivid than the tedious hurly-burly of the world.

If you open the gate, you’ll go from the “Inner Hermitage” into the “Outer Hermitage,” which is situated in front of his house. This is an unenclosed place, only slightly protected by trees and bushes. Here, beneath a leafy bower, a round table was anchored into the ground, and it is surrounded by what Father Isidore calls his “furniture”—a “couch,” an “armchair,” a “chair,” and so on, all made of crooked tree-limbs and boards. Father Isidore made this furniture himself. It’s hard to imagine anything clumsier.

In the summertime Father Isidore would sometimes treat visitors to tea in this “Outer Hermitage.” Leading a visitor to the “furniture,” he’d declare with a smile: “I have a couch. It’s a perfect place to lie down and rest. I often rest here. It’s perfect.” “You should lie down and rest here, Father,” he’d sometimes say to the Bishop. Perfect, indeed! Just imagine lying down on tree-branches, some of which stick you in the side! Around the “furniture,” there were a few small planted beds, two with vegetables and one with strawberries. There was also a currant bush.

Chapter 2

In which it is told how the Starets would have greeted the pious reader if the latter, while visiting the Gethsemane Skete in order to venerate its treasures, had dropped in to see the Starets

After that survey of Father Isidore’s domain, let us go now, patient reader, to pay him a visit. He receives all visitors affectionately regardless of whether their visit is convenient or not; and he even greets strangers as if they were dear friends or relatives. You may not believe it, pious reader, but all people are his dear friends or relatives—everyone is a father, mother, brother, or sister to him, and even more than that.

We approach the door. If the key is sticking out, that means he’s home. However, he’s almost always at home, and if he’s not at home, there is no doubt that he will soon return. He leaves home only to go to church, to attend the liturgy; and, very rarely, he also goes to the Posad, to see the Bishop or visit the Academy, or to see other spiritual children of his. But we are happy to find that the key is sticking out of the keyhole, and that means the master is at home. We knock meekly with one finger. He doesn’t open the door. He probably doesn’t hear us—his hearing is bad. Or he may already have a visitor, whose confession he is hearing or with whom he is having an intimate conversation. Let us knock more loudly. That’s what it was—he didn’t hear the first knock, perhaps because he was immersed in prayer. We can now hear him approaching the door with his elderly step, and opening it. He never asks who’s there; he receives everyone, and although this has caused him trouble in the past, he never diverges from this established rule. He comes out in loose white canvas overalls and a white canvas skullcap. Quite often when he greets visitors he wears white canvas trousers and a white canvas shirt, which is not tucked in; above the shirt he wears a paramandyas;⁵ and he is usually barefoot or wears soft leather shoes, though at very rare times he wears boots. He greets us, telling us we are welcome.

We enter and take off our coats. The master shows us his artful hangers. Together with him, we cross ourselves before the icons, and then we ask for his blessing. He blesses and kisses each of us, and then he asks us to sit down. We all feel, for some reason, that this blessing is not an ordinary one, that it is special. But no one can say what is special about it. The special thing might be that his blessing is done with complete sincerity and conviction; and it is true that the Starets is deeply convinced that the blessing is filled with power, and is not just an empty ritual. Or the special thing might be Father Isidore’s inner love—not trumpeting itself, yet obvious to everyone—for the one being blessed. But that is far from being the whole thing. There’s something else, but what it is can’t be deciphered by the rational understanding. Finally, you stop trying to understand it rationally, and say simply: “It is God’s grace. Such power has always emanated from saints.” This renunciation of rational explanation fills us with tranquility, and as the visit progresses, everything seems clear and self-evident.

Father Isidore would always say something that lifts one’s spirits. If two of us come to see him, he calls us the travelers to Emmaus; and if three come, that’s extraordinarily good, for God appeared to Abraham in the form of three pilgrims. Sometimes Father Isidore would remark affectionately that it was for us, and for no one else, that he had been waiting, and that, as if on purpose, a previous visitor had brought him a tasty snack, which we could enjoy; or that God himself had sent us, because he had a special task he needed us to perform, a task he often thought up on the spot, in order to make us happy. Yes! If we had not forgotten to bring him a treat, we were not bashful about giving it to him: Father Isidore receives as simply as he gives—he thanks us and is joyful. For he always has visitors, and usually he has almost nothing to offer them; but he never lets anyone leave without giving him some little gift.

Then, he begins to take us around his cell. If you’re a first-time visitor, he’ll tell you the stories of the people depicted in the photographs. He’ll recite a religious poem. He’ll show you his flowers. Then he’ll ask you to sit down and read to you a verse rendition of the Psalms composed by a blind priest. Or he’ll ask if you want to accompany him in singing, from one of his books, something from the burial rite of the Mother of God performed in the Gethsemane Skete. Or he’ll even ask you to take the book home and to copy out the relevant passages so that you could sing t...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Translator’s Introduction
• Superstition and Miracle
• The Empyrean and the Empirical: A Dialogue
• The Goal and Meaning of Progress
• The Prize of the High Calling: An Appreciation of the Character of Archimandrite Serapion Mashkin
• Questions of Religious Self-Knowledge
• Dogmatism and Dogmatics
• Orthodoxy
• The Salt of the Earth: The Story of the Life of Abba Isidore, Starets of the Gethsemane Skete; Compiled and Told in Order by His Unworthy Spiritual Son, Pavel Florensky
• Index