Dialectics of cult, myth and culture (Fr. P. Florensky and A. Losev)

Abstract

It has long been generally accepted that there is a direct connection between Losev’s philosophical ideas and the legacy of Fr. Pavel Florensky. They both also recognized this fact. However, there has been no detailed comparative examination of the concepts “cult”, “myth”, “culture” used by these authors. Florensky’s “Philosophy of Cult” and Losev’s “Dialectics of Myth” are the most demonstrative texts for such an analysis. Forensky’s text reveals the theory of the sequential decomposition of the initial syn­cretic cult, where myth and culture are the main stages. This theory parallels the concept of reviving cult from culture, which is its theurgic task. This concept, although not so clearly constructed, is quite evident in his works. Having also recognized the cult as the starting point of religious life, A. Losev places myth at the center of his concept as a verbal disclosure of the sacrament in sacred history. Thus, the meaning of culture changes. As a further development of myth, culture does not include theurgic potentiali­ties, it cannot revive myth; on the contrary, it is rigidly tied to myth, so that one myth can give birth only once and only to one culture that completely corresponds to it. For Christianity as an absolute myth, the culture of the Middle Ages becomes such a culture. As a result, despite the similarity of the themes being developed, Losev, unlike Florensky, proceeds not from a cyclical, but from a linear-eschatological view on history, which leads to different semantic content and correlation of the concepts discussed in the article.