Father Pavel Florensky on the origin of philosophy “from the spirit” of mystery

The article shows that in the works of F. Pavel Florensky “Introduction to the history of ancient philosophy” and “The first steps of philosophy”, as well as a number of others, the concept of the origin of philosophy as a “transformed form” of the cult is built. This corresponds to his general concept of culture as the otherness of the cult and is a generalization of the analysis of specific early forms of the philosophy of Ancient Greece. Analysis of the parallelism of meanings between the ancient mysteries and philosophical “ecstasy”, the sacred symbolism of pagan “gods” as prototypes of ontological and cosmological categories shows the growth of philosophy “out of the spirit” of the sacred ritual. Philosophical reflection thus becomes a substitute for the rites of initiation (“initiation”). This continuity is very important for understanding the further evolution of philosophy already in the Christian era, when the basic categories of ancient philosophy were transformed into theological concepts.