Holy Scripture in the Works of S. L. Frank: Path to the Exegesis of Revelation

Abstract

Religious and philosophical works of S. L. Frank are the subject of numerous studies on the history of philosophy, religious and theological studies. It is all the more obvious to consider his heritage from the point of view of philology and biblical studies — function and meaning of quotations, reminiscences, allusions, genres from the Holy Scripture in the philosopher’s texts. He turned to the Bible at different periods of his life. In this paper we analyze several works by Frank written before 1939: “The Diary” (1902), “The Object of Knowledge”, “The Collapse of the Idols”, “The Meaning of Life”, “The Spiritual Foundations of Society”, “The Unknowable”, etc. Starting with the article “De profundis” (1918) and especially with the book “The Collapse of the Idols” (1923) Frank’s biblical concept sphere is gradually formed, the final transition to spiritual discourse takes place. The philosopher is increasingly turning towards the biblical source in various translations — from Greek, Slavic, Latin, German. From now on it is impossible to imagine neither Frank’s world view without divinely inspired texts, the Word of God, nor his philosophy without biblical lexicon, the exegesis of Revelation.