Беседа на всесвятое Преображение Господа и Бога и Спаса нашего Иисуса Христа (О свойстве света, виденного Апостолами на Фаворе). Святого Григория Паламы, архиепископа Фесалоникийского

We praise by contemplating the great works of God in visible nature. The Greek sages also praise them and are amazed when they examine them, but we are for the glory of the Creator, and they are to the detriment of the glory of the Creator (as those who unworthily served the creatures instead of the Creator). We explain the prophetic, apostolic and fatherly words so that they serve the benefit of the readers, and - as a song of the Spirit who spoke through the prophets, apostles and fathers. The leaders of the heresies also try to interpret them, but to the detriment of those who listen to them, and to abolish the truth, using the words of the Spirit against the Spirit. Our God-bearing fathers, with their mouths, make the very word of the Gospel intelligible to us imperfect ones: just as child-loving mothers, chewing solid food, make it palatable to their infants, similarly, the reflections in the hearts of God-bearing fathers serve as useful food for the souls of servants and believers, but the lips of the vicious and wrong-minded are filled with deadly poison, which, when mixed with the verbs of life, makes them deadly for unwise employees. So, let us avoid those who do not accept paternal interpretations and pretend to respect the sayings of Scripture, but at the same time reject their pious meaning; Let us avoid them more than anyone would avoid a snake (by biting it, it kills the transient body without touching the immortal soul; those who, seizing the soul itself with their teeth, remove it from God, and this is the eternal death of the immortal soul). Let us avoid such and resort to those who offer what is pious, saving and in accordance with the traditions of our fathers. I made such a preface to your love because now we celebrate the Holy Transfiguration of Christ on the mountain, and because our word is about the light that was with it, against which a great dispute is being waged by the enemies of light. To explain the mystery of the present celebration and understand the truth, it is necessary for us to turn to the very beginning of the Gospel now read: and after six days Jesus gave Peter, James, and John his brother water, and led them up to a high mountain alone (Matthew 17:1). We ask, first of all, where does the Evangelist Matthew begin counting the six days after which the day of the Transfiguration of the Lord came, from what day, that is,? As the course of speech shows, from the moment in which the Savior, instructing His disciples, said to them: come to receive the Son of Man in the glory of His Father, and added: Amen, I say to you, there are none of those standing here who have not tasted death, until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom (Matt. 16:27, 28), i.e. That is, He called the light of the impending transfiguration the glory of the Father and His Kingdom. This is shown and revealed more clearly by the Evangelist Luke, saying: according to the words of these days these days came to pass, and we prayed to Peter and John and James, and went up to the mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the vision of His face was different, and His robe shone white (Luke 9:28–29). But how can they agree with each other, when one definitely speaks of an interval of eight days between the conversation and the appearance, and the other (says): six days at a time? Listen and understand. There were eight on the mountain, but only six were visible: three - Peter, James and John, who ascended with Jesus, saw Moses and Elijah standing there with Him talking, so that there were six of them all; but together with the Lord, of course, there were the Father and the Holy Spirit: the Father testifying with His voice that this is His beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit shining with Him in a bright cloud. Thus those six make eight and in relation to eight do not represent any difference; in the same way, the Evangelists do not disagree when one says: after six days, and the other: according to these words it was like eight days; but with these double words they seem to give us a certain image of those mysteriously, and at the same time clearly present on the mountain. Of course, anyone who argues with Scripture knows that the evangelists agree with each other: Luke spoke about eight days, without contradicting Matthew, who said: six days, without adding the day on which those words were spoken, as well as the day on which the Lord was transfigured (which days Matthew imagines to mean for those who reason wisely); The Evangelist Luke does not say: “in eight days” (like the Evangelist Matthew: in six days), but: it was like eight days. But in what the Evangelists seem to disagree on, through each other they show us great and mysterious things. In fact, why did one say: six days each, and the other, ignoring the seventh, remembered the eighth? - because the great spectacle of light of the Transfiguration of the Lord is the mystery of the eighth day, that is, the future century, which is about to open after the destruction of the world created during six days. About the power of the Divine Spirit, through which the Kingdom of God is revealed to those worthy, the Lord predicted: there are none of those who stand here, who have not tasted death, until they see the kingdom of God come in power (Mark 9:1). The King of all is present everywhere and His kingdom is everywhere, so the coming of His kingdom does not signify its transition from one place to another, but its revelation by the power of the Divine Spirit; that is why it is said: it came with power; and this power will appear not just to ordinary people, but to those standing with the Lord, that is, confirmed in faith in Him and like Peter, James and John and, above all, themselves, as free from our natural humiliation. Therefore, and precisely for this reason, God reveals Himself on the mountain, on the one hand descending from His height, and on the other, raising us from the depths of humiliation, so that the Incontainable One is truly contained by mortal nature; and such a phenomenon, of course, is much more excellent and above the mind, as produced by the power of the Divine Spirit. So, the light of the Transfiguration of the Lord is not born and does not disappear and is not subject to the sensory ability and, although it was contemplated with bodily eyes for a short time and on an insignificant mountain top, the mysteries (disciples) of the Lord at that time also passed from flesh to spirit through the change of feelings produced in them by the Spirit, and thus saw how and how much the power of the Divine Spirit benefited them - this ineffable light. Those who do not comprehend this conceived that those chosen from the apostles saw the light of the Transfiguration of the Lord with a sensitive and created power (ability), and through this they attempt to bring down into creation not only that light, the glory of God and the kingdom, but also the power of the Divine Spirit, through which the Divine mysteries are revealed to the worthy. Probably, such people did not hear the words of the Apostle Paul: eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and the heart of man has not sighed, what God has prepared for those who love Him. God has revealed it to us by His Spirit: for the Spirit tests all things, even the depths of God (1 Cor. 2:9, 10). So, at the onset of the eighth day, the Lord, taking Peter, James and John, went up to the mountain to pray: for He always either prayed alone, moving away from everyone, even from the apostles themselves, as, for example, at the time when he fed five thousand women and children with five loaves and two fish (Matthew 14:19-21), or, taking with Him a few who were superior to the rest, as was the case at approaching the saving passion, when, having said to the other disciples: sit there until I go and pray there (Matthew 26:36), he took Peter, James and John with him. And now, having taken only these same ones, the Lord led them to a high mountain alone, and was transformed before them, that is, in their eyes. “What does it mean to be transformed,” asks the golden-speaking Theologian (Chrysostom) and answers: “he revealed, that is, to them something from His Divinity - as much as they could contain, and showed the indwelling God in Himself.” The Evangelist Luke says: while he was praying, he saw His face differently (Luke 9:29); in the Evangelist Matthew we read: and His face shone like the sun (Matthew 17:2). But the Evangelist said this not in the sense of considering that Light to be subject to the senses (may the blinding of the minds of those who cannot imagine anything higher than that subject to the senses be removed from us!), but wanting to show that Christ God is for those living and contemplating in the spirit as the sun is for those living in the flesh and contemplating with the senses: for those who are enriched with Divine gifts do not need any other light to know the Divinity. This inscrutable light shone and was mysteriously revealed to the Apostles and the chief of the prophets at the time when (the Lord) was praying; This shows that the parent of this blessed vision was prayer - that the brilliance occurred and appeared from the union of the mind with God, and that it is given to all those who, with constant exercise in the deeds of virtue and prayer, direct their minds to God. True beauty can be contemplated only by a purified mind; he who gazes intently at its radiance takes, as it were, some kind of participation in it, as if he draws some bright ray on his face: that is why Moses’ face was illuminated from the conversation with God. Do you know that Moses was transfigured when he went up the mountain and there he saw the glory of God? But he (Moses) did not perform the transformation himself, but only suffered the transformation; Our Lord Jesus Christ had this light from Himself. For this reason, in fact, He did not need prayer in order to illuminate His flesh with Divine light; but only showed where this light descends on the saints of God, and how one can contemplate it: for it is written that the saints also will be illuminated like the sun (Matthew 13:43), that is, those who are completely imbued with the Divine Light will see Christ, Divinely and ineffably illuminated, in Whom the radiance, coming from the Divine nature, appeared in common on Tabor and His flesh, due to hypostatic unity. But those who are pompous with worldly and vain wisdom and not attentive to men experienced in spiritual teaching, hearing about the light that shone on the Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration and seen by the apostles, think to see in it something sensual and created, which is why they reduce that immaterial, unstoppable and eternal light, which transcends not only the senses, but also every mind, to a sensual and created light, although He Himself shining with it on Tabor, clearly showed that this light was not created, calling it the Kingdom of God. Is the Kingdom of God really something created and useful? After all, it alone is above all time and age; and it would be unjust for the Kingdom of God to be confined or limited to centuries or times. We believe that it is the inheritance of those who are being saved. If the transfigured Lord shone and showed the glory, splendor and light of this, and will come again, as seen by the disciples on the mountain, then did the Lord really receive and forever hold on the mountain some other light, which he did not have before? Let this blasphemy be removed from us, because whoever thinks this way must recognize three natures in Christ, i.e. e., Divine, human and this light! So, we believe that in the Transfiguration He did not reveal any other light, but only that which was hidden by Him under the veil of flesh; this light was the light of the Divine nature, and therefore uncreated, Divine. So, according to the teaching of the theologizing fathers, Jesus Christ was transfigured on the mountain, not having received anything and not changing into anything new, which he had not previously had, but showing His disciples only what He already had, opening their eyes and making them sighted from blind people. Do you see that the eyes that see by nature are blind to the next light? So, this light is not a sensual light, and those who contemplated it did not simply see it with sensual eyes, but changed by the power of the Divine Spirit: they changed and only in this way saw the change that occurred at the very acceptance of our frailty, deified by union with the Word of God. From here both She who conceived and who gave birth miraculously learned that the One born of Her was God incarnate; and Simeon, as soon as he took this Baby into his arms; and Elder Anna, who came out to the meeting: for the Divine power shone through, as if through a glass shell, shining for those with pure eyes of heart. And why does the Lord, before the beginning of the Transfiguration, choose the most important of the apostolic ranks and take them with Him to the mountain? - of course, in order to show them something great and mysterious. What is especially great and mysterious in the demonstration of sensory light, which not only the elect, but also the rest of the apostles had abundantly hitherto? What was the need for them to change, by the power of the Spirit, their eyes to contemplate the next world, if it is sensory and created? How can the glory and Kingdom of the Father and the Holy Spirit be represented in any sensory light? Will Christ the Lord really come in such glory and Kingdom at the end of the age, when there will be no need for air, space, or anything like that, but when, according to the testimony of the Apostle, God will be all things in all (1 Cor. 15:28), i.e., will replace all things for all? If - everything, then, therefore, light. From here it is clear that the light of Tabor was the light of the Divine. And the Evangelist John, taught by Divine revelation, clearly says that the future eternal and abiding city will not require the sun and the moon to shine in it: for the glory of God enlighten it, and its lamp is the Lamb (Rev. 21:23). Isn’t it clear that he shows here the same Jesus, Who was now divinely transfigured on Tabor, and whose flesh shone like a lamp, revealing the glory of the Divinity to those who ascended the mountain with Him? In the same way, the same Theologian says about the inhabitants of this city: they will not require light from light from a lamp, nor the light of the sun, for the Lord God enlightens me: and there will be no night there (Rev. 22:5). But what, we ask, is there another light, which has no change or change (James 1:17)? What light is immutable and unstoppable if not the light of the Divine? Moreover, Moses and Elijah (and especially the first, who was clearly present in spirit and not in the flesh) through what sensory light could they be illuminated, visible and known? For it is also written about them: He appeared in glory, and spoke of His departure, but He wanted to die in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31). And how else could the apostles recognize those whom they had never seen before, if not with the mysterious power of Divine light, which opened their mental eyes? But we will not tire your attention with further explanation of the words of the Gospel. Let us believe as those who are enlightened by Christ Himself taught us, since they alone know it well: for the mysteries of God are known, according to the Prophet, only to God and His associates. We, however, understand the mystery of the Transfiguration of the Lord according to their instructions - we ourselves will strive to be illuminated by this light and kindle in ourselves the love and desire for unfading glory and beauty, cleansing our spiritual eyes from earthly thoughts and raking ourselves from corruptible and fleeting sweets and beauties, darkening the clothes of the soul and plunging into the fire of Gehenna and utter darkness, from which let us be liberated by the illumination and knowledge of the immaterial and ever-present light of our Savior transfigured on Tabor, to the glory of Him and His Eternal Father and the Life-giving Spirit, of whom there is one radiance, one Divinity and glory and kingdom and power, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. 158 In short. See Curs. Compl. Patrolog. Migne, series graeca, vol. CLI; compare St. Gregory, Archbishop. Thessalonian, Palamas, 65 conversations – handicraft. (XV century) Moscow. Synod, library. (69–LXX), l.l. 123 vol.–127; “Sunday. Read." XVII (1853–1854), pp. 145–147. You might be interested in: