Беседа на Вознесение Господа и Бога и Спаса нашего Иисуса Христа. Святого Григория Паламы, архиепископа Фессалоникийского 98

The Jews celebrated the legal Passover - the exodus from Egypt to the land of Palestine; We also celebrate the Easter of the Gospel - the transition of our nature in Christ from death to life, from corruption to incorruption. What word can reveal the difference between our celebration and the ancient one and indicate the reasons for the present celebration? – The human word cannot adequately clarify this superiority, but the Hypostatic Wisdom of the Most High Father, the Eternal and Transubstantial Word of God, who through love for mankind united with us and lived, now through His deeds has shown the basis of the celebration and the immeasurable greatness of its superiority. For we now celebrate the transition of our nature in him, not from the underworld to earth, but from earth to heaven and further to the throne of Him who rules over all. Now the Lord not only stood after the resurrection among His disciples, but also moved away from them and, beholding them, was taken into heaven, ascended and entered the Holy of Holies and sat down at the right hand of the Father, above all principality and power, and every name and dignity, known and called in the present world, or in the future (Eph. 1: 21). Just as there were many resurrections before the resurrection of the Lord, so there were many ascensions before His ascension: Jeremiah the prophet was taken by the spirit and Habakkuk the angel, and of the others, Elijah is primarily depicted as taken to heaven on a chariot of fire. But the ascension of each of them was, as it were, some kind of movement, which, although it lifted it from the earth, did not completely remove it from its limits. Over Christ, just as after His resurrection from the dead, death no longer had power, so when He ascended and sat on high, every height turned out to be lower than Him, testifying to everyone that He is God above all. This is, according to Isaiah (2:2), the mountain of the Lord has been revealed, and the house of God on the verge of all rational mountains is the body of the Lord. For not an angel, not a man, but the Lord Himself came in the flesh and saved us, becoming for our sake like us and unchangeably remaining God. Just as He descended without changing, but descended (to us), so He returns back, not ascending in Divinity, but exalting our nature, which He assumed: for, in truth, it was necessary to offer to God our first-born nature from the dead, as some firstfruits for the whole generation. Therefore, although there have been many resurrections and ascensions, we do not celebrate any of them as much as the resurrection and ascension of the Lord, since we do not participate in those others and will not participate. From them we gain nothing more than guidance to faith in the resurrection and ascension of our Savior, in which we participate and will all participate, since this is the resurrection and ascension of human nature, and not just human nature, but also of all who believe in Christ and prove this faith by their deeds. For such as the Lord became, He became for our sake, being uncreated according to His Divinity; the life that He lived, He lived for us, showing us the path leading to true life; that He suffered in the flesh, He suffered for us, healing our passions, and for our sins He was condemned to death, for our sake He rose again and ascended, giving us resurrection and ascension for endless centuries, since all the heirs of this life, as far as possible, imitate the work of His economy on earth. The beginning of this imitation for us is holy baptism - the image of the death and resurrection of the Lord, the middle of it is a virtuous life and activity in accordance with the Gospel, and the end is victory over passions with the help of spiritual exploits, delivering a painless life, not subject to death, heavenly, as the Apostle tells us: If you live in the flesh, you are about to die: if you put to death the deeds of the flesh in the Spirit, you will live (Rom. 8:13). So those who live in Christ imitate His life in the flesh; Of course, each of them dies in time, just as He died in the flesh, but then they will be resurrected, like Him, glorified and incorruptible, if not now, then when the time comes, and will finally ascend, as Paul says about this: We will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so we will always be with the Lord (1 Thess. 4:17). Do you see how each of us, if we wish, can be a participant in the Lord’s resurrection and ascension, an heir to God and a joint heir with Christ? Therefore, we rejoice, celebrating the resurrection of our flesh, its ascension and confirmation, as the firstfruits of the resurrection and ascension of each of the believers, offering as proof of this the Gospel words now read about how the Lord, after His resurrection, stood in the midst of His disciples... So, why did He stand in the midst of them, and then accompanied them on the way, as it is said: He brought them out as far as Bethany: and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them (Luke 24:50)? - In order to show Himself completely whole and undamaged, His feet - healthy and walking firmly, although they retained the marks of the nails - to also show, for assurance of saving suffering, His hands nailed to the cross and ribs pierced by the spear, still with traces of blows. In addition, in the words: one hundred among the disciples... it is also indicated that they are confirmed in faith through the appearance of the Lord and His blessing, for He not only stood in the midst of them, but also found himself in the heart of each and was established there by faith, so that about each of these we can say together with the Psalmist: God is in the midst of him, and does not move (Ps. 46:6). From that time on, the Lord’s apostles became firm and unshakable. So, the Lord stood in the midst of the apostles and said to them: peace be with you, this is a kind, usual and characteristic greeting to Him. Peace is of two kinds: the one that we have in relation to God and which is a product primarily of piety, and the one that we have in relation to each other and which comes from the voice of the Gospel: the Lord granted both peaces with His one utterance. And as He commanded them to do when He sent them for the first time, saying: If you enter a house, first say: peace to this house (Luke 10:5), so He Himself does: appearing in the house where they were gathered, He immediately gave them peace. When I saw that they were afraid and embarrassed by the unexpected and wondrous vision (for I am, they say, the spirit of seeing, i.e. e., they thought that what was visible was a ghost): then He, again revealing to them the thoughts of their hearts and showing that He is the One to whom they said before suffering and resurrection: now we know that we weigh everything, and do not demand, but whoever asks You (John 16:30), - invited them to be convinced through testing and touch. And when he saw that they were ready to accept the truth, he confirmed them in it with (new) evidence: in addition to peace and fellowship, He took food in their presence. Also, - they say - to those who do not believe them out of joy and wonder (of course, not out of doubt, but out of joy), I say to them: Do you have anything to eat here? They gave him some baked fish, and honeycombs from the bees. And we stood before them before them (Luke 24:41–43). His incorruptible body accepted food after the resurrection, not because it needed it, but in order to convince of its own resurrection and to show that it was the same one that, even before suffering, ate food with the apostles. It accepted food not by the nature of mortal bodies, but by divine power, just as, one might say, fire consumes wax, with the difference that fire for its existence needs material for combustion, and immortal bodies do not need food for their existence. He ate fish, baked parts and honeycombs from bees, which also serve as signs of His secret. For our nature, swimming like a fish in the moisture of sensual and passionate life, the Word of God hypostatically united with Himself and, having cleansed us with the divine and impregnable fire of His Divinity from all passionate disposition, made it god-like and, as it were, burning. Through communication with the fire that the Lord came to earth to bring, He makes God-like not only the mortal flesh that He accepted for us, but also each of those worthy of communication with Him. And our nature is like honey in a honeycomb, enclosed in a body, as in wax, and having a rational treasure, like honey, or better yet, such is every one of those who believe in Christ, for he has the grace of the Divine Spirit stored in his soul and body, like honey in a honeycomb. The Lord eats from this, since pleasant food contributes to the health of each of the participants in nature. He does not take this part Himself, but it is given to Him by the disciples: for the disciples bring the believers to Him, separating them from the unbelievers. So, having tasted fish and honeycomb honey in front of His disciples, the Lord reminded them of His words that He had told them when going to suffer, thereby revealing Himself to be true. For as He said, so it was fulfilled. And He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and to know that so it was written, so it was fulfilled and so it was necessary that the Only Begotten Son of God, according to the immeasurable depth of His love for mankind, for the sake of people, would become man, would be witnessed and glorified from above by the voice of the Father and the manifestation of the Divine Spirit, would be the subject of faith and wonder for His miraculous actions and words, would be hated and betrayed by those who seek not the glory of God, but glory of man, was crucified, buried and rose from the dead on the third day; It was also necessary that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in His name, starting from Jerusalem, and they, His self-witnesses and servants, should be preachers and witnesses of this; Having promised to send them from above the promise of the Father, that is, the Holy Spirit, He commanded to remain in Jerusalem until they were endowed with power from on high. Talking in this way with His disciples about salvation, the Lord led them out of the house, led them to Bethany and, having blessed them, retreated from them and began to ascend into heaven and, using a cloud of light as a chariot, appeared in glory, entered the Holy of Holies not made by hands and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven, making our flesh a participant in the reign, as God-like. And as the apostles did not stop looking at heaven, they learned from the angels who appeared that He, to all who saw, would come again from heaven. Daniel prophesied about this, saying: I saw, and behold, the Son of Man came on the clouds of heaven (7:13), and the Lord Himself said: and all the tribes of the earth will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven (Matthew 24:30). Then the disciples bowed from the Mount of Olives to the Lord, who had ascended into heaven, from where He came and where He resettled the earth, with which He ascended again to where He had come from, uniting the earthly with the heavenly and founding, for the glory of His love for mankind, a single heavenly and together earthly Church - and with joy they returned to Jerusalem and remained always in the church, turning their minds to heaven, glorifying and blessing God and preparing ourselves to receive the promised coming of the Divine Spirit. This, brethren, is, to put it briefly, the life of Christians - to engage in petitions and prayers, to have the gaze of the mind turned, in imitation of the angels, to the heavenly Master, to glorify and bless Him with an immaculate life and, thus, prepare for His mystical dwelling, in accordance with the one who said: I sing and understand in the blameless way, when you come to me (Ps. 100:2). The great Paul spoke clearly about this: our life is in heaven, from whom Jesus was the forerunner of us (Phil. 3:20; Heb. 6:20). The Chief Apostle Peter also points to this: Having girded your loins, being sober, fully trust in the grace brought to you by the revelation of Jesus Christ, but love Him without having seen (1 Pet. 1:13, 8). And the Lord inspires this, saying: Let your loins be girded, and your lamps burning: and you are like a man who waits for his Lord when he returns (Luke 12:35-36). From this point of view, the Lord did not violate, but fulfilled the legal Sabbath, showing that the Sabbath was indeed sanctified as the day of cessation of bodily activities for higher purposes, and inherited this blessing so that we, having renounced earthly and transitory affairs, would ascend to God, with shameless hope seeking the heavenly and incorruptible. It is known that in ancient law one of the days of the week was Saturday. It seemed to the foolish Jews that the Lord had violated the legal Sabbath, but He says: He did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). How is it that He did not break the Sabbath, but fulfilled it and with it the law? Promising to give the Holy Spirit to all who ask Him day and night, commanding to always be collected and watchful and saying: you also be prepared: for at this hour, do not forget, the Son of Man will come (Matthew 24:44), - He, for those who chose perfect obedience to Him, made all days blessed Sabbaths and thus did not break, but fulfilled the law. But you, who are addicted to worldly affairs, if you refrain from greed and mutual hatred and strive for truth and prudence, then, as a result of avoiding evil, you will make all days Saturdays. And every time that day of salvation (Saturday) comes, more than the rest, we must put aside blameless deeds and speeches, constantly remain in the Church of God, attentively incline our ears to reading and teaching, listen with tenderness to petitions, prayers and hymns addressed to God; - and thus you will fulfill the Sabbath, living according to the gospel of the grace of God and directing your mental gaze to Christ who sits above the heavens with the Father and the Spirit, who made us sons of God, adopted not by name only, but by communion with the Divine Spirit and united to God and to each other through His own flesh and blood. Let us guard this mutual unity with unceasing love; Let us always look to the highest Author, for we are no longer earthly from the earth, like the first man, but like the second man, the Lord from heaven; and as is earthly, so are those on earth; as is heavenly, so are those in heaven. And just as we bore the image of the earthly, we will also bear the image of the heavenly and, turning our hearts to Him, we will begin to contemplate this great spectacle - our nature, eternally abiding together with the immaterial fire of the Divine. And having rejected the disposition to the fleshly garments in which we are clothed for sin, let us stand firmly on holy earth, making each this holy earth with virtue and an unswerving desire for God and, since God abides in fire, we will have hope and, flowing to Him, we will be enlightened and, enlightened, we will live with Him forever, to the glory of the highest Light, three-sun and sovereign Radiance, to Whom be all glory, power, honor and worship, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen 99, In short. See Curs. Compl. Patrolog. Migne tom. CLI, col. 275–286; compare Grigor, apxiep. Thessalonica. Palamas 65 conversations – handicraft. Moskovok. Synod, library. (69/LXX), l. l. 76 rev.–80; Church Led. 1898, No. 18–19. 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