Беседа на день Пятидесятницы. Святого Григория Двоеслова, папы римского

From the Acts of the Apostles, you, beloved brothers, have heard that the Holy Spirit appeared over the Apostles in tongues of fire and gave them the knowledge of other tongues. By this miracle, the Holy Spirit shows nothing less than that the Holy Church, filled with the same Spirit, was to speak in the languages ​​of all nations. Those who, contrary to God, strived to build a tower, lost the community of a single language (Gen. 1:8); and in these, who humbly feared God, all languages ​​were brought together. So, here humility deserves help, and there pride deserves confusion. But why did the Holy Spirit, co-eternal with the Father and the Son, appear in fire? Why did he appear in fire and together in tongues? Why does He sometimes appear in a dove and sometimes in fire? Why did the Holy Spirit appear over the Only Begotten Son in the form of a dove, and over the apostles in fire (so that it neither descended on the Lord in fire, nor appeared over the disciples in the form of a dove)? – The co-eternal Holy Spirit appears to the Father and the Son in fire because God is incorporeal, ineffable and invisible fire, according to the testimony of St. Apostle Paul: Our God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29). God is called fire because He consumes the rust of sins. About this fire (heavenly) Truth says: the fire came to fall on the earth (Luke 12:49), for earthly hearts are called earth, which, always containing lower thoughts, are trampled under foot by evil spirits. And the Lord sends fire to the earth when, with the breath of the Holy Spirit, he inflames the hearts of carnal people; and the earth burns when the carnal heart leaves the lusts of the present age and is inflamed with the love of God. So, the Spirit (Holy) appropriately appeared in fire, because from every heart filled with Him, He drives out the insensibility of cold and inflames it with love for eternity. – The Holy Spirit appeared in tongues of fire because He makes everyone whom He fills both fiery and speaking. Teachers of the faith have tongues of fire, because when they preach about the love of God, they inflame the hearts of those who listen (for the word of a teacher is idle if it cannot ignite love). It was this flame of teaching that was felt from the lips of the Truth Herself by those who said: Was not our heart sorrow in us, when we spoke on the way, and when we spoke the scriptures to us (Luke 24:32)? For from the heard word the Spirit is inflamed, the coldness of insensibility disappears, the mind, striving for mountain desires, becomes alien to earthly lusts; and God's elect never listen to the commandments of heaven with a cold heart, but burn towards them with the fire of inner love and zeal for the truth. – But the Holy Spirit appeared both in the form of a dove and in fire: because He makes all those filled with Him simple and fiery: simple in purity, fiery in zealous imitation. God cannot be pleased either with simplicity without zeal, or with zeal without simplicity; That’s why the Truth Itself says: be wise like a serpent, and your goals as simple as doves (Matthew 10:16). So, since this Spirit teaches both purity and simplicity, He had to appear both in fire and in a dove so that every heart touched by His grace would be both calm (simple) in the quality of meekness, and ardent in zeal for righteousness. – Finally, why did the Holy Spirit descend on our Redeemer Himself, the Intercessor of God and men, in the form of a dove, and on the disciples in the form of fire? It is known that the Only Begotten Son of God is the Judge of the human race. But who could stand before His justice if He, in zeal for righteousness, wanted to judge our sins before He gathered us together with meekness? Therefore, having become a man for the sake of people, He showed himself meek for people. He did not want to smite sinners, but wanted to gather them; He first wanted to correct with meekness, so that he could have those who could later be saved at the trial. Thus, the Holy Spirit had to appear in the form of a dove over Him who came not in order to defeat sins out of jealousy, but in order to still endure them through meekness. On the contrary, over the Apostles the Holy Spirit had to appear in fire, so that those who were simple people, and therefore sinners, would inflame the spirit of other slaves against themselves and, through repentance, would cleanse within themselves those sins that God tolerated with condescension. For even those who were most devoted to the Heavenly Teacher could not be without sin, according to the testimony of St. Evangelist John, who said: if we say that we have no sin, we are deceived, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). So, the Holy Spirit descended on people in fire, and appeared over the Lord in the form of a dove, so that we, in zeal for the truth, would carefully observe our sins, which we tolerate through leniency and mercy, and would always burn them with the flame of repentance. The Holy Spirit appeared over the Redeemer in the form of a dove, and over people in fire, so that, as much as the severity of our Judge became more moderate for us, our weakness became more ardent against itself. About God the Holy Spirit it is written: to one is given the word of wisdom by the Spirit, to another the word of understanding, about the same Dus: to another faith, by the same Spirit: to another the gifts of healings, about the same Dus: to another the actions of powers, to another prophecy, to another spiritual reasoning, to another the generation of tongues, to another the telling of tongues. All this is acted by one and the same Spirit, dividing power to each as he wills (1 Cor. 12:8-11). Through the Spirit of His mouth is all their strength (Ps. 32:6). The apostles would not have dared to confront the powers of this world if they had not been strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit. We know what these teachers of the Holy Church were like before the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and we see how strong they became after His Descent. Indeed, how weak the Apostle Peter was and how timid before the Descent of the Spirit, the gatekeeper servant will tell you about this if we ask. Struck by one voice of a woman, fearing death, he renounced Life (Matthew 26:69–72); and here’s what’s remarkable: Peter rejected the Savior on earth when the thief confessed the Lord on the cross (Luke 23:41–42). But let's see how this timid man appeared after the Descent of the Holy Spirit. A meeting of rulers and elders meets. The apostles, already punished, are told not to dare to speak about the name of Jesus, but Peter answers with great boldness: it is fitting to obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29). And again: if you are righteous before God, listen to you rather than judge God. For we cannot, even though we have seen and heard, not speak (Acts 4:19–20). They then went rejoicing on behalf of the council, because for the name of the Lord Jesus they were deemed worthy to receive dishonor (Acts 5:41). Behold, in punishments the same Apostle rejoices, who formerly feared the word, and the one who, having previously been questioned, feared the voice of a maidservant, after the Descent of the Holy Spirit, having been punished, despises the power of princes. It is pleasant to raise the gaze of faith to the power of the Creator - the Holy Spirit and, at least briefly, to consider the fathers of the Old and New Testaments. With open eyes I see David, Amos, Daniel, Peter, Paul, Matthew; but, wanting to consider what this Creator is like, I am exhausted in my very examination. He (the Holy Spirit) fills the youth playing the harp and makes him a singer of dogs (1 Sam. 16:18); fills the one who picks berries and makes him a prophet ( Amos 7:14 ); fills the chaste youth and makes him a judge of the elders (Dan. 13:46); fills the fisherman and makes him a preacher (Matthew 4:10); fills the persecutor and makes him a teacher of tongues (Acts 9:1...); fulfills the tax collector and makes him an Evangelist (Luke 5:27–28). Oh, what a Creator this Holy Spirit is! It does not take much time to study everything that He wants, because as soon as He touches, He teaches the mind, and His one touch is already teaching: for by illumination He immediately changes the human spirit, suddenly forces it not to be what it was, - suddenly disposes it to be what it was not. Let us think about our holy preachers (Apostles), what the Holy Spirit found them to be on this day and what he made them to be. In fact, due to fear from the Jews, they were gathered in one upper room; all of them knew their natural language; however, even in the very language they knew, they did not dare to openly confess Christ. The Holy Spirit came and taught them the knowledge of various languages, and put the power of boldness into their hearts (Acts 2:2). And those who were previously afraid to even speak about Christ in their own language began to preach the Savior in other languages ​​(for the inflamed heart despised those bodily torments that it had previously feared - it conquered the power of fleshly illness with love for the Creator). Those who previously yielded to their preachers out of fear now command them with authority. So, He who raised them to such heights, did not, so to speak, make the souls of earthly people heaven? Think, beloved brethren, how great is the present celebration of the Descent of the Holy Spirit after the incarnation of the Only Begotten Son of God. Both this and other festivals are revered: because during that time God, being God, accepted humanity, and during this time people accepted God who had descended from above; during this time God became man by nature, and during this time people became gods by adoption. So, if we do not want to remain carnal until death, then let us love the Life-giving Spirit. However, since the flesh does not know the Spirit, then perhaps someone in a carnal mind will say to himself: “How can I love someone whom I do not know”? - On this we also agree, because the mind, directed towards the visible, does not know how to see the invisible: it does not think about anything but the visible, and when it does not even care about it, it carries its image inside and, since it rests on bodily images, it is not able to rise to the incorporeal. From this it happens that he knows the Creator the less, the more in his thoughts he becomes akin to bodily creatures. But, although we cannot see God, we nevertheless have something that serves as the way in which He comes before the eyes of our knowledge. Indeed, Whom we are not able to see in any way in Himself, He can now be contemplated in His saints. When we see them doing wonderful things, we are convinced that God dwells in their souls. For incorporeal things, we will take the example of corporeal things. None of us can clearly see the rising sun, looking directly at its circle, because our intense gaze is amazed by its rays; but we see mountains illuminated by the sun, and we see because the sun has already risen. So, since we cannot see the Sun of truth in ourselves: then we will look at the mountains illuminated by His radiance, that is, at the holy apostles, who shine with virtues, shine with miracles, who are surrounded by the light of the born Sun - and through whom, as if through the illuminated mountains, this Sun, invisible in Itself, became visible to us. For the power of the Divine in Itself is like the sun in the sky, and the power of the Divine in people is the sun on the earth. Thus, on earth we see the Sun of righteousness, Whom we cannot see in heaven, so that, walking the unfaltering path of doing with the help of this (earthly) sun, we once raise our eyes to heaven to contemplate It. But on earth we follow the path with an unstumbling foot when we love God and our neighbor with all our hearts, because you cannot truly love either God without your neighbor, or your neighbor without God: if you do not love your brother who you have seen, who you have not seen God, how can you love (1 John 4:20)? Let us, brethren, love our neighbor—let us love the one who is near us, so that we may be able to love the One who is above us. Let the soul recognize in its neighbor what it must do for God, in order to fully earn us and our neighbors joy in the Lord. Then we will achieve that joy of the heavenly faces for which we have now received the guarantee of the Holy Spirit. Let us strive with all our love towards that end in which we will rejoice without end. There is a holy society of heavenly citizens, there is triumph - undoubtedly, there is peace - safe, there is true peace, already uninterrupted, and given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with God the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, He is God forever and ever. Amen. 126. In short. See Bibliot. Patr. Concinator. tom. IV, p. p. 542–545; cp. Conversations of St. Gregory Dvoeslov on the Gospels, trans. archim. Clement. St. Petersburg. 1860 book. 2. pp. 117–136; Christ. Read 1839, II, pp. 199–222. You might be interested in: