Слово на Рождество Господа нашего Иисуса Христа. Святого Григория, епископа Нисского

Blow the trumpet in the new moon, on the blessed day of your feast, David cries (Psalm 80:4). The commandments of the inspired teaching constitute an indispensable law for its listeners; Therefore, when the blessed day of our holiday approaches, we will also fulfill the law and blow the trumpet during the holy months. And the lawful trumpet, as the Apostle commands us to understand, is a word: for, according to him, the sound of the trumpet must be specific in order to be intelligible to those listening (1 Cor. 14:19). Let us also, brothers, make a clear and easy-to-understand sound, not inferior to the sound of a trumpet. The Law, pre-depicting the truth in the images of the canopy, established the sound of trumpets on the feast of the making of the tabernacle; and the reason for the real celebration is the sacrament of the true dispensation of skin. Now He who has clothed Himself for us in the form of man sets up the tabernacle of man; Now our tabernacles, destroyed by death, are again being restored by Him who originally built our church. Let us also sing a psalm song, rejoicing in the loud voice of David: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord (Psalm 117:26)! But how does He come? - He comes not on a chariot, and not by the sea, but to pass into human life through virgin incorruption. Behold our God, behold the Lord has appeared to us to organize this holiday for us. So, come, let us attune our souls to spiritual joy, making David the leader, leader and head of our rejoicing. Let us exclaim with him the sweet song that we recently sang, and repeat it again. For this day, which the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 117:24). Now the darkness begins to diminish, and the light, increasing more and more, reduces the limits of the night. It was not by chance, brethren, and not without reason, that this circumstance arose at the time of the present celebration, when Divine life was clothed in human life. With this appearance, nature allows the most discerning to see a certain mystery: she teaches those who are able to listen to her voice, and almost explains to him in words why it is at the coming of the Lord that the day increases and the night decreases. It seems to me that I hear nature saying: "Looking at such a phenomenon, man, know that through the visible the hidden is revealed to you. You see that the night, having reached the extreme limit of its length, does not extend further and retreats back. Know that the disastrous night of sin, increased to the last possibility, and brought by iniquities of all kinds to the highest degree of wickedness, now ceases to receive an increase, and its darkness from now on it begins to decrease and disappear. You see that the ray of light becomes brighter, and the sun rises higher than usual; know that the true Light has appeared, illuminating the entire universe with the rays of the Gospel.” - And that the Divine appearance of the Lord to the human race followed not at the beginning, but in recent times, - in all fairness, the following reason can be presented. He who wanted to take human life in order to destroy wickedness waited (and this was necessary!) until all the sin sown by the enemy grew, and after that, as the Gospel says, He brought the ax to the very root (Matthew 3:10). The most skillful doctors, at a time when a fever inflames the body from within, and little by little intensifies from painful causes, yield to the disease, not allowing the patient to reinforce himself with any food until the disease reaches an extreme degree; and they begin to use their art only when the disease, having fully manifested itself, will no longer spread. So the Physician of our sick souls delayed until the sinful disease with which human nature was infected was revealed in all its fullness, so that nothing was hidden and nothing remained unhealed; and this could have happened if He had healed only what was revealed from time to time. Therefore, the Lord does not appear with healing even in the time of Noah, when all flesh was corrupted by unrighteousness, since the iniquity of Sodom had not yet grown; does not appear during the destruction of Sodom, for many other evils were still hidden in human nature; There was no God-hating Pharaoh yet, the indomitable anger of the Egyptians had not yet been revealed. Even then, when the wickedness of the Egyptians was revealed, it was not time for the Transformer of the world to enter into this life, because the disobedience of the Israelites had yet to be revealed, the kingdom of Assyria had yet to appear, and the pride of Nebuchadnezzar had yet to be revealed in the world. It was necessary that from the evil root planted by the devil, like some worthless and thorny plant, the murder of the righteous should grow; it was necessary for the fury against the saints of God to be revealed from the Jews, who killed the Prophets, stoned those sent to them, and, finally, committed an atrocity against Zechariah between the church and the altar. The beating of infants by Herod should also be added to the number of unsuitable plants. So, when from the sinful root all the power of wickedness was revealed, it increased and revealed itself in many different forms in the wills of people, spreading its branches throughout all centuries, famous for atrocities; then, as the Apostle Paul says to the Athenians, God, despising the years of ignorance (Acts 17:30), appeared in the last days, when there was no one who understood and sought God, when everyone had turned aside from the path, everyone had become corrupt, when everything was concluded under sin, when the measure of iniquities was fulfilled. As soon as the darkness of wickedness reached its final degree, then grace appeared, a ray of true light shone, the Sun of righteousness arose for those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death; then He who took on human flesh crushed the many-headed serpent, trampling it with his foot and grinding it to the ground. And no one, looking at what is happening in the world today, should consider unjust the reason why, as we said, the Lord descended to people in recent times. Indeed, some may object to us that the One who waited so long for the discovery of evil in order to destroy it to the ground, after it was discovered, of course, destroyed sin completely, so that not the slightest part of it remained in the world; meanwhile, even now, murders, thefts, adulteries, and all other crimes are committed. But the doubt that arises when encountering such crimes can be resolved with the most ordinary example. It is known that when killing a serpent, a blow delivered to the head does not crush the back part of the reptile; and when the first completely loses life, the latter is still animated by its own life and for a long time shows signs of vitality in itself: just like the Slayer of that dragon, which, growing with each generation of people, became a huge beast, crushing its head, i.e. the deadly force for good, which contained numerous other heads, was left intact by his torso; and He (the Redeemer) did this so that the movement remaining in the slain beast would excite people to fight against it. What kind of slain head is this? - the one who, with sly advice, brought death into the world, and, having wounded a person, poured deadly poison into him. So, He who destroyed the power of death crushed, according to the Prophet, the power contained in the head of the serpent (Psalm 73:14); and the body of this monster, spread across the entire human race, still hurts it with its sinful scales, and will continue to hurt until people are freed from sinful desires; however, it no longer has the same power, for the head of the serpent has been crushed. When the end of time comes, and with the onset of the expected end of this life everything moving stops, then the final and last part of the enemy will be destroyed, i.e. death; and thus, the final destruction of sin will follow, since through the resurrection everyone will be called to life: the righteous will immediately move to the higher villages, and those who remain in sins will be consigned to the fire of Gehenna. But let us move on to real joy, which the Angels preach to the shepherds, the heavens preach to the Magi, and which the Spirit of prophecy announces many times and in many different ways, so that the Magi also become heralds of grace. He who commands the sun to rise on the righteous and the unjust, sends rain on the evil and the good, He sent down the ray of knowledge and the dew of the Spirit into the mouths of foreigners, so that through the testimony of strangers the truth would all the more establish the truth in us. The soothsayer Balaam, by inspiration from above, predicts to foreigners that a star will rise from Jacob (Num. 24:17). And so, you see, honor the Magi, who trace their family from him, according to the prediction of their ancestor, carefully observe the ascent of a new star, which alone, not obeying the law of other stars, has both its own movement and standing, and alternately uses both: this star moves, preceding the Magi, and stops, indicating the place to them. Do you hear what Isaiah cries: For to us a Child was born, and to us a Son was given (Isaiah 9:6)? Find out from the Prophet himself how the Child was born, how the Son was given. Is it by natural law? No, the Prophet answers: The Lord of creation does not obey the laws of nature. How was the Child born? Behold, the Prophet cries, the Virgin will conceive in her womb and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Immanuel: it can be said: God is with us (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23). An incomprehensible miracle! The virgin becomes a mother and remains a virgin. Do you see what extraordinary news this is in nature! About other wives it is usually said this way: “a virgin is not yet a mother, and a mother is no longer a virgin”; and here both of these names are combined into one: one and the same person - both mother and maiden; neither virginity prevented birth, nor birth violated virginity. Whoever descended into human life in order to save the entire human race from corruption had to Himself take birth from an incorruptible woman who had not known a husband. It seems to me that the great Moses foreknew this secret during his Epiphany in the fire, when the fire burned the bush, and the bush did not burn (Ex. 3:2). What was then foreshadowed in the flame and bush, was later clearly revealed in the mystery of the birth from the Virgin; just as there the bush burns and does not burn up: so here the Virgin gives birth to Light and remains incorruptible. It would not be inappropriate to present Zechariah here as a testimony to the incorruptibility of the Mother: this Zacharias was a priest; In addition to the priesthood, he also had the gift of prophecy. His prophecy, narrated in the Gospel, is pronounced by him at a time when the grace of God, preparing people so that they would not consider the birth of the Virgin incredible, first disposed the unbelievers to believe with less amazing miracles. A barren and elderly woman gives birth to a son: this was, as it were, the threshold of a miracle that was about to happen to the Virgin. For just as Elizabeth, who remained barren until old age, is not made a mother by the force of nature, but the birth of a son from her seems to be a matter of God’s will: so a miraculous birth from a Virgin becomes probable as soon as it relates to God. since he who was born of a barren woman preceded the One who was to be born of the Virgin: then even before his birth, he leaped in his mother’s womb, hearing the voice of the one who carried the Lord in her womb: Zechariah’s silence was resolved by prophetic inspiration, as soon as the Forerunner of the Word was born. All the prophetic words of Zechariah contained a prediction about the Savior who would be born. Now let us take a word to Bethlehem, mentioned in the Gospel: let us turn our gaze to the heavenly army, let us look at the rejoicing of the Angels; Let us listen to their Divine chant. What voice do we hear from those who rejoice? Glory to God in the highest, they cry. And why do the Angels glorify with their voice the Divinity contemplated in the highest? Because, they answer, there is peace on earth. This is the phenomenon that delighted the Angels: peace on earth! The land that was formerly cursed, which produced thorns and thistles, a land of war, a place of exile for the condemned, this land accepted peace. Oh miracle! Truth rose from the earth, and righteousness came from heaven (Psalm 84:12). This is the kind of fruit the earth has given to people! And all this is done out of goodwill towards people. God descends and joins human nature in order to lift humanity to the Divine heights. But the gospel of the Angels invites us into the den in order to delve into the mysteries that appear in it. What is there? The Child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, rests in a manger: Virgin by birth, the incorruptible Mother guards the Child. Let us, shepherds, exclaim this prophetic word: as we have heard, so we have seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God (Psalm 47:9). But did all this that is told about Christ really happen by chance and without any reason? Does what is being told really have no meaning? What does it mean for the Lord to be in the den and reclining in the manger? Why did He descend into life during the census carried out to collect taxes? since He redeems us from the legal oath, having Himself become an oath for us, and takes our ulcers upon Himself, so that we may be healed by His ulcer: then, obviously, the tax is imposed in order to free us from the heavy tribute that humanity paid to death. Seeing the den in which the Lord is born, bring to mind the darkness and gloom into which the human race was immersed at the time when the Lord appeared to those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death. Being wrapped in swaddling clothes signifies that He takes upon Himself the chains of our sins. In the manger where the dumb are fed, the Word is born so that the ox may know him who has acquired it, and the donkey his master's manger (Isa. 1:3). By ox mean one subject to the law; and the donkey, as an animal carrying weights, denotes one burdened with the sins of idolatry. The food characteristic of the dumb for their life is grass, as the Prophet says: vegetate the grass with cattle (Ps. 103:14); and a rational animal eats bread. So, the Bread of Life, which came down from heaven, is offered in a manger, the nourishment of the dumb, so that the foolish, having tasted reasonable food, may come to reason. In the manger, the shelter of the ox and the donkey, their Lord lay down in order, after the destruction of the mediastinum of the fence, to recreate both through Himself into one new man, removing the heavy yoke of the law from the first, and freeing the latter from the burden of idolatry. You see, not only do Prophets and Angels preach true joy to us, but heaven also proclaims the glory of the Gospel with its miraculous appearances. From Judas Christ shone unto us, as the Apostle says (Rom. 9:4, 5); but the Jew is not enlightened by the One who shone. The Magi, strangers to the covenants of promise, warn the people of Israel with knowledge, seeing a star in the sky and coming to the den to the King. The Magi bring gifts, and the Jews build forges: the Magi worship, the Jews pursue; the former rejoice that they have found the One they were looking for, but the latter, hearing that the Foretold One has been born, are troubled. The Magi, says the Gospel, seeing that the star stopped at the place where the Child was, rejoiced greatly with great joy: Herod, having heard this verb, was embarrassed, and with him all Jerusalem (Matthew 2:2). The Magi bring Lebanon to Him as to God - they greet His royal dignity with gold - and with myrrh, as if by some prophetic gift, they foretell His suffering; and the latter condemn the entire age of infancy to extermination. Why do vile murderers decide to commit such atrocities? Because, they say, some new sign among all the miraculous phenomena in the sky announced to the Magi the birth of the King. So what? Do you believe this heralding sign as if it were true, and do you not consider the event to be mere rumor, not worthy of belief? But if this is the kind of King who disposes of the heavens according to His will, then, of course, He already exceeds your power; and if both his life and death depend on you, then you were in vain to fear him. Why are you treacherous against those subordinate to your power? Why are you sending out this terrible command, this evil sentence, so that unfortunate babies should be killed? By what crime did they incur the death penalty? Their whole guilt is that they were born and came into the world, and that’s why it was necessary to fill the whole city with executioners, to gather thousands of mothers and babies, their fathers, and those connected with them by ties of kinship, so that they too could witness the suffering? What narrator is able to depict suffering? this universal sobbing, this pitiful cry of children, mothers, relatives, fathers, uttering piercing moans when threatened by the executioners? How to describe the parents' situation? their groans, cries, last farewell to their children? Who will imagine this terrible disaster in all its forms, with all the details - the extreme pain of mothers who have recently given birth, the cruel torment of nature - how an unfortunate child, at the very moment when she was clinging to her mother’s breast, receives a fatal blow in the womb? how does a poor mother bring her breast to the baby’s lips, and at the same time receive his blood into her bowels?... But let us turn our ears away from sobs, and turn our thoughts to comforting objects, and more befitting of real triumph. What holiday could be more auspicious for us than the present, on which the Sun of Truth, having dispelled the destructive darkness of the devil, enlightens the world through our nature, - on which the fallen is restored, the hostile is reconciled, the rejected is sought, the fallen from life returns to life, the captive and enslaved are again elevated to royal dignity, those bound by the bonds of death are released from its bonds, and return to the land of the living? Now, according to prophecy, the copper gates of death are being broken, the iron ropes are being broken (Psalm 107:16), which previously kept the human race under guard of corruption. Now the gates of righteousness are opened (Ps. 117:19); Now the unanimous voice of those celebrating is heard throughout the universe. Through man there is death, through the God-man there is salvation. He fell into sin, He raised up the fallen. The Wife was saved by the Wife: the first opened the entrance to sin, the other - to truth, the one bowed to the seduction of the serpent, the other showed us the Destroyer of the serpent, and gave birth to the Parent of light; the first introduced sin through the tree, the last through the tree (by tree I mean the cross) introduced truth; the fruit of this tree is ever-blooming and unfading life for those who eat from it. And one should not think that such joy is only fitting for the celebration of the mysterious Easter. Thoughts: the economy of our salvation ends with Easter; but would there be an end if it were not preceded by a beginning? What comes first? It is obvious that birth precedes death and resurrection: therefore, the benefits given by Easter depend on the benefits given by Christmas. In fact, will anyone accrue the benefits narrated in the Gospels; Will anyone talk about miraculous healings, about abundant feeding of insufficient supplies, about the resurrection of the dead from their graves, about the sudden cultivation of wine, about the expulsion of demons, about the transformation of various diseases into health, about the cheerful walking of the lame, about the clay that enlightened the eyes, about the Divine teaching of sublime truths through parables - all this is the gift of the present day. All subsequent benefits began with him. So, let us rejoice and be glad in it, not fearing reproach from people, and not being discouraged, as the Prophet says (Ps. 43:14), from the reproach of those who degrade the image of the economy, saying that it was not fitting for the Lord to take on a bodily nature and enter into human life through birth. They, apparently, do not at all understand the mystery through which the wisdom of God arranged our salvation. We were voluntarily sold to our sins, and, like slaves bought for silver, we were enslaved to the enemy of our life. What should you most desire from the Lord? Is it not to be delivered from slavery? But is it your business to seek an image of this deliverance? Why do you prescribe laws to the Benefactor when you do not know His treasures? Isn't this similar to someone who rejected a doctor and began to blame him for curing him in this way and not in another way? If, out of curiosity, you try to penetrate into the depths of the economy, then it is enough for you to know that God is not just any good; but everything that only you can connect with the concept of good, all of this is in God. He is omnipotent, righteous, good, wise; in a word, all names and concepts denoting Divine properties befit Him. Now look at how all the properties we mentioned, that is, goodness, wisdom, omnipotence, justice, were combined in the good deed shown to us. As a good one, He loved the criminal; like the wise One, He found a way to return the captives; as a just one, He does not take them by force from the enslaver, who has the right to own them, but, in exchange for those kept in slavery, He gives Himself, so that, like a guarantor who takes on a debt, he frees those kept from the power of those who hold them. As almighty, He was not restrained by hell, and His flesh did not see corruption (Psalm 15:10): for it is impossible for the Author of life to be restrained by corruption. You say that it was shameful to enter into human life and be subjected to bodily suffering. But by this you prove the greatness of God’s beneficence. since there was no other way to extract humanity from the abyss of evils: then the King of all bliss deigned to exchange his own glory for the humiliation of our lives. Purity is contained in our uncleanness, but the unclean does not touch the pure, as the Gospel says: the light shines in the darkness, and its darkness is not comprehended (John 1:5); darkness disappears from the rays of the sun, and the sun is not darkened by darkness; mortal is swallowed up by life, according to the word of the Apostle (2 Cor. 5:4), and life is not exhausted by death; that which has decayed is preserved from that which is incorruptible, and incorruption is not touched by corruption. Thus, all creation participates in the praise of the Lord, every creature unanimously sends up praise to its Master, and every tongue, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, cries out that the Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father, is blessed forever and ever. Amen 48. See Curs. Compl. Patrolog. Migne, series graeca, volume LXVI, col. 1127–1150; compare “Celebrant”, handwritten Moscow Synod. librarian 9th century (281–CCLXXI), l.l. 72–81; "Christian Reading" 1837, part IV, pp. 247–274. You might be interested in: