10. Слово на вторый день праздника Рождества Христова

(Spoken in the court church, in the presence of Her Imperial Majesty the Most Pious Empress Maria Feodorovna and Their Imperial Highnesses; printed separately and in collections of 1820, 1821, 1844 and 1848) The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying: Arise, fetch the Child and His Mother, and flee to Egypt, and be there until the river reaches the river: for Herod wants to seek the Child, and destroy him. Matt. 2:13. Wonderful and terrible! - The angels, whose nature the Son of God did not accept, celebrate His birth on earth; The angels are trying to save the life of the one who came to save people: but man, for whom the Son of God became the son of man, seeks to destroy his Savior. The heavenly army preaches peace on earth, but instead an unheard-of war begins: on the one hand, King Herod and all of Jerusalem, on the other, the Child Jesus and His bodyguards, all the infants of Bethlehem. True, the king did not defeat the Youth: the army of infants did not betray their Leader into the hands of their enemies, but sacrificed their blood for the life of the 106 universal Redeemer: on the contrary, invisible revenge befell Herod and his accomplices: “they were in ruins, seeking the souls of the Youth” (Matthew 2:20). But this victory did not bring peace, less security to the Winner. Joseph does not even dare to bring Him into his father’s city: “he was afraid to go there” (Matthew 2:22). After this, it is no longer surprising that the age of the Youth of Christ will bring Him new battles, new dangers. As soon as He appears to the world, everything visible in the world will desire to eclipse His glory. The Pharisees, scribes, priests, princes, judges, rulers will each turn their weapons against Him. When victory brings Him to heaven, all earthly powers, people and nobles, wise men and Caesars, will move to destroy His peaceful kingdom from the earth. The bloodshed that began in Bethlehem will stain kingdoms and centuries. Returning from the recollection of these sad events, with what consolation the spirit is calmed at the sight of the great and mighty of the earth, humbled before the Youth of Bethlehem, placing their best glory in serving Him, seeking their joy in His Gospel! But what, Christians, has irritated people for so long and, perhaps, in part still irritates people against Jesus Christ, in the very days of His strength, meek and gentle as a child, and commanded all His followers to “be like children” (Matthew 18:3)? “Love for the world,” answers the example of Herod, presented today in the Gospel, and gives us an opportunity to testify against this love, which is so much vain, so much harmful and ungodly. Let us not talk about that love for the world in which the world itself, in accordance with the Gospel, recognizes enmity against God. Being denounced by itself, it does not require outside denunciations. There is another love for the world, which seems to be reconciled with the love of God; who agrees to make sacrifices to God, only so that she is not forbidden to accept sacrifices from the world; ready to do deeds of philanthropy, only so that the world sees and approves of them; she even loves to go to churches to worship, just so that the world will follow her. This crafty and feigned love must be stripped of the guise that adorns it and brought under the strict judgment pronounced by the Gospel on all love of the world, without exception: “The love of this world is enmity to God” (James 4:4). Those who, despite their very desire to belong to God, cannot yet tear themselves away from the world, are tied to it especially by a threefold knot: the charm of its blessings, the power of its examples and the hope of combining service to God with love for the world. The word of the Gospel, like a spiritual sword, cuts through this web of deceptions and reveals to the free eye the vanity of the blessings of the world, the danger of its examples and the secret seed of enmity against God, contained in the most, as they say, innocent love for the world. Where the world will assume all possible importance and splendor, so as to attract the eyes which it cannot 107 disrespect; where the imitation inseparable from him clothes him in the types of those perfections that he marvels at, and forces him to take high examples, so that he can give his own all the more empowered; where the proximity of the great casts a certain shadow of greatness on the smallest objects, it could happen that this brilliance either blinded insight, or shook firmness, or destroyed the confidence of the servant of the word, who must testify in the face of the world itself to its insignificance. But the Spirit of God, who comes to “reprove the world” (John 16:8), prevented this difficulty by raising up a witness for Himself, who cannot be reproached either with insolence, or partiality, or ignorance and inexperience. He invested the wisest and happiest of kings with the title of “Ecclesiastes,” that is, preacher, and breathed into him the word of judgment for all good, happiness and glory of the world. What does this royal preacher preach? “Vanity of vanities,” says Ecclesiastes; vanity of vanities, all kinds of vanity. I saw all the creations created under the sun: and behold, all vanity and ruin of the spirit. Behold, I have become magnified and increased in wisdom more than all those who were before me in Jerusalem: and I understood that this too is a ruin of the spirit. I said in my heart, come, then I will tempt you with joy, and see in the eye: and this is also vanity. And I looked upon all my creations that my hands had made, and on the labor that they labored to create, and all this is vanity. And I hated all the world” (Eccl. 1:2, 14, 16–17, 2:1, 11, 18). St. Chrysostom (Sermon on Eutr.) found Solomon’s sermon on vanity so important that he wanted it “to be written on the walls, and on clothes, and on congregations, and on houses, and on paths, and on gates, and on internal entrances, and most of all, on the heart of everyone.” We can say that vanity is indeed written everywhere, but not always on the forehead and face of things; and we read this instructive inscription for the most part already after we have been handling it in our hands for some time. In fact, what does this mean that yesterday’s decoration ceases to be liked today; that repeated sweet singing begins to torment the ear; that acquired honor, or treasure, reflects our heart to new quests; that the expanding circle of knowledge only opens up before us an immeasurable land of unknowns, and in us an unfillable emptiness of curiosity? Is it not that our spirit involuntarily finds a striking trace of vanity on everything that occupies us in the world: on our pleasures, on our wealth, on our virtues and on our wisdom itself? The Creator of all things scattered this mark over them: just as a protective father writes letters on the tools of children's amusement that children must learn. Woe to frivolous children who do not accept learning between games! The instruments of the games will continually be taken away from them, but the hated teaching will remain and will attack them with weapons of threats and punishment. Thus, if we, while consuming the blessings of the world, do not hasten to understand in them “the vanity of vanities and vanity of all sorts,” then, while these corruptible blessings will hourly disappear in our hands, “vanity” will remain in our hearts, like thorns after flowers, and will produce “ruin of the spirit” through various wounds. Then eternal hunger will settle in the very satiety of feelings; the sweetness of acquisition and possession will be poisoned by worries of preservation and fear of loss; the happiness and glory of others will seem like our misfortune and ignominy; the light of knowledge, like a night ghost, will flicker inconstantly in the smoke of pride, then fall desperately into the clay of unclean life; Most of all, mortal thoughts, like a strict mentor, appearing unexpectedly, will lead into confusion and trembling the playful children of pleasure. – Thus, a bountiful harvest leads the slave of vanity to the same bewilderment as the wretched lack of daily food: “What can I do” (Luke 12:17)? The grace of miracles, which appeared in the Son of Tecton, more than the plagues of Egypt, torments the ambitious leaders of the people: “What shall we do? for this man does many signs” (John 11:47). - An unintelligible rumor about the birth of an unknown baby, brought to the capital by foreigners, shakes the king on the throne, on whose firmness he relied the less, the more he valued its splendor: “When Herod the king heard it, he was troubled” (Matt. 2:3). “Sons of humanity! how long will the heart be heavy? Do you love vanity” (Ps. 4:3) instead of gaining wisdom from it? Why do you “seek lies” (Ps. 4:3), with which the world deceives, not noticing the truth, which it cannot hide? - “The image of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:31), - not only the image of some things, but also the image of the whole world; and what will happen to love for the world when it passes away irrevocably? “The earth, and the works on it, will be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10): where then will the immortal desires, accustomed to feed from the earth, go? Where will be the deepest wisdom, which, however, is also dug up from the earth? “The heavens will be new and the earth will be new” (Is. 65:17): will they allow us to bring there with our hearts the remains of the old world? Let us turn to the wisest of kings. How happily he corrects his wisdom with vanity, having learned the insignificance of those things that with false brilliance have more than once vanished the thoughts of the wise: “I have understood!” How vanity heals from the torment of vanity, revealing the vanity of vanity itself: “vanity is vanity!” How, through the vanity of this world, he prepares himself for a better and lasting world, having ceased to love the vain world: “I have hated all things of the world!” Unfortunately, many are more familiar with Solomon, like others, who turns in the whirlwind of the earth, but they lose sight of Ecclesiastes, who stands in the sun of truth and preaches vanity to the earthly. The disastrous blindness of people seduced by the world is increased by the fact that the blind choose the blind as their leaders, or allow themselves to be attracted by the multitude, on which, leaning with their right hand and sword, they think they will be safe from falling. What, Christians, have we been given our own eye of the mind for, what has the lamp of God-revealed 108 truth been lit before us, if we could walk according to the common sense of the examples of the world? Let us go into Jerusalem, in which the Gospel shows us an abbreviated image of the world: and let us note where examples of this world are given, acceptable by blind imitation. – The news of the birth of Christ the King is brought to Jerusalem, which was waiting for its savior in Him. Herod, who, not by the sacred right of inheritance, but by ambition, elevated him to the throne of David, and who asserted his power more by pretense and violence than by truly beneficent rule, could not calmly hear about the legitimate King of the Jews, although He was still in shrouds and hiding in the darkness of the unknown: “When Herod the king heard, he was troubled.” But what about Jerusalem? Will he know the time of his visit? Does he lift up the head that has fallen under an alien yoke? Is he happy? Does the Lord bless the God of Israel, “to visit and bring deliverance to his people, and to raise up a horn of salvation for them in the house of his servant David” (Luke 1:68–69)? Against! The appearance of a frustrated ruler, as in a mirror, is reflected in the participants in his unrighteous dominion; from these the same image is imprinted in servile people-pleasers; propagated by curiosity, cunning, imprudence; and finally, all of Jerusalem is filled and enveloped in absurd anxiety and blasphemous confusion about an event blessed for all Israel and the whole world: “Herod the king was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him” (Matthew 2:3). Let people who think that they live as they should, if they live like the majority, think about whether, during this turmoil of Jerusalem, Zechariah, or Simeon, or the Magi should have imitated the example of the multitude, and established their feelings and actions according to the prevailing opinion! – Or did the world go astray in Jerusalem alone? Blessed is the time and the country where the example of the great and mighty of the earth serves as a lamp for the people and does not allow the darkness spread by the rulers of the darkness of this age to thicken! But - until the Kingdom of the Heavenly Father, called upon by us in prayer, comes - and under the visible dominion of piety there are always secret self-masters to whom Christ the King is not pleasing, since He demands perfect obedience and renunciation of beloved passions and lusts: and the captives of the examples of the world will follow them, not noticing that they are in enslavement to the rebels. What is the sign of these troublemakers and those who are indignant? - About King Christ! the world does not want to believe; but You Yourself assure us that the sign of those who do not belong to You is multiplicity; that “many are called” into Thy kingdom, “but few are chosen” (Matthew 20:16); that those to whom Your Father was pleased to give the kingdom are the “little flock” (Luke 12:32); that “there is a narrow gate and a strait way that you bring into the belly, and those who find it are few to eat” (Matthew 7:14)! - No! The world is not a leader to be followed, but an enemy that the children of God must overcome: “Whoever is born of God overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4). The way of thinking and feeling that is most approved is often the most dangerous; the example from which we are commanded to beware is precisely the most general example; a custom accepted always and everywhere; the spirit of the times that they breathe and live: “Do not be conformed to this world” (Rom. 12:2). Perhaps you would like, Christians, to see the image of “this age” condemned by the Gospel presented in clearer and more separate terms, so that you can discern all the more infallibly that “in the sons of this age” is not worthy of the sons of “this age”, but He who did not allow the tares to be separated from the wheat ahead of time, so that, with their delight, this too would not be plucked up, and “let both grow abundantly until the harvest" (Matthew 13:30); He also left a promising image of this age, and in the midst of it, with a secret hand, a newly written image of the age to come, in indecisive, mixed and suppressed features, until the predetermined times of completion, when finally, on entire hosts of servants and enemies of God, and on every forehead, the bright “name of the Father” of heaven will appear there (Rev. 14:1), and there – the terrible “mark of the beast” ( Rev. 14:11), who has to create an open, but self-destructive battle with the Lamb Christ. Nowadays it is only known that the world is a cave and a bed where the beast is born and raised; and a field in which the tares ripen along with the wheat, destined for fire. But isn’t this understanding enough to guide the caution commanded to us? – The deeper “the whole world lies in evil” (1 John 5:19), so that the difference between evil and good becomes barely visible in it, the more cautiously we must touch even what seems good. If the whole world is full of tares, and hitherto could not be cleansed from them, then can a soul filled with peace be cleansed from them? If the enemy of God is secretly conceived and lives in the heart of the world, then can the love of God dwell in the love of the world? So, some try in vain to refine their love for the world, instead of cutting it off, and, instead of conquering it with love for God, they hope to reconcile one with the other. No matter how someone clothes his love for the world with the types of virtues: abstinence, hard work, non-covetousness, meekness, charity; but since the soul of all virtues is love, then all his virtues signify only the son of this age, they live and breathe peace, and will disappear with peace. And just as two souls cannot animate one body, so two loves - love for God and love for the world - cannot animate one soul: “If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love is not in him” (1 John 2:15). Where there is no love for God, there must necessarily be, although sometimes hidden and unnoticed, enmity against Him, for before the highest Good there is no place for indifference. In the kingdom of the Almighty, every individual union is a rebellion against the universal Lord; how much more so is a union with a region obviously infected with the spirit of violence and self-will. “The love of this world is enmity to God” (James 4:4). Let us look again at Herod, in whom the Gospel completely exposes this deep and extreme evil of love for the world. This love appears to the ordinary eye in Herod in such a way that those who wish to rid it of the name of vice and introduce it into the society of virtues could begin with this example. The birth of the King of the Jews confuses Herod. What then? And isn’t some embarrassment excusable, given the threatening loss of dominion and honor? But at the same time, this embarrassment was, apparently, a short-term impulse of passion, which was soon subdued by reason. Herod did not forbid the wise men from conducting prudent research about the King of the Jews, but also assisted them through people capable of doing so: “having gathered together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, they inquired.” He himself confessed the coming Christ: where is “Christ born” (Matthew 2:4)? He desired reliable information about His coming: “When you go, test what is known about the Childhood.” Finally, he was ready to worship Christ himself: “even as I will worship Him” (Matthew 2:8). What impartiality and piety! - the Jerusalemites probably exclaimed. The world would have remained in this deception produced by love for the world: but suddenly the heavenly truth appeared: “The Angel of the Lord has appeared.” He ignores artificial words and virtues staged as a spectacle: he leads us straight into the heart of their creator and reveals, perhaps not yet noticed by Herod himself, a desire that arises from the depths of his soul: “Herod wants.” And what do we see? – The death of the Savior of the world, imprinted in the soul of a peace lover. “Herod wants to seek the Children, and destroy E” (Matthew 2:13). Oh, if we could be confirmed in the longed-for assurance that the world does not raise up around us like this fox against the Lamb of Christ! “Izomrosha, soul-seeking children!” (Matthew 2:20) But when those called to fight under the banner of the “Conqueror of the World” (John 16:33) are carried away to the land of rebellion at the cost of perishable goods; when the sheep of the Shepherd, who has a small flock, imagine finding better pasture among wild beasts and unclean animals; when they are content with the fact that they have the “image of godliness” written by the hand of the world (2 Tim. 3:5), without surrendering to its power, crushing and creating, killing and regenerating, then aren’t they still “searching”, although not in Herod’s way, - aren’t they “looking” for “the souls of the Youth”? Do they not rebel, that is, although perhaps without noticing it themselves, against the true spirit of Christ? Let us leave it to Solomon, whom we made the first witness against the love of the world, to seal this testimony and put the end corresponding to this word: “the end of the word: Fear God, and keep His commandments: as is every man” (Eccl. 12:13). Contrast the seductions of love for the world with the “fear” of God, and “according to the commandments” of God, accept or reject the examples given to you, and do not make up your own commandments from the examples approved in the century. “Keep” the commandments of God, so that the world, under the guise of establishing good things and decorating your outward activities, does not steal them from your heart. “As is every man”: that is, filial fear of God and keeping His commandments, in the center of which the love of God rests, is everything for every person: in them is his joy, abundance, glory, peace, bliss, temporary and eternal life. Amen. sacrificed for life - In the department. ed. and in collection 1820, 1821 and 1848: “redeemed life...” he cannot - In the department. ed.: “we can’t...” In the department ed. and in collection 1820 and 1821 this word does not exist. You might be interested in: