26. Слово в день Святителя Николая

(Spoken in the St. Nicholas Perervinsky Monastery, May 9th; printed in meetings of 1822, 1835, 1844 and 1848) Remember your mentors, who spoke the word of God to you, and as they look to the end of their lives, imitate their faith. Hebrews 13:7. The Apostle Paul writes this to the Jews, that is, to those who converted to Christianity from the Jewish people, and probably to those who lived in Judea. Therefore, one can guess that the mentors he had in his thoughts were precisely the Apostles James, the brother of John, and James, the brother of the Lord. The first of these died from the sword raised against the Church of Jerusalem by Herod; and the second suffered from the Jewish high priest Annas and his crowd. Naturally, the children of the Church remembered with sorrow such a disastrous loss of such great mentors. The Apostle corrects and elevates this disposition of spirit, teaching us to remember the death of pious mentors not with sadness, but with reverence, not for mourning, but for imitation. “Remember your teachers who spoke the word of God to you, and as they look to the end of their lives, imitate their faith.” Because the Apostles said what was given to them from the Holy Spirit: then the obedient children of the Church accepted their instructions as laws, and their words were turned into deeds. Hence the custom of solemnly remembering Christian mentors who have gone to God, and, when they no longer teach in words, to learn from their example. Some mentors shone with the word of wisdom, 160 others with other spiritual gifts, for the benefit of the Church. Воспоминаемый ныне наставник, Святитель Николай, ознаменовал себя преимущественно сильною верою и ревностию по вере. Remember him in such a way that you can learn from it and actually imitate his “zeal for the faith.” Jealousy is spiritual fire. As wisdom shines in the mind, as love warms the heart, so jealousy, the complex action of these two forces, ignites the entire being in which it exists. It is an intense activity in him, which powerfully directs everything that can submit to it towards its goal - it purifies what is capable of purification, 161 separates what is mixed, destroys what is unclean and corruptible, and reflects and scatters what is opposed. This is how the Apostle depicts the zeal of God Himself when he calls it “the zeal of fire, to destroy the one who resists” (Heb. 10:27). According to this image, a person’s zeal in relation to faith is such a quality and disposition of spirit by which a person, with ardent desire and lively activity, tries to preserve, spread, purify the true faith, which he has come to know and love, from the admixture of superstitions and temptations, and its enemies, or to soften and convert it, or to make it impossible to harm it. Zeal for faith is “hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:6) in faith, which, to the extent that it acquires right faith, is satisfied and blessed; and when he either does not acquire the right faith, or sees it weakened by the negligence of false Christians, shaken by discord, threatened by troubles, then he is “consumed” (John 2:17) by the zealot himself. Solomon, depicting this fiery or consuming power of jealousy, says: “jealousy is as cruel as hell” (Song.8:6). He likens her to hell not because she wants to cast anyone into hell; - for this cannot happen from true jealousy, since it contains love; - but either because she, seeing God’s beloved creations on the way to hell, and with the most lively compassion imagining the destruction that awaits them, feels their hell within herself; or because jealousy, abundantly dissolved in love, is ready to share even a hellish fate with those for whom it is jealous, in order to ease this fate for them, and with its danger to snatch them away from danger. Thus, the Apostle Paul, zealous for the Israelites with “the zeal of God,” was prompted to say that he “prayed that he himself would be excommunicated from Christ according to his brethren” (Rom. 9:3), that is, that they might believe in Christ. Based on this and similar examples, some may think that this holy zeal is not a general and constant duty, but a gift sent by grace to a few, for some special cases, when the extraordinary dangers of faith require extraordinary efforts to preserve and strengthen it. We do not suspect in this way of reasoning those who have cooled in faith to such an extent that they do not fulfill its ordinary, universally recognized duties: how can we look for zeal for faith in those in whom faith itself cannot be found in deeds? Are there those who honor the faith, desire, and make some effort to fulfill its duties, since they know them, but in whom you will not find the name of zeal either in the calculation of positions or in the list of virtues? Do they not think that we have no need of the zeal of Paul, when we are not appointed to fight with the stubbornness of the Jews, nor of the zeal of Moses, or Phinehas, or Elijah, when we do not live among the abominations of paganism? Of course, not everyone can be Moses or Phinehas, Elijah or Paul; when at a certain time Moses could not be Phinehas, nor Phinehas Moses. But if Moses in one case, and Phinehas in another case, saved the entire people of God through their zeal: wouldn’t it be better if there were more such zealots? And from this it is already clear that if holy zeal is not a necessary duty, at least it is a desirable virtue. But let us look more carefully to see if we find jealousy among our necessary responsibilities. What could be more necessary and universal than the duties that God Himself imposed on us with the Ten Commandments? Here I am looking for the law of jealousy, and there is no need to extend this search beyond the first commandment. “I am the Lord your God; let there be no gods for you”: do you hear in these words, along with the commandment of faith and love, the commandment of jealousy? Listen clearly. When the heavenly Lawgiver proclaims Himself "Lord" and "God": He proclaims His power, and demands our obedience; proclaims His greatness, and places us in awe of Him. When “is not ashamed,” as the Apostle expresses himself in this very subject, to be “called” by the Lord and “our God” (Heb. 11:16): what does He show us in Himself if not love, and what does He arouse in us towards Himself, if not love? For what could be more full of love on behalf of the speaker, what is more kind to the hearer than to say, how to hear the speaker: “I am yours.” And so this is the commandment of love. But what next? “Let there be no gods for you, perhaps Mene.” What does this mean if not that God, having established a union of love between Himself and man, wants to strengthen him and raise him to such perfection that this love excludes any other love that does not agree with it and is not subordinate to it, or, what is the same, reveals His zeal, and zeal commands us? And so here is the commandment of jealousy. This explanation is not fictitious, but given by the Creator of the law Himself, in the continuation of the ten-words: “For I am the Lord thy God, a jealous God” (Ex. 20:5). From this it is not difficult to see both that the duty to be zealous for God and for faith in Him lies with every person, and that this duty extends to all times and occasions: since the commandment of zeal is inextricably linked by the Highest Lawmaker with the commandment of love for God, which can never be subject to any exception. But in order to see more closely in the action itself how far holy zeal can and should extend, I ask: should one be zealous for such a Divine service, which, although it was correct and established by God, but, according to His own destinies, has already begun to lose its dignity and significance, and should soon be completely destroyed? How many souls, not ignited by Divine fire, would think that they, without violating their duties, can look with cold indifference at any humiliation of such Divine service! Wouldn't some think that in such a case jealousy would even be inappropriate and unreasonable, strengthening to reinforce what must certainly be destroyed? Notice here how much imaginary prudence, devoid of a living feeling of the heart, can deceive us, or better said, negligence, covered with the appearance of prudence. He who is Wisdom itself, and at the same time Love itself, and therefore the purest example of jealousy, did not think like that, did not act like that. The Jerusalem Worship, which consisted of shadows and fortune-telling, was to cease when Jesus Christ appeared, the Light of shadows and the resolution of fortune-telling; and the temple itself was soon to be handed over to the pagans for ultimate destruction. But what did he feel at that time, what did he say, what did Jesus Christ do when he saw in the church something unworthy of the church? He felt what is depicted by the Prophet: “zeal for Your house consumes Me. “Do not,” He said, “make My Father’s house a house of trade.” And in fact he “drove out” the sellers from the church (John 2:14–17). You see, Christians, an example of holy zeal in such a case, from which we must conclude that each of us will not lack opportunities for exploits of zeal. And this image of zeal is clearly shown to everyone: for Jesus Christ acted in this case, not as belonging to the church, out of a special duty to it, since it is known that He never put Himself in such a position, but in all cases, to fulfill the duties of the established Divine service, even those miraculously performed by Him, He sent to the Priests; He acted here out of free, universal jealousy. And so, Christian, if you believe and want to be faithful to your faith, then you must also be zealous for the faith. Do not deny this by the fact that you do not see the enemies of the faith and do not encounter objects of jealousy. Jesus Christ found the object of jealousy in the very church of the true God. It is also found in the true Christian Church that a zealous Christian is consumed by jealousy. Is it possible to indifferently see many of the children of faith living in such ignorance of what they believe in that one can accurately say to them what was said to the Samaritans: “you worship him who you do not know” (John 4:22)? If God has given you the true light of faith and understanding of the mysteries of Christ: then be zealous for them with the Apostle “with the zeal of God” (2 Cor. 11:2), and “sick” with a saving illness, “until Christ is imagined” in them (Gal. 4:19). Do we not encounter Christians who base the right to call themselves this way solely on the fulfillment of some external, preferably easily accepted, duties, without internal correction of the heart, without cleansing the conscience, without elevating the spirit to communion with God? If you are a Christian, not in name alone, but in spirit and power; Tell at least one of those to whom you can: why are you, a Christian, living like a Jew, or even a pagan? It would be difficult to finish if we wanted to continue counting similar cases of holy zeal that an attentive Christian can daily encounter when dealing with Christians like himself. But aren’t we still looking for them farther when we look further than ourselves? Turn, Christian, into your own church, enter into yourself: won’t you find here too what should consume you with jealousy? If your mind is “attached to strange and varied teachings” (Heb. 13:9), and does not want to give itself into free captivity and blissful obedience to faith: then do you not need against yourself the zeal of the Holy Fathers, who by the power of faith “laid down the heaps of God that were levied on the mind” (2 Cor. 10:5) of the proud mind of the heretical leaders? If self-interest or vanity fills your heart with the things of the world, and it is occupied with them more than with God, for Whom it was created: then do you not need against yourself the zeal of Moses and Elijah, who exposed and destroyed idolatry? If your feelings are open to pleasures that corrupt and defile the soul, then don’t you need the jealousy of Phinehas against yourself, so that, if possible, with a decisive blow, “kill the evil that is on the earth,” “the evil passion and lust” (Col. 3:5)? “Be jealous for the Lord your God” (1 Kings 19:10). Phinehas was not the only one who was given the covenant of an everlasting priesthood by jealousy. And for us, if we are pure and unchanging zealots and champions for the kingdom of God in us and in our neighbors, this zeal will bring a vow, or, better, the very fulfillment of the vow, that Christ may “make us kings and priests to God His Father.” To him be glory and dominion forever and ever, Amen” (Rev. 1:6). In collection 1822, 1835 and 1844: wisdom... In collection 1822, 1835 and 1844: purifies and elevates,... You might be interested in: