51. Беседа 284 из притчи о плевелах

(Spoken November 8; printed in the 1844 and 1848 collections). Lord, did you not sow good seed in your village? Where do we get the tares from? Matthew 13:28. Under the guidance of the Gospel parable “about the tares,” I want to say something: let us call upon the supreme Sower of the good seed for help, so that tares are not sown through this word, but so that in our insignificant tares a grain of good seed is found, capable of vegetating in the soft soil of obedient hearts and bearing fruit for eternal life. Why even talk about the tares? - someone will think. Isn’t it better for someone called to sow good seed to deal only with good seed, and not with unprofitable tares? “And I would like to do so.” “Oh, let not my mouth speak of the deeds of men” (Psalm 16:4)! Oh, if only I could not talk about human affairs, vain and destructive, but only about the affairs of God, good and saving! I dare to guess that both the Creator Himself and the original Interpreter of the parable of the tares would not want to talk about the tares. But what to do? If there is a danger that, just as good seed is sown, tares will also be born; or, if then, when the sowing had already sprouted, the tares actually appeared: how can one not deal with the tares in these cases? Why not think about what to do with them? Slaves who do not know the secrets of heavenly agriculture would like to immediately weed, pluck out and destroy the tares by force, but the Wise Lord of the field does not allow it. “Nor: let the tares once be taken together, and the wheat also be taken together with them” (Matthew 13:29). However, what can be done to prevent the tares from growing stronger and choking the wheat? “I’m thinking about this, to get some instruction from looking at what the tares are and where they came from on the field.” “Lord, did you not sow good seed in your village? Where do we get the tares from?” What are tares? - To explain this, the Creator Himself of the parable of the tares of the village says: “The tares are the sons of enmity”; or, according to the closest translation of the saying of the Lord, as it is written by the Evangelist Matthew in Greek: “The tares are the sons of the evil one.” In this explanation it is not difficult to notice - and this must be noted for further understanding - that the parable under the name of tares contains some people who do not have human essence: just like in another explanation that “these are the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom” (Matthew 13:38), the names of the good seed and the sons of the kingdom do not refer to human essence. In essence, all people equally come originally from God the Creator, successively from parents similar to themselves: in life they are divided into good seed and tares, becoming sons of the kingdom, or sons of the evil one. “He who sows good seed” (Matthew 13:37) did not sow a new generation on the earth; but in the generation that he found in the world, he sowed the sons of the kingdom, and spread them to all the generations of the world. From this we must conclude that the good seed signifies the spirit and attribute of the sons of the kingdom; which is why it is said, in accordance with this explanation, in the explanation of another parable that “the seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11); inasmuch as from the word of God the spirit and character of the sons of the kingdom comes into being in men. And therefore, in the opposite direction of the parable, we must also conclude that the tares signify the spirit and attribute of the sons of the evil one in some people. Just as the development of a good spiritual seed in a person is the truth of faith, the good of love, the power of hope, a pure thought, an immaculate desire, a sound word, a righteous and holy deed, a spiritual, heavenly, angelic, Christ-like life: so, on the contrary, the vegetation of spiritual weeds is the lie of unbelief or superstition, the evil of dislike, the false power of self-confidence or the powerlessness of despair, an unclean thought, a vicious desire, an incorrect or not a chaste word, an unrighteous and lawless deed, a carnal, earthly, bestial, hellish life, or - also in one word - not Christian. “Lord, did you not sow good seed in your village?” You sowed on earth what you brought to it with You from heaven: and You brought with You to earth the Divine spirit, a heavenly property. Thy village, or Thy field were the hearts of chosen people; You sowed the word of God in them; warmed it in them with the warmth of the Holy Spirit; gave me Your Divine blood to drink. It vegetated, flourished, and bore fruit into eternal life, “one hundred, one sixty, one thirty” (Matthew 13:23), in the Apostles, in the Martyrs, in the Saints of every kind; through them it sowed countries, peoples, centuries. Moreover, in order to keep Your seed, for Your field, always pure and never lacking, You “commanded to fill omer from the manna of sowing the sanctuary throughout our generations” (Ex. 16:32) - to fill, that is, a certain measure of the Holy Scriptures with the word of God, so that, as once upon a time, from Your Divine hands, from a few loaves, thousands were taken and satisfied hungry, but the amount of bread did not decrease from this, but increased, like this, from the few Divine Books, thousands upon thousands learned, but the secrets and revelations of the mysteries of Your wisdom did not become exhausted, but constantly became more abundant. God! How “good seed, and with what wise care for its goodness and purity, did you sow in Your village”! “Where do we get the tares from?” In Your field, O Lord, where did the tares come from? If they appeared where nothing was sown; or if an evil plant sprang up where the evil seed was sown: there is nothing to marvel at. If there are errors and vices among the pagans: what else can we expect from this wild and uncultivated land? But in the field of Christianity, which is cultivated by the cross of the God-man, sown with the Word of God, where do the pagan tares come from? Where does the error of mind come from among you, disciples of the Word of God? Where do the vices of the heart come from among you, children of the Holy Spirit? To these not easy, but not useless questions, we have easy, but very harmful answers. Misconceptions, they say, are due to human limitations; vices from human weakness. A wonderful genealogy of errors and vices - excellent so that people devoted to errors and mired in vices, people whom the Gospel parable calls “the sons of the evil one,” can assure themselves and others that they are not of an evil race! It is an innocent thing to be narrow-minded; it is not a shame to admit the weakness of human strength: and from this they conclude that being superstitious or faithless is also an innocent matter; that it is also not shameful to remain in vices 285. Delusions of limitations? – Is it really true that narrow-mindedness is the mother of delusions? Limitedness is unfruitful; she gives birth to nothing; because it itself is not something, but only a limit, an edge, a lack of essentiality. Let's take the ability of vision as an example. Your eye is limited: for this reason, you stop seeing an object moving away from you at a certain distance, and nothing more. But if your eye misleads you, imagining the objects around you in a false movement, spinning and falling, from which you also fall: in vain would you look for the reason for this in the limitations of the eye; The reasons for this should be sought in your dizziness, which occurred from drinking a stupefying potion or drinking too much wine. For this reason, discuss the spiritual vision of the mind. Your mind is limited: for this reason, objects removed from his mental gaze are unknown to him, or incomprehensible, and nothing more. But if in your mind there appear concepts that are contrary to the natural, by all sensible people, according to the noticed and recognized order of things, with which you think to turn the whole universe upside down, but instead you overthrow yourself in absurdity: can this be explained by limitation, which is not an active principle, and which is a shortcoming common to all people? Shouldn’t it, on the contrary, be necessary to do this from the intoxication of unclean and fermenting wine, or the stupefying potion of such wisdom, which, although in the area of ​​​​its manifestation is called earthly and human, but whose source is worse than something simply earthly, the root of which is lower than humanity? Vices from weakness! - Therefore, in order to be virtuous, you must be a giant! But we, on the contrary, know from sacred legends that when “you perform a plague on the earth,” then “the wickedness of men multiplies on the earth” (Gen. 6:4–5); So even now we often see that people who boast of strength of spirit more than others, and who have less reason to complain about bodily weaknesses or shortcomings than others, fall into vices more than those who are more susceptible to bodily weaknesses and shortcomings than others, and do not attribute excellent strength of spirit to themselves. Vices from weakness! “On the contrary, even a pagan noted that “we are better when we are weaker.” Vices from weakness! – We agree that this also happens in some cases: for example, when a hungry beggar steals a piece of bread from a rich man. But when, on the contrary, we see that a rich man not only refuses a piece of bread to a beggar, but also robs and ruins the poor, while there are beggars who remain selfless: how can this be explained by human weakness alone? Are not two opposing forces visible here: in one the force of good, perhaps higher than human, in the other the force of evil, undoubtedly worse than human? Let's stop being deceived; Let us put aside such opinions about the origin of our errors and vices that can only empower errors and vices; Let us not consider tares to be an ordinary product and natural attribute of wheat. And if we cannot guess where they truly come from, then let us ask the Lord about this, and we will receive admonition from Him. “Lord, did you not sow good seed in your village? Where do we get the tares from?” - He answers: “the enemy man did this” (Matthew 13:28), - “his enemy came as a sleeping man, and all the tares in the midst of the wheat, and departed” (Matthew 13:25); - “their all-manifest enemy is the devil” (Matthew 13:39). It seems to me that if we thought more often and with more faith about this origin of our spiritual weeds, then we would not so easily allow them to grow and grow. “Their all-manifest enemy is the devil”: he sowed them in frivolous or malicious writings, in effeminate songs, in seductive spectacles, in free speech, in immodest and unstable customs. The enemy is hiding behind this: “all the tares were in the midst of the wheat, and they departed.” You think that you allow yourself innocent, just not quite strict, pleasures of sight, hearing, imagination, feeling: but be careful; through these pleasures the tares of the evil one are sown, the seed of hell is implanted in the heart; feel disgusted; be afraid; take caution. Caution: for the parable says that “the enemy comes as a sleeping man.” What sleep means here, the Creator does not explain this in the parable: but without fear of error we can assume that sleep here means carelessness and a lack of vigilant attention to oneself and to one’s actions. People sleep spiritually when they carelessly close the eyes of their minds and do not try to look at the light of the truth of the Gospel and the law of God in order to be constantly enlightened by it and enlighten the paths of their lives; when, like those who dream in a dream, they do not control their thoughts, do not curb their desires, and allow their imagination to wander over sensual and vain objects. So they sleep: and meanwhile the enemy does not sleep; he sneaks in the darkness of oblivion about God and His law, and sows tares in the wheat, in a person’s sleep the dreams of hell, in frivolous negligence about virtue and salvation, unclean thoughts, sinful desires, lawless and destructive deeds. Sleep not, or wake up, beloved soul; sharpen your eye towards the light of God; walk in the presence of God; be vigilant not only over your deeds, but also over your desires and thoughts; Enlighten yourself internally with the Word of God and prayer, so that even during bodily sleep the dawn of the spirit does not fade away in your heart, and does not allow the dark enemy who sows tares to reach you. Sons of the kingdom, in whom the good seed is sown! The parable says that the tares become more visible as the wheat grows and ripens, as the harvest approaches. Oh, how the tares are already visible in the Lord’s field! Isn’t that why the great harvest is near? For exactly, according to what was said: “Gather first the tares, and bind them into sheaves” (Matthew 13:30), - the tares are already beginning to prepare themselves for the final binding in sheaves for burning 286: people who have given themselves over to wickedness and iniquity, each on their own, from time to time are more and more firmly bound into communities, into congregations, into collusion. Let us not sleep, brethren, but let us stay awake; and let us each guard and grow in our hearts the grain of the spirit that the Divine Sower sowed in us through baptism and the teaching of the Gospel. And you, heavenly inhabitants, are the Angels of God! Before you appear before us with a trumpet voice to announce the longed-for and terrible harvest, speak to us in a quiet voice of meek excitement for repentance and spiritual vigil, “lest we sleep in sin unto death.” “Arrange yourself around” us, and deliver us from the enemy who sows tares in us, the food of the fire of Gehenna. Amen. According to Jew. collection: a word on the day of the Archangel Michael, spoken at the Archangel Cathedral. According to Jew. collection: confess... According to Jew. collection: to bind into sheaves... You might be interested in: