Reflection on two troparions of the Great Canon of Andrew of Crete

Before the gaze of all centuries stands one generally accepted image of the Jewish sage - King Solomon. His name became synonymous with wisdom. “Solomon” is the same as the sage, “the wise Solomon.” The Holy Bible also speaks of his wisdom. May the Lord, - we read in the Third Book of Kings, - give Solomon much meaning and wisdom, and breadth of heart, like the sand of the sea; and the wisdom of Solomon increased greatly, more than the sense of all the ancient people and more than all the sense of the Egyptians; and man became wiser than all others... and his name became famous in all the countries around. And Solomon spoke three thousand parables, and his songs were five thousand; and the verb about trees, from the cedar of Lebanon and even to the hyssop coming out of the wall; and verbs about cattle and birds and creeping things and fish. And all the people came to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and I received gifts from all the kings of the earth, and I heard his wisdom (1 Kings 4:29–34). But here is what we hear in the seventh song of the Great Canon of Andrew of Crete about this great sage: “Wonderful Solomon and filled with grace and wisdom, having sometimes done this evil thing before God, depart from Him.” “Desecrated by the pleasures of my passions, woe is me, the guardian of wisdom, the guardian of prodigal women, and strange from God.” And the same book of Kings tells of the low fall of the exalted sage: And King Solomon was a lover of women, and he married strange wives, and the daughter of Pharaoh, the Moabites, the Ammanites, the Syrians, and the Edomites, the Hittites, and the Amorites; Let them not enter into you, lest they turn your souls away after their idols; To those Solomon cleave to love. And when Solomon was old, a strange wife turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father was, and Solomon walked after Ashtoreth, the abomination of Sidon, and after Baal, the idol of the children of Ammon. And Solomon did evil before the Lord... Then Solomon built high a church for Chemosh, the idol of Moab, and for Baal, the idol of the sons of Ammon, and for Ashtoreth, the abomination of Sidon, on the mountain before Jerusalem; and thus make all your wives strangers, even the cuckoo and the cow, your idol. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because he had turned away his heart from the Lord God of Israel (1 Kings 11:1-2, 4-9). Anyone who follows the mood of modern society, who reflects on the prevailing ideas, cannot help but pay attention to the following two brief excerpts from the Great Canon. The words of the Third Book of Kings only clarify what was briefly said by the great church hymnographer. In the consciousness of modern humanity it is impossible not to notice the dominance of reason. In the pantheon of idols of modern humanity, the “goddess of reason” occupies perhaps the most honorable place. Speeches about industry, trade, the stock exchange and securities still do not enjoy the same sympathy as speeches about science, knowledge, and enlightenment. The worship of the golden calf is becoming almost universal, but, it seems, the worship of the golden calf does not have the sincerity that can be observed in the cult of the “goddess of reason.” Living conditions force a person to bow especially low to representatives of capital, but more sincere worship is still given to representatives of reason, representatives of knowledge. The connection of a full head with an empty wallet is more respected and respected than the connection of a full wallet with an empty head. It is impossible not to recognize capitalists, “stock market aces”, even from an “oppressed” tribe; a modern person rarely has enough courage not to bow to them - they are strength! But the heart tells a person the need to bow to a scientist, thinker, professor. The very worldview of our contemporary is thoroughly imbued with rationality, it is thoroughly intellectualistic. The scientific worldview is now in glory. Even if this term has no meaning and can only be the banner of a crowd far from science, its very dominance is characteristic of modernity. Science has grown; the field of her research becomes wider and wider, her keen analysis penetrates into the depths of objects. Humanity knows a lot; it can speak not only about trees, animals and reptiles, but also about heavenly bodies, which the far-sighted eye of the Semite Solomon did not see, and about bacteria and microorganisms, which cannot be seen without a microscope. The wisdom of Solomon may seem narrow and naive to a modern sage. The sage Solomon may be the image of our modern times. But couldn’t there be another Solomon, mired in sensuality, worshiping idols, and apostate from the Lord God, an image of this modernity? But can you point out the idol, Baal, Ashtoreth and other Sidonian abominations that modern humanity would not bow to? Vice and debauchery are being refined, high churches are being built for all kinds of idols and are often built on the mountain before Jerusalem (1 Kings 11:7), next to the churches of the true God. Look in Moscow, how new buildings, new churches of Mercury (the god of trade) sometimes completely crushed the ancient churches! Which churches are visited more diligently and with greater willingness? Are they churches of God or churches of Melpomene, Bacchus and other Sidonian idols? Yes, perhaps humanity has become wise, like Solomon, but it is no less sensual and depraved, it is no closer to the Lord God than Solomon in the days of his old age. Why is this so? Why does Solomon’s life seem to repeat itself again, only on a larger scale? People respect wisdom, but do not notice that over the centuries the very concept of wisdom has already been significantly replaced. The ancient sage of Hellas had some reason to teach that knowledge is a virtue. Then knowledge and wisdom were something integral. Then it was philosophy; everything was raised to general principles and, together with these principles, went back to the religious foundations of human life. Indeed, for the ancient Greek philosophers, the very classification of sciences was nothing more than a division of philosophy. For a long time, philosophy was revered as the mother of sciences. But until now, knowledge and science have come a long way of specialization and atomization. Now there are so many sciences that even a person with a higher education cannot list them by name. Science ceased to exist, only science remained. Knowledge has become too busy counting and examining everything from cedar to hyssop. The place of the sage was taken by the scientist, and the scientist is even more perfect the narrower the circle of his research, the less he knows. We can say that science is completely in vain when it claims to replace wisdom; it is in vain that it wants to be the leader of life. In fact, let a person who has taken a course in natural sciences list and name in Latin all the genera and species of plants from the cedar of Lebanon to the mosses of the Siberian tundra, let an astronomer calculate with amazing accuracy the time of lunar and solar eclipses, let him know the heavenly ways better than the alleys of Moscow - but does all this give him the right to be the leader of life, to speak the truth on all issues of human life? I think not. They call history the teacher of life. But this is not always the case. Are there really a few historical questions that are interesting for science, but completely useless for life? Theological science, which deals with questions of life and which has at its disposal the priceless treasure of knowledge of holy people, deep experts in the human soul, can lay claim to the guidance of human life more than all other sciences. In their admiration for knowledge, for science, people often forget that science is not yet wisdom, that it can lead a person to apostasy from God and may turn out to be powerless in the face of the pressure of passions and sensuality. After all, anyone who has at least observed the life of his soul for some time must frankly admit that so often our reason with its sophisms only justifies our declining will. The proposition “knowledge is virtue” now needs a significant qualification. This reservation was made by the Apostle Paul on the basis of penetration into the depths of human consciousness. According to the inner man, I find delight in the law of God; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members (Rom. 7:22-23). Between knowledge and virtue lies a great abyss of sin. Wisdom lies in the unification of knowledge and virtue, and there is only one path to this - overcoming the abyss, overcoming sin. The path of wisdom is the path of feat, and this feat is twofold: the fight against ignorance and the fight against sin. That is why in the word of God and the holy fathers wisdom is assessed not so much by logical criteria, but by moral criteria. Whether any of you is wise and prudent, prove this by actually good behavior with wise meekness. But if you have bitter envy and contentiousness in your heart, do not boast or lie about the truth. This is not wisdom that comes down from above, but earthly, spiritual, demonic... But the wisdom that comes down from above is first pure, then peaceful, modest, obedient, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and unfeigned (James 3:13-15, 17). True wisdom is religious, and no religious knowledge is possible without purification of the heart. From deep church antiquity, from the 2nd century, comes the reasoning of Theophilus of Antioch: “If you say: show me your God, then I will answer you: show me your man, and I will show you my God. Show that the eyes of your soul see and the ears of your heart hear. For as the bodily eyes of sighted people see the objects of this life and perceive the difference, for example, between light and darkness, between white and black, between ugly and beautiful... or as the ears distinguish sounds that are subject to hearing - sharp, heavy or pleasant; so surely there are ears of the heart and eyes of the soul to see God. And God is visible to those who are able to see Him, whose spiritual eyes are open. Everyone has eyes, but for others they are covered in darkness and do not see sunlight. And although the blind do not see the light of the sun, light still exists, and let the blind complain about themselves and about their eyes. So you too, my friend, the eyes of your soul are darkened by your sins and evil deeds. A person must have a soul as pure as a shining mirror. When there is rust on the mirror, then a human face cannot be seen in the mirror: so a person, when there is sin in him, cannot contemplate God. So, show yourself, are you not an adulterer, are you not a fornicator, are you not a slanderer, are you angry, are you not envious, are you not arrogant, are you not proud, are you not violent? For God does not reveal himself to those who do this, unless they first cleanse themselves from all filth” (To Autolycus. I, 2). Let's move on to the 8th century and take "The works of our holy father Abba Isaac the Syrian, ascetic and hermit, former bishop of the Christ-loving city of Nineveh." From this great theologian and profound philosopher we will find the following speeches: “Perhaps you think that such spiritual knowledge is acquired by someone through spiritual knowledge? Not only is it impossible to accept the spiritual with this spiritual knowledge, but it is not even possible for anyone who zealously exercises spiritual knowledge to sense it or be granted it. And if some of them want to get closer to this knowledge of the Spirit, then until they renounce this spiritual knowledge and all the twists and turns of its subtleties and its complex methods and put themselves in an infantile way of thinking, they will not be able to approach, even if only a little, to spiritual knowledge. On the contrary, the skill and concepts of spiritual knowledge are a great obstacle for them until they erase this little by little. This knowledge of the Spirit is simple and does not shine through in the thoughts of the soul. Until the mind is freed from the thoughts of many and comes to the single simplicity of purity, it will not be able to feel this spiritual knowledge... No one can receive this spiritual knowledge unless he turns and becomes like a child... it is not acquired by the deeds of thoughts, but can be tasted by grace. And until a person purifies himself, he does not have sufficient strength to hear about it, because no one can acquire it by studying it. If you, child, achieve purity of heart, which is produced by faith in silence from people, and forget the knowledge of this world, so that you do not even feel it, then spiritual knowledge will suddenly appear before you, without searching for it” (Homily 49). Thus, according to the mind of the Church Fathers, true wisdom is inseparable from the moral improvement of the human person. It is the forgetting of these simple and understandable truths that makes humanity like the sage Solomon in old age. Concerned about enlightening the mind, they now consider the fight against sin unnecessary, and wisdom falls into the abyss of moral depravity. Nowadays all speeches about expanding educational programs are so readily greeted, but usually all educational methods are condemned in our press with the fire of sacred indignation. Saint Andrew of Crete, with his brief antithesis “the guardian of wisdom is the guardian of prodigal wives and strange from God,” poses a serious objection to the modern narrowly intellectualistic direction of education and the entire worldview, pointing to the evil fruits of reason, detached from the moral feat of the fight against sin. You might be interested in: