Слово 4, о мире

Let us also sing about the creation of the great God, refuting false opinions. One God; and what the Hellenic sages imagined about matter and form, as if they were co-originating, was a fable based on nothing. Just as all these venerable forms, made by their gods, did not exist from the beginning, but received existence by the will of the great God; So has anyone ever seen matter without form? Or who found form without matter, although he worked very hard in the innermost recesses of the mind? But I did not find either a colorless body or an incorporeal color. Who separated from each other that which nature did not separate, but brought together? But let us separate form from matter. Consider: if they were not connected at all, how would they come together, or how would the world be formed when they are completely separate? And if we connect; how did they connect? Who, besides God, merged them with each other? But if God is a connector; then recognize Him as the Creator of everything. And the potter on his wheel gives shape to clay, and the gold smelter to gold, and the stonemason to stones. Concede, lover of anarchy, concede to God something greater than our meaning; and let this greater thing be matter with moving forms. The multi-artistic parent of all things - God's Mind - thought, and matter clothed in forms came into being; because He is not like a painter, in whom the image visible before his eyes aroused something similar to this image, which the mind alone could not have drawn. And you, the evil Manichaean darkness (Manichaeism is a heretical teaching about the equal struggle of darkness and light - Ed.), were not from the beginning equal to the highest Light! If there was God, then there was no darkness; because evil could not argue about equality with God. If there was darkness, then you do not give room to God: it is indecent for Him to be in agreement with darkness. If you imagine them in a fight; will overcome the strongest. And if you say that they are equivalent; Who is the third who brings them into unity with his wisdom and stops the fight? And it is very surprising that, having aroused terrible enmity, you immediately forget about this struggle and imagine those at war as agreeing. I consist of soul and body. And the soul is a stream of infinite light - Divinity; and you produce the body from a dark beginning. And you bring those who are so far apart into one. If I constitute one common nature; then the enmity has ceased with me. And if the cruel enmity within me is irreconcilable; then I do not constitute one nature, united from soul and body. For it is not hostile, but friendly principles that produce the overall product. Such darkness will cover your heart! And according to my teaching, there is one God without beginning, who does not fight with anyone, one good Light, the power of high-ranking minds, simple and conjugated, heavenly and earthly; and darkness occurred subsequently, and is not some easily describable independent nature, but our own sin. Sin is a violation of the commandment, just as night is the setting of the sun, feeble old age is the passing of youth, and terrible winter is a consequence of the removal of the sun upward. The first of all heavenly lights, having lost its light and glory through its pride, haunts the human race with everlasting hatred. From him the first man tasted murderous sin and death, which, through his cunning, kindled a flame in me. Such is the nature of the high-born evil of which he is the father! Rust is a detriment to solid iron; and I, a suicide, planted destruction in myself - sin, by my own intention, following the insidious suggestions of an envious person. If even then you, O world, were close to the glory of the beginningless Trinity; then why did the Christ-bearing Lights, versed in the Divine, place you at such a distance; and why is it that very few years are counted after the great Word of God set you up? But if you are erected afterwards; then I ask: since inactivity and imperfection cannot be attributed to God, what was God’s thought occupied with before the Almighty, reigning in the emptiness of centuries, created the universe and adorned it with forms? – She contemplated the longed-for luminosity of Her goodness, the equal and equally perfect luminosity of the triscendent Deity, as this is known to the only Deity, and to whom God has revealed it. The World-Generating Mind also considered in His great mental representations the images He himself composed of the world, which was produced later, but for God even then was real. God has everything before his eyes: what will happen, and what was, and what is now. For me, such a division is established by time, that one is ahead, the other is behind; but for God everything merges into one, and everything is held in the muscles of the great Divinity. Therefore, listen to what my mind has invented. The Mind gave birth to everything within itself, and the birth outside took place later in good time, when the great Word of God was revealed. He wanted to create intelligent natures, heavenly and earthly - these mirrors of the first Light, permeable with light, so that one, a shining mountain, would remain a great luminous servant of the King, while the other would have glory here. He exudes to them the Divinity of minds in order to reign in a greater number of heavenly minds and for a greater number to be a blessed light. For this is the property of my King - to impart bliss. But so that the creature, approaching God, does not desire equal glory with God and does not pursue light and glory, whereas it is best to observe moderation, and excess is worst; the lofty Word, having good thoughts about future creatures, alienated both from the Trinity everything surrounding the throne of Light, and from the angelic faces of mortal nature. However, It did not alienate the ministering angelic nature very much, but much more our nature; because we came from dust united with the Divine: but simple nature is more perfect. Of the worlds, one was created first. This is another sky, the abode of the God-bearers, contemplated by a single mind, most luminous; the man of God will subsequently enter into it when, having purified his mind and flesh, he becomes a god. And the other - the corruptible world - was created for mortals, when the beauty of the luminaries, preaching about God with beauty and greatness, and the royal palace for the image of God had to be established. 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