Глава 9 Антихрист

Despite the fact that the word of God does not indicate the time of the end of the world, people always make attempts to accurately determine this great moment, which will be followed by the general resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment of Christ. Social disasters such as famine, war, endemic diseases - cholera, plague, pestilence, have always contributed to the spread among the masses of the belief that our world is living its last days. But it is unlikely that when there was such a strong and universal expectation of the end of the world in the West as at the end of the first millennium of our Christian era, the basis for which was the following words of the Apocalypse: in a thousand years the devil will come out of his prison and will seduce the peoples in the four countries of the earth. The book of life will be opened; the sea will throw up its dead; each one will be judged according to his deeds by him who sits on the great shining throne. And there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Bernard of Thuringia (about 960) further appointed the day of the end of the world: the universe, in his opinion, should collapse when the Annunciation coincides with Good Friday. This coincidence happened in 992, and nothing extraordinary followed from it. During the tenth century, royal charters began with the following words: since the end of the world is approaching... In 1186, astrologers frightened Europe by announcing that in the month of September great storms would break out, earthquakes would occur, mortality between people, disturbances and strife, revolutions in all states, destruction and death of all living things. But nothing lived up to their predictions. A few years later, in 1198, rumors spread about the end of the world. But this time the world was to be destroyed without the mediation of celestial phenomena; predicted that the Antichrist would be born in Babylon, and through him the human race would perish. At the end of the 13th century, the alchemist Arnaud de Villeneuve announced that the Antichrist would be born in 1335. Vincent Ferve, the famous Spanish preacher, assures that the world will last as many years as there are verses in the psalter, i.e. about 2537 years. One of the most famous mathematicians in Europe, named Stofler, who worked diligently on dismantling the calendar, predicted that in 1524 there would be a global flood. This flood was supposed to happen in February because then Saturn, Jupiter and Mars were supposed to be conjunct in the sign of Pisces. All the peoples of Europe, Asia and Africa, who heard about this prediction, were struck with despondency and fear. Despite the rainbow, everyone expected a flood. Many writers of that time report that the inhabitants of the coastal provinces of Germany decided to sell their lands at the lowest price, and that people who had money and did not really trust the predictions bought up these lands. Everyone stocked up on a boat in the manner of an ark. A doctor from Toulouse, named Orion, ordered an ark of large size for himself, his family and his friends. Similar precautions were taken in most of Italy. Finally, February arrived and not a single drop of rain fell. Never in any month has there been such a drought, and never have astrologers felt such embarrassment. However, these worthy people did not lose heart, and they never ceased to be believed. The same Stofler, together with the famous Regiomontanus, again predicted that in 1588 there would be an end to the world, or at least some important events would follow that should shake the earth. New prediction – and new disappointment! And the year 1588 was not marked by any extraordinary incident. In 1572, however, there was a very strange phenomenon that could justify all the fears: an unknown star suddenly lit up in the constellation Cassiopeia, this star was distinguished by its dazzling light and was visible throughout the day. Astrologers announced that it was the star of the Magi, which appeared a second time to announce the last coming of Christ. The prediction of the destruction of the universe in 1840 has long been the subject of everyone's expectations and fears. The year 1840 was marked by fate. The most menacing and terrible predictions rained down from all sides. The final denouement of the human drama was scheduled for January 6th. Quite a few were preparing for the fatal event, finished with all their affairs and firmly awaited their final destruction. The Parisian priest Pierre Louis, who lived in 1840, from a unique interpretation of the apocalypse came to the conviction that the end of the world would follow in 1900 103. As for our fatherland, the idea of ​​the imminent end of the world was especially widespread among Russians in the 15th century. Thus, we meet it in the chronicles of Metropolitan Cyprian, Metropolitan Photius and other teachers. In the Sofia Chronicle, under the year 1459, it is written: “Here is fear, here is great sorrow: just as in the crucifixion of Christ this circle was 23, there were 13 moons, this summer came to an end, in which we anticipate the worldwide coming of Christ. Oh, Master! Our iniquities have multiplied on earth, have mercy, O Lord!” Easter Sundays were not continued beyond the year 7000 (1492); after this year they put a circle and added: “Woe to those who have reached the end of time!” 104. And these days, rumors about the imminent end of the world, based on certain signs or events, do not stop... 1899 was especially lucky in this regard; many were positively convinced that the world would not last beyond November of this year... While the Day of the Lord is unknown, some signs of its onset are still revealed to us; two predictions in the Holy Scriptures clearly appear before us. One is that the gospel must be preached to the whole world, and all the Gentiles and the people of Israel must join the church. The second speaks of the great falling away of those who entered, from which the final image of sin develops. There can be no question that Christianity will become a world religion. However slowly the work of mission may proceed, there runs through all pagan religions a sense of consciousness that their hours are numbered. Although the fire of ancient fanaticism still burns in Mohammedanism, it is precisely this agitation against everything Christian that shows that the gospel exposes it to danger. Of course, victory for the gospel does not always come from conviction of its truth, but what the mission does not do, the dominance of European civilization will do. With him, Christianity will enter everywhere as the religion of the dominant peoples. Thus, in the hand of God, secular interests will also serve as a means of gathering peoples into the union of the Christian Church, so that the ends of the earth become the boundaries of the church. The strangest thing may seem to be the hope that Israel would bow before the Crucified One; but we must say that the very existence of this amazing people shows that God saved them for the future; if the future belongs to Jesus Christ, then Israel also belongs to him. The prophecy says that this will not be a conversion of individuals, but of an entire nation. And the connection in which the individual parts of this people exist among themselves clearly shows that if a religious movement once takes possession of them, it can easily become universal. Only God knows when this will happen; now their eyes are still closed and their minds are darkened, and they do not recognize in Jesus Christ the one to whom their prayers and their hopes are addressed. Israel serves mammon and the fleeting interests of the age, but in the depths of its soul it keeps the hope of its ancestors. If the hard school that the Lord has destined for them achieves its goal for them, then it will be as if the scabs will fall from their eyes, and they will know who was crucified. And the longer they cursed at the one who was the fulfillment of their hopes, the deeper their kneeling will be and the truer their faith and love 105 (John 5:43). Based on these words, it can be assumed that the Jews will first accept the Antichrist for the Messiah they are expecting. But soon, seeing his bloodthirsty cruelty, denial of God and self-deification, they will lose faith in his messianic dignity, understand and realize that they were mistaken. This terrible deception, into which they will be led by the Antichrist, will bring them to their senses, will attract their hearts to the one to whom the Antichrist will be an enemy and adversary, that is, to Christ. The awareness of their grave mistake will inspire them with the idea that their wait for the Messiah is in vain, and that the Messiah has long since come in the person of Jesus Christ. But most of all, the preaching of the prophet Elijah will affect them. She will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers (Mal.4:5-6). With this future of Israel, according to the prophet, the era of the spread of godlessness throughout the earth will coincide. This unfortunate time in all respects, unprecedented in the strength and ubiquity of the spread of atheism, unprecedented in the severity, duration and breadth of the spread of disasters that will strike humanity, will come before the second coming of Jesus Christ, before the end of the world. It is directly and clearly said: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth” (Luke 18:8)? In the Holy Scriptures, this time is called “the last days” (2 Peter 3:3), “the last times” (1 Tim. 4:1), “the last time” (Dan. 12:4, 9). Its duration is not defined in scripture. Its end coincides with the coming of Jesus Christ and the end of the world; but its beginning will occur gradually, and therefore it is difficult to distinguish it from the previous time; it is impossible to indicate a specific point in time from which it will begin. From the book of the prophet Daniel and from the apocalypse it is clear that the last and most terrible period of this time will last three and a half years - we mean the time of the reign of the Antichrist. But the ill-fated time of terrible disasters and the extraordinary spread of wickedness and godlessness will begin before the beginning of the reign of the Antichrist, as can be seen from the speech of Jesus Christ about the end of the world, from the second letter of the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians and from the apocalypse. The reign of the Antichrist will only be the completion and end of this time, its last period. But how long the period of this year preceding the reign of the Antichrist will be is unknown. The extraordinary spread of unbelief and wickedness throughout the whole earth; general mutual enmity between people and nations, which long before the end of the world will intensify to the point that “nation will rise up against nation and kingdom against kingdom” (Matt. 24:6–7), that “people will betray each other and hate each other” (Matt. 24:10), so that even “brother will betray brother to death, and father children, and children will rise up against parents and put them to death” (Mk. 13:12); “great earthquakes in places, and famine, and pestilence, and terrible phenomena, and great signs from heaven” (Luke 21:11); “great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, and will not be” (Matthew 24:21), when “people will die of fear and anticipation of the disasters coming to the world” (Luke 21:26); the increase of lawlessness and the accompanying cooling of love for people (Matthew 24:12); the betrayal of torment and death of Christians and hatred of them on the part of all nations for the name of Christ (Matthew 24:9); “the abomination of desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place” (Matt. 24:15; Dan. 9:27) - all this will cause the end of the world, just as hell, poisoning all the juices of a living creature, causes the latter death. The Lord Jesus Christ directly said that “if those days had not been shortened, no flesh would have been saved” (Matthew 24:22). This means that if Jesus Christ had not come then to carry out the final judgment on the human race (Matthew 25:31–46), to destroy and renew heaven and earth with fire (Matthew 24:29; 2 Pet. 3:7–12), the existence of the human race would still have ceased. Before the end of the world, the dominion, audacity and prevalence of atheism, the depth and prevalence of moral corruption and physical deterioration in the human race will be as unusual and extraordinary as many physical phenomena and other events that will then take place will be extraordinary, just as the end of the world itself will be extraordinary. This will be an era in all respects, and in particular in relation to godlessness, exceptional, unique, unprecedented, terrible and unfortunate. Equally exceptional are the reasons for the unusual spread of atheism before the end of the world. Based on the Holy Scriptures and the teachings of the church fathers, we can make partly assumptions, partly positive judgments about the reasons for the terrible spread and extraordinary dominion of atheism before the end of the world; Let us also note the characteristic features of the godless spirit of that time. There are some indications in the Holy Scriptures that the immorality, wickedness and godlessness of the last year will be prepared gradually, perhaps over a very long time. The Evangelist John the Theologian already said about his time: “As you have heard that the Antichrist will come, and now many antichrists have appeared, we know from this that the time is the last” (1 John 2:18). At the same time, the Apostle Paul wrote that “the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only it will not be completed until it is taken out of the way that now holds it back” (2 Thess. 2:7). However, nineteen centuries have passed since those and other words were spoken, and the end of the world has not yet come. But, on the other hand, the apostles, as divinely inspired writers, could not express erroneous thoughts in their epistles, accepted into the canon of Holy Scripture, and, moreover, about such an important subject. How should we understand these words? They do not express that in the time of the apostles the end of the world was approaching, but they point out the similarity of the events of civil and church life of that time, the spirit of the time at that time with what will happen before the end of the world, and they depict the time contemporary to the apostles as the beginning of a sad and terrible end - the beginning not by the proximity of time, but by the similarity of the phenomena of life. The words of the Apostle Paul make this very clear. He did not say at all that the end of the world was coming. Quite the contrary: he writes his very letter to the Thessalonians with the primary purpose of dissuading some of them, who were expecting the imminent arrival of the end of the world, from this opinion. He agrees with this and argues that the mystery of lawlessness - that lawlessness that will be revealed in all its strength and nakedness before the end of the world - is already at work, but it acts precisely as a mystery, little noticeable, just as little noticeable is a sprout that only after many years becomes visible to everyone, a huge tree. In the same way, the end of the world will not come until the mystery of iniquity, which has already begun, is completed, that is, until it is revealed and realized in full and in all its power. When this will happen, the apostle indicates, but not directly, but mysteriously: this will happen when the one who is now holding back will be taken out of the environment; but what the one who restrains is and when he will be taken out of the midst, the apostle does not explain this. Without clearly indicating when the end of the world will follow, he, however, convinces the Thessalonians not to believe the rumors spread by ill-intentioned people that the end of the world is already coming. An explanation of the true meaning of the above words of the Apostle Paul provides the key to understanding the words of John the Theologian, which, in turn, shed light on the words of the Apostle Paul, the words of both apostles are parallel and corresponding; the thought in them is approximately the same, and it is only expressed differently. Evangelist John the Theologian calls antichrists people who “reject the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22); He also says that “every spirit that does not confess Jesus Christ who has come in the flesh is not from God, but it is the spirit of the Antichrist, about whom you have heard that he would come and is now already in the world” (1 John 4:3), about the antichrists he also says that “they went out from us, but were not ours” (1 John 2:19). It is clear that by antichrists he means the heretics of his time - the Gnostics who rejected the incarnation and did not recognize Christ as God 106, the Ebionites who recognized Christ only as a man, and other heretics, and perhaps also false Christs “many false prophets have appeared in the world” (1 John 4:1). Attributing to all such people the spirit of the Antichrist, who will come before the end of the world, the Evangelist John says that he, that is, the real Antichrist, is now already in the world. But since in his time there was no real Antichrist, and he knew this, it is clear that John the Theologian speaks about both the appearance of the real Antichrist in his time and the onset of the last time in the same sense as the Apostle Paul about the mystery of lawlessness, as having begun to act, but not yet accomplished, not realized, i.e. he indicates the predecessors of the Antichrist who is about to come, but the predecessors not in the immediate, but in the distant succession, not in time, but in spirit. The heretics rejected Christ as the God-man, and at the same time, if they did not reject God, then at least they inevitably distorted the teaching about him, put their false Christianity in place of Christianity, and the real Antichrist will reject Christ and seduce Christians into his faith (Rev. 11:7, 13:5–8, 17:14). Only he will far and immeasurably surpass the heretics in degree, audacity, strength and success in denying Christ and Christianity: he will exterminate Christians, blaspheme, call himself God and rule over the whole earth (Rev. 13:2, 3-12). While heretics depict the deceptions and temptations with which the Antichrist will tear Christians away from Christ (2 Thess. 2:10–11), the persecutors of Christianity from Jews and pagans were and are the predecessors of the Antichrist in his war of destruction against the saints (Rev. 13:7). Therefore, not without reason, under the mystery of lawlessness, which, according to the Apostle Paul, is already in action, some church fathers, for example Chrysostom, understood Nero as a prototype of the Antichrist. “For,” says the universal teacher, “he (i.e., Nero) wanted to be considered God. “Okay,” he said, “(i.e., the apostle) “it’s a secret, for Nero did not so openly and shamelessly pretend to be God like the Antichrist.”107 But other church fathers even understand heretics by the mystery of lawlessness, and in this case the similarity and parallelism of the two passages being explained - from the first letter of the Evangelist John the Theologian and from the second letter of the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians - will be even closer. Thus, Blessed Theodoret says: “Others argued that the Apostle called Nero the secret of lawlessness and the doer of evil. But I think that the apostle meant the heresies that arose; because with them the devil leads many to deviate from the truth. He called them the secret of lawlessness because the network of lawlessness is in them. is hidden, but the devil himself is clearly leading people to apostasy. That is why the apostle called his coming a discovery. For what he has always prepared in secret, he will then proclaim openly and clearly 108.” This contradictory interpretation can be reconciled by the assumption that the Apostle Paul, by the mystery of lawlessness, meant Nero only primarily, as the most topical and, moreover, contemporary prototype of the Antichrist, but not exclusively him alone. While the apostles wrote their epistles in response to the needs of their time, they nevertheless intended them for all times. As the Evangelist John the Theologian, speaking about contemporary heretics - Antichrists, he also meant heretics of subsequent times, as exponents of the anti-Christian spirit; so the Apostle Paul, with the words: the mystery of lawlessness, designated the predecessors of the Antichrist of every kind and of all times: heretics, atheists, unbelievers and false believers, persecutors of Christianity. The very way of expressing the Apostle Paul makes it clear that the action of the mystery of lawlessness will not be short-term, not one-time, as was the activity of Nero, but constant, having to continue until such time as it is revealed clearly, in all its strength and terrible breadth, until the anti-Christian spirit of all times, embodied and active in the various opponents of Christ, is concentrated in the Antichrist, until it reaches the completion of the highest degree of development and, at the same time, its end in godlessness, immorality and anti-Christianity before the end of the world. Not one Nero, but a whole series of Nero - these proud self-worshippers, cruel despots, bloodthirsty conquerors like tigers, immoral libertines, wicked atheists, crazy tramplers of truth and terrible persecutors of Christianity - will pass through the centuries until the end of the world. Herod, the so-called Great, who killed fourteen thousand Bethlehem babies (Matt. 2, 16); the Roman Emperor Caligula, who madly said that if humanity had one head, he would cut it off; Domitian, Diocletian, Julian the Apostate and other cruel persecutors of Christians, Attila, called the scourge of God; Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, who turned crowded cities into heaps of garbage and entire kingdoms into deserts and erected huge pyramids of severed heads instead of monuments; Napoleon and other Tamerlanes of modern times, who, because of ambition and lust for power, killed millions of people - like them, like not predecessors in spirit, like not prototypes in life and activity of that beast emerging from the sea, to which it was given to wage war with the saints and defeat them, to which will be given power over every tribe and people, and language, and tribe, of which further the image, animated by its magical power will the helper-beast, coming out of the earth, speak and act in such a way that everyone who does not worship the image of the beast will be killed (Rev. 13:15)? Further, if the Evangelist John the Theologian called the Gnostics antichrists who denied the incarnation of God (Docetes 109), the Judaizers who did not recognize Christ as God, apostates from Christianity who accepted the true faith but did not persist in it, false prophets and false Christs who put themselves in the place of the true Christ, then should not all later heretics, as well as those who appear, be called antichrists? later? Are they not Antichrists, are they not the forerunners of the apocalyptic Antichrist, Gnostics of the second and third centuries, Manichaeans 110, Anti-Trinitarians 111, Arians 112, Apollinarians 113, Nestorians 114, Monophysites 115 and Monothelites 116, Pelagians 117, Iconoclasts 118, Bogomils 119 and Paulicians 120, Socinians 121, Judaizers, ancient and modern antinomians 122, our schismatics, especially Bespopovtsy, our Khlysty and other sectarians, Irvingians 123 and other countless talk of mystical sectarianism? Aren't the extreme rationalists of the past and our century, like Pavlus, Strauss, Ranen, antichrists?... Aren't they deists 124, pantheists 125, radical skeptics and agnostics 126, materialists and atheists? Will not the Antichrists be and all those who will appear heretics, apostates from the faith, false believers, deniers, enemies and persecutors of religion and Christianity, enemies of truth and goodness, inveterate in sins, blasphemers and atheists? All of these were and will be the predecessors, prototypes and precursors of the apocalyptic beast-Antichrist in those actions of the latter in which he will appear as a liar and deceiver, a clear, strong, daring enemy of God, Christianity, religion and everything holy, and will demand divine worship only for himself. Heresy, bloodthirsty cruelty, moral lawlessness, blasphemy and atheism and mental decline and physical degeneration associated with them, manifesting themselves over the centuries in different forms, now weakening, now intensifying, but never stopping, dying out in some forms and in some places and flaring up with renewed vigor in other species and in other places and peoples, will gradually accumulate in the human race; evil, intervals, but will still intensify until they increase to an all-consuming flood of evil before the end of the world. This soil will also give rise to the Antichrist, and most importantly, it will be conducive to the immense, worldwide success of his godless activities. Of course, the main reason for the extraordinary speed and breadth of success of his propaganda of atheism will be that although he will be a man, all the power of Satan will be concentrated in him. His very coming will be according to the work of Satan, and according to the work of Satan it will be accompanied by “all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and all unrighteous deception of those who perish” (2 Thess. 2:9-10). But both Satan himself and the Antichrist, in whom he will invest all his strength, could not have spread godlessness throughout the entire earth in such a short time, namely “forty-two months” (Rev. 13:5), if the success of their activities had not been prepared by the previous immersion of humanity in evil, the previous spread of an anti-Christian and ungodly spirit in humanity, if humanity had not already been predisposed to falling away from God and Christ and to the transition to the kingdom of Satan. And such a godless anti-Christian predisposition of the human race, which has to be before the end of the world, before the appearance of the Antichrist, will be prepared gradually, partly developed by the historical course itself and the accumulation of evil, partly by the hidden activity of the devil, the tension of which will intensify as the earthly history of mankind approaches the end and the devil predicts the end of his power on earth. It is this anti-Christian and godless predisposition of humanity, which has to be and intensify before the appearance of the Antichrist and which has to begin, perhaps even long before it, and will be the immediate cause and natural source of godlessness, which under the Antichrist will spread throughout the entire earth; and the earliest godless eras, such as the godless eras of the past and the current century, as well as all kinds of antichrists and all kinds of anti-Christianity of all times and places, can be recognized as remote causes of the sad moral and religious state of humanity before the coming of the Antichrist and, through the preparation of this state, as remote sources of godlessness in the last terrible time 127. Let's now talk about the face of the Antichrist. Who should be understood by this name? Protestants 128 and schismatics of the non-priestly consensus 129 are trying to prove that the name of the Antichrist mentioned in the Holy Scriptures must mean either a whole society of lawless people, or their succession, or an anti-Christian spirit and teaching, or, finally, all this together. But such wisdom is false. Clear teaching like St. Scripture, as well as the universal Church, exposing the wrongness of those who are mistaken, undoubtedly shows that the Antichrist, in the proper sense of the word, will be one specific person, and not any society or anti-Christian movement. “Although the Antichrist (St. I. Damascene taught) is also anyone who does not confess that the Son of God came in the flesh, that he is perfect God, and became a perfect man, without ceasing to be God, but in the proper sense and primarily he is called the antichrist who will come at the end of the age... a man who has... to take upon himself all the action of Satan" 130. In Holy Scripture there are clear and undoubted indications that: in addition to many Antichrists or opponents of Christ, there will also be an Antichrist, as a special person. 1. This can be seen in the words of Christ spoken to the unbelieving Jews: “I came in the name of My Father, and you do not receive Me; But if another comes in his own name, you will receive him” (John 5:43). Some of the wrong-thinkers argue that here the word “yen” generally refers to any false prophet or teacher and has an indefinite meaning, and the whole meaning of these words of the Savior should be stated as follows: “I have come in the name of my Father, and you do not receive Me; and if any lying teacher comes to you in his own name, such a one you will accept.” But these words of St. refer to the Antichrist, as a special and extreme enemy of Christ. Cyril of Alexandria, b. Theodoret, Theophylact, Archbishop. Bulgarian and St. Chrysostom, who explains them this way: “About whom does Christ say: He will come in his name? Here Christ points to the Antichrist... If you persecute me, he says, out of love for God, then it would be much more appropriate to do the same with the Antichrist... he will forcibly steal everything that does not belong to him and call himself God over everything.” Like the Eastern, the Western ancient fathers and teachers of the church saw in these words of the Savior a prediction about the Antichrist, as a special and extreme enemy of Christ, whom the Jews would accept as the Messiah. This is how these words are explained, by the way, by St. Ambrose of Milan, blessed. Jerome and Bl. Augustine. 2) The Apostle Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonica Christians left a clear teaching about the person and properties of this enemy of Christ. “The man of lawlessness will be revealed,” he testifies, “the son of destruction, the adversary... the lawless one will appear..., his coming will be according to the work of Satan” (2 Thess. 2:3-4, 8-9). The very image of the expression of Greek speech in these words represents the Antichrist as a specific person. The Apostle calls him a man of lawlessness, that is, an extreme lawless person, an atheist villain in the special and extreme meaning of this word. In addition, the apostle here says that the Antichrist will sit in the church of God, pretend to be God, and perform signs and wonders to deceive those who have not accepted the love of the truth. These properties cannot be attributed to society, but befit one person. The words of the apostle in question were referred to the Antichrist as a special person by Saint Irenaeus and his disciple, Saint Hippolytus. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, proposing the question about the Antichrist: "Who is this?" - answers that in this case one must resort to the teachings of the Apostle Paul, and at the same time talks about the Antichrist as a special person and an instrument of the devil. Saint Chrysostom, based on the words of the Apostle Paul (2 Thessalonians 2:3), speaks about the Antichrist: “Who is he? Is it Satan? No, but a person, some, who accepts all his actions.” - Blazh. Jerome, Theodoret of Cyrus, Saint John of Damascus - all, based on these words of the apostle, unanimously speak of the Antichrist as a special person. 3) The Holy Apostle and Evangelist John, to whom the final destinies of the world were revealed, writes: “Little children...have heard that the Antichrist is coming, and now there are many Antichrists in existence” (1 John 2:18). Saint John in these words indicates to Christians the signs of the end times. With such signs he provides, firstly, the Antichrist who is about to appear, and secondly, the opponents of Christ who have already appeared: he speaks of the first in the singular, and of the second - in the plural. And this shows that he distinguishes antichrists in general from antichrist in a special sense. - In addition, the apostle speaks of one Antichrist only as one who has to come, but does not yet exist: the Antichrist is coming; on the contrary, it testifies to many Antichrists that they have already appeared: everyday life. The seer, of course, knew that after him many heretics and false teachers, similar to those who appeared under him, would appear in the Church of Christ: therefore, if he wanted to indicate here under the name of the Antichrist not a special person, but only false teachers in general, then he either would not have mentioned him at all, or would have said the same thing as about those who existed in his time, that is, that “the Antichrist is coming,” in the plural. Moreover, the Apostle John, when he speaks of the many antichrists who have appeared, does not prefix their name with a member, and by this makes it clear that he means here all the opponents of Christ in their entirety. On the contrary, when he talks about the coming Antichrist, he puts a term in front of his name, showing by this that he means some special, specific person. – This testimony of St. John about the Antichrist as a specific person is so clear and indisputable that the wrong-minded pass by in silence. So, Holy Scripture clearly teaches that, contrary to the false teaching of the unjust, the name Antichrist in the proper sense must be understood as a special and extreme enemy of the Church of Christ, who in essence will be an individual, a person, and not some kind of society or gathering of atheists 131. Russian history, prof. P. V. Znamensky. There is no doubt that this event will take place in the last times, that the Jews will be the last to turn to Christ, after the full number of pagans has entered the church. But there is no indication that the Jews will turn to Christ before the coming of the Antichrist. It is likely that the Jews will turn to Christ during the Antichrist, and not before it. We find a hint of this in the words of Jesus Christ: “I came in the name of My Father, and you do not receive Me, but if another comes in his own name, you will receive him.” Those who wish can find more detailed information about this subject in the work of D. Bogdashevsky: “False teachers exposed in the first letter of the Apostle John.” Kyiv, 1890 Conversations on the Second Epistle of St. Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians. Conversation 4. 1. translation, under S. - Petersburg. Theological Academy. The work of Blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, part 7. Interpretation of the Fourteen Epistles of the Holy Apostle Paul, 543 pp. Docetism, Docetes (from ancient Greek δοκεω [dokeo] - “I seem”) is one of the oldest heretical Christian teachings and its adherents, who denied the reality of the suffering of Christ and His incarnation as contradicting the ideas of the impassibility and unlimitedness of God and asserting the illusory nature of his existence. The essence of the teaching is the immateriality of the body and earthly life of Christ. The consequence of this was the assertion that, due to his immateriality, Christ could not suffer and die on the cross, and, therefore, could not rise again. Docetism appeared very early, in the apostolic era, and traces of polemics with it can be seen already in the New Testament (1 John 4:2–4:3) or in the Nag Hammadi collection (Melchizedek IX, 5). In the II century. Docetism is further developed, becoming an integral part of Gnostic constructions. Echoes of Docetism were preserved in the Monophysite understanding of the nature of Christ. The main fighters against Docetism are Ignatius the God-Bearer (second half of the 1st – early 2nd century) and Irenaeus of Lyons (second half of the 2nd century). Manichaeism is a religious and philosophical doctrine that arose in the 3rd century. in the Middle East and spread in the 3rd–11th centuries. from North Africa to China. In the late Roman Empire and Byzantium, it was subjected to severe persecution by the state and orthodox Christianity. In Central and Central Asia it found more favorable soil in the 8th–9th centuries. became the state religion of the Uyghurs. M. is based on the idea of ​​religious syncretism and the dualistic nature of existence (light - darkness, good - evil); it combines the ideas of Parsism, Christianity, Buddhism, Gnosticism and other ancient beliefs of the East (Mesopotamia region). As a religious and philosophical teaching, M. represented: 1) a rationalistic approach; 2) a radical form of materialism; 3) pathetic dualism of good and evil, understood in M. not just as moral, but also as ontological and cosmic principles. (According to Augustine, “Manichaeans affirm the existence of two principles, different and opposite in everything, but at the same time eternal and interconnected, inseparable... these two substances are in eternal struggle and mixing.”) The founder of M. is Suraik, nicknamed Mani (214–277), from a Persian princely family. According to the legend, in his adolescence he left his home at the direction of an angel who appeared. Receives a diverse religious education: from his father - within the framework of the Parsi faith, independently - through a complex of Babylonian teachings. Mani preaches his religion at the court of King Sapor (Sabura, 238). Being persecuted. He went on a missionary mission to the East - to China, India, East Turkestan (according to another version, he was executed, and preaching work was carried out by another person who took the same name). In 270 he returned to Persia. Ideologically opposed to the mobeds - the priests of the dominant religion. In 277 he entered into a dispute with the great Mobed Kirder at the court of Bahram I and refused to prove the truth of his faith by swallowing molten lead and showing miracles. According to legend, Mani was beheaded, and a stuffed animal was made from his flayed skin. According to another version, the foundations of M. were laid 100–150 years before the birth of Mani. The main provisions of the teaching were allegedly formed by the merchant Skioriank (“Secrets”, “Chapters”, “Gospel”, “Treasures”). The fortune that remained after him was kept by a certain widow who had a slave named Kubrick. After the death of the widow, the latter took possession of this state and took the name Manes, which meant either a vessel or (Greek) “spirit” or “mind.” By this time, Manes already had 22 closest students. Further events in Mani's life coincide with the first version. The main difference is that in the first case Mani is the direct creator of religion, while in the second he appears, apparently, as an adherent of some secret cult, whose teachings he decides to divulge. Mani left many literary works: “Saburkan”, “Book of Secrets”, “Gospel”, “Book of Giants”, “Light of Credibility”, etc., of which until the 20th century. Only isolated fragments have survived, which explains the difficulty of systematizing Mani’s teachings. M.'s dualistic teaching unfolds in the system of “three times.” In the “first time” there are two eternal opposing principles: Good and Evil, Light and Darkness. “The nature of Light is one, simple and true,” therefore it does not allow merging with Darkness. “Second time” is the stage of mixing two principles. Evil (matter) invades the kingdom of Light. The Good Father, the Lord of Light, gives birth to the Mother of Life, and she gives birth to the First Man, who enters into a fight with the archons (spirits of evil), is defeated and captured in the clutches of matter. For salvation, the Good Father gives birth through the Mother of life to the living Spirit (Logos), who defeats the archons and creates the cosmos to purify the Light absorbed by matter. The sun and moon contribute to the release of divine Light: the Moon receives the souls of the dead during its increase, and with its decrease it sends them to the Sun, which sends them to God. “The Third Time” is the period of the final separation of Light from matter and the triumph of Good. People in M. are creations of darkness (matter), which imprisoned their souls - sparks of Light - in the shackles of flesh. Man was created in the image of the First Man, seen by matter on the Sun, therefore he is divine. The liberation of the soul is a historical process that occurs through the Great Messengers of the Good Father. The worldview and historical-religious doctrine is characterized by the following text from Mani himself: “The teaching of wisdom and good deeds was brought into the world from time to time, in continuous succession, through the messengers of God. Thus, in one circle of time this true teaching came through a messenger called Buddha in the land of India; at another time through Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) - in the Persian country; to another - through Jesus, in the western regions. After that, this current revelation came to earth... through me, Mani, the messenger of the true God, in the land of Babylon.” Mani treated Jesus with the greatest reverence, pointing out that through this man the heavenly spirit, Christ, acted, enlightening the lower nature of people. However, for the Manichaeans, Christ was incarnated only in an external way; His death and resurrection were just as external and only visible. Mani also shared the custom of contrasting the God of the Old Testament with the God of the New Testament, characteristic of Gnosticism. Moses, according to Mani, was not inspired by God, it was a shadow principle, which is why the Old Testament should be rejected. The purification of good from evil among people occurs, according to M.’s version, through the efforts of the “elect,” who, together with the “novices,” form the church. The “chosen ones” are cleansed from evil not only through a pure life, celibacy and renunciation of family, but also by abstaining from material concerns, engaging only in self-improvement. “Novices” lead a less perfect life, taking care of the “chosen” so that they do not need anything. According to the teachings of M., sin does not come from free will, but from the universal evil principle that penetrates us. From flesh and spirit follow two substances, two souls and two minds, one good, the other vicious, giving rise to a struggle between them: the flesh desires one thing, the spirit the opposite. According to Mani, the “Sons of Light” have a certain multi-level hierarchy from the Teachers - “Sons of Meekness”, to the clan of catechumens (laity). Following the spiritual hierarchy, according to Mani, will allow the Light to win. The basis of M.'s cult was prayers, hymns and strict ethical asceticism, with elements of rituals of Buddhist, Stoic, and Pythagorean life. This allowed Mani's teachings to spread secretly. In the 3rd–4th centuries. it captured a vast territory from China to Africa. During the time of Emperor Diocletian, punitive actions against the Manichaeans by the state and orthodox Christianity began. The movement continues to exist until the 10th–11th centuries. Subsequently, it significantly influenced the formation of Paulicanism and Bogomilism and - along with Gnosticism - formed the basis of the heresies of the Albigenses and Cathars. Preserved in Central Asia to this day. The sources are the works of Augustine the Blessed, who belonged to M. for 8 years, but only at the first of three stages of initiation. The German orientalist Kessler collected fragments of M. teachings and published them in a separate work (1889). V.V. Lobach, A.A. Legchilin Anti-Trinitarians Anti-Trinitarians are adherents of religious teachings and sects that do not accept the main dogma of Christianity - the dogma of the Trinity. Before the Council of Nicea 325, during the period when the basic dogmas of the Christian Church were just taking shape, a significant part of Christians were A. (Gnostics, Monarchians, Arians). In the Middle Ages, in a number of cases, A.'s views were a unique expression of free-thinking. During the Reformation, Anabaptists, Socinians and other radical sects appeared in Africa. The Russian freethinker of the 16th century adhered to anti-Trinitarian ideas. Theodosius Kosoy. The most prominent ideologist of Armenia was the Spanish scientist M. Servetus. In the 18th–19th centuries. A. enjoyed significant influence in England and the USA. One of the common forms is unitarianism. Arianism Arianism, a movement in Christianity in the 4th–6th centuries. It arose in the Late Roman Empire and was named after its founder - the Alexandrian priest Arius (Greek Areios, d. 336). The Arians did not accept the main dogma of the official Christian church, according to which God the Son is consubstantial with God the Father (Archbishop Alexander of Alexandria and his successor Athanasius were ardent defenders of this dogma). According to the teachings of Arius, the son of God Logos (Christ) is the creation of God, therefore, is not consubstantial with him, i.e., in comparison with God the Father, he is a being of a lower order. Apparently, A. was connected with the city, with the polis intelligentsia and artisans. A.'s attempt to rationalistically interpret the nature of the deity contradicted the tendency of the official Christian church, which sought to strengthen the mystical elements of Christian dogma. In the conditions of the transformation of the Christian Church into the dominant religion, violation of the uniformity of church teaching became dangerous for the empire: religious and philosophical disputes threatened to develop into political ones. In 325, at the Council of Nicaea, A. was condemned as heresy. However, soon Emperor Constantine (d. 337) supported the Arians: A. was officially recognized. With its spread from the middle of the 4th century. Among the Germanic tribes (primarily among the Goths), in conflicts with the Arians, discord began to be expressed between the indigenous population of the empire and the Goths, from whom the squads in the service of the emperor were recruited. A. was again condemned at the Council of Constantinople 381; remained after this only in the barbarian states of the West. Europe and North Africa. (Apollinarians, Dimirites) Christological heresy. It is named after the founder Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, who taught that Christ, having become incarnate, did not take on full human nature, but only a human soul and body, while the human mind was replaced by the Divine. The Apollinarians denied, relying on the saying: “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14), that Christ took flesh from created flesh, i.e. from Mary, claiming that the Word became his flesh. The heresy of Appolinarius was condemned at the 2nd Ecumenical Council. Nestorians, Christian sect, followers of Nestorius (see); after his death, due to persecution in Syria, they moved to Persia, from where they spread to Arabia, India and China. In Mesopotamia, some of them were accepted in the 16th century. union with Rome and forms a special Eastern Catholic patriarchate of the Chaldean rite; the majority of those who have not accepted the union have another patriarch in Kurdistan and recognize only three sacraments: baptism, the Eucharist and the priesthood. Monophysitism (from another - Greek μόνος - “one, only” † φύσις - “nature, nature”) is a Christological doctrine in Christianity that arose in the 5th century and postulates the presence of only one Divine nature (nature) in Jesus Christ and rejects His perfect humanity. That is, contrary to Orthodox teaching, Monophysitism professes that Christ is God, but not a man (His human appearance is supposedly only illusory, deceptive). However, the term “Monophysitism” itself has been found in literature only since the end of the 7th century. Monophysitism arose as the teaching of the extreme radical wing of the followers of St. Cyril of Alexandria, who at the Third Ecumenical Council condemned Nestorianism - the Dyophysite heresy, according to which two independent Hypostases of God and Man were recognized in Christ. Fighting against the two-subject Christology of Nestorius, St. Cyril insisted on the Christological formula, which he erroneously attributed to St. Athanasius the Great - “μία φύσις τοῦ Θεοῦ λόγου σεσαπκωμέvη.” The Monophysites distorted the teaching of Saint Cyril and believed that nature alone points only to His Divinity. The founder of Monophysitism is recognized as Archimandrite Eutyches (about 378–454), abbot of one of the Constantinople monasteries. Why is Monophysitism also called Eutychianism? The Council of Constantinople in 448 was dedicated to the study of the teachings of Eutyches, where he outlined the essence of his faith: “I confess that our Lord consisted of two natures before the union, and after the union I confess one nature.” The meaning of this confession by Eutyches was that Christ, being consubstantial with the Father in Divinity, was not recognized as consubstantial in humanity by people. Eutyches is credited with the idea that the human nature of Christ, received by Him from the Mother, dissolved in the nature of the Divinity like a drop of honey in the ocean and lost its existence. MONOTHELITES (from mono... and Greek thelema - will), supporters of the Christian teaching that developed in the 7th century. in Byzantium as an official compromise between orthodox dogma and the Monophysites. According to the Monothelites, Christ had two natures, but one will and “energy” (theanthropic). Condemned as heretics at the 6th Ecumenical Council 680 – 681 Pelagianism, one of the most important Christian heresies, was founded by the Celt Pelagius in the 5th century. The Pelagians denied the spread of original sin to all humanity, but saw in it only the bad example set by Adam, and argued that man does not need the assistance of divine grace for salvation; he can achieve bliss on his own, following the commandments of Christ; just as the fall of Adam was not the cause of death, so the resurrection of Christ is not the cause of the resurrection of man. P. was condemned at the Council of Ephesus (431), but continued to exist in a mitigated form. Iconoclasm, a movement against the veneration of icons in Byzantium in the 8th and 9th centuries. Icon veneration, which brought upon Christians reproaches of idolatry. Called from the imp. Leo III of Isauria's opposition; 726 he ordered the icons to be broken out and painted over. His orders caused great irritation, and pogroms began. Pope Gregory II defended the icons; he was supported in the East by John of Damascus. But the emperor, relying on the army and the court aristocracy, continued to pursue the icons. His successor, Constantine V Copronymus (741–775), spoke out against icon veneration with even greater energy and convened a council in 754, at which 300 bishops declared icons to be “ungodly and devilish.” Only 787 wife of the emperor. Leo IV Irene convened the VII Ecumenical Council in Nicaea, which rejected the decisions of the council of 754, anathematized the iconoclasts and established icon veneration. During the reign of Michael I (811–813), iconoclasts began to be persecuted. Finally, Leo V the Armenian (813–820) again opposed the icons and convened a council in 815, which restored the definitions of the council of 754. Leo's successor, Michael II the tongue-tied, issued a decree that “no one should dare to set his tongue in motion either against icons or for icons,” and this remained in force under the emperor. Theophilus (829–842). In 842, a council was held, which approved all the decisions of the VII Ecumenical Council and again excommunicated the iconoclasts. Bogomils, a heretical sect that arose in the 10th century in Bulgaria, called. named after the founder, priest. Bogomila. B. were dualists who recognized that the world is governed by two principles - good and evil. B. rejected everything external to the church. doctrine, rituals, sacraments, hierarchy; They preached abstinence, non-covetousness, and poverty. They were divided into two categories - simply believers and perfect ones; the latter led an ascetic lifestyle. Despite the persecution, Bogomilism became widespread in Bulgaria, and from there it spread to the west under the names. Patarens, Cathars, Albigensians. Paulicians, a Christian sect of the Gnostic-Manichaean trend, which arose in Armenia in the 7th century. and existed until the 12th century. Its founder, Konstantin, comes from a village near Samosata; he borrowed from the epistles of the apostle. Paul connected a number of provisions and supplemented them with his own conjectures. II. they rejected the teaching of the church about the Mother of God, the Old Testament, the sacraments, the sign of the cross, and the church hierarchy; II. adhered to the dualistic doctrine of the Manichaeans. SOCINIANS are a religious movement that began in Italy. Lelio Sozzini (Socin) (1525–1562), after whom the movement received its name, had sympathies with the anti-Trinitarians - supporters of the religious teaching of the 2nd-3rd centuries, who believed that Christ and the Holy Spirit are not equal to God the Father, but are only His manifestation. Lelio Sozzini's nephew Fausto (Favst) Sozzini (1539–1604) moved to Poland in 1579, where he founded a movement of like-minded people. Later he wrote the “Rock Catechism” (published in 1605). Socinianism is essentially the teaching of the Arians revived in a new form. S. did not recognize the Christian dogma of the Holy Trinity, denied the divine nature of Christ, and did not recognize the doctrine of the Fall, predestination and atonement. The Socinian movement was suppressed by the Jesuits in Poland, after which their ideas spread to Holland, England, and America. S.'s followers were the Unitarians, who appeared ca. 1794 The leader of the Unitarians is a certain Joseph Priestley, a preacher and naturalist who left England due to the threat of persecution and found many followers in America. Antonians, antinomian. sect in Switzerland, main. Anton Unternaer (1761–1824). Its founder, Anton (Antoni) Unternärer, was born on September 5, 1759 in the city of Schüpfheim, in the canton of Lucerne; Having settled in Amsoldingen near Tuck in 1800, he began to expound the New Testament in meetings. Unternärer attributed his views to the authority of Divine Revelation. For the riots that he and his supporters caused on April 16. 1802 in the Münster church in Bern, he was arrested; after 2 years he was released, but again caused unrest, for which he was expelled from the canton of Berne. Subsequently Untern. in Lucerne he was imprisoned, where he died on June 29, 1824. Of his works, the most important are: “Gerichtsbuchlein”, “Bibelspruche”, “Buch der Erfullung” and “Geheimniss der Liebe”. In Amsoldingen the Antonians lived undisturbed until 1821, when the discovery of outrageous sexual excesses practiced at their nightly meetings prompted vigorous police intervention; the same thing happened in Gesteig, near Interlaken. In 1830 a third savior appeared in Wolen, near Bern, in the person of Benedict Schori, who, claiming that the spirit of Unternärer lived in him, preached the community of wives. In 1838, a new “prophet” spoke in Geshteig, named Christian Michel. The latter was imprisoned in a restraint house in 1840. Traces of this sect were also noticeable in the cantons of Aargau and Zurich. The teaching of the Antonians is an echo of ancient theosophy and mysticism. Everything created by God is beautiful, as is man with his natural aspirations and impulses. He was given only one covenant: “be fruitful and multiply” and only one prohibition – not to eat from the tree of knowledge. It was the devil who introduced man to the distinction between evil and good and to shame in front of what God created beautiful. Salvation came from Christ, but was fully realized through the Unternärer. Whoever believes in the preached divine wisdom is free from every law except the law of love. Love manifests itself primarily in the complete mixture of genders between believers. State, church, school, family, personal property, etc. etc., all of this is just the creation of Satan, subject to abolition. Irvingianism, Christian. a sect founded in England in 1831 by Edward Irving, seeking to return the church to apostolic times. Recognizing the possibility of a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all flesh (Acts 2:17), the Irvingians elect apostles, prophets, and evangelists from among themselves. I. spread especially in Germany (since 1848), France and America, and partly in Russia. Deism, philosophy. a doctrine that recognizes deity as the beginning and basis of all things, but, in contrast to theism, denies a personal God, revelation and Providence. The ancestor of D. Lord Cherbury (died 1648); then the most remarkable: Charles Blount, John Toland, Shaftesbury, Anthony Collins, Woolston, Mate. Tyndall, Bolingbroke, from the French Voltaire and Rousseau, from the Germans - Reimarus. PANTHEISM is Greek, a doctrine that identifies God with the world, and the world is only the external side, a discovery, a manifestation of God. P. denies the extra-worldly existence of God: “God is everything,” “God is in everything,” “Everything is in God.” In ancient times, P. was characteristic of Indian philosophy, the Eleans, the Stoics, and Neoplatonism; in modern times, its representatives were Spinoza, Schelling, Hegel, and others. Agnosticism, Greek, is a philosophical and scientific view that claims that we know nothing about the real essence of things, since it remains outside of our experience; as a result, the root causes of phenomena - the soul, God - are unknowable. The term was introduced by Huxley; applied to the teachings of Herbert Spencer, Hamilton, etc. See Tr. Kievsk. Spirit. Academician 1869 Oct. About atheism and the Antichrist, prof. Belyaeva. Magdeburgenses Centur 1,1.2 cap 4 col 435. “The apostles teach that the Antichrist will not be one person, but a whole kingdom, established by the action and cunning of the devil, under the control of lying teachers presiding over the church of God.” “He (i.e., the Antichrist) is not a visible man,” say the priestless people, “but in men the real apostasy is found, in his vessel, and lives and possesses” (Book on Ancient Christianity, art. 2). Accur. Izl. Right Faith pp. 299–300. in Russian Per. 1844. See research. Prof. A. Belyaev about the Antichrist; see book. “Afterlife” by G. Orlov. M... 1900... pp. 54–87. You might be interested in: