Беседа 39. Созерцание на тему геенны, насколько может быть дарована человеческому естеству благодать иметь мнение относительно этих тайн. (spuria [подложное слово])

1. From the sayings of blessed David we use the following verse and exclaim in amazement: How great are the works of Your economy, O Lord! Your thoughts are wonderfully deep! 1249 Let us add: Your destinies are a great abyss; 1250 and, together with Paul: How incomprehensible are His destinies and His ways unsearchable. 1251 But, like David: The works of the Lord are true, His works are glory and beauty. 1252 Oh, the incomprehensibility of the Lord's consciousness: it is immeasurable! 1253 For such is His kindness - unchangeable and eternal; such is love, such is the abundant mercy of His nature and the foresight of His creativity, as well as others. So, what is the reason for establishing such a difficult subject as Gehenna? Everyone is filled with surprise and amazement at this mystery, knowing the truth. 1254 From this contemplation, which flees from all research, all who know and understand, 1256 interlocutors of the contemplation of the divine mysteries, retreat in silence 1255; they worship the mysteries of the wisdom of Him Who must be worshiped in silence, for also all His actions must be amazed and worshiped. 2. To think that anger, or rage, or envy, or anything like that can exist in this Nature, would be in the highest degree disgusting: no one who is rational and has intelligence will come to such madness as to think anything like that about God. Also, we cannot in any way say that He acts this way out of retribution, although the literal Scriptures may lead to this. 1257 For it is shameful even to think such a thing about God - that retribution for evil deeds could be found in Him, for in this way we would attribute weakness to this Nature - as if He were using such a great and difficult subject for the sake of retribution. Even in people who live piously and righteously and whose thoughts are completely consistent with God's will, it would be incredible to find such a thing - much less in God: as if He did something out of retribution for the evil deeds of those whose nature He brought into being with honor and great love. He knew all their deeds, and yet the source of His grace did not dry up 1258 for them: even after they were mired in a multitude of evil things, 1259 He did not take His care away from them even for a moment. If a person says that only in order for His long-suffering to be revealed, He puts up with them here, in order to mercilessly torment them there - such a person thinks inexpressibly blasphemous about God, in accordance with his childish consciousness: he takes away from God His kindness, goodness and mercy - that is, thanks to which God actually tolerates sinners and evildoers. This one attributes passion to Him - as if He did not agree to their torment here, since He had prepared for them a more serious evil in exchange for short-term patience. Such a person not only does not attribute to God anything correct and praiseworthy, but slanders Him. 3. The correct way of thinking about God is this: the good Lord, who in everything he does strives to help the wise, directs the thought of Judgment to the benefit of those who accept this difficult subject. For it would be most disgusting and absolutely blasphemous to believe that hatred and resentment exist with God - even against the nature of demons - or to think that any other weakness, or passion, or anything else that can appear in the process of retribution for good or evil, belongs, in the manner of retribution, to this glorious Nature. On the contrary, everything that He considers useful for us is what He does to us, whether it brings suffering or brings relief, whether it causes joy or pain, whether it is something insignificant or glorious: all this is aimed at one eternal good, whether everyone receives condemnation or something glorious from Him, not according to the method of retribution - let it not be! - but for the purpose of the benefit arising from it. 4. As He instituted death for Adam under the guise of a sentence for sin, and as through punishment He revealed the presence of "sin", although "punishment" itself was not His purpose, in the same way He showed that "death" was instituted for "Adam" as a retribution for his error. But He hid His true secret, and under the image of something terrifying He hid His eternal purpose 1260 regarding death and His wise plan 1261 regarding it: although this subject may be at first terrifying, shameful and difficult, yet it is in reality the <means> of carrying us into that delightful and glorious world. Without this it would not be possible to go from here and be there. The Creator, when he established <death>, did not say: “This happens to you because of <the good things prepared for you> and a more glorious life than the present.” On the contrary, He showed it as something evil and destructive. Again, when He expelled Adam and Eve 1262 from paradise, He expelled them under the guise of anger: “Because you transgressed the commandment, you were outside” - as if, due to their unworthiness, their stay in paradise was taken away from them. But in all this there was already an economy, perfecting and leading everything to what was originally the intention of the Creator. It was not disobedience that brought death into the house of Adam, and it was not the violation of the commandment that cast Adam and Eve out of paradise, for it is clear that he did not create them to stay in paradise - a small part of the earth; but they had to conquer the whole earth. For this reason we do not even say that He drove them out because of a broken commandment; for if they had not broken the commandment, they still would not have been left in paradise forever. 5. You see that, although God’s providential care leads us to His will, the achievement of this goal is taken, externally, from us; but He achieves by any means what He has intended for our benefit. All this is because, knowing in advance our tendency to fall into all sorts of vices, He foresaw the destructive consequences of this. So, He wisely 1263 made these very ones the entrance to benefits and to the correction of our damage: these are those that are known only to Him. But after we had been in practice little by little helped by these things as they happened, we became aware and understood them; for everything could not have happened otherwise than in accordance with what God foresaw. 1264 This is what all His deeds are, although it may appear to us differently: He does nothing for the sake of retribution, but looks at the benefit that should come from Him. One of these is Gehenna. 6. For my part, I think that He intends to show a wonderful outcome and an operation of great and ineffable mercy on the part of this glorious Creator in regard to this ordained grievous torment, so that thereby the riches of His love, His power and His wisdom, and the crushing power of the waves of His goodness may be even more manifested. The merciful Lord did not create the intelligent ones in order to mercilessly subject them to endless sorrow - those whom He knew about before their creation, what they believed, and whom He created. Moreover, plotting evil and taking revenge is characteristic of the passions of creatures, and not of the Creator. For these are those who do not know or are not conscious of what they do or think when anything happens to them; 1265 for if any event happens to them unexpectedly, by the ignition of anger they are aroused to revenge. This is by no means the Creator, who, even before he drew the picture of created existence, knew everything that happened before and what subsequently resulted from actions, as well as reasonable intentions. 7. But lest any person who zealously imagines that they are zealous for the truth should think that we are introducing something new from ourselves, about which the ancient Orthodox Fathers did not speak, as if we were putting forward an opinion that does not correspond to the truth, let everyone who wishes turn to the writings of the Blessed Interpreter 1266 - a man who was filled with grace-filled gifts and to whom the hidden secrets of the Scriptures were entrusted, so that he guided the entire community of the Church on the path to truth; who first of all enlightened us, the Eastern ones, 1267 with wisdom: the vision of our mind is not able to accommodate the brilliance of his writings, inspired by the divine Spirit. For we do not reject his words - let it not be! On the contrary, we accept <him> as one of the apostles, and anyone who opposes his words, who makes disputes about his interpretations or doubts about his works - we consider such an alien to the church community and sinning against the truth. So, although we could prove <our doctrine> on the basis of many passages from many volumes of it, nevertheless he sets out <the case> especially clearly at the end of the first volume, which he compiled against those who say that sin is inherent in <human> nature. 8. From Blessed Theodore the Interpreter. 1268 After other enlightened ones, he says this: “In the world to come, those who have chosen the beautiful here will receive praise and enjoyment of goods; the evil ones, who throughout their entire lives have been turned to the evil ones, after they have corrected their minds through punishment and fear of them, will choose good, for they realize that they have sinned gravely and that they persisted in the evil, not the good; through this they will receive knowledge of the wonderful teaching about the fear of God and learn to voluntarily adhere to this: in this way they will be rewarded with the enjoyment of the riches of God. For He would never have said: Until you pay to the last coin, 1269 if it were impossible for us, when we pay for our sins through torment, to free ourselves from them. And He would not have said that the biting will be many and the biting will be less, 1270 if the torment, measured according to sins, would ultimately have no end.” 9 . This is what is clear and undisguised, in open, direct and unobscured words for the sake of knowledge and teaching lovers of the truth, together with other similar things, Blessed Theodore conveyed in his books; These are the opinions we should hold about God, the Creator of everything, about His punishments and about the coming Judgment. 10. Since, according to the word of our Lord, the testimony of two people is true, 1271 - and especially in the case of men so wonderful, enlightened and divine - let us confirm our word with the testimony of another, as true a witness as the first, from whose source the clear-sounding Theodore himself drank - the wisest Diodorus, the great teacher of the Church. 1272 11. Saint Diodorus, Bishop of Tarsus. Also, blessed Diodorus, wonderful among teachers and his mentor, 1273 agrees with the opinion and expounds it with authority in the book “On Providence”, in the fifth Word, saying this: “A reward for labor worthy of the justice of the Creator is prepared for the righteous; and torment is for the evil, but not forever.” So, “even for the latter, the future state of immortality is not useful; 1274 After all, if they are subjected to torment only for a short time, which they deserve in accordance with the degree of their depravity and their guile, then they only receive what they deserve according to the degree of their deeds, and they experience suffering for a short time; they will enjoy immortality forever.” He returns to the same word and, clarifying it, says: “If the reward for labor is so great, then how great is the time of immortality compared to the time of struggle, that is, with this world; after all, the duration of torment is much less than the multitude of sins. For the resurrection from the dead should not be perceived as for the good: it is also for the sake of the evil. For the goodness of God gives without measure, but punishes in moderation.” 12. Such are the words and such is the opinion of Blessed Diodorus. But in the sixth Word he also says other things, namely: “God hides the measure of labor in good rewards; in the greatness of grace, He reduces the punishment of those who suffer torment and shortens its duration. He does not even allow the time of torment to last as long as the evil deeds. Although He rewards them less than they deserve - just as He prolongs the enjoyment of the good beyond measure and time, 1275 since the reward has no end - nevertheless, as I have already said, it is not known whether the goodness of God will always tolerate the presence of evil, guilt and harm to the condemned. 1276 13. Further, repeating his words, he says that “the sentence of Judgment and torment is not as long as the pleasure of the Kingdom that we will then gain,” as well as others similar to these, containing the same opinion and spoken for the same purpose. He also enters into a discussion of the question of demons 1277 and their great propensity for evil: “even such great evil as theirs,” he says, “does not exceed the measure of God’s goodness.” 14. Such and similar delightful insights and opinions, leading to love and amazement at the Creator, belong to these great pillars of the Church, about the economy and the coming Judgment of God, about the great compassion of God, which in its outpouring surpasses and conquers the evil deeds of creatures. They 1278 expel from consciousness the childish opinion about God - those who introduce evil and passion into His nature, that due to the circumstances of the time 1279 He changes. They also teach us about His punishments and torments, whether here or there, what merciful thoughts and what purpose He has in allowing them to be upon us, and what wonderful consequences flow from them. that in these torments we must perish, or that we will endure them forever; , in a fatherly way He sends them to us, and not out of revenge, which would be a sign of hatred. Theirs is so that we think about God and know Him, and so that amazement at Him leads us to love for Him, and so that we are ashamed and correct our behavior in this life. 1280 15. Let us return to our topic and continue our previous reasoning, confirming that our all-wise God, Who is good, does everything for our correction and does not allow anything for our destruction or harm to us, and also that there is an end to these painful things, but not to those good things. For He allows the first so that we change and take advantage of what leads us to good and so that we become established in. Thus, all types and forms of punishments and torments that come from Him are not allowed by Him in order to repay the deeds of the past, but He uses them for the benefit that comes from them. He does not bring our past actions to our conscience, except so that they arouse in us hatred of sin. This is what the Scriptures say and remind us of, as we have often shown in the lengthy exposition above, that God is not the avenger of evil, but the corrector of evil: the former is characteristic of the wicked, while the latter is the father. shows 1281 that He allows good and evil as retribution, whereas His goal is not this, but to arouse in us love and fear, so that through the latter we purify our way of life, and through love we grow to rational virtue. 16. If this were not so, what correspondence would there be between the coming of Christ and the deeds of the generations that came before Him? Does this great compassion seem to you to be a reward for those evil deeds? Tell me, if God is a rewarder and carries out His own retribution according to the method, what exactly do you see here as proof of retribution, O man? Show me! 17. So, let us not attribute the intention of revenge to the <works> of God and <actions> towards us. On the contrary, <we will talk> about the father's industry, about wise economy, about perfect will directed towards our good, about perfect love. Where there is love, there is no retribution; and where there is retribution, there is no love. Love, when it does good deeds or corrects past actions, does not thereby repay the deeds of the past. 1282 But she cares about what is most useful in the future: she examines the future, not the past. And if we think otherwise, then, in accordance with such a childish view, the Creator will turn out to be weak - I speak as a man - for after what He created was corrupted against His will, He conceived some other means and, as a reward for its corruption, prepared evil for it. Such opinions are weak towards the Creator! 18. For if we think about the fact that there truly is a kind of hidden economy in the movement of creation, and if we examine the destinies of God, which carry a certain mystery - for such expressions and such usage of words are unsuitable when we approach the Nature of the Creator by contemplation, since they are untenable in relation to the knowledge and properties of this Nature, manifested in actions, 1283 - let us come and exclaim to God together with blessed David, saying: Your destinies are a great abyss! Truly, such is the consciousness that has felt, by the gift of spiritual knowledge, that which is above the body and that which is more internal than expressions and bodily images. 19. Although we speak of rage, wrath, hatred and the like in relation to the Creator, we should not imagine that He also does anything out of anger, hatred or envy. Many images are used in the divine Scriptures in relation to God, which are very far from His nature. And just as rational nature little by little becomes more and more enlightened and wise in the holy knowledge of the mysteries hidden in the words about God, 1284 - that is, that we should not understand everything as it is written, but must see under the bodily appearance of 1285 stories the hidden economy of eternal knowledge that guides everyone - in the same way we have much to comprehend and feel, our present knowledge will then be the opposite; 1286 and all the dispensations there will destroy every precise opinion 1287 that we now have in our assumptions regarding the truth. For there are many truly infinite things that do not even come into our consciousness here - even as promises or promises. 20. Therefore, we say that even in the torment and sentence of Gehenna there is a certain mystery, for the all-wise Creator took as a starting point for its outcome the wickedness of our deeds and our will, in order to fulfill His economy, which contains wise teaching and inexplicable benefit, both from angels and from people, as well as from those who suffer punishment, whether demons or people - during all that time while the appointed period reigns. 21. If the world to come is entirely of grace, love, mercy and goodness, and if also the resurrection from the dead is proof of God’s mercy and His abundant love, for which nothing can be repaid, how will such a dispensation be a reward for our good or evil? For they speak of retribution when the rewarder little by little comes to retribution as a result of the good and bad actions that occur, and in accordance with them: along with daily changes in actions, both his knowledge and his thoughts change for reasons related to time. 1288 22. If the Kingdom and Gehenna, from the very appearance of good and evil, had not been foreseen in the consciousness of our good God, then God’s thoughts about them would not have been eternal; but righteousness and sin were known to Him before they manifested themselves. Thus, the Kingdom and Gehenna are the consequences of mercy, which in their essence were intended by God according to His eternal goodness, and not retribution, even if He gave them the name of retribution. If we, again, were to say or think that the action is not full of love and mercy, this would be an opinion full of blasphemy towards the Lord our God. Even that He will expose us to fire for the sake of suffering, torment and all kinds of pain, we attribute to the divine Nature enmity towards the rational ones themselves, whom He created by grace; that He acts or thinks out of malice, vindictiveness or retribution, as if He were taking revenge on Himself. Among His actions there is not a single one that is not filled with mercy, love and compassion: this is the beginning and the end of His relationship with us. 1289 For His actions towards us have no beginning or starting point; 1290 As for us, every action with us occurs in time and has a beginning. Let the kind compassion of the Lord our God and His immeasurable generosity be admirable: for He repeatedly threatens, but by His grace shortens the punishment so that love for Him may increase in us. Blessed be His name! Amen. 23. The word is finished, which, in accordance with the divine purpose, is said about the spiritual understanding of the great coming Judgment, how much by divine grace it is given to our weakness to have an opinion regarding such a high intention 1291 of the Life-Giver of all God, the Father of all. Var. "experts (gnostics) of truth." Lit. “turn away and turn to silence.” Var. “experts (Gnostics) and verbal (reasonable).” Lit. “though the Scriptures may on the surface suggest such things.” Lit. “lived in many vices.” Lit. “Your eternal thought.” Lit. "and the purpose of His wisdom." The syntax of this paragraph is complex. “Blessed Interpreter” - Theodore of Mopsuestia. This refers to the East Syrian tradition. Wed. Theodore of Mopsuestia. Against those who claim that sin is inherent in human nature (Clavis patrum graecorum 3860). Diodorus of Tarsus was another writer no less authoritative for the East Syrian tradition. Those. Theodore of Mopsuestia. Sire. dubbara d-la mayotuta – “lifestyle (behavior) of immortality.” Those. beyond what they deserve. The meaning of the phrase: it is unknown whether God will forever endure the punishment of sinners for their sins. In other words, Diodorus in this text leaves the question of the possibility of eternal torment open. Lit. “introduces speculation even about the personalities of demons.” Those. opinions of Theodore and Diodorus. Lit. "due to reasons and times." Rev. Isaac emphasizes that the thought of the non-eternity of torment does not lead a person to carelessness; rather, on the contrary, thinking about the mercy of the Creator, a person is ashamed of his evil deeds and strives to improve. Var. “He (God) shows.” A literal translation of this phrase is difficult. Lit. "compared to actions." Those. in the words of Scripture about God. Lit. "corporality", "embodiment". Lit. “the opposite of things there.” The meaning of what was said by Rev. Isaac is that many things in the next century will turn out to be the opposite of what appears to us now. Lit. "all precision of consciousness." Lit. “and his thoughts are causes and receive their beginning from time.” The meaning of what has been said: we can talk about retribution when someone monitors current events and, depending on them, plans punishment or reward; God knows in advance everything that will happen, and His thoughts do not change as a result of people’s actions. Lit. "His movements towards us." Lit. “There is no beginning in Him for the movement of the actions which He foresees concerning us.” You might be interested in: