Поучение о четвероконечном Кресте («Нарек Бог имя первому человеку – Адам» (Быт. 5:2))

In the Hebrew language, the word "Adam" means "man of the earth" or "red" (red), since he was created from scarlet earth; in the Hellenic language it is called “microcosmos”, that is, “small world”, for it received its name from the four ends of the great world: east, west, north and noon. In the Hellenic language, these four ends of the universe are called: east - “anatoli”, west - “disis”, north, or midnight - “arktos” and noon - “mesimvria”. Take the first letters from those Hellenic names, and you will get the word “Adam.” And just as Adam’s name reflected the entire four-pointed world, which he populated with his family, so on the other hand, the same name prefigured the four-pointed Cross of Christ, with which the new Adam, Christ our Lord, was subsequently to deliver from death and hell the human race inhabiting the four ends of the universe. And since in this place the four-pointed Cross of Christ was depicted, symbolized from the beginning of the world by the four letters of the name of Adam, it is not inappropriate to recall here the schismatic blasphemy of the four-pointed Cross of Christ, uttered by them in insane speculation. For, having renounced the Holy, Orthodox, Catholic, Apostolic Church, forming their assemblies in some secret places or in deserts, and seducing ignoramuses like themselves into error with their contrary teaching, the schismatics, thinking in some unknown, unreasonable way, and most of all, raging in madness, instigated by the devil himself, the enemy of the Cross of Christ, opened their barking lips to blaspheme the honorable four-pointed Cross of Christ, calling it the “Latin roof” and the “Antichrist seal.” They abhor this holy Cross as some kind of abomination and reject it, accepting and honoring only the eight-pointed Cross and not recognizing the single power and identity of both. Against this blasphemy, emanating from their rotten mind and shameless lips, the great bishops of God, the most holy Patriarchs of Moscow with the Holy Council, have already written enough in the books called “The Rod of Government” and “Spiritual Commitment.” Let your opponents read them and be ashamed of their madness! We, faithful Christians, equally venerate all images of the cross: four-pointed, eight-pointed and others depicted with more numerous ends, and we venerate not for their ends, but for the sake of the memory of the crucifixion of Christ on the Cross. We believe not in the four- or eight-pointed Cross, but in our Lord crucified on the Cross. For it was not any cross, four-pointed or eight-pointed, that redeemed us from hell, but Christ our Lord who suffered for us on the Cross. In Him alone, our True God, glorified together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, we must believe. The honest cross, no matter how it was made or written, we honor as a sign of the suffering of Christ. Let's talk a little about both signs of the cross: about the eight-pointed cross, which schismatics consider the only true Cross of Christ and only reverence it, and about the four-pointed cross, which they blaspheme. To confirm their opinion about the eight-pointed Cross, the schismatics cite the following words from the Octoechos, tone 2, on Wednesday at Matins, canticle 9, verse 2: “We were seen to lift up quickly on a cypress, O Lord, and a choir, and a cedar for the sake of goodness,” and then the words of the sedal, tone 3, on Wednesday and Friday at matins: “On a cypress, and a choir, and a cedar.” Thou art exalted, Lamb of God!” Further, the same voice on Friday at Matins, in the canon, hymn 7, verse 1: “You were exalted on a cedar and a song and a cypress, O Master, one of the Trinity”; tone 7, on Friday morning, according to the first verse in the sedalna: “The Church cries out to Thee, Christ God, in the song, and in the cedar, and in the cypress tree, worshiping Thee”; tone 8, on Friday at Matins, in the canon, hymn 4, verse 1: “Like a pious cedar, faith like a cypress, love like a song-bearing song, let us worship the Divine Cross.” These church words are true and worthy of all acceptance, and we lovingly honor and read them, but we still laugh at the foolishness of the schismatics, who from these church words deduce the following: since the Cross of Christ was made not from two, but from three trees, it cannot be four-pointed. We will say: but it cannot be eight-pointed, but only six-pointed, for a cross made of three trees cannot be eight-pointed unless a fourth tree is added to them. They object, saying that the inscription that Pilate placed on the Cross complemented its eight-pointed nature. Let those who say this tell us what this inscription was made on: on a charter, or on copper, or on wood? And if on a tree, then on what tree? And then it is appropriate to add this certain fourth tree to the three above-mentioned trees in order to obtain an eight-pointed cross. If we add a fourth to the three trees, then the above-mentioned church words written in the Octoechos and saying that Christ was crucified on only three trees will not be true (let me say this against schismatic thinking). O indecent curiosity! Let it be known that it is not the number of trees of the cross, not the number of ends of the cross that makes us Christians, but only faith in Christ crucified on the Cross; for we believe not in the cross and not in the ends of the cross, but in our Lord crucified on the Cross. Let it be as the church hymn-makers in Octoechos narrate that the Cross of Christ was made of cypress, chevron and cedar and that there was an inscription on the Cross (which, as some say, was written on an olive tablet), but the Cross had a four-pointed appearance, for both the foot and the inscriptions were not in the width, but in the length of the Cross. Therefore, by depicting and honoring it, you do good, but you do bad and sin seriously if you blaspheme the four-pointed Cross, which was accepted and revered by the Holy Church from the beginning and about which it testifies in its books. On the 14th day of September at Matins, after the Great Doxology, the following is sung in the stichera for the veneration of the cross: “The four-pointed world is today sanctified, to the four-part erection of Thy Cross, O Christ God!” In the Moscow Canon, in the canon, the work of St. Gregory of Sinaite, in the first song we read: “The all-honorable cross, the four-pointed power, the beauty of the apostles.” Saint Athanasius the Great in question 41 says: “We worship the image of the Cross, composed of two trees, which is divided into four sides” (“Rod of Government”). Saint John of Damascus, in book 4 “On the Orthodox Faith,” in chapter 12, writes: “Just as the four edges of the Cross are held and united by the middle center, so by God’s power the height and depth, the length and width are maintained.” In the book called “Sunday Teaching Gospel”, printed in Moscow, in the word on the Exaltation of the Venerable Cross, it is written: “The cross, divided into four sides, through its image shows that everything is held together by Divine power: the highest - by the highest end, the lower - by the lower, those in the middle - by two sides, that is, by the two ends of the most honorable tree of the cross.” And then there we read the following: “And blessed Paul says to the Ephesians: “That ye may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is breadth, and length, and depth, and height” (Eph. 3:18), meaning by “height” the heavenly things, “depth” by the underworld, and “breadth” and “longitude” by the middle ends contained by the omnipotent power.” For other evidence about the four-pointed cross, see the books “Rod of Government” and “Spiritual Ward”. The clearest evidence of this is that we mark ourselves and people with a four-pointed cross, we consecrate the Holy Mysteries, we bless the meal, and in holy Baptism, anointing infants with holy myrrh after the font, don’t we depict a four-pointed cross on them, saying: “The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit?” Let those who blaspheme the four-pointed cross and call it the seal of the Antichrist tell us, with what cross are they baptized today? Isn't it four-pointed? If they are four-pointed, then they are baptized, according to their mentality, with the seal of the Antichrist, but then they are not Christians, but anti-Christians. We, recognizing and confessing that the four-pointed cross is not the seal of the Antichrist, but the seal of Christ our God, the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit, are baptized with it and are Christians. As for the Antichrist, both his name and his seal are unknown to anyone. In their madness, schismatics still think that in the Old Testament the four-pointed cross was a shadow and image of the eight-pointed Cross of Christ. And after Christ was crucified on the eight-pointed Cross, his shadow and image (the four-pointed Cross) were cut short, and the four-pointed Cross became the seal of the Antichrist. O extreme madness! O blindness and ignorance! It would be appropriate to laugh at such their madness, and not to answer, but since Solomon advises: “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he become wise in his own eyes” (Prov. 26:5), we will make some objections. The name “cross” is not found in any of the books of the Old Testament in Russian Bibles. If anyone does not believe this, let him read all the Russian Bibles carefully: will he find the word “cross” anywhere in the Old Testament? If there were some transformations of the cross, such as: the laying on of hands by Jacob on the sons of Joseph, the rod of Moses that divided the Red Sea, the tree on which the copper serpent was lifted up by Moses - however, the name “cross” is nowhere to be found. We, being in the new grace and considering the Old Law, are convinced that these and similar signs were prototypes of the Cross, and that the four-pointed cross was not a transformation of the eight-pointed cross, as the schismatics say. For the Jews had neither the cross nor the custom of execution on the cross. They stoned their criminals or executed them with some other death. The execution of the cross was not invented by Jews, but by the Romans: the Romans had the custom of crucifying villains on the cross, but the Jews did not crucify anyone on the cross, and therefore the very name of the cross is not mentioned anywhere in the Old Testament Jewish writings. How, according to the schismatics’ thinking, could a four-pointed cross be a prototype of an eight-pointed cross, if there was no four-pointed cross in the Old Testament and if it was not mentioned anywhere until the very time of new grace and the crucifixion of Christ? The madness and extreme ignorance of the schismatics is also revealed in the fact that, wanting to blaspheme the holy four-pointed cross, they call it the Latin, or Roman, roof. Do the Romans call the cross a roof? Is the word "kryzh" Latin? O madmen! Don’t you want all nations to call the holy cross with the Russian word “cross”? Each nation names every thing in its own language: the Greeks call the cross “stavoros”, we call it “cross”, the Romans call it “crux”, not kryzh, other peoples give it their own names. “Kryzh” is called by the Poles, therefore, this is a word in the Polish language, and not in Latin-Roman. And the Poles call the cross kryzh in their language, because they do not speak Russian, but their Polish, given to them by God. For each language did not appear on its own, but was given to each people and country by God, while the Poles know very little or even no Russian language. Therefore, there is no blasphemy in the fact that the Poles in their language call the holy cross a roof. If, according to schismatic thinking, the four-pointed cross is a Roman roof, then it should be revered in every possible way as the true Cross of Christ, because Christ was crucified on a Roman roof, or cross. And that Christ was crucified on the Roman cross, look and listen to the truth. I ask: who crucified Christ? You will answer: the Jews crucified. I will say: no, not Jews. Although the Jews handed Christ over to death on the cross, or, better to say, bought Christ’s death on the cross from Pilate for a bribe and were guilty of Christ’s crucifixion according to the proverb: “He who works through others does it himself,” however, they did not crucify Him with their own hands and handed Him over to death not according to their Jewish law, in which there was no death on the cross, and therefore when Pilate said to them: “Take Him you, and judge Him according to your law.” Him,” the Jews told him: “We are not allowed to put anyone to death” (John 18:31). Therefore, Christ was not crucified by Jewish hands. Who crucified Christ? Pilate with his soldiers, for Christ was handed over to him as the enemy of Caesar, with the words: “We have found that He corrupts our people and forbids giving taxes to Caesar, calling Himself Christ the King” (Luke 23:2). With these words, the Jews asked Pilate to crucify Him according to their Roman law and custom. This was done for a twofold purpose: firstly, in order to justify themselves before the people who loved Christ, and to show that they betrayed Him to death not out of any malice of their own, but for dishonoring Caesar, for the fact that He was allegedly an opponent of Caesar, on the other hand, in order to destroy Him with the most dishonorable pagan, not Jewish, and at the same time the most painful death on the cross. Here I will ask again: who were the family and faith of Pilate and his soldiers who crucified Christ? Are they Jews? No. Pilate was a Roman, sent by the Roman Caesar to Jerusalem to the Jews, who were already under Roman rule. Pilate's army was also Roman, for the Jews, being enslaved and in power by the Romans, could not have their own Jewish army. So, the Romans crucified Christ. And one cannot think otherwise than that Christ, our Lord, was tortured to death on the cross by the Romans at the insistence of the Jews. That is why the Apostle Peter says to the Jews: “Men of Israel! Hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man testified to you by God with powers, and wonders, and signs, which God did through Him among you, as you yourselves know, Him you took and nailed with the hands of wicked men, and killed” (Acts 2:22-23). Hear the words of the apostle: “Nailed with the hands of the wicked, they killed.” It was not with your own hands, he says, that you nailed and killed Him, but with the hands of the lawless. Whom does the apostle call here lawless? Not the Jews, for they had the law of Moses, but the Romans, who did not have the law of Moses. And when the apostle says: Jesus Christ was crucified by the hands of the lawless, this clearly indicates that Christ was crucified by the Romans at the instigation of the Jews. I’ll ask again: if the Romans crucified Christ, then on whose cross and on what cross did they crucify Him? The Jews did not have crosses, because, as has already been said, their law did not subject anyone to crucifixion, and they did not make crosses, and they did not send to Rus' for the eight-pointed cross (in which schismatics believe in God), because at that time Rus' was still in idolatry, did not know either Christ or the Cross. And the Roman crucifiers would not have wanted to wait until the eight-pointed cross was brought to Jerusalem from the Russian countries. The Romans crucified Christ on their own cross, on one of those on which, according to their custom, they crucified all villains. Therefore, it is appropriate to honor the Roman cross (which schismatics call the Roman roof) for the true Cross of Christ, as the one on which Christ was crucified by the Romans. We, the Orthodox, equally venerate both the four-pointed and eight-pointed Holy Cross, as a sign of Christ, and we venerate it not for the number of ends of the cross, but for the sake of remembering the suffering of Christ on the Cross. When we worship the honorable Cross, we worship not wood, not gold, not silver or any other substance from which the cross is made, not the number of ends of the cross, but Christ Himself crucified on the Cross, our Lord, remembering and honoring His suffering for us. For our salvation lies not in the substance of the cross and not in the number of ends of the cross, but in our crucified Lord Himself. Having thus answered the schismatics about the ends of the cross, we present here the ancient story about the tree of the cross, found in the book “The Key of Understanding” of the Lvov edition, in the word on the Exaltation of the Honorable Cross. This narrative, collected from the storytellers mentioned here in the margins, tells the following. The Holy Cross on which Christ was nailed was made of palm (that is, date), cedar and cypress trees. Church storytellers tell the following about the origin of these trees. When Adam became mortally ill, he sent his son Seth to heaven to ask the Angel for medicine for his health and the continuation of his life on earth. The angel gave him three grains. Seth took them, but when he returned to his father Adam, he found him dead and buried. Then he planted these three grains on his father’s grave, and from them three plants grew: palm (that is, date), cedar and cypress. These three plants grew together into one great tree, which remained even until the days of King Solomon. When Solomon began to build the “Holy of Holies” temple in Jerusalem, this tree, being mighty, was cut down and brought to Jerusalem along with many other trees, but by the sight of God it was not used for construction, for in one place it turned out to be long, in another short. Therefore, this tree was placed on the sheep's font instead of a bridge, so that one could cross the font. When the Queen of Sheba came to Jerusalem to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and was in the church, then, seeing this tree on the sheep font, she did not want to walk along it, prophetically predicting that God, clothed with human nature, would die on this tree. After this, the tree was buried deep in the ground near the same sheep font, so that it would never fall into human hands. But after many years, it came out of the ground and floated in the water of the sheep’s font (for the sake of that tree, every year the Angel of the Lord went into the font and disturbed the water, washing the tree; and healing was given to the sick person who entered the font first after the disturbance of the water). When Christ our Lord, having taken upon Himself human nature, “appeared on earth and lived with men,” the Jews, seizing Him and handing Him over to Pilate to be crucified, looked for the heaviest wood for the cross in order to cause Christ greater suffering. Seeing the above-mentioned tree, soaked in the waters of the sheep's font and therefore very heavy, they took it out of the water and ordered to make a cross out of it so heavy that Christ needed help in carrying it: “And they forced Simon the Cyrenean to carry His Cross” (Mark 15:21). That's what the story tells. Whether it is true or not, we do not approve or object, and we report for reference only what we found in the books. But let no one be embarrassed by the fact that in this story, along with cedar and cypress, a palm tree or a date is indicated, and not a cherry tree, for the cherry tree and the date tree are one and the same. However, some think that the chevron is a pine tree, such as hieromonk Epiphanius of Kiev, who translated the Six Days of St. Basil the Great from Greek into Slavic. In the fifth conversation, he wrote the word “pine” in the space next to the word “pevk”. However, it is more reliable that the song should be understood as a date, for Saint Cyprian also thinks so when he says to Christ the Lord: “You ascended, Lord, on a date, for this tree of Your Cross signified the triumph over the devil.” And his words are trustworthy, for in ancient times the date always served as a sign of victory and defeat of the adversary. And Christ the Lord, at His glorious entry into Jerusalem, was met with date branches (see Matt. 21:8) as the Conqueror of death and, as it were, as an omen that the date would be the tree of the cross. In addition, this is confirmed by two places in the Holy Scriptures from the prophet Isaiah and Jesus Sirach, each of which mentions three glorious trees. Isaiah says: “The glory of Lebanon will come to You with the cypress and the song and the cedar” (Is. 60:13), and Sirach, depicting the glory of the wisdom of God, says that it is like the cedar, the cypress and the date: “I,” he says, “was exalted like a cedar in Lebanon, and like a cypress on the mountains of Aermon, and like a date. on the seaside" (Sir. 24:14–15). Sirach, along with cedar and cypress, mentions the date Amen.