Философия евангельской истории

The proper task of scientific works on gospel history is to explain the life of Jesus Christ. Narrative works that do not explain anything in the Gospel story, but only present it with more or less external picturesqueness and psychological depiction, belong not to the scientific field, but to the artistic one and are subject to a completely different assessment: their dignity lies in the impact on the heart, in the touchingness of the Gospel image of Christ, and if they lack an artistic element, they lose all right to exist. In this latter kind, we could name several works under which the famous names of the authors are signed, which do not save their works from the strictest verdict of criticism. Three techniques are known and used in explaining the Gospel story. Firstly, by explaining the life of Christ we mean a scientific-historical, in the special sense of the word, processing of it, an external construction of the gospel history as part of world history. In this case, the scientist’s attention is focused on solving scientific and historical questions as applied to the life of Jesus Christ: questions about the year of His birth, the duration of His activity, the sequence of events in His life and the objective appearance of each of the events, with the elimination of their subjective coverage by the evangelists. At the same time, enormous efforts are being made to externally harmonize the apparently discordant testimonies of the four gospels, which are almost the only source of gospel history. To evaluate this technique, it should be borne in mind that the historical basis of the Gospel narratives is a scheme of the real human life of Christ from birth to death, but at the same time, the Gospels, in the content with which they fill this meager scheme, do not represent either history in the strictly scientific sense of the word, or material for it: they cannot be considered either as a scientific history or in the sense of chronicle narratives. The Gospels, so important as a source for the history of the life of Christ, have an ideological and practical purpose, illuminated differently by each evangelist, but essentially coinciding for all four gospels and expressed in the famous words of the Evangelist John: “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31). Therefore, scientific and historical questions as applied to the life of Jesus Christ are hardly resolvable, and science has so far added too little on these questions to the information reported in the Gospels. It is strong enough to prove the incorrectness of the chronology we have adopted, but it is completely powerless to accurately resolve the question of the year of birth of Christ and, in general, to establish the Gospel chronology. While for the actual evangelical purposes the chronological dates indicated in the gospels are quite sufficient, historical science cannot make almost any use, in accordance with its special tasks, from the chronology of the gospels. Also, the question of the apparently scientific, objective sequence of events in gospel history must be recognized as insoluble. To be convinced of this, it is enough to pick up a dozen or so later scholarly works on gospel history and compare them with each other in this regard: in each of them the events of gospel history are presented in a different sequence. For example, the story of the Jews’ blasphemy against Christ, that He casts out demons by the power of Beelzebub, with the preceding events - the plucking of ears of corn on the Sabbath by the apostles, the healing of a withered hand and a demon-possessed blind and dumb man; in some studies this story is placed before the embassy of the twelve apostles to preach, the beginning of the teaching in parables and the feeding of five thousand with five loaves, and in others - later. The assassination attempt on Christ in Nazareth, the healing of the Gadarene demoniac, the resurrection of the Nain youth, the events reported in the Gospel of John - the healing of the paralytic at Bethesda, the stay in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles, the healing of the man born blind - all these events are usually conveyed in various connections with other events in the life of Christ. Apparently, Luke’s gospel, unlike the others, can be taken as “a narrative in order, after a careful examination of everything from the beginning” (Luke 1:3); but it is not difficult to make sure that much of it is presented in order not chronological, but logical. For example, the social activity of Christ in Galilee begins, according to the Gospel of Luke, with a visit to Nazareth, when the inhabitants of this city were ready to say to Christ: “do here, in Your fatherland, what we heard happened in Capernaum” (Luke 4:23), meanwhile, the visit to Capernaum is conveyed only below. Therefore, in this case, the narrative of Matthew and Mark must be recognized as chronological, placing the story of the visit to Nazareth after the day on which Jesus taught the people in parables (Matthew 13:53–54; Mark 6ff., cp. Mark 4ff.), unless all the evangelists talk about the same visit to Nazareth. In addition, it should be borne in mind that the Gospel of Luke contains a large section, namely with Luke. 9 according to Luke. 18:15, which conveys events and speeches not found, with few exceptions, in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, not to mention the gospel of John. In the Gospel of Luke, the matter is presented in such a way that this section describes one journey of Christ from Galilee to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51; 10:38; 13:22; 17:11). But if we recognize a chronological order for this section, then we will not be able to find a place for it in the connection of events in the other gospels. Therefore, it is necessary to see in this section a logical grouping of events that took place at different times, probably during different time journeys towards Jerusalem, which gives the historian of the life of Christ the opportunity to break the connection of this section at his own discretion. In the Gospel of Luke itself, reasons are given not to recognize a chronological arrangement for this section: Lk. 9:52–53 (Jesus Christ is not accepted in the Samaritan village); OK. 10:38–42 (He is received into his home by Martha and Mary); OK. 13:31 (He is asked to leave the region of Herod); OK. 17:11–19 (He heals ten lepers between Samaria and Galilee). Some of the few passages in the section of Luke's gospel under consideration that coincide with the gospels of Matthew and Mark are conveyed by the latter in a connection that has every reason for itself, for example, Luke. 11:14–26 (about the healing of a demon-possessed mute and about the blasphemy against Jesus Christ) cf. Matt. 9:32–38 in connection with Matt. 10 and 11, also Matt. 12:24 words in connection with Matt. 13. In what relation does this section of the gospel of Luke have to the gospels of Matthew and Mark, in the same relation to the first three gospels is the gospel of John, which complements the synoptic gospels: the latter primarily describe the activity of Christ in Galilee, and the gospel of John mainly depicts His Jewish activity. Again, there is no basis for a clear chronological distribution of the synoptic gospel accounts among the events of John's gospel. In addition to this difficulty for the scientific history of the life of Jesus Christ, resulting from the differences in the general plan of each of the four gospels, in many particulars there is no way to restore the chronological sequence of the gospel history and the objective external historical appearance of each of its events. So, for example, the questions are insoluble: did the second and third temptations of Christ follow the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 4:5–8), or the Gospel of Luke (Luke 4:5–9)? How do the stories of the evangelists relate to each other about the woman who anointed Christ with chrism? In Matt. 26:1–2, 6–13 and Mark. 14:1–9 the woman is not called a sinner, the anointing took place in the house of Simon the leper in Bethany, two days before the last Passover; in Luke (Luke 7:36–50) the wife is called a sinner, Simon is called a Pharisee, the anointing took place in one of the Galilean cities much before the Passover of Christ’s suffering; according to John (John 12:1–8), the event took place six days before Easter in Bethany, in the house where Martha served Christ, and the anointing was performed by her sister Mary. In which of the last days of Christ’s life did He cleanse the church according to the weather forecasters: on the day of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1, 12, 17 and Luke 19:37–45) or on the next day (Mark 11:11–12)? What kind of Passover did Christ celebrate with his disciples before His suffering: before the Jewish Passover (John 13; 18:28) or together with the Jews (Matthew 26:17; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7)? What was the inscription on the cross of Christ (Matthew 27:37; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38; John 19:19)?... The number of these scientifically insoluble questions of gospel history could be significantly increased by other examples. Of course, the conclusion drawn from their abundance by one-sided negative criticism, which does not recognize the significance of reliable narratives in our Gospels, is completely false. The complete and unshakable authenticity of our gospels is confirmed by their internal character. They portray in the person of Christ a morally perfect personality, set forth His moral teachings, imagine in His life the fate of the Son of God - they depict, present and present in terms completely contrary to the views and expectations of men. This contrast between the Gospel reality and human hopes is evidenced by the Gospel history itself, and what is especially remarkable is that the apostles who depicted the life of Jesus or conveyed it to their disciples who described it were themselves among those who thought humanly and were tempted by the fate of Christ until they were reborn spiritually. This provides evidence that the apostles could not invent the Gospel story. The Four Gospels, in terms of their depiction of the life of Christ and His moral teachings, represent an exceptional phenomenon in human history and cannot be considered a fictitious work. But if the external disagreement of the evangelists cannot serve as a basis for denying the authenticity of their stories, then it expressively testifies to the direction and methods of their stories. Evangelists see under each event of the Gospel history and in the sequence of the life of Christ the internal meaning that governed the Gospel history, and it is this meaning, and not the external historical truth, that they convey in their Gospels. For their purposes, it was necessary to describe the inner truth of the life of Christ, its meaning, its laws, and not the external photographic appearance of its events. Although they disagree with each other in some external details, they completely agree with each other in depicting the meaning of the life of Christ. Just as each evangelist portrays the life of Jesus Christ strictly consistently in all details, and His image appears before us alive, so the testimonies of all four gospels are strictly harmonious and internally connected by the single meaning of the gospel story. There is not one iota of disagreement between the gospels in this portrayal of living truth. For example, in the literal depiction of the inscription on the cross of Christ, all the evangelists do not agree with each other (Matthew 27:37: “And they put an inscription over His head, signifying His guilt: this is Jesus, the king of the Jews”; Mark 15:26: “And the inscription of His guilt was: King of the Jews”; Luke 23:38: “And it was over Him an inscription written in Greek, Roman and Hebrew words: This is the king of the Jews”; John 19:19: “It was written: Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews,” but in conveying the meaning of the inscription, namely, that the Jews deliberately crucified their true king, all the evangelists agree on the difference between the evangelists in external facts and their agreement in ideological and religious essence. Gospel narratives: they provide a religious and creative reproduction of the basic spirit in the life and work of Christ, subjectively varying according to the different character of the evangelists and strictly consistent with the unity of the person being reproduced, but the gospels do not represent either scientific history or chronicle records, and to use them as such means not to stand on the point of view on which the evangelists stood. One can use the gospels only as historical monuments, and one cannot deny the usefulness of such an attitude towards the gospels for scientific purposes; but these purposes are not those for which the Gospels were written, and this use of them is not the explanation of the Gospel history that corresponds to the internal character of the Gospels and which can be called in the proper sense an explanation of the Gospel history. It is not that we wish that learned works on Gospel history should not be written or read, but we want such works not to be considered as a valid explanation of Gospel history and not to hide from us the meaning that it contains. Another technique in explaining gospel history can be called archaeological. Based on the position that “Jesus the Nazarene was a Jew, spoke to the Jews, moved among them in Palestine and at a certain period of its history,” learned historians of the life of Jesus Christ find it “absolutely necessary to consider His life and teaching in connection with the surrounding circumstances of the place, society, national life and mental or religious development” and in this they see “not only a frame in which the image of Jesus Christ can be placed, but also the background of the picture itself.” The ideal here is “a complete picture of Jewish life and society” at the time of Jesus Christ. In such works we find detailed information about the Jerusalem temple, Old Testament worship and the Jewish priesthood regarding the appearance of the angel Zechariah, about Jewish wedding rites in the story of a miracle at a marriage, about Jewish sects in the story of the deputation to John from Jerusalem... We must admit that the idea about the frame and background of the Gospel picture is absolutely correct; In relation to the Gospel teaching, one should speak even more insistently about the historical basis than in relation to Gospel history. But abuse of this technique is also possible both in the study of the Gospel teaching and, and even especially, in the presentation of Gospel history. The fact is that the historical and everyday environment does not exhaust the individual content of life - and the less exhaustive it is, the more original the personal life. Meanwhile, there can be no doubt that the personality of Christ is the most original in world history, the richest in its inner content, the most actively responsive to the social environment; His life was decisively determined by His own self-consciousness, His conscious calling. Unbelievers can look at Him as obsessed with one religious idea, as the most persistent hypnotic of His work. We, believers, say: the exceptional advantage of Christ’s God-son self-consciousness and His complete non-involvement in earthly passions was that all people’s relationships to Him were relationships in the essence of His calling. An ordinary person pays for his earthly attachments, even those experienced in the past, by the fact that even in the days of the religious upsurge of his spirit and holy service to people, the latter act with him according to their random moods and external motives: selfless rags will be explained by laziness, religious delight will be called intoxication... Such accidents did not happen in the life of Christ. He awakened in people the deepest roots of their conscience, reached their most secret thoughts - all the conscious attitudes of people towards Him, recorded in the Gospels, were determined by His religious calling, His divine filial self-revelation. External events crushed His life, but with His inner strength He illuminated these events in a unique way, so that they appeared to Him not as a blind combination of circumstances, but as a planned revelation of His spirit. The whole life of Christ appears to us as a continuous symbol, all its events are elevated to the level of figurative clothing of His thoughts and feelings, marking the path of revelation of His inner light. Therefore, the historical and everyday basis of the Gospel picture should not come to the fore; it should play a secondary role in shading the original personality of Christ, His original response to the environment. The third of the commonly used methods in explaining the Gospel story should be called rationalistic. This explanation applies to the miracles of Jesus Christ, and since miracles are extremely important in gospel history, this explanation deserves special attention. It is based on the fact that “the miraculous in the New Testament is not a strong, but a weak side for our modern thought; it serves not as a convincing evidence, but as a point of attack and a source of difficulty.” The rationalistic explanation aims to reduce all the gospel miracles to natural phenomena and thus make them understandable to reason. Thus, rationalistic science explains the healing of the sick by the action of animal magnetism, suggestion, and the psychological power of faith. The narration of the Gospels about the miraculous feeding of five thousand with five loaves is explained in the sense that Christ distributed to the people the loaves that the apostles had, and this served as an example by which all those who had began to share with those who did not have, so that everyone was satisfied. The same applies to other miracles. About this scientific method in relation to the Gospel history, it should be noted that they are given a real explanation: the events of the Gospel in a rationalistic transmission become completely understandable to the mind. But the trouble is that this explanation is too crude. It exposes too much the forces of nature, it rushes to identify limited human knowledge, limited concepts with the bottomless depth of reality. If we take the path of equating the gospel miracle with the natural course of nature and history, then instead of rationalizing the gospel history, it would be better to take a religious look at all of nature and all of history - it would be better to recognize the mystery at the basis of all natural-historical life. That miracles cannot be understood by our reason, that to represent them as a consequence of the omnipotence and will of Christ would mean descending to childish concepts and popular superstitions, this does not serve as a justification for rationalism - on the contrary, there is as much rudeness in the rationalistic denial of miracles as in the rational understanding of them. Moreover, the rationalistic explanation of the Gospel story is not enough. The rationalistic transmission of the Gospel events is understandable to reason, but the origin of the Gospel narrative is not clarified by this technique. The rationalistic explanation of the Gospel story rests on the distortion of texts and facts, so that in essence it is not what requires explanation that is explained, but what is manipulated to fit the texts and facts. At the same time - which is usually not noticed, and yet deserves the deepest attention - by presenting the matter in such a way that the Gospel narratives have a naive faith as their source, in fact the rationalists themselves turn out to be extremely naive in understanding the Gospel history. What is naive is the rationalistic idea that a miracle is only “convincing evidence,” that the most important thing in a gospel miracle is its miraculousness. Meanwhile, the Gospels present the miracles of Christ in such a light that their “miraculousness” recedes into the background and they organically enter into the course of Christ’s life with its ending death. The Gospels do not dwell on the miraculous acts of Christ, but pay main attention to the connection of miracles with His calling and with His outcome. This connection reveals the deepest meaning of the Gospel story, before which human rationalization and reasoning turns out to be childish babble. Making the feasible disclosure of this connection, this meaning of the life of Christ the main theme of our research and anticipating its conclusions, we boldly declare that the rationalistic transmission of the Gospel story, not only due to the distortion of its facts, but also in its naivety in its understanding, stands immeasurably below its reason. We hope to show the unreasonableness and frivolity of the rationalistic understanding of the goals of the Gospel miracles, according to which such a goal is the faith of people in the messenger of God (einen göttlichen Gesandten bei den Menschen zu beglaubigen). Of course, the view of a miracle as the basis of faith, which sees in a miracle first of all its miraculousness, first appeared not in rationalistic science and not in science in general, but in life. Many of Christ’s listeners, seeing the miracles that He performed, believed in His name - they believed only for the sake of the miracles, why Jesus Himself did not entrust Himself to them, because their hearts were open before Him (John 2:23-25). The history of the Christian Church testifies that among Christian society there have always been many imaginary, and perhaps weak, Christians who believed in Christ only for the sake of His miracles. For obvious reasons, a similar view of the gospel miracle penetrated during medieval scholasticism and into theology. But theological science before the advent of rationalism was not critical; it said a lot out of heartfelt simplicity. The emergence of rationalism was important in the sense that, having begun a critical explanation of the Gospel story, it consciously appropriated this naive view of miracles as a means of inciting faith to the gospel of Jesus Christ itself, saw in it the motives of the compilers of the Gospel story and therefore took it as the starting point for explaining it, that is, for denying the Gospel miracles. How then did believing theology, having entered into a struggle with rationalism, react quite consciously to the miracles of the Gospel? Unfortunately, Christian apologetics, having come out to fight rationalism, agreed with it, as if fascinated by it in the main view of the gospel miracle, and, refuting very thoroughly and convincingly the distortion of the gospel history by rationalists, its positive task sets nothing more than to prove the reality of each of the miracles of Jesus Christ and their divinity. Thus, a naive view of miracles became the property of science, and for it the wisdom of the gospel story turned out to be lost. “In the Founder of Christianity,” says apologetics, “as the culprit of everything extraordinary and supernatural in Christianity, we must think of miraculousness (unlike other bearers of it) not in some mediating form, in which He would be nothing more than a mediating giver of the highest divine help, sent down to people through His prayers, like later Christian miracle workers, but in its independent and amateur manifestation, in which He was a completely free and sovereign performer. Only such an idea of ​​His miraculousness is fully consistent with the greatness of His moral character, does not relegate Him to the ranks of ordinary miracle workers of this time and, as a result, does not place Him in a false relationship with his contemporaries; in the name of only such miraculousness He rose above the ancient great prophets and figures of the Old Testament, with whom, comparing Himself, He said that if they had such powers as He possessed and acted, then their contemporaries would have brought more worthy fruits of repentance than His listeners; by it, separating himself and distinguishing himself from the ordinary and false prophets and miracle workers of His time, who often hid behind imaginary miracle-working, and rising above the great ancient prophets, He cultivated faith in Himself as the true Messiah in the circle of chosen and most devoted followers. The gospel of Jesus Christ, with all its greatness, with all the height of the truths He revealed, could not have attracted many followers if it had not been accompanied by miraculous power, arousing and inspiring faith in His Preacher as a divine messenger; miracles constituted the real basis in Him, which in the eyes of his contemporaries gave Him divine significance and attracted the attention of many to Him.” Thus, apologetics, while affirming the unshakable truth that Christ is the Son of God, however, forgets another truth of Christ’s self-abasement - it forgets that He was witnessed not from Himself, but from God by the powers, signs and wonders that God did through Him (Acts 2:22), that the works that He did, and whoever believes in Him, according to His promise, will do, and greater works than these will He do ( John 14:12), that He performed miracles by faith, condemned those who believed only for the sake of miracles, and blessed those who did not see and believe, that in reality His miracles were not doubted even by His enemies, who hated Him precisely for the sake of miracles (Jn. 15:24), - apologetics forgets all this, otherwise it would not have asserted that He rose above the prophets only in the name of miracles, that only through miracles did He cultivate faith in Himself as the Messiah. It is easy to see that to affirm the reality of the miracles of Jesus Christ only means approaching the line beyond which lies the explanation of the Gospel story. If the evangelists report mass healings performed by Christ (Matthew 4:23; 8:16; 9:35; 11:5; 12:15; 14:14, 35, 36; 15:30; 19:1–2; 21:14; Mark 1:34; 3:10; 6:55–56; Luke 4:40–41; 6:17–18), if, according to their depiction, even his enemies did not doubt the reality of His miracles, then it is obvious that they talk about some miracles separately not for the sake of their miraculousness, but for the sake of the meaning that is revealed in the connection of these miracles with the calling, ministry and outcome of Jesus Christ. We must also take into account the very content of the gospel idea, which is revealed to us as a result of the study of gospel history. The main idea of ​​the gospel story, which we are now only foreshadowing, is the idea of ​​divine spiritual life, independent of suffering and death, not limited in its universality by the limits of individual and national goods, realized in a divinely filial mood and in active love. The bearer of this divine life was Christ, who revealed it in His teaching and in His self-denial even to death - out of love for man. What is especially important is that this ideological significance of the Gospel story is not determined not only by the factual situation and chronological sequence of events of the Gospel history, which form the subject of scientific criticism, but also by the rational reliability of miracles, since the Gospel meaning of miracles is not that they served as an external confirmation of the divine life of Christ, but that they raised the gaze of believers from the visible to the invisible. There is no doubt that miracles occupy an extremely important place in gospel history - without miracles there would be no gospel history. In this case, the gospel story is like the opening pages of every religion: the cradle of every religion is surrounded by the radiance of miracles. But it is also undeniable that only gospel miracles form history proper, and actually enter into the course of human life - that only gospel history makes miracles symbols, raises a person’s attention from them to the invisible spiritual life, places it above miracles. This is the central idea of ​​the story of the gospel miracles. The Gospels present to us the miracle worker as a crucified sufferer and a formidable judge of humanity, and the savior is preached in the Son of God, laying down His soul for people and calling them to become sons of the resurrection. Therefore, just as true spiritual faith is independent of the vision of signs and wonders (John 4:48; 20:19), so the ideological content of the gospel story is outside the area with which rationalistic criticism deals. Of course, the miraculous benefits of Christ are the main fact of the Gospel history, but the Gospel meaning of this fact assumes only its historical reliability, and not a rationalistic justification: from the Gospel point of view, it is enough to know that the listeners of Christ really saw His miracles, believed in them, and Christ Himself had a positive attitude towards this presence of miracles - and there is no need to examine the metaphysical essence of the miracle, to justify it rationalistically. This need would be felt if the gospel miracles proved the divinity of Christ and were a means of leading to faith in Him, but it is precisely the apologetic-rationalistic attitude towards miracles that is decisively alien to the gospel view of miracles. So, based on the fact that the gospels are not historical chronicle material, but a religious and creative image of Christ, that - further - the life of Christ testifies to His exceptional originality and represents complete symbolism, giving His miracles an ideological structure, I believe that it is impossible to write on the basis of the Gospel narratives of the historical life of Christ 384 that His life is hidden from us behind the subjective-ideological nature of the Gospel transmissions and behind the symbolism of His affairs - that, however, we are given the opportunity to understand the “feelings” of Christ, His soul. The Gospels introduce us to the real depths of the most original human soul, without having as their goal to give a historically objective outline of its life. The Evangelical Christ is the only Man who lived entirely for the cause of God, a heavenly man, this is a soul filled with one religious idea, this is only the Son of God, almost not touching the earth, almost without historical and everyday coloring, without the slightest earthly dust. The gospel story is the revelation of Christ, the symbolic vestment of the gospel idea. Therefore, we put forward a new method of explaining the Gospel story - revealing its internal consistency, its reason, its laws, its spirit. This technique can rightfully be called the philosophy of gospel history. The purpose of the gospel narratives is indicated by the evangelist to ensure that readers believe in the sonship of Christ (John 20:31) - to reveal the gospel idea. But the evangelists achieve this goal not by their own discussion of the gospel story, but by the transmission and grouping of its events, so that the meaning of the gospel story in their narratives turns out to be its spirit, and not its letter. To capture this spirit, this logos of the Gospel story and express it in reasoning, in logical formulas - such is the task of the philosophy of Gospel history. This is precisely the task of the proposed study. What is the most general meaning of the gospel story and its main plan? The life of Christ is divine, spiritual, eternal life. He revealed the Heavenly Father to the world: in Him life appeared, eternal life, which was with the Father (1 John 1:2). Christ Himself recognized His life as a revelation of the Father. This self-consciousness of Christ was not His self-deception or an abstract thought, an invention. In Him this self-consciousness was immediate, natural, and it was so real that it determined His entire life. Then - it did not pass without a trace for history: the feelings of Christ, the form of His relationship to God were instilled by Him in humanity - He became the “master and finisher” of the spiritual life of Christians. We affirm this not as a dogmatic truth, but as a historical truth. Even thinkers hostile to Christ, disgracing Christian feelings in the name of illness, agree that this painful, “too spiritual” worldview was passed on from Christ to Christians. In essence, every person who creates something new in his life makes his contribution to the treasury of humanity, but Christ created a work of exceptional originality and universal significance: He created a new attitude of people towards God. Therefore, the revelation of the spiritual divine life in the conditions of earthly existence constitutes the main meaning of the earthly life of Christ, both in the essence of His personality and in His historical significance. True, divine life in the word of God is called divine glory. Having revealed spiritual life to the world, Christ glorified His Heavenly Father among people, gave them the glory that He had with His Father, His life was a manifestation of divine glory. Calling the divine life of Christ glory introduces us to the manner in which the revelation of the divine life took place in Him. This method is humiliation. In order to glorify the Father on earth, to reveal His name to people, Christ humbled Himself, renounced the external manifestation of divine glory: in Him, divine life appeared not in the properties of unlimited omnipotence, limitless greatness, which the conditions of human existence cannot endure, but in the properties of spiritual life, which fits into the limitations of human existence, tolerates its insignificance, endures its suffering. Thus He became the founder of the universal revelation of the name of God, made all people participants in the divine glory, partakers of the divine nature. Humiliation and humility constitute the undoubted feelings of Christ, whether we imagine them in the system of dogmatic teaching about the quomodo of the incarnation or whether we limit ourselves to the historical character of Christ, the limits of His self-consciousness. In any case, on the eve of the Gospel story, we can talk about the humiliation and humility of Christ as His inner feat. But in addition to the glory that Christ had with the Father and the external manifestation of which He renounced in the feat of humiliation, and that internal glorification of human life, which was the fruit of His humiliation and humility, in the life of Christ we see external glory - His miracles. About His first miracle, the evangelist notes: “thus Jesus began the miracles in Cana of Galilee and showed His glory” (John 2:11). On the Mount of Transfiguration, the apostles also saw His glory (Luke 9:32). Jesus Christ was a great miracle worker. The narrative of His social activities until the last days of His life, in which He suffered, is filled with His miracles and is, in fact, the gospel of His miracles. Many of the people who believed in Him for the sake of miracles said to those who did not believe: “When Christ comes, will He really do more signs than this man has done” (John 7:31)? From the outside, all the people's attitudes towards Jesus Christ - both those who believed and those who did not believe - were mainly relations to His miracles, to Him as a miracle worker. He Himself saw in miracles the means by which He, together with His teaching, acted on the people and determined their relationship to Himself. And here arises a question of extraordinary importance for theology and for the Christian worldview about the relationship of the miracles of Jesus Christ to His humiliation and inner glorification of human life, as the fruit of His activity. This is the main question of the philosophy of gospel history. In contrast to the apologetic and rationalistic view of the gospel miracles as proof of the divinity of Christ, the philosophy of gospel history answers this question in the sense that the miracles of Christ, covering a symbolically gospel idea, were a transition from His internal humiliation to external suffering: symbolizing spiritual benefits for believers, they caused His enemies, who put Him to death. The Nativity of Christ: the revelation of the divine life in Him In Him life appeared - eternal life, which was with the Father and appeared to us. (1 John 1:2). Two facts lie at the threshold of gospel history. One external: Christ was a real man in all the fullness of mental and physical life. But at the same time, we cannot help but recognize another, internal fact: in His spiritual originality, in His religious depth, he was the only person. He recognized Himself as the Son of God - He was the Son of God, since His more divine self-consciousness was revealed in Him directly, from nature. Church Christology completely coincides with these primary facts of gospel history in its teaching about the self-abasement of Christ - in the teaching that the truly human life of Christ embraced divine content. The difference between the church-dogmatic and religious-historical views on the life of Christ is that according to the Christological method of thought, we first imagine the heavenly Logos, the premium Son of God and then move on to His earthly incarnation, we begin with Christological concepts, which we then apply to the historical fact, we treat the external phenomenon gnostically; whereas religiously-historically, in the Gospel, we begin with the fact of real human life and discern the religious basis behind it, we contemplate the mystical mystery in it. From a Christological point of view, understood according to the idea of ​​kenosis, there is no reason to object to the religious-historical view of the face of Christ. This view is also stable from the scientific side. Recognizing that Christ was a real person, we fully satisfy scientific requirements, and science no longer has either the motives or the means to eliminate our religious assessment of the historical figure, the mystical view of him. In the religious and historical knowledge of Jesus Christ, we have support for the preliminary elimination of false preconceived views about the face of Christ. These are two extreme views. According to one, having the appearance of piety, the divine life was revealed in the face of Christ in its outwardly majestic properties, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, so that Jesus Christ, according to this view, was an omnipotent, omniscient person. This is that imaginary piety, in the name of which man reproached Christ in His intention to suffer: “Be merciful to yourself, Lord, so that this will not happen to you.” According to this view, the divine can manifest itself in human life only to the extent that human life loses its limitations and ceases to be human life. Wanting to exalt Christ, zealous for His glory, but not according to reason, this view does not embrace the work of Christ, for which He laid down His soul - the work of glorifying the name of the Father on earth, giving His eternal life to people, acquiring real human life for divine glory. The revelation of divine life in Christ must be understood in such a way that the fullness of revelation was dependent on the fullness of human life. This is the meaning of the fact that in Him the fullness of divinity appeared bodily. Of course, in this we see a combination of opposites, but the whole life of Jesus Christ represents the resolution of such opposites, which are irreconcilable for abstract logic. Here we give a method for studying gospel history that is appropriate to the subject. In particular, in relation to the question under consideration, we must see in the reality of Christ's human life, in the fullness of its limitations and infirmities, not an obstacle to His work, but a condition for the revelation of divine glory. That it was the actual human life of Christ that was the discovery of divine glory, the experience of divine life, this thought forms the threshold of the gospel story, beyond which its mind opens: not to cross this threshold, not to assimilate this thought in all its depth, means refusing to understand the gospel story. Only in this way can we properly evaluate the Gospel testimony that the one born to Mary was called the Son of God (Luke 1:31, 32, 35), and Mary gave birth to a weak baby and “wrapped Him in swaddling clothes... the child grew and was strengthened in spirit, and the grace of God was on Him, and increased in wisdom and age, and in love with God and men” ( Luke 2:7, 40, 52). How different from these gospel testimonies about the natural development of the son born of Mary is the muddy image of the infancy of Jesus Christ in the apocryphal gospels, in which the story of His childhood is filled with fictitious miracles in order to present Him as omnipotent!.. Jesus, the Son of God, born of Mary (cf. Acts 3:13; 4:27, etc.), was a real man, but was He not a mere man? This is another preconceived view of the face of Christ, constituting the opposite extreme to the one described. This view has been known since ancient times, and now it has a huge number of defenders. Jesus Christ, they say, was a simple man or only a man. In order to correctly judge this view of the face of Christ, it should be borne in mind that the church teaching and gospel history it rejects do not in the least detract from the full reality of the human nature of Christ. It is enough to point out that the Gospel story presents Christ in an almost continuous feat of prayer, and “to pray,” in the words of John Chrysostom, “is not characteristic of God.” Also, the fathers of the VI Ecumenical Council express the church teaching as follows: “we, without making a joke of the sacrament of the economy, believe that the all-holy soul of the Savior not only had reason and will, but was actually moved by all natural forces and was arbitrarily overwhelmed by passions similar to ours, but sinless.” Therefore, the view we are considering is opposed to church teaching, which does not deny the reality of the human nature of Christ, and its essence is not that Christ was a real man, but that He was only a man, whereas, according to church teaching and the Gospel image, He was more than a man - He was not only the son of David, but also his Lord. What does this limitation mean when applied to the person of Jesus Christ and does it have a basis? Apparently, the conclusion from the reality of Christ's human nature to the fact that He was a simple man is an assertion of simple identity, for every real man is a simple man. But in fact, this limitation, when applied to Christ, involves a sophistical manipulation of concepts. In saying that every real man is a simple man and that Christ is a simple man, what is meant in both cases is different by the words “simple man.” In the first case, by simple human nature we mean that which is characteristic of man, excluding from the concept everything unusual for him, but without defining the limits of the human being; in the second case, the name of a simple person means only that which in human existence is limited by the limits of consciousness and the historical conditions of individual human life. The fact of the matter is that when applying the specified limitation to Jesus Christ, they do not want to say that He was what every person really is, but that He was only what every person is in his consciousness and as a product of historical conditions. But the essence of man is not exhausted by the limits of his consciousness and is not entirely explained by historical causality and dependence on the environment. This is what modern serious science asserts, based on the collapse of frivolous attempts to explain human personality as a product of the historical process and environmental influences. It is impossible to deny the historical causality and dependence of the human personality on the environment, but a person is not only a product of such causality: his personality is the center of an original existence and a unique response to external influences, although in the degree of this originality and originality there can be a great difference between individuals. The human being is not limited by the limits of his own consciousness. For our consciousness, nature is given as something gradually cognizable, but inaccessible to knowledge in all its depth. Of course, a person’s originality is also reflected in his free influence on his nature, to some extent, so that the conscious will is partly inherent in a creative character, but only partly. Man cannot master his entire being, either in knowledge or in will. Simply put, a person cannot say with complete confidence what he will do in such and such a case, whether he will resist the upcoming temptation, whether he will be capable of a selfless act or not. His desire and consciousness at the moment should not be overly valued: despite the desire to be selfless, he may turn out to be a coward due to his nature, and, despite the modesty and timidity of his opinion of himself, nature at the right moment can give him unexpectedly enormous spiritual forces, which, due to this unexpectedness, are called inspiration. This power of nature over consciousness is known and discussed in literature and science, but it is known more for the bad than for the good. However, not only in evil, but also in good respect, our nature is not covered by our consciousness, and the evil nature of man, due to the limitations of evil aspirations and their connection with existing interests and material conditions, is entirely explained by heredity, and his good nature, with his ideals that go beyond the boundaries of earthly life and the conditions of the world, cannot be explained by heredity, but presupposes for itself an extra-worldly basis. Be that as it may, there is no reason to reduce the entire being of a person to the boundaries of his consciousness and historical conditions, and therefore the name of Jesus Christ as a simple man in this sense does not withstand purely scientific criticism: the nature of each person extends beyond the boundaries of his consciousness and presupposes an ahistorical basis with its absolute aspirations. Not only that. In this unlimitedness of the human being by the limits of consciousness and historical conditions lies the limit of the science of man. Science can cognize a person within the limits of his consciousness and as a product of a biological and historical process, but a person outside these limits is not accessible to it; for it we cannot solve the question of the origin of man, his consciousness, his will. But if so, if science must stop before the boundaries of natural knowledge of human nature, then what can it object to religious ideas that explain the area of ​​​​the human being inaccessible to science? And according to the religious concept of Christian truth, man - every simple person - is the image of God, that is, in God he has the basis of both his physical existence and his moral nature. If we visually depict a religious view of a person, then the human soul must be represented in the form of a ray emanating from God and returning to Him again, and only delimited for some extent by consciousness. Of course, this image has shortcomings, but the shortcomings are explained by the very impossibility of figurative representation of such sublime concepts; in any case, the image has its basis in the word of God (Gen. 2:7; Eccl. 12:7) and well elucidates the divine basis of human existence lying beyond the limits of consciousness. And in this case, what is the meaning of the desire of positive science to equate Christ with a simple man in order to eliminate His divinity? After all, every person lives, moves and exists on a divine basis. an impartial comparison of Christ with a simple man should not lead to a diminishment of the divine dignity of Christ, but to an exaltation of His human dignity. “The Jews said to Jesus: We do not want to stone You for a good deed, but for blasphemy, because You, being a man, make Yourself God. Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, I said, you are gods?” If He called those to whom the word of God came gods, and the scripture cannot be broken; Do you say to him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, “You are blaspheming, because I said, “I am the Son of God”” (John 10:33–36)? However, by comparing the personality of Jesus Christ with the nature of each person, as the image of God, only the capacity of human nature for divine-filial dignity is indicated, the path to understanding the natural sonship of Jesus Christ is only outlined, but His divine-filial dignity is not fully explained. The concept of man as the image of God, as a revelation of divine life, presupposes the gradualness of God's revelation. The physical world created by God with plant and animal life is the first stage of external, world, revelation of God. Man, created in the image of God, represents the next stage of revelation of God: in one side of his being he belongs entirely to external nature, to the physical world, but in his soul he is a new creation of God. In His person a new divine content was invested into the physical organism, a new freely intelligent life was breathed in. The earthly life of Jesus Christ constitutes the highest, perfect stage of revelation of God. He is fully human, but in His person human life served as a new revelation, filled with new content: this new content is spiritual, eternal, divine life. In man, created in the image of God, the divine life was revealed from the formal side - freely rational; in the face of Christ, freely rational human life was filled with essential content - real, spiritual, divine life. It is instructive in this regard to compare the revelation of God in Christ with the former revelation in the prophets. “God, who at times and in various ways spoke of old to the fathers through the prophets, has spoken to us in the last days through the Son.” Prophetic revelation was addressed exclusively to the human mind, while in Christ His very human life was a revelation of God, so that people in Him heard, saw with their own eyes, examined and touched with their hands the eternal life that was with the Father, and through Him received vital communion with the Father. Those who saw Him saw the Father. Only in the light of these reasonings and religious beliefs can one fully appreciate the Gospel testimony of Mary’s birth of the “man Jesus” from the Holy Spirit. Abstract rationalism in the Gospel narrative sees an exclusively physiological treatise and discusses it exclusively from the point of view of physiological ideas and knowledge, and discussing it this way, of course, rejects it. He is not deterred from such a point of view even by the simple consideration that the narrated event essentially does not allow for physiological discussion. The meaning of the Gospel narrative is not at all in physiology, but in the fact that the spiritual life of Jesus Christ is divine life. In this case, the interest of the Gospel narrative is not theoretical, but practical - the interest of faith. We Christians live a spiritual life and for its sake we count all the blessings of the world as nothing and endure everything. So what? Is our spiritual life a ghost that will dissipate, or is it an eternal divine life? Is there the life of Jesus Christ from which our spiritual life, illusory earthly life, or eternal heavenly life flows? This is the interest of this gospel narrative, these are the questions it answers. It is in vain to object that it is transmitted only in Matthew and Luke, that it is not found either in John or in the epistles of Paul. The birth of Christ from the Holy Spirit is presupposed by every line of the fourth Gospel, which testifies that in Christ the Word of God became flesh (John 1:14), that He is the bread of eternal life (John 6:35) and came so that people might have life (John 10:10), that He and His Father are one (John 10:30), that the Father abided in Him (John 14:11). ), that He came from the Father and came into the world, and again left the world and went to the Father (John 16:28)... The Apostle Paul not only gives a testimony equivalent to the Gospel story of the birth of Christ from the Holy Spirit, but also properly explains this story when he writes that Christ was born of the seed of David according to the flesh and was revealed to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness (Rom. 1:3–4), that Christ is God’s, just as we are Christ’s (1 Cor. 3:23). If the gospel narrative has an interest not of theoretical, but of practical interest - the interest of faith, then the reliability of this narrative is established not on our physiological ideas, but on our faith - not on theological faith, which one can have or not have, but on that living faith, without which not a single person can exist. Everyone believes either in the external world or in spiritual life, everyone lives by their own faith. For some, the external world is more real than the spiritual world, and for others, spiritual life is more real than the external world. That's the point. If we believe in our spiritual life and live by this faith, if for us spiritual life is eternal divine life, then we can imagine the life of Christ in no other way than as a life that came from the Spirit of the Heavenly Father. Thus, in the “man Jesus” “born of a woman,” the Son of God was revealed, the divine life was revealed not in the shadows of Old Testament prototypes, but in full reality. This is not only a historical fact, but in it we see the fulfillment of a divine promise - the fulfillment of the laws of divine revelation in human history. The first people wanted to be “like gods” - they wanted personal possession of externally divine perfection and, as a result, fell under the power of death. But God, condescending to them, gave them the promise that death would be defeated by the “seed of the woman,” the son of the woman, the son of man. The seed of a woman, or the son of man, is a man who is aware of his natural insignificance and, to the extent of this consciousness, places all his trust in God. In such a consciousness of natural weakness and hope in God, man serves as an instrument for the revelation of the glory of God, since the only basis for the revelation of God in nature and history is His condescension and love. The image of the wife's son runs through the entire Old Testament revelation, expressing the fundamental law of God-manhood. The Son of Man in Psalm VIII is depicted as being a little lower than the angels, but crowned with glory and honor from God (Ps. 8:5–6). Delivered from his mother’s womb, the wife’s son is presented in Psalm XXI in extreme humiliation and suffering from the self-righteous and proud opponents of God, but in complete trust in God from the day he was born; and God does not neglect the sorrow of the sufferer, does not hide His face from him. In the VII chapter of the book of St. Daniel, the son of man is compared with terrible beasts, symbols of arrogance, the personification of human kingdoms - and so he, the son of man, is given from the Ancient of Days power, glory and an eternal kingdom. The Old Testament symbolic image of the son of man was fulfilled in the Son of Mary, in whom eternal divine life was revealed in its entirety and who was therefore the only Son of man, as Christ called Himself, meaning the revelation of the glory of God in His humiliation. In this connection of thoughts, the Gospel narrative about the birth of Christ in Bethlehem becomes especially instructive. In those days, says the Evangelist Luke, a command came from Caesar Augustus to make a census throughout the entire earth. This census was the first during the reign of Quirinius in Syria. And everyone went to register in their own city. Joseph also went from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, called Bethlehem, because he was from the house and family of David, to enroll with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. When they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn... Negative criticism considers this story to be fictitious, and the motive for the fiction is the desire to present Jesus Christ as a descendant of David, the heir of his kingdom. But what a discrepancy, then, between the motive of the fiction and its content! If people were left to imagine the place and circumstances of the birth of the Messiah, the Son of God, then, of course, they could only stop at the royal palace and magnificent surroundings. Meanwhile, what do we see in the gospel narrative? There was no room in the inn for the newly born Savior of the world; the mother herself wrapped Him in swaddling clothes and placed Him in a manger. Here we have not fiction, but that divine truth that governs the entire history of the world; Here we encounter the most striking application of that law of God-manhood, according to which divine glory is united not with human glory, but with human humiliation. Self-awareness of Jesus Christ I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. (John 14:10). From the history of the childhood of Jesus Christ, the gospels tell about the worship of the shepherds, His circumcision, bringing Him to the church, the worship of the Magi and the flight of His parents with Him to Egypt. All these events, which are of deep interest in many respects, are of no importance for the philosophy of the gospel history, because, firstly, it is nowhere to be seen that these events had any influence on the character of the public ministry of Jesus Christ, and, secondly, and even more important, the participation of the baby Jesus in these events was not a matter of His consciousness and will: they were with Him, but His will was not in them. Something else needs to be said about the only event that is reported in the Gospel of Luke from the history of the adolescence of Jesus Christ. After these events in Christ’s childhood, His parents returned with Him to Galilee, to their city of Nazareth. From here every year they went to Jerusalem for the Passover holiday. When He was twelve years old, they came, according to custom, to Jerusalem to celebrate a feast with Him. When they returned at the end of the holiday, the youth Jesus remained in Jerusalem unnoticed by them. Having searched in vain for Him along the way among relatives and returning to Jerusalem, three days later they found Him in the church among the teachers who talked with Him and marveled at His understanding and answers. “Son, what have you done to us? Behold, Your father and I have been looking for You with great sorrow,” His mother told Him. He answered them: “Why did you seek Me? or did you not know that I must be concerned with the things that belong to My Father?” They, the evangelist ends his story, did not understand the words He spoke, and upon returning to Nazareth He was in obedience to them. This event with the youth Jesus in Jerusalem is extremely significant, because in it for the first time His self-awareness was revealed, which determined all of His social activities. Since the self-consciousness of Christ lies at the basis of His calling and is necessarily presupposed, as fully formed, already at the beginning of His public ministry, the student of gospel history should focus his attention on it before proceeding to explain the work of Christ, although His inner life was fully revealed only in His deeds and speeches during his public ministry. The study of His self-consciousness should be dated to the indicated event, in which Christ’s self-consciousness first manifested itself, because nothing is conveyed in the Gospels from the later life of Christ, before the beginning of His public ministry. The most general character, and at the same time the main feature of the human self-consciousness of Jesus Christ, is that it was united with the consciousness of God. By this nature, the human self-consciousness of Jesus Christ is the only fact in world history that is not repeated in its entirety. To understand the uniqueness of Christ’s self-consciousness and the deepest significance of this fact in the history of mankind, one must proceed from the idea that Christ was a real person. But, being a real man, He was a stranger to the world. Just as every person, belonging to the physical world with his body, in his rationally free soul does not relate to external nature and is not part of it, so Christ, being one of the people in His soul-body life, was a stranger in the world of people in His divine spirit. He was “not of the world” (John 17:16). True, in the very nature of man there is still no basis for the confrontation that Christ encountered from people: the reason for this confrontation is in human sin, which removed people from God and prepared in them hostility to the divine life that appeared in Christ, although participation in the divine life was the purpose of the creation of the world. “He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world did not know Him” (John 1:10). But, be that as it may, the world into which Christ came was alien to Him. People love human glory more than the glory of God, they receive glory from each other and do not seek the glory that is from God alone (John 12:43; 5:44), and Christ did not accept glory from men, did not seek His own glory (John 5:41; 8:50), but sought only the glory of God. People are “from below,” but He was “from above” (John 8:23). In this regard, the Jews, who were Christ’s own in the sense of Old Testament history, in reality completely belonged to the world. “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11). In any case, here is a historical fact: Christ recognized Himself alone in the world (John 8:16, 29; cp. John 16:32), just as the first man felt alone in nature. He generalized Himself only with those people who were messengers of God, generalized precisely in this regard to the messenger from God, saying in this case: “we” (John 3:11) 385. But outside of this external relationship and precisely because of the peculiarities of His internal exclusive relationship with the Heavenly Father, He invariably recognized Himself as separate from the society of people, even from its best part. He did not say to them: “Our Father, our God” but: “My Father and your Father, my God and your God” (John 20:17; Matthew 10:20; John 2:16, etc.). That this feature of the consciousness of Jesus Christ was real, and not illusory, not self-deception, is evidenced by history - by the hatred that the world had for Him and could not help but feel, and the only reason for which was that He was not of this world and the world could not accommodate His words (John 7:7; 15:18-19; 17:14, etc.). The reason why Christ recognized Himself as a stranger to the world was the divine life that He had in Himself. To understand the face of Jesus Christ means to learn to see in Him, in His human life, the Heavenly Father 386: His work was that He showed us the Father in Himself (John 14:7–9). He could do this because He Himself experienced the divine life, that He, being in appearance a man, lived by the Heavenly Father (κἀγ ὼ ζῶ διὰ τὸν πατέρα - John 6:57): He recognized the divine life through His life. There was no mediation between His human life and the life of the Heavenly Father: He had the life of the Father, true eternal life, in Himself (John 5:26). Therefore, He had such an experienced knowledge of divine life, knowledge of the Heavenly Father, which no one else had or could have: it was not an external “from the outside” or mental perception of divine truth, but His knowledge of God coincided with self-knowledge. “All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and to whom the Son wants to reveal it” (Matthew 11:27). “I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me” (John 7:29). He knew His Father, as everyone knows himself, and even could not help but know Him, just as everyone cannot help but know himself. “If I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you” (John 8:55). He alone of all people could say about Himself: “no one ascended into heaven except the Son of man who came down from heaven and is in heaven” (John 3:13): He carried heaven in Himself. His disciples had a similar knowledge of the Spirit of truth when they received His Spirit into themselves and He abided in them (John 14:17). Therefore, further, His words were not His words, and His works were not His works, but were the words and works of His Father. He did not speak from Himself. “My teaching is not Mine, but of Him who sent Me. Whoever wants to do His will will know about this teaching, whether it is from God, or whether I speak from Myself” (John 7:16–17); “I do nothing of Myself; But as My Father taught Me, so I speak” (Jn. 8:28); “I do not speak from Myself; but the Father who sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what to say and what to say. What I say, I say, as the Father spoke to Me” (John 12:49–50); “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. The words that I speak to you, I do not speak from Myself; The Father abiding in Me, He does the works. The word that you hear is not Mine, but the Father who sent Me” (John 14:10–24). And, in fact, His works were the works of God (τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ - John 9:3), the works of the Heavenly Father (τὰ ἔργα τοῦ πατρός μοῦ - John 10:37), in In His activity He demonstrated the works of His Father (John 10:32). Just as He could not help but know His Father, so He could not help but do the works of His Father; He could not do anything on His own (John 5:30). Not only in the sense of obedience to the will of the Father, but in the proper sense of the unity of His life with the life of the Heavenly Father, He spoke about Himself: “I and the Father are one,” “I am in the Father and the Father in Me” (John 10:30; 14:10, etc.). Since Christ lived a divine life, His life, which people could see, hear and touch, was a revelation of the life of the Heavenly Father. In Him and through Him people could know the Heavenly Father. “He who sees Me sees Him who sent Me. I have come as light into the world, so that whoever believes in Me will not remain in darkness” (John 12:45–46; 9:5; 12:35; cf. John 8:19; 14:7). In Him was life, and this life was the light of men (John 1:4); it was the true light (John 1:9) because it was the light of life (John 8:12). He revealed the name of God to people, He gave them the truth (John 17:6; 8:31, 40 and many others). So, through Him people could become sons of light (υἱοὶ φωτὸς – XII, 36). But people could not only know the truth through Him and accept the light of life, but in Him and through Him the most divine life was given to them, more precisely, the knowledge of the truth revealed by Him could not be abstract, but was given along with the assimilation of His life. In Him and through Him, real divine life was given to the world: each person had only to come to Him and believe in Him to receive eternal life (John 3:14–15, 36 and many others). He was the bread of life for the world, a source of living water flowing into eternal life (John 4:14; 6 and many others). Is it possible to fully imagine the self-consciousness of Christ, Who carried such a great good for the world in Himself and offered to everyone?.. He had in Himself life, without which the whole world is the kingdom of death, in which the only salvation of every person. What a real meaning in His mouth was the word of the good news that He brought to the world!... And we must imagine this as much as possible in order to understand the power of the words of Christ in which He expressed His meaning for the world. He said that it is only through Him that people can come to the Heavenly Father (John 14:6) and that the whole salvation of man, the whole work of God, is to believe in Him, to know Him, and through Him the Father (John 6:29; 17cp. John 8:19; 14:7). He said that relationships with Him are relationships with divine life, with the Heavenly Father: to accept Him, to love Him means to accept and love the Heavenly Father, hatred of Him is hatred of the Heavenly Father (Matthew 10:40; Luke 10:16; John 13:20; 14:21, 23; 15:23). He demanded from people in relation to Himself such self-denial, which can only be demanded in the name of divine life (Matthew 10:37–38; Luke 14:26–27). But, recognizing in Himself the divine life of His Heavenly Father, Christ distinguished Himself from the Heavenly Father to whom He prayed, distinguished Himself from Him, like a face from a face. In what form of consciousness of Jesus Christ was expressed this separation of His face from the face of the Heavenly Father, with the community of His life with the life of the Father? В форме богосыновнего сознания: Он был Сын Божий (Мф. 11и мн. др.). Christ sealed the truth of His God-son self-consciousness with His death (John 19:7), thereby testifying to its significance. This consciousness in Him was not subjective, that is, it did not express only His mood without corresponding reality, but was objective and expressed the mutual relationship of Him to the Father and the Father to Him (Matthew 3 par.; 17 par.). In the light of this consciousness, Christ saw in His work the work of God, in His humiliation the love of the Heavenly Father for man (John 3:16). Then, this very consciousness of Christ expressed His attitude towards the Heavenly Father, which can be acquired by people through faith in Him and can make them sons of God. A person’s saving faith in Christ is precisely faith in Him as the Son of God: it is the Son of God who is the Savior of the world (John 3:17–18, 36 and many others). Finally, in the form of this consciousness, the will of God determined the own free life of Jesus Christ: He fulfilled it as the Son of God, and therefore fulfilled it in accordance with the purposes for which man was created by God, and savingly for people. The Father was glorified in the Son. Therefore Christ is beloved to the Heavenly Father as the Son (Matthew 3:17; John 5:22–23; 8:35–36; 14:13; 17:1). In connection with the latter meaning of Christ’s God-son self-consciousness, the question of His sinlessness arises, that is, the question of how He fulfilled the will of the Heavenly Father. Although He had the Divine life in Himself, yet, being personally separate from the Father, He, as a man, had a natural human will, which He had to subordinate to the will of the Father. And He fulfilled the will of the Father in the way that is only possible for the Son of God - without sin. The question of the sinlessness of Christ is raised scholastically and on a controversial basis if a certain moral assessment is applied to Him. There is no unconditionally generally accepted and undoubted moral code, and each individual human act can be assessed differently from different ethical points of view. Немало таких спорных поступков и в жизни Христа. Testimony of the sinlessness of Christ from His friends-disciples (1 Pet. 1:19; 2:22; and John 3:5) and His enemies (John 8:46; Matt. 22:16; 26:59–60; 27:4) is important; however, on both sides, it is limited to the legalistic, religious-legal surface and does not exhaust the moral depth that is represented by the very historical image of Christ depicted in the Gospels. It is necessary to take into account that the most perfect moral teaching is the teaching of Christ Himself, and that He, having given the world the most perfect teaching about love, meekness, and compassion, Himself was the first and to fully fulfill His requirements (John 13:34; 15:12). But if we see in the Evangelical moral law only an external standard for assessing the moral activity of the legislator, then we will still not reach the final depth of the question, since the Evangelical moral teaching is entirely based on the own religious experience of the New Testament Teacher and therefore rather reveals His moral energy in a subjective sense, as an expression of His religious self-consciousness, than in the sense of an objective criterion for assessing His actions. The fact that He gave a sublime moral law in “His own image” is incomparably more important than the fact that He fulfilled His teaching. One could say that Christ was sinless because he recognized himself as sinless, if the consciousness of sinlessness did not speak in one case about actual sinlessness, just as in other cases it speaks about moral dullness. Therefore, we must say that the life of Christ, withstanding every objective moral test, is mainly remarkable, firstly, for the continuous and unrelenting energy of the consciousness of the will of God and, secondly, for the consciousness of the complete fulfillment of the will of God. In relation to Christ’s conscience towards the will of God, the first thing that is noteworthy is that He continually and unremittingly wanted to do the will of God. “I must be in the things that belong to My Father” (Luke 2:49), He said to His parents at the age of twelve. “We must fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15), He answered John the Baptist. “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work” (John 4:34), He told His disciples. “I came down from heaven not to do My will, but the will of the Father who sent Me” (John 6:38), He taught the Jews. His entire life was determined by the consciousness of what was due: “I owe,” “owe to the Son of man” (Luke 4:43; John 3:14, etc.). Even during the Gethsemane struggle, when the weakness of His human nature was most revealed, His desire to do not His will, but the will of the Father (Matthew 26:39, 42 par.) was not interrupted or weakened. And He truly fulfilled all the will of God for Himself. “I always do that which pleases the Father” (John 8:29): such was His continuous and unconditional consciousness. Teaching His disciples to always pray to God for the forgiveness of sins, He Himself, praying often, never turned to the Father with a prayer for the forgiveness of sins: the prince of this world had nothing in Him (John 14:30). In the final analysis, the question of the sinlessness of Christ from a religious-historical point of view is a question of the energy and immediacy of His God-son self-consciousness. In Christ, this self-consciousness was a natural and completely determining principle, and not a logical conclusion, not an abstract thought, not an external calling. In the degree of clarity and content it intensified in Him as His spiritual growth progressed, but in Him it was always the immediate and complete basis of conscious activity 387 . What was God's will for Christ? What was His Father’s “must”? The general content of the Father's will for the Son was that He would give the world eternal life, which He had in Himself (John 3:16–17 and many others). In this content, the will of the Father completely coincided with the self-awareness of Christ and even with His well-being. Just as it is natural for a person’s physical life to desire nutrition and procreation, just as it is natural for a person’s freely rational spiritual life to desire development and communication with others like themselves, so for the divine-spiritual life of Christ it was natural to desire the spiritual birth of the children of God, the gift of communication with her to people (cf. Matt. 23 par.). For Him it was essentially a desire for his own good, for the law of spiritual life is that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). In particular, the will of the Father, which determined the life of Christ, was expressed for Him in the law and prophets of the Old Testament. Having come to fulfill the will of the Father, Christ had to fulfill the law and the prophets. “Do not think,” He says, “that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). Christ's attitude towards the Old Testament law and the prophets was such as it could only be: in the law and prophecies He saw the will of His Father and therefore attached immutable significance to them. Knowing how to distinguish in the law what Moses decreed due to the hardness of the Jews, from what expressed the true will of God, He spoke about the latter like this: “Truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass, not one jot or one tittle will pass from the law until everything is fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18). But at the same time, we should pay primary attention to the fact that Christ considered it His duty not only to fulfill, or even not to fulfill the law, its instructions, but to fulfill the law and the prophets. Therefore, the immutable meaning of the law is limited by the limit: “until everything is fulfilled.” In other words, in His relation to the law and the prophets, Christ considered it important not only the subjective-moral side of the matter, but also the objective-religious one, not only that He fulfill the law, but also that “all that was written about Him in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms” (Luke 24:44). In this sense, “everything written” in the law and the prophets received complete certainty, constituted a specific task, and it was “due” not for anyone else, but precisely for Christ. The whole essence of “what was spoken in all Scripture” (Luke 24:27) boiled down to the fact that % had to be fulfilled and precisely had to be fulfilled by Christ: all Scripture turns out to testify about Him (John 5:39). To understand this meaning of the law for Christ, one must keep in mind that, according to Christ’s explanation, not only the prophets prophesied, but the law also prophesied (οἱ προφῆταί καὶ ὁ νόμος προεφήτευσαν – Μ f. 11:13): the law symbolized and symbolically prepared the same thing that the prophets clearly predicted. Christ came to fulfill what was predicted by the law and the prophets, and actually fulfilled it. In His life the world was given that highest good, that is, eternal life, which was promised to people by God and predicted by the law and the prophets 388. In the divine dignity of Christ, the basis was given both for the fact that He alone could and really was able to fulfill the promises of His Father, and for the way in which He fulfilled the law and the prophets. He fulfilled them not as a slave, but as a son, heir, master. What is most remarkable is that He did not need to study the law and the prophets in order to know them (John 7:15): He carried within Himself the fulfillment of them. And this must be accepted not only in a dogmatic sense, but also in a psychological one. For Him, fulfillment was given directly in His own life, and through this subjective illumination the law and the prophets appeared before Him. Therefore, the meaning of Scripture was given to Him in a simultaneous comprehensive illumination, and not in a gradual study; He could directly determine the most important thing in the law, feel that it weighs heavier (τὰ βαρύτερα τοῦ νόμου - Matt. 23:23), He knew not only the letter of Scripture, but also the power of God (Matthew 22:29; Mark. 12:24), He alone, not only in contrast to the scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites (Matthew 5:20), but even in contrast to those best of the Jews whom He chose as His disciples, He alone knew the true meaning of the prophecies and could open the minds of people to the understanding of Scripture (Luke 24:45). Therefore, true prophecy is only that which was fulfilled in Christ, and this is not only in the factual sense, but also in the epistemological sense. Jesus Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets with perfect freedom, like the Son of God. To explain this freedom of Christ, let us take as an example a private prophecy about the forerunner of Christ, Elijah. “His disciples asked Him: Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first? Jesus answered and said to them, “It is true that Elijah must come first and arrange everything.” But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him as they wanted; so the Son of man will suffer from them. Then the disciples understood that He was speaking to them about John the Baptist” (Matthew 17:10–13). In the immediate application of the prophecies to Himself, Christ usually had in mind the meaning and power of the whole Scripture, and not its individual texts, and some of His quotations from the Old Testament cannot literally be found in Scripture 389. In particular, the name Son of Man, by which He usually called Himself and to which He mainly referred the prophecies about Him, is not associated with any specific place of sacred Scripture, but expresses, hidden throughout Scripture, the general law of the revelation of divine glory in human humiliation - a law that He alone expressed in all clarity and complete freedom from ideas about the external glory of the revelation of divine life. If we wish to properly understand this divinely filial dignity of Christ in His relation to the Old Testament prophecies, we must not stop at what has been said. Being the fulfillment of the promises of His Father, Christ recognized Himself as His Son and heir not only of His word, but also of His relationship to man. The Old Testament of Jehovah with the Jewish people was not just a verbal agreement, but it was a system of living relations between Jehovah and His people, chosen by Him from all nations in order to demonstrate His glory through them. By this election, the work of revealing the glory of God in the world was connected with the fate of the Jewish people. This living and active union of Jehovah with the Jewish people was expressed in the system of His living relations with the Jewish people: He was for the Jewish people a father 390, king 391, legislator and judge 392, husband 393, doctor 394, shepherd 395, owner of the vineyard 396 and savior 397. However, in the historical reality of Old Testament times, this care of Jehovah for His people did not provide him with the fullness of those benefits that were promised by God to man; These relations of God to the Jews, expressed under the image of a king, a husband, a shepherd, were not the full reality. If true good consists in “drawing closer to God” (Ps. 73:28), then complete good is possible with a change of heart in a person, with the instillation of a new spirit in him - the spirit of God (Ezek. 36:26-27). Until this happened, the Jews did not have the fullness of good and even suffered under the rule of pagan peoples, they were scattered, filled with ulcers and iniquities, like sheep without a shepherd, like a wife abandoned by her husband, like a sick person who does not know healing. Complete goodness, the true kingdom of God, perfect salvation was the subject of the promise. These promises were fulfilled in Christ Jesus, 398 who, as the Son of God, was the heir of God's relationship to the Jewish people, making this relationship a complete reality. Without appropriating the name of the Father, Christ, as the Son of God, was a king (Matthew 27:11; Mark 15:2; Luke 23:3; John. 18:37), and with His first appearance, with the first word of His preaching, the kingdom of God truly approached man, and His very preaching was the gospel of the kingdom of God (Mark 1:14–15 par., etc.). He was a legislator with divine authority and with divine freedom in relation to the Old Testament law, to which He gave perfect expression, making it a perfect spiritual law: “You have heard what was said to the ancients, but I speak to you” (Matthew 5:21, etc.). He was a judge. “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son; that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him” (John 5:22–23 and many others). Therefore His time was a time of judgment. He had the power to forgive sins (Matthew 9:1). As lawgiver and judge, He was the only teacher, just as there is one Father who is in heaven (Matt. 23:9–10; John 13:13); He taught as one who had authority, and not like the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 7:29; Mark 1:22; Luke 4:32); He was Lord and Teacher (John 13:14). He was the bridegroom, and His time, being for some a time of terrible judgment, for others, especially for the wedding guests, was a joyful time in which they could not fast (Matt. 9:15; Mk. 2:19; OK. 5:34); He was the son of the owner of the vineyard (Matthew 21:33–41; Mark 12:1–9; Luke 20:9–16) and the king’s son, for whom the king held a wedding feast (Matthew 22, cp. 25; Luke 14), and His disciples were the sons of the bridal chamber, and John the Baptist was the friend of the groom (Jn. 3:28–29). He appeared as a true physician of souls and bodies, a healer of all diseases (Luke 13 and many others, cf. Luke 4:23), a good shepherd (John 10, cf. Matthew 26 par.), a savior (John 3 and many others). What was the significance for the self-awareness of Jesus Christ of His inheritance of the Old Testament relationship of His Father to the Jewish people, His calling to establish a new covenant of God with people? Let us delve into the meaning of the Old Testament relations of Jehovah to the Jewish people. This relationship was a matter of His condescension towards people. The relationship of the father, the king, the shepherd of the Jews did not bring external glory to the name of Jehovah, but outwardly humiliated it. The very election of the Jewish people presupposes the condescension of God: a small people was chosen as the bearer of the glory of God (Deut. 7:6–8). But not only were they a small people; the Jews were stiff-necked, they betrayed their God and for this they gave themselves over to the pagans, so that the name of their God was dishonored among the pagans (Isa. 52:5). This condescension of God towards Israel was especially clearly expressed in the image of the relationship of a husband to his wife. In Chapter 16 The book of St. Ezekiel depicts in bright colors the desolation and unattractiveness of the “daughter of Jerusalem” with whom the Lord “entered into an alliance”: she was thrown into the field and was despised. The Lord raised and adorned her, and she achieved royal grandeur and perfect beauty. But then she “began to commit fornication, and squandered her fornication on everyone who passed by, giving herself to him” and dishonored the name of “her husband.” So the Lord, as a husband, took upon Himself the shame of Israel. Even more, He took upon Himself the burden of his sins, as his physician and savior; He said to Israel: “You have troubled Me with your sins, you have burdened Me with your iniquities” (Is. 43:24)... But this dishonor and difficulty for Jehovah was only an external dishonor to His name; dishonor did not extend to God’s own being and did not cause Him real suffering; it was a symbol of the future suffering of the Son of God. Jesus Christ, having inherited, as the Son of God, the Old Testament relationship of His Father to Israel, bore upon Himself, and, moreover, in the full reality of suffering, the condescension and humiliation that were contained in the images of the king, judge, husband, doctor, shepherd, savior. Thus, He was the “servant of God” about whom Isaiah prophesied (52, 53). Вот какое значение для Его самосознания и для Его дела имело наследство Ветхого Завета. The necessity of suffering and humiliation was given to Him along with His self-consciousness. The researcher of gospel history should pay special attention to this. In Christ, the Son of God, God's love for man became a full reality - meek, humble, suffering love: “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Christ was the bearer of this divine love: He abided in the love of the Father (John 15:10). Therefore, His love, in the name of which He laid down His life for his friends (John 15:13), was not only a moral force, but it had a religious objective meaning, it was a revelation of the Father’s love, a revelation of His being (1 John 4). To manifest the divine life, to open the being of God to Christ meant to manifest that love, which no one has more, to manifest it in humiliation, suffering, and complete self-denial. The inheritance of the Father's relationship with Israel, the relationship of king, judge, and physician, spoke to Christ with complete certainty about His suffering and humiliation. Saving, He gives His soul (Matthew 20 par.); healing, He takes upon Himself our weaknesses and illnesses (Matthew 8:17); as a shepherd, He lays down His life for the sheep (John 10:11). That is why He is the heir of the Old Testament relationship of the Father as the Son of man, humiliated and suffering, all divine powers were granted to Him, the Son of God, precisely as the Son of man: the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins (Matthew 9 par.), the Son of man is the lord of the Sabbath (Matthew 12 par.), the Son of man is the sower of the good seed (Matthew 13:37), the Son of man is coming in kingdom (Matthew 16:28), the Son of man came to save the lost (Matthew 18 par.; 20 par.)... The name Son of man Christ most often applied to Himself, with it He connected all His sufferings, with it He connected the revelation of divine glory in His humiliation. The meaning of this name introduces us to the depth of Christ's self-awareness. To summarize everything that has been said about the self-awareness of Jesus Christ, we answer the question: “What do you think about Christ?” We can briefly answer this: He is the Son of man – the Son of God (Matthew 16:13–16). In the name of the Son of Man the most hidden matter of His personal humiliation is revealed. That is why only He called Himself by the name Son of Man (with the only apparent exception of Acts 7:56); The disciples glorified Him as Christ, the Son of the living God. To believe in Christ means to see in the Son of man the Son of God (Matthew 16:13–16), as the centurion believed who stood at the cross of Jesus and exclaimed after His death: “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39; cf. Acts 8:37). I must be baptized with baptism; and how I languish until this is accomplished. (Luke 12:50). The public ministry of Christ was preceded by the preaching of John the Baptist. He preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He said: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He acted as the forerunner of the Messiah, and called Him his πρώτοσ 'om (John 1:30). His task was to prepare the people to receive the Messiah and His kingdom. He preached a baptism of repentance precisely because “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The advent of the kingdom of heaven and the activity of the Messiah seemed to John the Baptist together with the time of imparting the highest spiritual gifts to the people, and the time of a terrible judgment. “I baptize you with water for repentance,” he told the people, “but he who comes after me is stronger than I; I am not worthy to carry His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16), i.e. His gift will be a life-giving spirit for some and a consuming fire for others. John foresaw the Messiah with a shovel in his hands, with which they winnow bread: “His shovel is in His hand, and He will cleanse His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn, and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12; Luke 3:17). This awareness of the proximity of the approaching wrath of God and the people's blindness, which obscures the meaning of time, gave John extraordinary severity. “His whole speech inspires horror.” He already saw an ax at the root of a tree that did not bear fruit; he already felt the breath of an unquenchable flame in which the straw was burning. He believed the significance of his activity was to save from this flame that which was still capable of life. He indicated the only means of salvation from the coming judgment in repentance, in the humble consciousness of human unworthiness; he mainly armed himself against the complacency, self-righteousness and national pride of the Jews; he called those brood of vipers who thought to avoid future wrath in the hope of their descent from Abraham. John's prophetic ideas about the kingdom of the Messiah were fully consistent with the actual activity of Jesus Christ and His self-awareness. Jesus Christ began His sermon, like John, with a call to repentance: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17; Mark 1:15). According to His consciousness, His time, being for some a time of participation in the wedding celebration, was for others a time of judgment; He said: “I came into this world for judgment” (John 9:39); “Now is the judgment of this world” (John 12:31). Why was the advent of the kingdom of heaven also a time of judgment? What basis did the inevitability of judgment of the world have in the self-consciousness of Christ? The basis for the inextricable connection between the advent of the kingdom of God and the reality of judgment of the world is given in the holiness of God. “God is holy” is a thought that permeates the entire Old Testament. The holiness of God first of all expresses that property of His being, according to which it is separate from the world, before the world, above the world and opposite to worldly limitation and insignificance; it expresses the glory of God, His greatness. Only God is holy and that which belongs to Him, that which is dedicated to Him, that which is set apart from a number of ordinary objects for His service 399 . Only that which is isolated from everyday life can belong to God; God does not fit in it. Therefore, the appearance of God to man threatens him with death (for example, Judges 6:22, etc.). At the same time, the glory of God is so great that even the angels appear before Him with shortcomings, especially those who “dwell in churches of clay, the foundation of which is dust, which are destroyed as quickly as moths” (Job 4:19). But God freely possesses His nature; in Him, condescension towards creatures prevails over His formidable greatness: He is holy, but He, the saint, condescends to man. “For thus says the High and Exalted One, who lives forever, Holy is His name: I dwell on high (of heaven) and in the sanctuary, and also with those who are contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to quicken the hearts of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15). This combination in God of His formidable nature with free condescension constitutes a mystery revealed in the Old Testament relations of God to man. However, God’s condescension can only cover a person’s natural weakness, but does not cover his sin. To the same degree to which the truth of the predominance in God of His condescension over His formidable nature is revealed to man, to which man is freed from fear of the natural greatness of God, to the same degree the incompatibility of his sin with the presence of God becomes clear to him. Therefore, God’s approach to man, by natural condescension, brings judgment to his sins. Therefore the Lord said to the children of Israel: “You alone have I recognized among all the tribes of the earth; therefore I will exact from you all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). However, it cannot be said that no sin is covered by God’s condescension: moral impurity, sins against the law do not constitute an insurmountable obstacle to a person’s union with God if they lead him to the consciousness of his moral impotence. But sin in its proper sense, man’s desire to find self-satisfaction in himself (Gen. 3:5), the sin of self-satisfaction, self-righteousness certainly excludes the possibility of man’s communication with God. Therefore, God’s concern for the humble and contrite in spirit and His opposition to the proud constitute an essential feature in the Old Testament revelation. This is entirely consistent with John the Baptist's denunciation of Jewish national pride and self-righteousness. Be that as it may, in the concept of divine holiness the basis is given that the approach of God to man necessarily brings judgment to him. The approach of the kingdom of God was inevitably a time of judgment for those to whom it approached; The giving of the Holy Spirit was a baptism of fire. Since Christ was aware of the true divine life in Himself, and saw in His life the revelation of God to people, He was immediately aware of the onset of judgment on the world simultaneously with His appearance in public service. At the preaching of John the Baptist, Jerusalem, and all of Judea, and the entire Jordanian region came out to him, and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. When all the people were baptized (Luke 3:21), then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. John restrained Him and said: I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me? But Jesus said to him: Leave it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Then John admits Him (Matthew 3:13–15). Having been baptized, Jesus immediately came out of the water and prayed; At that time the heavens were opened to Him, and the Holy Spirit descended on Him, and a voice came to Him from heaven, saying: You are My beloved Son, in You I am well pleased. For what reasons did Christ come to be baptized by John? The difficulty of the question is created by the fact that John's baptism was a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, and Christ was sinless. John, through baptism, prepared the people to accept the kingdom of the Messiah, and Jesus was and recognized Himself as the Messiah. It is easy to see that the known explanations of the baptism of Christ do not answer the question posed. It is usually said that Christ wanted to sanctify the baptism of John by His example. But this should have been expected before “all the people were baptized.” They also seek clarification of the word “truth” in Christ’s answer: He was baptized to fulfill righteousness. But truth in a general sense means what should be according to the will of God; in this case, truth is too broad a concept for a definite answer to our question to be seen in the words of Christ. In a narrower and more specific sense, truth (δικαιοσύνη) means the Old Testament law, and in this case the meaning of Christ’s baptism is indicated in the fact that He “submitted to the law.” But, as you know, John’s baptism was not the establishment of the Old Testament law. It was used by John as a symbol of repentance by special direction from above (John 1:33), although in accordance with ancient prophecies (eg Ezek. 36:25) and with the customs of the time. The answer to the question posed must be sought in connection with the event in question. John preached a baptism of repentance. “And they were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.” Symbolically, since John's baptism was a symbol of repentance, the washing away of sins, the water of the Jordan was contaminated by the sins washed in it. “Then Jesus comes to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him,” being sinless. If sinful people washed their sins in the river, then the sinless one after them was baptized in the same river, obviously in order, also symbolically, to be defiled by this water, that is, to take upon himself the sins washed away in it 400. This is how John understood the baptism of Jesus Christ. Seeing Jesus coming to him after baptism, John said: behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). The work of Jesus Christ was, according to the prophecy of Isaiah (Isaiah 53:4), that “He took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” These words of the prophet ev. Matthew recalls following the message that one day they “brought many demoniacs to Christ, and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all the sick” (Matthew 8:16–17). The prophet and evangelist say that Jesus Christ removed sinful infirmities and illnesses from people, and that He took the burden of these infirmities upon Himself. Christ actually accomplished both. But before embarking on such activities, Christ symbolically took upon Himself in the waters of the Jordan the burden of human sins, expressing before the Father His desire to engage in such service. This was thus the beginning of His public ministry, as He notes. Luke (Luke 3:23). And in the answer of Jesus Christ to John the Baptist, the emphasis is not on the word “truth”, but on the word “so.” That Jesus Christ, like John, had to do the truth in the broad sense of the word, this hardly needed to be explained to John. The meaning of Christ’s words is that He could, that it was especially convenient for Him, to fulfill all truth, all divine will, only by being baptized by John, that is, by expressing readiness to take upon Himself the sin of the world, just like that. And John himself could fulfill his calling to reveal Jesus to Israel only by baptizing Him, that’s the only way. Thus it was fitting for Christ to fulfill all righteousness. He carried within Himself judgment to the world, a terrible judgment that no one could avoid on their own. But He also knew that the will of the Father was not that He should judge the world and destroy it, but that the world would be saved through Him, that He would not destroy anything of what the Father had given Him, but would give eternal life to everything (John 3:17; 6:39–40). The apparent contradiction could be reconciled only in one way: it was necessary for Christ not to condemn the world, but the prince of this world; so that He would overcome the world - defeat its prince in His own life; that He would give eternal life to everyone who believes in Him; чтобы был осуждён только неверующий в Него. The method was for Christ to take upon Himself the sin of the world. But every sin of one person affects another, who is not involved in this sin, through evil - suffering and death. To accept the sin of people in order to condemn it and save people means to accept suffering and death from sinful people; in order to make people partakers of that divine life that Christ bore in Himself, in order to give them this life, He had to “lay down His soul”; in order to glorify human life with divine glory, He had to take upon Himself its humiliation, its evil. This is the law of spiritual birth; such is the mystery of the “glorification of the Son of man.” “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; and if he dies, he will bear much fruit” (John 12:24). Immediately after Christ, by baptism in water, expressed before the Heavenly Father His desire to accept the baptism of death 401, He was named by the Father the beloved Son (cf. John 10:17), and the Holy Spirit descended on Him. What is the significance of this descent of the Spirit upon one born of the Spirit? If the internally divine, spiritually eternal life of Jesus Christ was in Him from birth, then, of course, the descent of the Spirit on Him in baptism was not the beginning of His internally divine dignity, as some of the ancient heretics thought, and did not actually relate to His spiritually eternal life, but was the beginning of His visible temporal glory, its externally bodily manifestation, was the beginning of His inspiration, bodily glorification and, above all, чудотворной силы. At baptism, according to the apostle, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit, and He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; because God was with Him” (Acts 10:37–38). In particular, the strength of the spirit received by Christ in baptism (Luke 4:1, 14) was revealed in His inspiration: He loudly shouts to the people and the Jews (John 7:28, 37; 12:44; Luke. 8:8, 15), to the dead - the young woman (Luke 8:54), Lazarus (John 11:43); He rejoices with inspiration (Luke 10:21) or is indignant (Mark 10:14), looks with anger (Mark 3 cf. Mark 3:34; 10:23, 27; Matt. 19:26; Luke 20:17); He teaches with power and authority (Matthew 7:29; Mark 1:22; Luke 4:32), with power and strength he commands unclean spirits (Mark 1:27; Luke 4:36); consumed by zeal for the house of God, he cleanses the Jerusalem temple; They think of Him that He loses His temper (Mark 3:21) and goes wild (John 10:20). Then the power of the spirit is revealed in His bodily glory, which tangibly fills His body: power proceeded from Him, healing everyone, so that the people sought to touch Him (Luke 6:19; Matt. 14:36), He Himself felt the power emanating from Him (Mark 5:30; Luke 8:46); He possessed extraordinary strength of spirit over the body, as His forty-day fast showed; the strength of the spirit gave His body special properties, as can be seen from the events of walking on water (Matthew 14 chapters), on the mount of transfiguration (Matthew 17 chapters), the events in Nazareth and those described in Ev. John (John 7–10) 402. The power of Christ was especially revealed in Christ’s healings, which were numerous (cf. Luke 5:17). What significance did the power of the Spirit, given to Christ in baptism and revealed in His bodily glory and especially in His miracles, have in the work of Christ and what connection did it have with the event of Christ’s baptism? The general answer to this question is given by the Apostle Peter, who presents the entire life of Jesus Christ in the following sequence: baptism, anointing with the power of the Spirit, the blessing of healings and death (Acts 10:37–39). When Christ, by baptism in water, expressed his readiness to accept the baptism of death, He was given the power of the Spirit to lead Him to death through miracles. Delving into the matter more closely, we see that the external glory of Christ was, first of all, the victory of the kingdom of God over the world, its incarnation in the world. If the kingdom of God has truly come into the world, then it must manifest itself in the actual power of the spirit over nature, in the transformation of the body, in the liberation of the soul from all spirits of evil, in the destruction of disease, in victory over death. Иначе царство Божие было бы пустым призраком. This is how Christ looked at the power of the Spirit. “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then, of course, the kingdom of God has come to you. Или как может кто войти в дом сильного и расхитить вещи его, если прежде не свяжет сильного и тогда расхитит дом его» ( Мф. 12:28–29 пар.)? But at the same time, the kingdom of God in its essence is a kingdom not of this world (John 18:36), it does not come in a noticeable way, it is inside a person (Luke 17:20–21). But in this case, the real victory of the kingdom of God over the world does not actually consist in external glory. Of course, the kingdom of God, becoming valid on earth, must give the spirit power over nature, destroy suffering and defeat death; but victory over death is given not in man’s immortality, but in his resurrection after death; Freedom of the spirit from the shackles of the flesh and suffering is given inalienably to the sons of the resurrection. “Those who are deemed worthy to reach that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, and can no longer die; for they are equal to the angels, and are the sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (Luke 10:35–36 par.). Therefore, Christ saw the will of the Father in not to destroy anything of everything given to Him by the Father, but to resurrect everything on the last day (John 6:39), and it is assumed that only those who, seeing the Son and believing in Him, have eternal life (John 6:40) are capable of resurrection on the last day. Therefore, the immediate work of Christ was to give people who believe in Him eternal life, which a person can really have in this temporary life, despite the presence of its suffering, and which, constituting the internal property of the believer in Christ, invisibly prepares his body and soul for a completely spiritual life after the resurrection. Therefore, further, the evidence of the actual advent of the kingdom of Christ was not His spiritual power itself, but man’s faith in Him, the recognition on the part of people of His power of the Spirit of God. He did not say: “If I cast out demons,” but: “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then, of course, the kingdom of God has come to you,” while the Jews saw in His spiritual power, in His miracles, the power of the evil spirit. And if so, then the external glory of Christ was temporary. His spiritual power and His miracles had the meaning of a symbol of spiritual blessings, they were nothing more than signs (John 2:11; 4 and many others). He said with sorrow: “You are looking for Me, not because you saw miracles (signs), but because you ate bread and were filled” (John 6:26) and further. This is how St. look at the miracles of Jesus Christ. fathers. “Christ, according to Ephraim the Syrian, fed the Jews with the pleasure of passing bread and wine, in order to lead them to the delight of His life-giving body and blood.” And it is in this meaning of the signs that the miracles of Christ prepared for Him death on the part of those who saw in them a self-sufficient reality, who wanted to “rejoice for a little time in the light” of John and Christ, who tried for food that perishes, and not for food that endures to eternal life... I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (Matthew 15:24). Immediately after baptism, Jesus Christ was led by spirit 403 into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He spent forty days in the desert in complete solitude and fasting. When he was finally hungry, the tempter approached him. The temptations of Jesus Christ related to the miraculous power that He received at baptism, and were a question about the way to use it. In the first temptation, He, as the Son of God, was asked to turn stones into bread to satisfy His hunger. Во втором, по ев. Matthew, when tempted, He was offered to throw himself from the wing (roof) of the church in the hope that He, as the Son of God, would be preserved by the command of God by angels and would carry Him in their hands, so that He would not hit his foot on a stone. Finally, in the third temptation, the glory of the worldly kingdoms was shown to Jesus Christ from the heights of the mountain, and He was asked to worship the devil in order to receive from him power over these kingdoms, their glory. To understand the meaning of Christ’s temptations, one must keep in mind the national characteristics of the Jewish people. From their very cradle, the Jews were the chosen people of God in order to proclaim the glory of the name of the Lord to other nations. They were the custodians of divine revelation, a covenant was made with them by God, and the promises of the Messiah were given to them. In accordance with this calling, the Jews were a highly religious people. Their religiosity was especially expressed in messianic expectations. For the Jewish people in all periods of their historical life, hope in the coming Savior constituted the basis of their spiritual existence: they, in fact, lived by it, turned to it in grief, in it they placed their joy. The prophets raised the expectation of the Messiah in Israel and did not allow it to rest on external blessings alone; the great disasters of first the Babylonian captivity, then the enslavement of the Persian, Macedonian, Egyptian, especially Syrian, accompanied by severe persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, and, finally, the hated Roman - continuously turned the eyes of the Jews to the coming Savior, “that prophet who should come into the world.” The time of Roman rule was accompanied by frequent disturbances, which were especially remarkable in that the instigators were usually impostors, posing as messengers of God and always finding confidence in themselves from the people. This shows how intense the messianic expectations of the Jews were at the time of Jesus Christ. Of course, they followed the impostors not in the hope of their own strength, but in the hope of help from above. Every extraordinary figure aroused in them the question whether he was the Messiah. This question was raised among the Jews by John the Baptist (Luke 3:15; John 1:19–20). A Samaritan woman in a conversation with Jesus Christ expresses hope for the imminent coming of the Messiah (Jn. 4:25) and suggests to the residents of the city whether He is Christ (John 4:29). He raises the same question among all the people, surprised by His works (Matt. 12:23). At that time, the entire atmosphere of Palestine and the countries of the dispersion of the Jewish people was permeated with a premonition of the imminent fulfillment of messianic expectations. But with such tension in religious expectations, the Jews were distinguished by certain national traits that deeply influenced their religious feeling. And above all, they were, as they remain to this day, too attached to external, material benefits. They understood the covenant with God in the sense of a legal contract, a mutual obligation, by virtue of which the Jews had to fulfill the law given by God and had the right to receive external, temporary benefits from God for this. The very fulfillment of the law had the character of external legality, or righteousness. Заботою иудея было соблюдение внешней чистоты, соблюдение таких законнических дел, которые можно было подсчитывать, внешне оценивать. Messianic expectations had the same sensual character. From the kingdom of the Messiah, the Jews expected rich evenings, wonderful nutrition, and extraordinary fertility of the land. “Blessed,” exclaimed one of those who reclined with Christ in the Pharisee’s house, having heard His sermon about the reward in the resurrection of the righteous, “blessed is he who tastes bread in the kingdom of God” (Luke 14:15)! The Jews of Christ’s time remembered that their fathers under Moses ate manna, heavenly bread, and they said to Jesus Christ: “What sign will You give, so that we will see and believe You? What are you doing?" When He answered them that the bread of God is the one that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world, they exclaimed: “Lord! always give us such bread” (John 6:30–34). The well-being of the Jewish people in Messianic times is a favorite theme of Jewish apocryphal literature, especially focusing on pictures of the extraordinary fertility of the earth. In the Apocalypse of Baruch and in the Book of Enoch, the fertility of the earth in the kingdom of the Messiah is depicted as extraordinary: each fruit will bear ten thousand fruits, each vine will bear a thousand branches, each branch will bear a thousand clusters, and one cluster will bear a thousand berries, and from each berry the bark of wine will be obtained. Then the Jews were distinguished by their extreme attachment to the external, symbolic forms of the Old Testament theocracy. Their special calling was connected with these forms; they made the achievement of temporary well-being dependent on the fulfillment of the Old Testament law on external purity and rituals, and therefore they valued these forms and rituals as dearly as they were tied to external well-being. Since the time of the Babylonian captivity, they were zealous implementers of the ritual law and not only observed all its instructions to the smallest detail, but also invented a whole series of additional external rules, which were known to them under the name of the traditions of the elders. Thus, adhering to the tradition of the elders, the Pharisees and all the Jews did not eat without thoroughly washing their hands; Having come from the market, they did not eat without washing. There were many other things that they decided to keep: to observe the washing of cups, tankards, cauldrons and benches (Mark 7:3–4). The exact observance of the law and tradition of the elders served as the basis for the Pharisaic self-righteousness and disdain for those whom they considered sinners. It is easy to understand that with such ritual pettiness, the Jews remained indifferent to the most important things in the law - justice, mercy and faith, and neglected the truth and love of God (Matthew 9:13; 12:7; 23:23; Luke 11:42). To maintain their tradition, they even violated the commandments of God (Matthew 15:3–6; Mark 7:9–13). So they honored the Lord with their lips, but in their hearts they were far from Him (Matthew 15:7–9; Mark 7:6–7). In this regard, they expected from the Messiah that He would give theocratic symbolism a universal and enduring meaning, imposing the yoke of the law on all nations and for eternal times, and make it a mystical instrument for sending down from heaven to the Jewish people all earthly blessings, the visible and continuous protection of God. Finally, the Jews suffered from national pride itself. The Old Testament law was given not to individuals, but to an entire people; the Old Testament promises were given to him. The salvation of every Jew lay in belonging to his people, which was secured by descent from Abraham and the fulfillment of the ritual law. Therefore, the Jew, to the same extent that he was attached to theocratic symbolism as a means of achieving material well-being, was interested in the existence and well-being of his people. Just as for the tradition of the elders, the Jews violated the commandments of God, so for the political well-being of their people they were ready to sacrifice human life, violating the commandment to which the whole law and the prophets boiled down: “It is better for us,” said the high priest Caiaphas, the religious representative of the Jewish people, “it is better for us that one man should die for the people, than that the whole people should perish” (John 11:50). The Jews were proud of their descent from Abraham, proud of the knowledge and fulfillment of the law of Moses (Matt. 3:8–9; Luke 3:8; John 8:33; 9:28; Rom. 2:17–23). The extreme conceit of the Jewish people is clearly expressed in the following words of the author of the 3rd book of Ezra: “Oh, Sovereign Lord! Out of all the forests on earth and out of all the trees on it you chose only one vine, out of all the built cities you sanctified one Zion for yourself, out of all the many nations you acquired for yourself one people, and you loved them and gave them a perfect law. You created this age for us. You said about the other nations descended from Adam that they were nothing, but like spittle, and You likened all their multitude to drops dripping from a vessel” (3 Ezra 5:23, 25, 27; 6:55-56). The Jews tended to limit the coming salvation to their own people alone: ​​they expected the God of Israel to visit His people and deliver them only (cf. Luke 1:68–69). The Jews were the heirs of the kingdom of the Messiah by virtue of their descent from Abraham, therefore the benefits of this kingdom awaited all Jews without exception: to participate in the kingdom of the Messiah, the Jews would be gathered from all the countries of their dispersion, and even, perhaps, the dead would be resurrected (the book of Enoch, the psalms of Solomon, the Sibylline books). In the kingdom of the Messiah, the Jews hoped to take first place and gain dominion over all pagan nations. And since by the time of Jesus Christ the Jews were politically dependent on the Romans, the closest way of freedom from this dependence was what they expected from the Messiah: they hoped to see in Him their national king (John 6:15). With the coming of the Messiah, they connected a terrible judgment against all their enemies, over all those peoples who, over the course of time, enslaved the Jewish people and caused them suffering (cf. Luke 1:71). It is significant that the pagans knew about the messianic aspirations of the Jews, first of all, as their hope to take possession of the world (Suet. Vespas. IV; Tac. Hist. V, 13). The Jews excitedly and stubbornly awaited the kingdom of the Messiah, but they made faith in Him dependent on certain conditions in accordance with the peculiarities of their national life. In the Messiah they were waiting for a man under the special protection of heaven, separated from God by extraordinary powers, which would be sufficient to fulfill the hopes of Israel, an almighty miracle worker (Matthew 12:38; 16:1; John 6:14; 7:31). Most alien to the Jewish ideas about the Messiah was the idea of ​​His suffering (John 12:34; Matt. 16:21–22; Luke 24:19–21, 45–46). Without denying themselves, the Jews could not accept the Messiah, who was not protected by signs and was subject to universal human conditions of life and even suffering. In this last case, either the national pride of the Jews or the Messiah was necessarily threatened with death. This explains the meaning of the temptations of Jesus Christ in the desert. According to the expectations of the Jews, the Messiah was supposed to be their miraculous nourisher and, of course, personally stand, as a miracle worker, above material dependence. This was the meaning of the first temptation. Then the Jews expected in the Messiah a man who would enjoy the special protection of God in the name of the shrine of the church and Old Testament symbolism in general, and in His kingdom they hoped to see the triumph of the zealots of the Old Testament law. This constituted the content of the second temptation. Finally, the Jews hoped to see in the Messiah their national king, who would bring dominion to the Jewish people, with its theocratic symbolism, over all pagan peoples. This was the meaning of the third temptation. Jesus Christ rejected and could not help but reject the tempter’s proposals. To give in to the hopes of the Jews meant to perpetuate Jewish symbolism, to impose the yoke of the Old Testament ritual law on all people, to abandon the foundation of the spiritual kingdom, and instead of serving the national passions of the Jewish people to worship the evil spirit instead of saving the human race in accordance with the will of God. Jesus Christ responded to the first temptation with humble submission to the natural laws of human life, its natural limitations; to the second proposal He responded by refusing to tempt the Lord with a demand for extreme visible protection; He contrasted the third temptation with refusal to serve the evil spirit of national pride. He did not separate Himself from the society of people, in relation to the conditions of life, so that His divinely filial dignity would become the property of all people. The boundaries of national symbolism must be destroyed to establish a universal spiritual kingdom. Victory over temptations 405 was not a complete evasion on the part of Jesus Christ from the use of miraculous power, according to the will of God; but this was His renunciation of using it for His personal well-being, for personal freedom from the conditions of human existence, as a permanent norm of life, and for serving the national passions of the Jews. He called His followers to spiritual life, to victory over attachment to the world. This renunciation of Jesus Christ did not exclude, but even assumed a temporary manifestation of miraculous power in a sense consistent with the expectations of the Jews, but the purpose of such miracles is the same as constant humility and constant struggle with the demands of the Jews - to raise people’s gaze from the sensual to the spiritual. But if, therefore, Christ’s victory over temptations in the desert was a rejection of the national aspirations of the Jews, then at the same time it prepared for Him death from embittered Jewish pride. The victory of Christ was His supreme self-denial, His willingness to accept death from the malice of the Jews. In order to bestow spiritual divine life on every person and, therefore, on the entire human race, Christ had to endure suffering and death from the Jewish people. Universal goals faced particular opposition from the Jewish people; their achievement was conditioned by the fight against the prejudices of a small society inhabiting a small land. Here we encounter one of those combinations of opposites that filled the life of Jesus Christ. Having universal tasks, He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24). What was the unique significance of the Jewish people in relation to the calling of Jesus Christ? They usually answer this question by pointing to the preparedness of the Jewish people for the kingdom of God: the Old Testament time was a preparation for the acceptance of the Messiah of the entire human race, mainly the Jews. And in this answer there is an undoubted grain of truth: the first society of followers of Jesus Christ, His apostles, were chosen by Him from among the Jews. But we must remember that the apostles were taken by the Teacher not fully ready for their ministry, but with the prejudices of their people, from which they were liberated only by His teaching and upbringing, and this liberation was accompanied by the fall of one of them, the “son of perdition”; in any case, this society of Christ’s disciples was small in number among the Jews, it was a “small flock”; but the entire Jewish people, as a whole, precisely as a people, led by their leaders, consciously abandoned the Messiah and crucified Him. Undoubtedly, Jesus Christ was sent to the Jews because they were the only people who with a clear consciousness expected the Messiah, but these expectations of the Jewish people were inextricably linked with national prejudices and attachments: of course, Christ brought salvation to the Jews first of all, but this people, in the name of prejudices and earthly attachments, could not accept a spiritual king. In his gospel to the world, Christ could not bypass the Jewish people, because their messianic expectations were earthly and sensual, because they harbored in their hearts hatred for the spiritual kingdom. In order to establish a spiritual universal kingdom among people, it was necessary to destroy the shackles that the national pride of the Jewish people was preparing for him, it was necessary to condemn the separatism and pride of the bearers of Old Testament symbolism, and for this it was necessary to reveal this pride in all its depth, to provoke his conscious hatred of the spiritual kingdom, for this it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer death from this embittered national pride of the Jews. In order not only to teach people the kingdom of God, but also to establish this kingdom in their hearts, it was necessary to overcome not only the indifference of ignorance of the pagan world, but also the conscious hatred of the Jews who were proud of their knowledge of the law and the prophets. While bringing salvation to Israel, Jesus Christ also brought judgment to them; but, on the other hand, the long-suffering Jewish people, who did not recognize their Messiah, condemned Him and were condemned by Him, by their very fall served the salvation of the pagans (Rom. 11:11): on the basis of their rejection, on the basis of the condemnation of their material messianic hopes, the true spiritual kingdom of the Messiah arose. The Jewish people were the proper environment for the teachings and works of the Messiah because their messianic expectations were colored by national pride and attachment to earthly goods. But, differing sharply in this last respect from other peoples, the Jewish people, in their national characteristics, are representative of the general properties of man, and their history serves as a symbol of each person. The peculiarity of the Jews, in fact, was that among them the considered universal human properties were elevated to the level of national ones and became properties of the people; In addition to this feature in the mood of the Jewish people, every person, regardless of his nationality, can recognize his own mood. Therefore, the victory of Christ in the desert has universal significance; His temptations, like the Jewish mood that caused them, are understandable to us and close to us. In view of this, it is of great interest to delve into the essence of the historical sin of the Jews - the murder of the Son of God. The sin of the Jews was that they were waiting for their Messiah, they wanted to turn the revelation of God in the person of the Son of God into serving themselves, instead of presenting themselves as an instrument of the universal revelation of God. Expecting a simple man in Christ, they believed the revelation of God in Him in the discovery of external divine omnipotence, in the personal possession of divine powers, in which human life becomes illusory. On the contrary, in Christ there was a real revelation of true divine, eternal and spiritual life in the fullness of human existence, He was a true man - the Son of God (Mark 15:39). It was a spiritual revelation of divine life, the fullness of which was directly dependent on the fullness of human life - therefore it was the universal revelation of God in human history. In this regard, it is interesting to observe what significance Old Testament prophecy had in the life of the Jews. It is known that the prophets depicted the image of Christ with the greatest vividness. It is also known that the Jews studied the prophecies about the Messiah with extraordinary attention for centuries. So what? According to signs taken from the prophecies, they did not recognize their Savior in Christ. In their messianic expectations, they adhered to true prophecies (for example, Isa. 9:6-7 - about the royal dignity of the Messiah; Joel. 3; Zech. 14 - about the judgment of the Gentiles; Isa. 49:22; 60:4-9 - about the gathering of Israel from the dispersion), and however, their expectations were a perversion of the real meaning of the Old Testament prophecies - so they did not want to know about the suffering of the Messiah ( Is. 53; Ps. Even the best people from the Jews did not understand the true meaning of the Old Testament prophecies, they were senseless and slow in heart to believe everything predicted by the prophets about the suffering of Christ (Luke 24:25–26 cf. Luke 18:31–34; Matt. 16:21–23, etc.). Only Christ Himself opened the minds of His disciples to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45). Thus, the Old Testament prophecy did not achieve its direct goal - to foretell the Messiah - which the Apostle even raised to the principle: “no prophecy in Scripture can be resolved by oneself” (2 Pet. 1:20). In the matter of religion, appearance has no direct meaning: there can be no external signs of spiritual life and external guarantee for the fidelity of religious beliefs and expectations. Old Testament prophecy, in addition to its educational meaning in relation to the “small remnant,” had for the Jews the meaning of testing their moral mood: the attitude towards prophecy reveals what is hidden in a person’s heart. The Jews chose from the prophecies about the Messiah what corresponded to their passions and reworked them according to their earthly affections. Waiting for their Messiah and not carrying His true image in their hearts, they paid primary attention to the external signs of His coming (John 7:27, 41–42, 52), and these signs, despite the fulfillment of the prophecies in Christ, deceived them. If I had not come and spoken to them, if I had not done among them works that no one else had done, they would not have had sin; but now they have seen and hated both Me and My Father. (John 15:22–24) Having returned in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:14) from the desert, Jesus Christ began to teach and do: He went throughout all Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every disease among the people (Matthew 4:23; 9 cf. Acts 1:1). Actually, Christ’s calling was to give believers the eternal life that He had in Himself. His teaching and works were not phenomena separate from this calling of His, from this unique work of His life. In essence, His teaching and deeds were nothing more than a revelation of the divine life, and in historical significance they were a means, a method, a way of fulfilling His calling. In particular, the teaching of Jesus Christ was essentially the reason for the spiritual life that He gave to people. Spiritual life in a person cannot be unconscious, unreasonable: unlike the dark elemental life, it is life-light. The content of this human consciousness of spiritual life, its intelligence, is given in the teaching of Jesus Christ. He was a teacher, but His task was not to answer the religious requests of our mind, to convey to us the secrets of the superstellar world, to teach a system of religious philosophy or theology - no, the only subject of His teaching was the spiritual divine life in man: it was exclusively the mind of it. He taught nothing else. The spiritual divine life in man is the kingdom of God, or heaven, on earth: Christ preached the gospel of the kingdom. Since the teaching of Jesus Christ was the reason for the divine spiritual life He gave to man, the properties of the divine spiritual life at the same time characterize His teaching. It was spiritual, true and universal. As a spiritual teaching, the teaching of Christ demanded from man a complete renunciation of material goods, from attachment to the earthly and temporary, it demanded from him hatred of his very life; it predicted persecution from the world for the follower of Christ (Matthew 5:2–12; 6:19–34; 10:22, 38–39; 16:24–25 and par.; Luke 14:26; John 15:19; 16:33 and many others). As spiritual, the teaching of Christ required, further, from a person true service to God instead of the Old Testament symbolic: the Old Testament worship of God was visible, it gave a person bodily purity, but not spiritual, and since “the visible is temporary”, illusory, the Old Testament physical worship was symbolic; on the contrary, serving God with the spirit, since the spirit is a genuine, eternal reality, serving God with the spirit is true, it really gives a person participation in the divine life, it truly glorifies God (John 4:23-24). According to the teachings of Christ, service to God is not made up of a set of special actions, but it should be the whole life of a person; it coincides with what constitutes the internal basis of spiritual life: the essence of spiritual life is love, and since it is a life of love, it represents continuous service to God. Regarding external purity, Christ taught that what defiles a person is not what comes into the mouth, but what comes from the heart, that alms make everything pure, that it is more important than sacrifice, that mercy, love and faith are the most important things in the law, that, in particular, the Sabbath rest can and should be broken for the sake of a good deed, that, finally, one verbal invocation of the Lord, without good deeds, does not give a person participation in the kingdom of God (Matt. 7:16–27; 12:6, 12; 11:17–20; 23:23–28; Luke 11:33; As spiritual and true, the teaching of Christ is universal in its subject matter: He preached the kingdom of God, which is not of this world, which does not come in a noticeable way, is not connected with any worldly, external, national forms, but is located within a person and is accessible to every person and for all people, which is governed by laws opposite to the laws of worldly kingdoms, so that whoever wants to be great in the kingdom of God must be a servant of all (Luke 17:21-20; Matthew 20:26; 23 John 18:36). Thus, the teachings of Jesus Christ were essentially contrary to the religious expectations of the Jews, their attachment to material wealth and to theocratic symbolism and their hopes for worldly dominion. Being spiritual in its essence, the teaching of Christ brought judgment to the world - a test for every person and condemnation for the Jews with their national passions. As spiritual, true and universal, it was such that only those who wanted to do the will of the Father could accept it (John 7:17; 6:37, 44), and not accepting it meant not wanting to have true life, not loving God, not seeking glory from God, valuing human glory (John 5:40, 42, 44). The teaching of Christ was such that just hearing it (John 12:47–48) necessarily revealed the true meaning of the religious life of every person: does he, by visibly worshiping God, really love God, or does he love only himself; Listening to the teachings of Christ, every person needed to either love God or hate Him with all the clarity of consciousness and certainty. По отношению к иудеям суд Христова учения обнаружил, что в основе их религиозных ожиданий лежало самолюбие, чувственность и славолюбие. “If you,” Christ said to the Jews, “had believed Moses, you would have believed Me, because he wrote about Me (John 5:46). If God were your father, then you would love Me, because I came from God and came; for I did not come of Myself, but He sent Me. Почему вы не понимаете речи Моей? Because you cannot hear My words. Your father is the devil” (John 8:42–44). Christ Himself clarified the historical significance of His teaching as judgment of the world as follows: “The judgment consists in the fact that light has come into the world; but people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed, because they are evil. But he who does what is right comes to the light, so that his deeds may be made clear, because they were done in God” (John 3:19–21). And due to the fact that the Jews were the keepers of the Old Testament law, they boasted of their knowledge and considered themselves guides of the blind (cf. Rom. 2ff.), being self-deceived, while the teaching of Christ, contrary to human self-righteousness and self-confidence, required spiritual simplicity for its perception and, hidden from those who considered themselves wise and reasonable, was open to infants (Matt. 11 par.), - because of this, the judgment that was carried out by the teaching of Christ is more closely defined by Christ Himself as follows: “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see would see, and those who see would become blind. If you, - He added to the Pharisees, - if you were blind (considered yourself blind), you would not have sin (on yourself); but just as you say what you see, the sin remains on you” (John 9:39–41). However, if the divine life of Christ had been revealed in teaching alone and had not been revealed in deeds, then the Jews, having not accepted His teaching, would have sinned only through unbelief, they would have sinned only against the Son of Man, and therefore, at most, they would not have had an excuse for their sin, but not without hope of forgiveness (John 15:22; Matt. 12:32). The judgment of Christ would not have been a terrible rejection for the Jews. But the Jews not only did not believe in Christ, but also hated Him; having hated Him, they also hated His Father (John 15:23), and therefore were rejected by Christ: this was done by His teaching in connection with His deeds. “If,” He said about His teaching, “I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. If,” He added about His deeds, “I had not done among them works that no one else had done, they would not have had sin; but now they have seen and hated both Me and My Father” (John 15:24). By not believing the works of Christ, which He did by the Spirit, the Jews sinned the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. This is the connection between the works of Jesus Christ and His teaching in terms of their historical significance 406. By the works of Jesus Christ we mean, in part, the external image of His life and some external actions that accompanied His teaching, in which His teaching was revealed unintentionally in relation to each particular action, only in their general agreement with the teaching as a principle, and mainly His miracles are called works. Let's talk about the first ones first. The external humiliation of Christ did not correspond to the ideas that the Jews had about the face and life of the Messiah. He was a great miracle worker, but His own life was not in the least made easier by His miraculous power. True, in some cases this power was revealed in His personal life: thus He miraculously withdrew from the Nazarenes, repeatedly hid from the Jews (for example, John 8:59), and was miraculously transformed before the apostles. But these phenomena in His life either really delivered Him from death, but only “because His hour had not yet come,” which at its time, predetermined by the Father, did not pass Him by, or they had a symbolic meaning; In either case, they did not free the ordinary course of His life from universal human weakness and limitation and from voluntary humiliation. At the beginning of His public ministry, Christ chose disciples from His listeners to constantly accompany Him, from whom, over time, twelve closest disciples emerged. They were His trusted collaborators and apostles, He explained everything to them in private, and He honored them with the name of His friends. Who were these students? These were almost all Galileans, whose origin was already revealed by their contemptible reprimand; their occupation was predominantly fishermen, in general simple people, unlearned, ignorant; among them was one, Matthew, of the tax collectors, who were considered despicable and rejected by the Jews, along with sinners; one of the twelve even betrayed his Teacher to the Jews. According to the meaning of Christ’s teaching, neither He Himself nor His disciples could observe the Jewish rules about external cleansing, regarding fasting, regarding Sabbath rest. This gave the Jews a reason to murmur against Him and reproach His disciples. So it was when one day the Pharisees and some of the scribes saw some of His disciples eating bread with unclean, that is, with unwashed hands (Matthew 15:1-20 par.); they grumbled about the non-observance by Him and His disciples of the rules about fasting (Matt. 9:14–17 par.; Matt. 11:16–19); They grumbled when His disciples, walking with Him through the sown fields, became hungry, plucked ears of corn and ate, breaking, according to Jewish concepts, the Sabbath rest (Matthew 12:1-8 par.). Violation of the Sabbath rest among the Jews was considered the greatest sin. The great indignation of the Jews against Jesus Christ was caused by the fact that He, having one former tax collector among His disciples, did not shun at all and even sought the company of tax collectors and sinners, since He came to call them to repentance, ate and drank with them, they all approached Him as a friend (Matt. 9:10-13; 11 par. Luke 15:1ff.). Simon the Pharisee, who invited Jesus to eat food, was tempted when he saw how He allowed His sinner wife to touch Him, who kissed His feet and anointed them with ointment (Luke 7ff.). By all these actions, although they were not intentional in each individual case, in general Jesus Christ deliberately provoked the indignation of the Jews. Attachment to the petty traditions of the elders regarding Sabbath rest, fasting, external cleansing, contempt for tax collectors and sinners - all this expressed the moral dullness of the Jews, and it was necessary to reveal their self-righteousness and pride that underlay these traditions and customs. From a historical point of view, it is completely unimportant that these traditions and customs were a distortion of the Old Testament law and that Christ, breaking the first, did not thereby violate the second 407; What was important was that in the minds of the Jews, traditions and customs merged with the law, and therefore Christ’s struggle with them had a deeper meaning than the struggle with simple error - it was a struggle with legalistic self-righteousness, with legalistic slavery (Mark 2:27). However, Christ Himself, when He was accused of violating the Sabbath rest, defended itself not by denying that He violated the Sabbath, but by pointing out that one should do good on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:12), and that the Jews themselves violate the Sabbath for the sake of physical and legalistic necessity. So every Jew on Saturday leads an ox and a donkey to water (Luke 13:15), pulls out a sheep that has fallen into a pit (Matt. 12:11; Luke 14:5); so even David, being hungry himself and those who were with him, entered the house of God and ate the showbread, which could only be eaten by the priests (Matthew 12:3–4; Mark 2:25–26); so the priests in the church break the Sabbath without being guilty (Matthew 12:5); This is how all Jews circumcise a person on the Sabbath (John 7:22). Christ, accused of breaking the Sabbath, defended himself by pointing out the breaking of the Sabbath by the Jews for the sake of necessity and the necessity of breaking the Sabbath for the sake of good works. Be that as it may, Jesus Christ, according to the Jews, violated the law and, in particular, the law on the Sabbath. How important this was in the work and life of Christ can be seen from the fact that, on the one hand, in the loyalty of the Jews to the traditions of the elders, in their ritual obscurity, the essence of their religious symbolism was expressed and the roots of their self-righteousness lay, in particular, the Sabbath, in the apt expression of one scientist, “was both the banner of their exceptional advantages and the center of their soulless formalism,” and that, on the other hand, the enmity and hatred aroused by Jesus Christ among the Jews was mainly directed towards this side of His activity: “This man is not from God,” the Jews said about Him, “because he does not keep the Sabbath” (John 9:16). The connection between these works of Christ and His teaching in their historical significance was that they attracted the attention of the Jews to His teaching. The Jews might not listen to His teachings; but when He did such things, they could not help but listen to Him; for the sake of these works they had to determine their attitude towards Him. But in this meaning, the named works of Christ were only a transitional step to His miracles. If these deeds, and especially the violation of the Sabbath, attracted the attention of the Jews and determined their attitude to His teaching, then these deeds themselves attracted the full attention of the Jews and finally determined their attitude towards Christ in combination with miracles: in this connection, the center of the works of Christ was the miracle that violated the Sabbath rest. This was noticed by John Chrysostom. On the occasion of the plucking of the ears of grain by the apostles, he writes, the Pharisees were “not very cruel, although they could (were) to be so, but they are not very irritated, but simply accuse. When the Lord ordered him to stretch out his withered hand and healed it, then they became so furious that they intended to slaughter and kill Him.” This reasoning applies to other works and relationships of Jesus Christ. So we move on to the miracles of Christ. The “spiritual” religious-historical basis of the miracles of Jesus Christ has already been said. We consider it unnecessary for our purposes to enter into a Gnostic study of their essence and especially to explain them from the side of possibility. Our task is to explain the miracles of Jesus Christ in their mutual connection and in relation to the ministry of Christ, to reveal the meaning of their history. This will form the subject of the following chapters. Now we would like to say a few words regarding the general historical appearance of the miracles of Christ, the presentation of which is necessary for understanding their history. What were the miracles of Christ in their historical reality? What were they to those who saw them? For the Jews, Christ's miracles were not "signs from heaven" (σημεῖον ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ), but were only "signs on the earth below." By a sign from heaven, the Jews, in all likelihood, meant the direct action of God in the world and precisely for the benefit of man, in this case, the Messiah, for His prosperity and glory. This is God’s work according to human reason: “to raise up children for Abraham from stones.” A sign from heaven for the Messiah would be to “make stones into bread,” to be carried in the arms of angels, to have them from the Father to twelve legions. Christ did not perform such miracles. When the Jews asked Him for a sign from heaven, He, rejecting primarily their hope that a miracle should serve as a visible sign of the material protection of God for the Messiah and the Jewish people, refused them a sign, except for the sign of the prophet Jonah, who saved the repentant Ninevites with his preaching of repentance (Matthew 12:38-41; 16:1-4 par.). For the Jews, Christ's miracles were not a sign from heaven; in miracles that were not a sign from heaven, they saw the action of God through the hidden forces of nature. Prophets could perform such miracles, and the Jews saw the miracle worker from Nazareth as nothing more than a prophet. Seeing the miracles of Jesus Christ, the people marveled and glorified “God, who gave such power to men” (Matthew 9:8), and said: “A great prophet has arisen among us” (Luke 7:16; John 6:14). To understand the soul of the Jews, it is enough to remember that after the miraculous feeding of five thousand with five loaves they said to Jesus Christ: “What sign will You give so that we will see and believe You? What are you doing? Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness” (John 6:30–31). The miracle of Christ in itself was no greater for the Jews than the work of Moses. They could especially reason in this way regarding the expulsion of unclean spirits, which was performed even by some of them, and in general healings, in which the miracles of Christ mainly consisted. This does not mean that the Jews were purely rationalistic about miracles; no, they believed in miracles, but their faith was different from the faith that is understood by the usual dogmatic view of the miracles of Christ and their meaning. They looked at miracles as a means of divine providence for man, and specifically for the Jews, as an instrument of God’s special favor towards them. Their faith in the miracles of the Messiah consisted in the fact that they expected from the time of the Messiah extraordinary miraculous benefits of God to their people. Their attention in relation to the miracles of Christ was drawn not to the dogmatic meaning of each of them, but to whether they were good deeds for the Jewish people (Mark 7:37) and whether they were numerous (John 7:31). Their faith in the miracles of the Messiah was not faith in His “spiritual” being, but faith in “His time”; from the miracles of Christ they concluded not to who this miracle worker is, but to the fact that he is the one “who should come into the world” (John 6:14); by miracles they guessed exclusively about “when Christ will come” (John 7:31). And in order to be confident in the face of the Messiah, they needed signs from heaven. Christ did not give them a sign from heaven, but His miracles were truly blessings for them and blessings amazing in their number. So, in an amazing way, the significant significance of the miracles of Jesus Christ, as a real victory of the kingdom of God over the world, coincided with the national expectations of the Jews, but in an even more amazing way, the miracles of Christ repelled the Jews from Him: this is the secret of the history of the Gospel miracles. This historical feature of the miracles of Jesus Christ will turn out to be even more characteristic if we compare it with the fact that Christ performed miracles not to arouse faith, but out of faith. “Do you believe that I can do this?” - He usually addressed this question to those who asked Him for healing; “According to your faith, be it done to you” - with such words He usually performed healings; - “if you can believe a little, all things are possible to him who believes”; “as you believed, so be it for you”; “Your faith has saved you.” The significance of faith in the miracles of Jesus Christ was so great that healings were performed on the sick from one touch of them to Him (Mark 5:24–34 par. cf. Mark 3:10) “without His knowledge and permission.” On the contrary, without faith He could not perform miracles. Thus, in Nazareth, due to the unbelief of the inhabitants, He could not perform any miracle, only laying His hands on a few sick people and healing them (Matthew 13:58; Mark 6:5–6). Of course, the miracles of Jesus Christ aroused faith in the Jews. But, requiring faith to perform miracles, Christ did not attach importance to the faith of the Jews in Him for the sake of miracles. Seeing the miracles that He performed, many believed in His name, but He Himself did not entrust Himself to them, because He knew what was in man (John 2:23–25 cp. John 4:48). Only in this regard can one explain that highly significant feature of the gospel story that Christ forbade those healed and, in general, witnesses of miracles to disclose them. So, having healed the leper, Christ, looking at him sternly, immediately sent him away and said to him: “See that you don’t tell anyone anything” (Mark 1:43–44). He strictly ordered those who saw the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter that no one should know about it (Mark 5:43; also Mark 7:36; 8:26). In the same way, He strictly forbade those possessed by demons, so that they would not make Him known (Mark 1:23–25, 34, 3:11–12). Only to the Gadarene demoniac did He say: “Go home to your own and tell them what the Lord has done to you and how He has had mercy on you” (Mark 5:19), which was due to the fact that the Gadarenes asked Christ to leave their borders. We will return below to explain this feature of the history of gospel miracles; Now let us only note that just as much as Christ’s prohibition corresponded to His reluctance for the Jewish faith in Him to spread for the sake of miracles, so much was characteristic of the Jews their disobedience to Christ’s prohibition. Thus, the leper healed by Him, contrary to the prohibition, came out and began to proclaim and talk about what had happened to him (Mark 1:45); in general, no matter how much He forbade the healed, they spread it even more (Mark 7:36), so that He could no longer openly enter the city, but went into deserted places and prayed (Mark 1:45; Luke 5:16). This disobedience expressed the Jews' extreme attachment to miracles. However, the miracles of Jesus Christ, according to the divine will about them, should have and, as history shows, could give rise to true faith in Him. So faith in His miracles could be twofold. This fully corresponds to the fact that every rational truth, every psychological reality has two sides 408. The complete authenticity of the Gospel story is especially demonstrated by the fact that, unlike fiction, which is inevitably one-sided, it allows us to see two sides of it in every respect. To truly explain it means to indicate in each relationship the two poles in complete reconciliation. The Jews believed in the miracles of Christ, and the disciples also believed. Thus, when Jesus began miracles in Cana of Galilee and revealed His glory, His disciples believed in Him (John 2:11). Сам Христос иудеям, искавшим Его после чуда насыщения пяти тысяч пятью хлебами, с укором говорил: «вы ищете Меня не потому, что видели чудеса» ( Ин. 6:26 ). The Evangelist speaks with sorrow about them: Christ performed so many miracles before them, and they did not believe in Him (John 12:37). The true belief in the miracles of Jesus Christ and His disciples in some part coincided with the Jewish belief in miracles, but differed from it in its direction, just as two intersecting straight lines coincide at one point and differ in direction. The true faith in Christ of His disciples had two starting points: His miracles and His teaching about spiritual life, accompanied by His personal self-abasement and requiring complete self-denial from the disciples. Based on two points, the two currents of faith in the disciples merged into one, forming a single faith in the Son of Man - the Son of God, who has “the words of eternal life,” for which they were ready for complete self-denial. With this merger, faith in miracles itself was transformed in such a way that Christ’s disciples saw in them a symbol of spiritual blessings. Meanwhile, the Jews saw an enduring reality in the miracles of Christ (John 6:34) and did not look for their spiritual meaning in the teachings of Christ. Their faith in the miracles of Christ was directed to a thirst for signs from heaven, and their demand from Christ for such signs exposed their unbelief, causing Him to sigh deeply (Mark 8:12). Their error was that, while demanding signs from heaven, they did not know how to discern the “signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3), which were given to them in the miracles of Christ. True faith in Christ could be without miracles, and the Jews believed only for the sake of signs and wonders. В учениках Христа Его чудеса порождали надежду на Бога, которая давала им силы к полному самоотречению, а в иудеях чудеса Христа только подогревали надежду на земное благоденствие. The first period of Christ's ministry: the favorable year of the Lord And Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And rumors about Him spread throughout Syria. (Matt. 4:23–24). The path we have traveled has revealed to us all the elements that made up the life of Christ during His public ministry. Now it remains to show how these elements were connected with each other, forming in connection and consistency the history of His ministry, which ended with His death on the cross. Let's consider the first period of the ministry of Jesus Christ (according to Matthew 4:12–9:31). During this time, according to the evangelist, “Jesus walked throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every disease among the people” (Matthew 4:23). The teaching of Christ during this time is characterized primarily from its essential side; it has almost not yet entered the whirlpool of history; it appears in a form that is most consistent with its essential content, and not with the attitude of the people towards it. He teaches about what spiritual life consists of, how to “enter life,” what its laws are. His teaching is now actually the gospel of the kingdom of God, good news, joyful news. He blesses the poor in spirit, the weeping, the meek; He calls to Him those who are toiling and burdened, in order to calm them down, promising them a good yoke and a light burden. This general tone is in no way violated by the fact that He pointed to persecution for the righteousness of the kingdom of God - it does not violate it because this is the path leading to life, bringing joy and gladness to the persecuted. This was the true gospel of freedom of the spirit, not only from the bonds that entangled him with sin, unclean thoughts, attraction to the earth, attachment to its blessings, but also from those shackles with which the law weighed on him, with which the scribes and Pharisees constrained him, with which the traditions of the elders oppressed him. He preached the kingdom of God, blessed for the spirit, in which it is light and joyful; He brought freedom and light to earth; He spread around Him an atmosphere free from the torment of brotherly anger, from the impurities of debauchery, from the embarrassment of an oath before people, from the torment of revenge and external resistance to evil; He preached the bliss of love, non-judgment and forgiveness, the bright joy of blessing enemies and prayers for persecutors, the joy of filial likeness to God; He called people to joyful service to God in the depths of their spirit, to that service that is not performed for people to see, but which truly frees a person from the slavish and painful service of mammon and from worldly worries; He called people to complete filial devotion to God and trust in. Him. But, of course, for those who are partial to worldly goods, the teachings of Christ contained a lot of “sorrowful things.” Pleasing the poor and meek, he proclaimed woe to the rich, the satiated, the laughing, the venerable among men. His teaching contained much “sorrowful” for the ritual self-righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. He said that the sons of the kingdom should surpass in their righteousness the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Revealing in His teaching the essence and laws of eternal spiritual life, Christ during the first period of His ministry less focused the attention of His listeners on His face. Of course, it cannot be said that at this time Christ did not teach at all about His messianic dignity. It is enough to point out how He taught to make it clear that He always taught as the Son of God. He taught as one in authority, and not as the scribes, so that everyone marveled at His teaching. With precisely this power, He, in contrast to the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, established new laws of spiritual life. He said: “You have heard what was said to the ancients: do not kill, do not commit adultery, etc., but I say to you”... And He gave new teachings about non-wrath, spiritual chastity, etc. But, with all this, He did not ask the listeners then: “Who do you say that I am? What do you think about Christ? He did not insistently teach that He was the one to whom the “scriptures bear witness.” He taught about the kingdom of God as an objective good, and not about the Messiah as its founder. This is due to the fact that He forbade those healed to testify about Himself. Of the actions of Christ, in which His teaching was revealed in terms of its essential content and which were “cruel” for Jewish popularity and ritual belief, few date back to this time: the calling of some disciples, His communication with tax collectors and sinners, and His disciples’ non-observance of fasting. According to the Gospel of John, the first disciples of Christ were two of the disciples of John the Baptist, Andrew and, probably, the evangelist John himself. Andrew brought his brother Simon to Jesus, whom He called Peter (i.e., the stone). Then Philip was called from Bethsaida, from which Andrew and Peter were, and Philip brought Nathanael to Jesus. The evangelists Mark and Matthew convey that the calling of Peter and his brother and the brothers James and John Zebedee, who were given the name “sons of Thunder,” was the first action of Christ in Galilee, where He came “after John was betrayed,” and the evangelist Luke narrates that at this calling Peter, at the word of Christ, who was in his boat, cast a net, and an extraordinary multitude of fish were caught, to which Christ gave a symbolic meaning, telling Peter: “from now on you will catch men.” Be that as it may, the disciples of Christ were from ordinary Galileans. We are not directly informed that this circumstance was reproached by the scribes and Pharisees, especially during the first time of His ministry; however, taking into account everything known about the conceit of the scribes and Pharisees and especially the Jews of Jerusalem, we must assume that the Galilean origin of His own and His disciples was of no small importance in the history of the Jews' relations towards Him. At least, the Jews said regarding Jesus: “a prophet does not come from Galilee” (Jn. 7:52), almost meaning together with the Teacher and His disciples. But the Gospel directly states that the calling of one disciple, Matthew, from the tax collectors and in general Christ’s communication with tax collectors and sinners, as well as the disciples’ failure to observe Jewish fasts, caused the murmur of the scribes and Pharisees. Christ began the miracles (signs) in Cana of Galilee at a wedding, which was attended by His mother and He and His disciples. When during the feast there was a lack of wine, which threatened the newlyweds with shame, “then the mother of Jesus said to Him: They have no wine. Jesus says to her: What do you and I have, woman? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants: “Whatever He tells you, do it.” After these words from the mother, He ordered the servants to fill six waterpots with water, which became good wine. This was the first sign of Jesus. It is known how difficult it is to explain Christ’s response to his mother, and we are unlikely to find a satisfactory explanation from any commentator, but for us the explanation of the circumstances of the first miracle is of particular interest, as a test of the general view expressed above on the meaning of Christ’s miracles. Christ performed miracles according to the faith of people. Already His first miracle gave birth to faith in Him (John 2:11), it caused new miracles 409, which multiplied faith, and so the number of miracles multiplied (cf. Matthew 4:23–25). But whose faith preceded His miracles? By whose faith did He perform the first miracle? According to the mother's faith: such is her significance in the history of her Son's public ministry. That she, who “kept in her heart” everything she knew about the childhood of the Son (Luke 2:19, 51), acquired faith in the Son after John’s testimony is easy to understand. But was this faith the same perfect faith with which she stood at the cross of the Son, when “the weapon passed through her soul”? Нужно полагать, что нет. Before the suffering of the Son on the cross, she sometimes, in the words of John Chrysostom, “disturbed Him at the wrong time.” This was the case when she, together with His brothers, sought Him and when He said: Who is My mother? and who are my brothers? and added, pointing his hand at the disciples: here are my mother and my brothers (Matthew 12:46–50; Mark 3:31; Luke 8:19; cf. Mark 3:21) 410. So at the wedding in Cana, “Mary thought,” according to Ephraim the Syrian, “that the reason for His miracles was to gain glory and honor for Himself from the crowd of Jews.” This “calculation” and “thought” of hers did not correspond to the actual course of the life of Christ. However, she believed, and by her faith He could not help but perform a miracle. It is significant that Christ’s answer: “My hour has not yet come” did not encourage the mother’s desires; nevertheless, after such an answer, she ordered the servants to do what He said. This shows the consistency and strength of her faith. So, He had to, according to the strength of her faith, initiate miracles. But the beginning led to the end, miracles prepared the miracle worker’s death on the cross, the first miracle reminded him of the “hour” of death 411. Subsequently, as this hour approached, His soul was indignant (John 12:27); before its onset, He experienced the difficult Gethsemane struggle. But even now, in Cana of Galilee, the mother’s desire for Him to begin miracles presented Him with this hour, since the first miracle was the beginning of the path that led Him to death on the cross. Not knowing this secret of the ministry of her Son, the mother, wanting a miracle from Him, unconsciously wished for Him the same thing that His enemies had prepared for Him. “What is it to me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come,” Christ answered her. The expression “what is mine and what is yours” (τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοὶ) is used in biblical language: this is the usual appeal of one who is attacked to his enemy - an appeal > in which a request for mercy is expressed 412. “You, without knowing it, wish for me to die, but the hour of my death has not yet come,” this is how Christ answered his mother. Previously, Joseph and His mother “did not understand” the words of the twelve-year-old boy Jesus (Luke 2:50). Obviously, the same thing happened now. And Christ performed the first miracle. A few days after this, Jesus came to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. Although He had already begun His ministry miraculously in Cana of Galilee, 413 although the first period of His ministry was confined to Galilee, He had to solemnly open His ministry in Jerusalem, as the center of Judaism, because there He had to accept death, since “it is impossible for a prophet to perish outside of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33). Having solemnly opened His ministry here. He then performed His first period in Galilee, but His Galilean activity took place before the eyes of an excited Jerusalem, which vigilantly watched Him, gradually increasing its vigilance. By what actions did Christ reveal His ministry in Jerusalem? Here he cleansed the church with the prophetically inspired expulsion from it of the dealers in sacrificial animals and money changers, who made the house of God a house of trade, and performed miracles. The expulsion of merchants from the church had symbolic meaning. This was a demand addressed to the Jews for moral purification, spiritual rebirth in view of the approach of the kingdom of God, the onset of which was evidenced by miracles that aroused faith in the Jews (John 2:23). This demand, expressed by the symbolic cleansing of the church, was to be accompanied by a strong effect on Jerusalem, in which the roots of the theocratic ritual faith and self-righteousness of the Jews were affirmed. As much as their attention was attracted by the miracles, their inquisitiveness was equally aroused by the meaning of the symbol. They, it must be assumed, understood the actual requirement contained in it 414; but for them, due to their national pride and ritual self-righteousness, it was not clear what this demand addressed to them would lead to. And they asked Christ: what sign do you show us by doing this? what does it mean? where is this going? In response, Jesus said to them about the church of His body: “destroy this church”... The combination of the miracles that Christ performed with the demand from the Jews for spiritual rebirth is what brought Him to the cross 416. This symbolic meaning of the cleansing of the church was explained by Christ in a conversation with Nicodemus. Although the Jews did not understand Christ’s answer, His actions aroused extremely alarming attention to Him among the Jews: their attention was drawn primarily to His miraculous power, while John did not perform any miracle (John 10:41). In view of the expectations of the time, excited to the last degree by the preaching of John, the question involuntarily arose in their minds: is this not the Messiah? The question was alarming, because Jesus, when he first appeared in Jerusalem, acted in a defiant manner towards Jewish ritualism, without confirming the privileges of the Jewish people. It was necessary to carefully examine the intentions of this person - and so the Jewish leaders, afraid to go to the light openly, send to Him secretly, at night, Nicodemus, one of their midst 417. Coming to Christ, Nicodemus said to Him: “Rabbi! we know that You are a teacher come from God, for no one can do such miracles as You do unless God is with him.” This was the immediate impression on the Jews from the works of Christ, this is the recognition they made to Him! From now on, this consciousness cannot fade away in their soul; no matter what other thoughts and feelings contrary to this consciousness subsequently took possession of their souls, all their later hostile actions against Christ must be considered in relation to this consciousness, so that they consciously hated Him, “of their own free will they acted maliciously towards Him.” In a conversation with Nicodemus, Christ revealed to this messenger of the Jews the plan of His relationship with the Jews. Он требует от них духовного возрождения, предсказывает в связи с этим о Своей смерти и уясняет истину суда над иудеями, обличая их в ненависти к свету. This, so to speak, is the program of Christ’s ministry, and this program, one must think, was exactly conveyed by Nicodemus to the Jewish leaders. Having thus opened His ministry in Jerusalem, Christ went to Galilee, because Galilee was more consistent with the character of the first period of His ministry than Judea. He had to pass through Samaria. Here, near the city of Sychar, at Jacob’s well, Christ had a conversation with a Samaritan woman who had come to draw water. He asked her for a drink, and when she expressed surprise that He, being a Jew, contrary to custom, entered into communication with a Samaritan woman, He promised to give her such living (spring) water that forever quenches thirst and becomes in the one who receives it a source of water flowing into eternal life. The woman understood this sensually and asked Him to give her wonderful water. But Christ, revealing her vicious family life, awakens her conscience, raises her attention to religious subjects, then reveals to her the sublime teaching about the worship of God in spirit and truth and, finally, announces to her that He is the Messiah awaited by the Samaritans, as well as by the Jews. The woman believed (John 4:29–39) in Him, went to the city and called on the inhabitants: they came, asked Christ to stay with them, and many of them believed in Him according to His word. This stay of Christ in Samaria is extremely remarkable in that the woman did not persistently demand a miracle from Him, she believed in Him for the sake of the truth that He revealed to her, and many Samaritans believed in Him only at His word. “It was true and saving faith; there was a ready harvest here, and we know what fruits the apostles later reaped here (Acts 8). This case of faith of the Samaritans most clearly refutes the opinion that without miracles people would not have believed in Christ. Without miracles, the Jews did not want to believe in Christ. And especially the faith of the Samaritans is remarkable in comparison with the unbelief of the Jews. According to John Chrysostom, the Jews “even after miracles remain incorrigible, but the Samaritans showed great faith in Him even without miracles; and this is precisely their honor, that without miracles they believed.” Christ Himself valued such faith highly; it brought Him great consolation. When He was talking with the Samaritan woman, the apostles went away to buy food and, returning, offered Him food; but He answered them: “I have food which you do not know: to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work” (John 4:32–34). Having said this, He enthusiastically pointed out to the disciples the crowds of Samaritans coming to Him at the word of the woman - these “whitened fields.” The Samaritans provided fertile soil for preaching. But if so, then why did He not stay in Samaria for more than two days? Why did He not found a church here, the first society of His disciples, but later left the apostles to reap here what they did not work for? The evangelist answers this question like this: “After two days He left from there and went to Galilee, for He Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country” (John 4:43–44). When it was said that Christ went from Judea to Galilee (John 4:3), then Galilee is contrasted with Judea; but when it is explained why He went from Samaria to Galilee, then in this case Galilee is understood, although before Judea, but not in contrast to Judea, but in their common opposition to Samaria. So, Christ went from Samaria to the Jews, and first to Galilee, in order to experience their opposition and suffer from them. What meaning did His struggle with their opposition have, this is stated above. With the opinion of those interpreters who call Christ’s fatherland Judea, and not Galilee, and who in the above words of the evangelist see an explanation of why He left Judea for Galilee, i.e., they attribute “lack of honor in the fatherland” to the former stay of Jesus Christ in Judea, and not to the reception awaiting Him among the Galileans, one cannot agree with this opinion, because the evangelist explains not why Christ went from Judea to Galilee (John 4:3), but why He did not stay in Samaria (John 4:43). In addition, there is no doubt that the homeland of Jesus Christ was not Judea, but Galilee and, most closely, Nazareth, so the words of the Evangelist John refer to the event of the overthrow of Christ from the mountain by the Nazarenes, told by the Evangelist Luke (Luke 4, esp. cf. Luke 4:24: “no prophet is accepted in his own country”). But the following words of the Evangelist John seem to confirm this opinion: “When He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen everything that He did in Jerusalem on the feast; for they also went to the feast” (John 4:45). However, in these words, it is not the one thing that attracts full attention, that the Galileans accepted Him, but the fact that they accepted Him only for the sake of miracles, in contrast to the Samaritans, who accepted Him without miracles. “The Samaritans turn out to be better than the Galileans. For the Samaritans accepted Him only by the testimony of His wife, and the Galileans only then, when they saw the miracles He had performed.” Following the above words, the evangelist narrates about Christ’s new stay in Cana of Galilee, when He told the courtier the mournful words: “You will not believe unless you see signs and wonders” (John 4:48). This attitude towards the miracles of Christ in Galilee and Judea was the reason for the persecution of Him. However, this persecution of Christ did not open immediately after His coming to Galilee, but only subsequently, and, in particular, the overthrow of Christ by the Nazarenes was later. Now the Galileans accepted Him for the sake of miracles. Acceptance for the sake of miracles was necessary in the history of Christ’s relationship with the Jews, in order to later turn into their hatred of Him. For such a joyful reception of Jesus Christ for the sake of miracles, the cheerful Galilee, inhabited by simpletons, was more capable than the Judea of ​​the scribes and Pharisees, where the denouement would have followed sooner, without a full disclosure of Christ’s relationship with the Jews. The performance of the second miracle in Cana of Galilee - the healing of the son of a courtier who came to Christ from Capernaum - begins a series of numerous miracles performed by Jesus Christ during this stay in Galilee. He moved to Capernaum, probably to the house of Peter; from here He visited “other cities.” Of the miracles during this time, the evangelists mention 418: the healing of Peter's mother-in-law in his house; healing of many sick and demoniacs on the same day; healing of a leper in one city, 419; upon returning to Capernaum, the healing of the centurion's servant 420; then the resurrection of the son of the Nain widow 421; upon a new return to Capernaum, the healing of a paralytic; then, after the calling of Matthew, the healing of a woman suffering from hemorrhage; resurrection of Jairus' daughter; healing of two blind men 422 and many other unspecified healings. What was the nature of the miracles of Jesus Christ during this time? These were, in fact, good deeds, the impression of which on the people was in no way weakened. Seeing the miracles of Jesus Christ, the people had to say: “He does everything well, and makes the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.” When He left from where, the inhabitants held Him back, and when He returned, the people received Him, because everyone was waiting for Him (Luke 4:42; 8:40). According to the words of the prophet, He preached the gospel to the poor, healed the brokenhearted, preached liberation to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, set the tormented at liberty, and preached the acceptable year of the Lord (Isa. 61:1-2). When He subsequently read these words of the prophet in the synagogue and said to the people: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” then everyone witnessed this to Him (Luke 4:17–22) 423. Both the teachings of Christ and His miracles were manifested at this time from their essential side; they served as an expression, or symbol, of the approaching kingdom of God (Is. 35ff.). Everything that Christ said and did at this time was one commentary on the first words of His sermon: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Miracles were a sign of the kingdom of God. This significance of the charitable miracles of Jesus Christ was enhanced by two circumstances - their large number and the speed and readiness with which they were performed. We have already spoken about the mass healings performed by Christ and the impression they made on the Jews; Now we just have to note that such healings were performed primarily in the first period of Christ’s ministry (Matt. 4:23–25; 8:16; 9 par.). From the individual miracles that are narrated in the Gospels, it is clear that they were performed at that time by Christ with remarkable readiness and speed 424. So, when He was in Cana, a courtier came to Him from Capernaum and asked Him to come and heal his son, who was dying. Jesus told him, “You will not believe unless you see signs and wonders.” But the courtier had faith, which was fueled by love for his son and fear for him. “Lord,” he said, “come before my son dies.” “Go, your son is well,” Christ answered, and the healing actually took place in absentia. Other healings were also performed. Arriving at Peter's house, Jesus saw his mother-in-law lying in a fever. And he touched her hand, and the fever left her; she stood up and served them. A leper approached Him and, bowing to Him, said: “Lord! if you want, you can cleanse me.” Jesus, stretching out his hand, touched him and said: “I want to, be cleansed.” And he was immediately cleansed from leprosy. In Capernaum, a centurion came to Jesus and asked Him to heal a servant who was lying sick. Jesus tells him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion considered himself unworthy for Christ to enter his house; according to his faith, it would be enough for Christ to say one word for the sick person to recover. Christ was surprised at the centurion’s faith, which He did not find in Israel, and predicted that in the kingdom of God the pagans would lie down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the Jews - the natural sons of the kingdom - would be cast out. Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go, and as you have believed, so be it done for you.” And his servant was healed at that hour. When Christ approached the gates of Nain, they carried out the dead man, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. Seeing her, He took pity on her, told her: “Don’t cry,” and, approaching, stopped those carrying the bed, then called out to the deceased: “young man! I’m telling you, get up.” The young man stood up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. When Jairus, the leader of the synagogue, earnestly asked Him to heal his sick daughter, Christ stood up and followed him. During their journey, the patient died; Jairus was told not to bother the Teacher in vain, but Jesus heard this and said to him: “Do not be afraid, just believe, and you will be saved.” Having come to the house, He drove out all those who were crying about the deceased, saying that she was not dead, but was sleeping, so they laughed at Him; Allowing only Peter, James and John and the parents of the deceased to be with Him, He entered the house, took her hand, saying: “Maiden, stand up.” And she stood up. On the way to Jairus’s house, Christ healed one woman who had been bleeding for twelve years: she came up from behind and touched the hem of His robe, saying to herself: “If I only touch His robe, I will be healed.” And so it was. Immediately she was healed of her illness. At the same time, Jesus felt within Himself that power had gone out of Him, and He asked: “Who touched My clothes?” Then the woman confessed everything, and Christ said to her: “Your faith has saved you; Go in peace." – After the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter, two blind men followed Jesus, shouting: “Have mercy on us, Jesus, son of David,” and they followed Him into the house. He asked them: “Do you believe that I can do this?” They say to Him, “Yes, Lord.” Then He touched their eyes and healed them. We must note one more feature in the miracles of Christ during the first period of His ministry. Just as in His teaching at this time He did not focus the attention of the listeners on His face, so in His miracles He did not expose the full significance of His face for the kingdom of God. Performing numerous miracles without any slowness, He Himself, as a miracle worker, remained, as it were, in the shadows. This turned out to be in the sheer number of miracles and the speed of their performance, and especially in the healings from one touch of Him. This is how the bleeding woman was healed. And this was not the only case. According to the Evangelist Luke, “all the people sought to touch Him; because power proceeded from Him and healed everyone” (Luke 6:6). If the people could use the power emanating from Him “without His knowledge and permission,” then He appeared in His miracles rather as a conductor of divine power than as its manager. In the quoted words of the Evangelist Luke, the numerous miracles of Christ are directly connected with this. But this same connection between the numerous miracles of Christ and the speed of their performance with the power emanating from Him can be established by the following reasoning: if in some cases the power of Christ could be used without His knowledge and permission, then in other cases there was no reason to delay in working miracles under the condition of faith, which, of course, was in the bleeding woman and in others like her. The numerous healings and the readiness with which they were performed by Christ indicate His consent to look at His miracles in this way, that is, to hide His face behind His miracles. In connection with this is the fact that He forbade those healed to divulge about Himself. This is all the more remarkable because in Samaria, where Christ did not perform a single miracle, He clearly proclaimed Himself the Messiah, and in Galilee, where He performed numerous miracles, He forbade those healed to proclaim Himself. Obviously, it was necessary for the people, among whom His exodus was to follow, to first be given the opportunity to relate to His teachings and deeds with complete freedom, without the need to establish their attitude towards Him personally - the opportunity to determine their attitude towards the kingdom of God as an undoubted good. The Kingdom of God has come: does man consider it the real and only good? does he desire it with all his heart and all his thoughts, or not? “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” One of the miracles performed at this time, the healing of the paralytic in Capernaum, apparently does not fit this description. Those who brought this sick man could not enter the house in which Jesus was, because of the multitude of people who filled and surrounded the house; so they lowered him through the roof with the bed at the feet of Jesus. He, seeing their faith, says to the paralytic: “Child! Your sins are forgiven you." The scribes and Pharisees sitting there considered His words blasphemy, since only “God alone can forgive sins.” But Christ said to them: “Why do you imagine evil in your hearts? For what is easier to say: your sins are forgiven, or to say: get up and walk? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, (then he says to the paralytic): Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” And he got up, took up his bed, and went to his house. Jesus performed this healing as if to prove His glory, His power to forgive sins. But in order to correctly assess the significance of this event, one must keep in mind that the power of the Son of Man to forgive sins coincided with His taking upon Himself the sins and infirmities of men, that the Son of Man had this power in His humiliation. Of course, this circumstance undermines the opinion that at first Jesus did not teach at all about His face: in view of this, one can only say that He did not focus the primary attention of His listeners on His face; but, in any case, the manifestation of the power to forgive sins was not strange in the main content of His sermon, but was quite suitable to His call: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” It is worthy of special note that the manifestation of the power of the Son of man to forgive sins in the healing of the paralytic was followed by the calling of Matthew - a circumstance that irrefutably testifies that the power of the Son of man to forgive sins coincided with His humiliation, with His taking on sins. All three evangelists, who talk about the calling of the publican Matthew as an apostle, pretend that it was after the healing of the Capernaum paralytic. The calling of Matthew is remarkable not only because he himself was a publican, and publicans, i.e., tax collectors in favor of the hated Roman government, were equated with sinners among the Jews, but also because it generally revealed the communication of Christ Jesus with publicans and sinners, since Matthew made a great treat in his house for Jesus and His disciples, at which many publicans and sinners were present. This communication of Jesus and His disciples with outcast people caused indignation on the part of the Pharisees and scribes, to which He replied: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Then (see esp. Luke 5:33) the scribes and Pharisees brought another accusation against Him and His disciples: why, they answered Him, do John’s disciples fast often and say prayers, and also the Pharisees’ prayers, but Yours eat and drink? The answer of Christ Jesus contained a mysterious foreshadowing of His outcome: “Can you, He said, force the sons of the bridal chamber to fast when the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; and then they will fast in those days." The Second Period of Christ's Ministry: Crisis Behold, this One is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for the subject of controversy, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. (Luke 2:34–35). Christ manifested “powers” ​​among the Jews so that they would repent and be saved. If the Jews truly loved God and His eternal life, then, seeing the miracles of Jesus Christ, they would “repent in sackcloth and ashes” (Matthew 11:20–24; Luke 10:13–15). They had to reason like this: the abundance of miraculous benefits shown to Israel testifies that God has visited His people and that His kingdom has come, therefore Israel must accept the law of the kingdom of God - that new teaching, the truth of which can be verified by anyone who wants to do the will of God - must repent, cast off all attachments and be spiritually reborn. But the Jews did not repent. Christ performed many miracles and benefits; rumors about Him spread throughout Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan, throughout Syria; Он сотворил так много чудес, как иудеи могли ожидать только от времени Мессии, но они не покаялись. The Jews rejoiced at the miracles of Christ, they saw that their wildest expectations were becoming reality, they hoped and wished that this reality would continue forever. Such a mood of theirs hid a lot of evil within itself, and this evil had to be discovered. When the rumor about the miracles of Jesus Christ spread and people flocked to Him from everywhere, He went to Jerusalem: there His ministry solemnly began, and there a new period of His ministry was to begin - the time when “the thoughts of the hearts were revealed” (Luke 2:35) of the Jews. In Jerusalem, Jesus Christ healed a sick man, probably a paralytic, who had been waiting in vain for thirty-eight years for healing from a source called Bethesda. Jesus said to the sick man, “Do you want to be healthy? Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And he immediately became well, and took up his bed and walked. It was on the Sabbath day. According to the explanation of Ephraim the Syrian, Jesus Christ said the words “get up, take up your bed” so that on the Sabbath day they would see someone healed. It should be noted that this time Christ did not say to the healed man: “Get up, take up your bed, and go to your house” (ὕ παγε εἰς τὸν ο ἶ κόν σου Matthew 9:6; Mark 2:11; πορεύου εἰς τὸν ο ἶ κόν σου Luke 5:24), as it was said to the healed Capernaum paralytic, but he said: “Take up your bed and walk” (περιπάτει), and the healed man “walked” around the city with the bed in his hands. This was undoubtedly a challenge to the Jews: the one who recovered was a messenger to the Jews about the breaking of the Sabbath by the miracle of Christ. The Jews said to the healed man: “Today is Saturday; You shouldn’t take the bed.” He answered them: “He who healed me said to me: take up your bed and walk.” When it was established that the one who healed him was Jesus, the Jews began to persecute Jesus and sought to kill Him because He did such things on the Sabbath. Did Christ break the Sabbath? In the sense of a negative attitude towards the law, He did not violate the Sabbath, since “the law never intended to interfere with good deeds, even on the days of Sabbath rest”; but in the sense of perfect fulfillment of the law, contrary to Jewish customs, Jewish understanding, the Sabbath was broken. “You see,” writes John Chrysostom, “the law then predominantly remains intact when Christ has broken it”? Be that as it may, He deliberately broke the Jewish Sabbath. According to Cyril of Alexandria, “Christ heals a person on Saturday and immediately commands that the by-laws be violated, forcing him to walk on Saturday and, moreover, burdened with a bed.” By this, the Jews were placed in a critical position in which their hearts had to be revealed. On the one hand, they saw and could not help but see in Jesus a great miracle worker, a man who had the power to satisfy their thirst for the miraculous, to fulfill their messianic expectations, a teacher who came from God, but, on the other hand,... He appeared before them as a man who did not keep the Sabbath, did not appreciate their traditions, with which their national hopes were connected. They put their faith in the teacher who came from God on one scale, and their national expectations on the other. If you believe in a person who is from God, if you believe in God, in His kingdom, then you need to reject national earthly goods, deny yourself; If you hold on to earthly goods and self-righteousness, then you must reject what God has sent. And the thoughts of their hearts were revealed: they decided to kill Jesus. Subsequently, they said about Him: “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath” (John 9:16). But this was only a later excuse they came up with for their hatred of Him; this hatred arose in them for Him, as for “a man from God”: this constituted the deep drama of their hearts. They clearly had a choice between the glory of God and the glory of man, the righteousness of God and self-righteousness, eternal life and earthly blessings. In this regard, the conversation that Christ had with the Jews on this occasion is extremely remarkable for the clarity and definiteness of the content: He told the Jews that, having healed the sick, He violated the Sabbath by nothing other than the work of God, that in this His work lies the judgment of the world, that now it must be clarified whether the Jews want to come to Him in order to have eternal life, or will they remain with ritual self-righteousness, the root of which is in their love of glory, in the fact that they receive glory from each other, but do not seek the glory that comes from the one God. Particular attention should be paid to the fact that in this conversation Christ taught with complete clarity and directness about Himself, about His person, about His significance for the world. Previously, performing numerous miracles that created good fame for Him among the people, He did not teach about Himself; and now, being a Sabbath breaker and causing hatred towards Himself, He speaks clearly about Himself. He says that He broke the Sabbath by the work He did as the Son of God. The undoubted explanation of this circumstance is that faith in Jesus Christ, saving faith in Him, is a feat of man and is possible only in the sense of his personal effort; it begins only where there is temptation, and grows stronger with victory over addiction, love of glory, and arrogance. It is not merely a belief in an apparently objective fact; but saving faith consists in the inner revolution of the believer; it is the affirmation of the spiritual and divine in the inner life of man, his own effort to make eternal life a reality for himself. Man's faith in the Son of God is necessarily his faith in his sonship with God, and therefore its beginning necessarily presupposes a revision of earthly values, a revaluation of goods. The question of faith is a question of spiritual life and death. Such faith could not begin at a time when Christ performed miracles that brought Him good glory, and when that faith to which He did not entrust Himself was generated in abundance. True faith could only begin now 425. Therefore, before, when healing the sick man, Jesus Christ strictly sent him away from Himself, forbidding him to proclaim Himself, and now, having healed the paralytic on Saturday, when the Jews had already begun to persecute the healed man (John 5:10), He met him and revealed himself to him (John 5:13–15). He also did the same thing later with the healed man born blind, when he learned that the Jews had excommunicated him (John 9:35). However, from the evangelist’s narrative about the healing of a man who had suffered for thirty-eight years, it is not clear that his reporting to the Jews about Jesus was a feat, as is undoubtedly true in relation to the man born blind and as is likely in the first case; What is certain is that for the Jews, to whom the one healed at Bethesda announced Jesus, faith in Jesus, the Sabbath breaker, was a temptation. “And the Jews sought even more to kill Him, because He not only violated the Sabbath, but also called God His Father, making Himself equal with God” (John 5:18). Of course, the point here was not in the words of Jesus alone, nor in the fact that He broke the Sabbath, but in the fact that His sonship with God was evidenced by His miracles, that by miracle He broke the Sabbath. In Jesus, what stood against the Jews was that in which they saw God’s favor towards man - His miraculous power: through Him, divine power acted against their ritual faith and love of glory, against what constituted the essence of their soul. He was the cause of the fact that the things of God were alienated from them, and they hated Him “even more,” having hated this “things of God” in Him. From Jerusalem Jesus Christ went to Galilee to do there what he did in Jerusalem; The Jerusalem scribes and Pharisees followed Him to keep a vigilant eye on Him and to spread that hatred of Him that was born in their souls throughout Galilee. On the “second first” Saturday, the first after the second day of Passover (Luke 6:1), He happened to pass through sown fields, and His disciples plucked ears of corn and ate them, rubbing them with their hands. The Pharisees who were watching them expressed to Christ their indignation at this violation of the Sabbath. Then, also on Saturday, He came to the synagogue and healed there, in front of the Pharisees, a withered man. From the gospels of Mark and Luke other similar cases of violation of the Sabbath are known: the healing on Saturday of a demon-possessed and crumpled woman in the synagogue and a man suffering from water sickness in the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees. Violation of the Sabbath by healing a demoniac according to ev. Mark went unnoticed. When Jesus was teaching in the synagogue, the demoniac who was there shouted: “What do we and You, Jesus of Nazareth? You have come to destroy us. I know You, who You are, the Holy One of God.” Jesus with authority rebuked him and cast out the spirit, and all the people were horrified and marveled at this power. But other of the healings named were deliberate violations of the Sabbath. When Christ entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, where there was a man with a withered hand, they asked Him: is it possible to heal on the Sabbath? Saying that one can do good on the Sabbath, He healed the sick man. Christ, seeing her in the synagogue on Saturday, called a crumpled woman who had suffered from this illness for eighteen years, and, laying on his hands, healed her, which caused the indignation of the leader of the synagogue. When, on the Sabbath, in the house of the Pharisee leader, a man suffering from a watery disease appeared before Jesus, He Himself asked the lawyers and Pharisees: is it permissible to heal on the Sabbath? They were silent, and He, touching, healed the sick man and released him. As you know, there are grounds (John 20:30) for the assumption that there were more such violations of the Sabbath by the miracles of Christ than we know. With each such event, the anger of the Jews progressively increased: they became furious. Their hatred was especially inflamed by the fact that Christ, breaking the Jewish Sabbath with miracles, victoriously repelled the attacks of the Jews by pointing out that He was doing the works of God for the good of the people, so that “all those who opposed Him were ashamed, but all the people rejoiced over all His glorious deeds” (Luke 13:17). Actually, the hatred of the Jews towards Him was joined by their fear of losing for their power and influence a people who were ready to go over to the side of their enemy. The bitterness of the Jews reached a high level of tension and was resolved by their terrible blasphemy against the Spirit. После одного исцеления в субботу ( Мф. 12:22 ) привели к Иисусу бесноватого слепого и немого, и исцелил его, так что слепой и немой стал говорить и видеть 426 . And all the people marveled, and said, Is not this the Christ, the son of David? The Pharisees and scribes who came from Jerusalem (Mark 3:22) heard it and said: He casts out demons only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. And others of them, as well as the Sadducees (Matthew 16:1), at the same time (Matthew 12 and esp. Luke 11:15–16), tempting, demanded from Him a sign from heaven. It has already been said above what it meant for the Jews to recognize the miraculous power of Christ by the power of the prince of demons and demand from Him a sign from heaven: both served as a decisive revelation of their unbelief in Christ, their hatred of the spiritual kingdom of God, their inability to receive its spiritual benefits. Это было тою страшною хулою на Духа Божия, которая не прощается человеку. Perhaps there is some special significance in the fact that this terrible blasphemy was uttered by the Jews not about any healing on the Sabbath, but specifically about the healing of a demoniac. If we even delve into the general properties of the disease of demon possession, possession by unclean spirits, we should already notice that the healing of this disease, above all other healings, revealed the miraculous power of Christ precisely as the holy power of the Spirit of God. We, of course, do not think of offering readers a complete presentation of the essence of this disease, or completely explaining it. In this regard, it should be undoubted, no matter what views we hold, that the human soul is truly possessed by unclean spirits, that our own experience testifies to us of our spiritual slavery and unclean slavery - this should be as undoubted as the fact that the holy power of God acted in Christ. And His saving work was to free people from slavery to unclean spirits and call them into the freedom of the sons of God, to establish the kingdom of the Spirit of God instead of the kingdom of unclean spirits. The power of the kingdom of God, which came in Christ, was evidenced by the healing of all sorts of diseases, but by the healing of the demon-possessed, it was revealed precisely that Christ healed by the power of the Holy Spirit. When the Jews denied the Holy Spirit of Christ, they thereby rejected His spiritual kingdom and freely surrendered to their former slavery. This meaning of Jewish blasphemy will appear even more clearly to us if, in addition to the indicated general properties of demonic possession as possession by unclean spirits, we consider the historical features of Jewish demonic possession of the time of Jesus Christ. This is the remarkable feature that the unclean spirits, when they saw Christ, fell before Him and shouted in horror: “Leave me alone; what to us and to you, Jesus of Nazareth? You have come to destroy us. We know You, who You are, the holy one of God.” This persistence in the confession of Christ is remarkable, and even more remarkable is this connection with the confession of horror! In anticipation of some explanation of this feature, we base it on the peculiarity of the religious state of the Jews in their enmity with Christ. From the very first appearance of Christ in Jerusalem, at the beginning of His open ministry, the attitude of the Jews towards Him contained an internal discord: Jesus of Nazareth was for them a teacher who came from God, but acted against them. Over time, this discord in their souls worsened and reached particular severity during His second visit to Jerusalem. The state of mind of the Jews seems to us full of the deepest tragedy and truly terrible. And in general, their religious mood at the time of Christ was characterized by extreme tension, and in Christ they saw the power of God acting against them, they saw their enemy who came from God! Their hearts were dominated by conscious hatred, combined with horror. When they decided to kill Jesus of Nazareth, their souls were burned with an unquenchable flame of the question: “What if this is Christ?” When the people said: “Isn’t this Christ?” then these words of the people were blows of a hammer on the most taut strings of their hearts. They silenced and could not silence this question. Он был для них навязчивой идеей. The conscience aroused by Christ gave them no rest day or night; it haunted them with horror, which, beginning in the area of ​​consciousness, took possession of their entire soul, even in its unconscious area. Mental disorder (ἀνοία) on this basis was quite possible. But this question was most likely to produce mental disorder not among those for whom it first arose and who led the life of the people - they were too strong and active for this, but among the weakest of the people, prepared for this by mental illness and slavery to unclean spirits. Under these conditions, demonic possession acquired the historical peculiarity in which it appeared before Christ. Possession in this particularity was a painful suggestion to the people from His enemies, the leaders of the people, a mental reflection of their passions, their doubts and hatred, in the souls of the simple, “weary and scattered, like sheep without a shepherd,” it was the poison of the Jewish doubt of the people’s faith in the miracles of Christ. These demoniacs could not be indifferent to Christ, just as a butterfly cannot resist fire: seeing Him, they were terrified, but uncontrollably ran to Him and confessed Him as Christ. It was faith combined with awe and painful hatred. In the person of these unfortunates, the painful products of the spiritual life of His Jewish enemies, their unbelief and hatred of Him, appeared before Christ. In general, Christ met and healed those possessed by demons from the very beginning of His miraculous activity; Perhaps He also met demon-possessed confessors after returning from the first trip to Jerusalem and moving (from Nazareth) to Capernaum, as can be seen from the general remark of the evangelists Mark and Luke that Christ even at that time did not allow demons to say that they know that He is the Christ (Mark 1:34); however, it is likely that after Christ’s return from his second journey to Jerusalem, He met more such demoniacs - at least one must evaluate the remark of the Evangelist Mark, which he makes after the story of the healing of the withered man: “and the unclean spirits, when they saw Him, fell before Him and shouted: “You are the Son of God” (Mark 3:11) 427. Be that as it may, Christ healed demon-possessed confessors, in whose person the painful products of the unbelief of the Jews appeared before Him. In these healings there was an extraordinary lesson for the Jews, which would have caused them to turn to Christ if they had been capable of it: it was the destruction of the consequences of their own sin. Just as these sick people involuntarily bore the sin of the Jews, so Christ, when healing the sick, took upon Himself the same sin by the power of His love. Through the healing of these sick people, the kingdom of God reached the Jews themselves. If they were converted, then the healing of the demon-possessed would be the healing of the sin of the Jews. But they did not convert, and the kingdom of God did not reach them with its spirit, scorching them with its fire. When Christ explained to them the meaning of their blasphemy against the Spirit and pointed out its source in their evil heart, they did not repent, but brought their blasphemy to the highest degree of self-justification, demanding from Christ a sign from heaven. If they had recognized the Holy Spirit in the power of Christ, which healed the illness of demon-possessed confessors - this painful product of their own sin, then the Spirit of Christ would have dwelled in them; but they recognized her as an unclean spirit, and then their own unclean spirit, which Christ cast out from the sick, returned to them with greater power. When the unclean spirit leaves a person, it walks through dry places, looking for rest, and does not find it. Then he says, “I will return to my house from whence I came,” and, when he arrived, he found it unoccupied, swept and tidied up. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter and live there; and for that person the last thing is worse than the first. So, according to Christ, it happened with the evil race of the Jews 428 (Matt. 12:43–45). The Jews' blasphemy against the Spirit was one of the most decisive moments in gospel history: it was followed by a new period in the activity of Christ - a period of bitterness of the Jews, their blindness. However, the new period in the activity of Christ did not follow directly after the blasphemy of the Jews, but it was preceded by certain events, due to its extreme importance. The Evangelist Matthew, as it were, narrates the blasphemy of the Jews twice: once (Matthew 9:32–34) he narrates the blasphemy of the Jews about these preliminary events, and the other time (Matthew 12) he connects with it this very new period in the activity of Christ. The event by which Christ preceded a new period in His relations with the Jews was the sending of His twelve disciples to preach. Christ, having called His twelve disciples 429, gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity, and sent them, two by two, to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He commanded them, saying: “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter the city of the Samaritans, but go especially to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Giving them moral instructions, which are not of historical significance, but of general application to all preachers of the gospel at all times, He also told them: “If anyone will not receive you, and will not listen to your words, then shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or that city. Truly I say to you, it will be more bearable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that city.” These words have a historical meaning. Predicting to them about persecution from people and hatred for His name, He, also in relation to the historical conditions of their preaching, instructed them: “When they persecute you in one city, flee to another. For truly I say to you, before you have gone around the cities of Israel, the Son of Man comes.” What historical significance does this mission of the twelve apostles have to preach? What day of judgment is Christ talking about? What does he mean by the coming of the Son of Man? Why were the apostles sent only to Israel and why did they have to hastily bypass the cities of Israel? Having sent His twelve disciples to preach, Christ Himself ceased (μετέβη) from that time (ἐκεῖθεν) to teach and preach in cities (Matthew 11:1), “calms down” for a while and retires into the desert (Matthew 11 τί ἐξήλθατε εἰς τὴν ἔρημον θεάσασθαι ). This reassurance of Christ did not last long. Soon He came out of the wilderness and came to Israel to resume His work with a new character to begin the hardening and blinding of Israel. This was the coming of the Son of Man, about which Christ spoke to the apostles: having begun with the bitterness of the Jews, it ended with the suffering and death of the Son of Man. This bitterness of the Jews was a terrible judgment for them, in which it was worse for them than for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah. Since this was a judgment for Israel, Christ sent the apostles only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Since the trial was to open soon, the apostles had to go around the cities of Israel with extreme haste. By sending His twelve disciples to preach in the cities of Israel, Christ acted as a merciful judge. The Jews were threatened with the terrible judgment of the Son of Man; but He came not only to condemn the Jews, but to first of all save from this judgment all who could be saved, and then condemn only those who were not capable of salvation. And so, on the eve of the judgment, He sends the apostles to awaken all the Jews, to warn every soul. “Save yourself, whoever can, from this corrupt generation”: such was the meaning of the apostolic sermon. At the same time, their preaching made it possible for the judgment of the Son of Man to be a judgment for all Jews: it was a call for all Jews to this judgment... To warn the Jews from the coming wrath was actually the calling of John the Baptist: the twelve disciples of Christ sent to preach did the same thing that John the Baptist did in his time (cf. Mark 6:12). During the apostolic sermon, a circumstance occurred that served as an indication of the imminent onset of judgment and even, perhaps, accelerated its onset: it was an embassy to Jesus Christ from John the Baptist. John the Baptist was taken into custody by Herod the tetrarch as soon as Christ began His activity. His guilt before the governor was that He denounced Herod for his marital cohabitation with Herodias, his brother’s wife. In the prison in which John was imprisoned, his disciples had access to him, through whom he had information about the teachings and deeds of Christ Jesus. Of course, hearing about the miracles of Jesus, his πρωτος, he expected a quick deliverance, he expected a terrible condemnation of all the enemies of Israel, all his oppressors. But then a rumor reached him that Christ had retired into the desert, and instead of Himself had sent His disciples to preach, who, walking through the cities, preached about the coming day of the coming of the Son of Man and His judgment, just as John himself was the forerunner of Christ. For John, the question arose: had Jesus, his πρωτος, really finished His work? Is He not the one who is to come? Can “they” still expect something different? Isn’t the end of the imprisonment yet? Probably, John was also confused by the fact that the disciples of Jesus were not formidable heralds of the coming judgment: they acted like humble disciples who were no higher than their teacher, whom they called Beelzebub, they proclaimed such a formidable trial in which the judge himself would suffer from the defendants. Such a trial will not free John from imprisonment. Be that as it may, John was tempted about Christ and sent two of his disciples to ask Him: Are you the one who should come, or should we expect someone else? The messengers found Christ in the desert, where He had retired after the departure of the apostles to preach. This was the wilderness to which John was operating. During His ministry to people, Jesus repeatedly sought solitude and could not hide. It was the same this time. And in the desert He was surrounded by crowds of people. When the messengers from John came, He healed many from diseases and illnesses, and from evil spirits, and gave sight to many blind people. Then He said to the messengers: “Go, tell John what you saw and heard. Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” For John, this answer meant: And in the desert Jesus does the same as he did before; He is the one who was supposed to come. But the full meaning of Jesus' answer was deeper. He performed miracles; His glory could be seen in them. But miracles prepared death for Himself; His preaching was a humble gospel to the poor. Therefore, His words: “Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me” referred not only to the present temptation of John, but also to the future temptation of many through His sufferings. When John’s disciples departed, Christ began to speak to the people about John: “Was John, whom you saw in this desert, a man of changeable thoughts? No, he was a prophet and even more than a prophet. Of those born of women, no one greater than John the Baptist has risen. His weakness is only due to the fact that he was a herald of the kingdom of heaven, but not a member of it. But what can we say about this generation, to whom can we compare it?” So Christ passed from John to the Jewish people. In the temptation of John, His spiritual gaze saw a more significant phenomenon than John’s personal weakness. The basis of his temptation is the unbelief of the people. If the Jews had believed John the Baptist, if they had believed the Son of Man, the terrible judgment would not have befallen them, and the Son of Man Himself would not have suffered suffering and death. But the Jews did not believe. Moreover, before the spiritual gaze of Christ, the Jews, from whom He Himself suffered later, were the culprits of the soon-to-follow death of John the Baptist, with whom they did as they wanted (Matthew 12:12-13). “Then” Christ began to rebuke the cities in which His powers were most manifested, because they did not repent. He reproached Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, which ascended to heaven. He said that if the powers shown in these Israeli cities had been manifested in Tire, Sidon and Sodom, then those cities would have repented; Он угрожал этим израильским городам страшным грядущим судом. But in the darkness of this judgment over the Jewish people, this rejection of Jewish pride, the blinding of the wise and prudent, a joyful ray of enlightenment of infants, the salvation of the toiling and burdened, shone. In the Gospel of Luke, between the stories about the embassy from John and the teaching in parables, an event is conveyed that illuminates the attitude towards Christ, on the one hand, of the Jews, who considered themselves reasonable and righteous, and, on the other hand, of humble sinners. One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat food with him; and He entered the Pharisee's house and lay down. And so a woman from that city, a sinner, came with an alabaster vessel of ointment, stood behind at His feet, began to wet His feet with tears, and wipe them with her hair, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with ointment. Seeing this, the Pharisee thought: if He were a prophet, He would not have allowed the sinner to touch Him. But Christ in response explained to him that both he, the Pharisee, and the sinner were debtors before God. Of two debtors, the one who is forgiven more loves more. The woman showed great and humble love for Christ, while the Pharisee, who considered it an honor not for himself to receive Christ, but for Christ to come to him, did not give Him either water on his feet or a kiss. Therefore, Christ continued: “Her many sins are forgiven because she loved much; and he who is forgiven little loves little.” The third period of Christ's ministry: the blinding of the Jews and their judgment A) From the Day of Proverbs to the Feast of Renewal I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. (John 9:39). The Apostle Paul, discussing God’s rejection of His people, with the exception of a small remnant, writes: “What Israel sought, it did not receive: but the elect received, but the rest were hardened, as it is written: God gave them the spirit of slumber, eyes with which they do not see, and ears with which they do not hear” (Is. 29:10; Rom. 11:7–8). This bitterness and blindness of the people of Israel is a fact of gospel history. Evangelist John, reviewing the entire activity of Jesus Christ before the Passover, expresses extreme surprise at the fact that Christ performed so many miracles before the Jews, but they did not believe in Him. This amazing (cf. Mark 6:6) unbelief of the Jews raises the question why they did not believe. The evangelist gives a clear answer to this question with the words of the prophet: “because they could not believe, because, as Isaiah said, he had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, 430 so that they would not see with their eyes, and would not understand with their hearts, and would not be converted, so that I would heal them” (Is. 6:10). Who blinded the Jews and who could heal them? “This,” continues the evangelist, “said Isaiah when he saw the glory of Christ and spoke about Him” (John 12:37–41). Christ blinded the Jews with His glory, with His miracles; they became hardened and crucified Him in madness 431. This was the hardening of the Jewish belief in miracles. This blindness and hardening consisted of God's judgment on Israel. The bitterness of the Jews by Christ was preceded by His initial activity, when He taught the Jews about the kingdom of God with direct and clear speeches, when He performed many miracles and benefactions before them, attracting joyful crowds of people to Him. Christ began to approach it after, during the trial that followed that initial activity, it turned out that the Jewish faith in miracles was not a true saving faith, but was rooted in their attachment to material goods - after the inability of the Jews for the spiritual benefits of the kingdom of God was revealed. So, the first reason for the blindness of the Jews was their own heart: they themselves closed their eyes, they themselves moved away from the light, because their deeds were evil. But God's judgment on the Jews was more than their self-blinding. When their attachment to material wealth, their self-righteousness and love of glory was revealed, then Jesus Christ, with His teaching and His deeds, so blinded and hardened them that they could no longer believe. They were not only not given what they were incapable of, but what they had was also taken away from them; on them the law was fulfilled, that to everyone who has, what is given and increased, and from the one who does not have, what he has, or what he thinks he has, is taken away (Matthew 13 par.; Luke 19:26). Despite the inability of the Jews to the spiritual benefits of the kingdom of God, we can still humanly reason like this: if Christ had yielded to the Jews and given them a sign from heaven, if He had revealed himself to them in the form in which they could accept Him, if He had not kept them in bewilderment, if He had frightened them with his formidable greatness, they would have recognized Him, albeit forcedly, outwardly, formally, they, at least, would not have become His murderers. But God’s thought is not the same as human thought: God does not need external worship, He does not need human glory. Those who labor and are heavy laden are dear to Him. Babies are dear to him. To open the kingdom of God to infants, it was necessary to hide it from the wise and prudent; in order to establish the universal kingdom of the spirit, Christ had to suffer from the bitter pride of the Jews. Christ began the judgment of the Jews, their hardening, with the teaching of parables. When the apostles returned from preaching and Christ again appeared “in the cities” to teach and do, a great change occurred in His teaching: He began to teach the people in parables. It was a specific day celebrated by the evangelists. That day Jesus left home and sat down by the sea. Many people gathered to Him. He entered the boat and sat down, and all the people stood on the shore. And he taught them many things in parables. The change was quite intentional: the evangelists clearly notice that on that day Christ preached to the people in many parables, and did not speak to them without a parable, but explained everything to the disciples in private (Mark 4:33–34). The fact of this change in the teaching of Christ cannot in the least be weakened by the fact that even before this day Christ used parables in order, most likely, to give His teaching clarity and imagery - such are the parables about the builders on stone and on sand (Matthew 7:24-27; Luke 6:47-49), about the patch of unbleached cloth on old clothes and the new wine in old wineskins (Matthew 9:16–17; Mark 2:21–22; Luke 5:36–37). The fact of the change is that earlier Christ explained his teachings in parables, but now he taught the people only in parables, and explained everything to his disciples in private. This was a drastic change, so that the disciples of Jesus Christ asked Him in bewilderment: “Why do you speak to them in parables?” To understand the meaning of this question, it must be borne in mind that the disciples subsequently said to their Teacher: “Behold, now You speak plainly, and do not speak any parables. Now we see that You know everything, and have no need for anyone to question You. Therefore we believe that You came from God” (John 16:29–30). This was the effect of His direct speech on the disciples. Obviously, the parables had a completely different effect on the people, and this forced the disciples, approaching Him, to ask Him: “Why do you speak to them in parables?” Jesus Christ answered this question to his disciples, according to the Gospel of Mark, this way: “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but to those outside all things happen in parables, so that (ἵ να) they look and do not wither, and when they hear they listen and do not understand, lest they be converted and their sins be forgiven” (Mark 4:11–12 according to the Greek text). According to these clear and definite words of the evangelist, parables, as a device in the teachings of Jesus Christ, had the goal of blinding the people, through them judgment and bitterness were carried out on the Jews. The Jews, who had hitherto been unwilling to turn to repentance, were now unable to turn. “For whoever has, to him will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him” (Mark 4:25). The text of the Gospel of Matthew brings into play only the difference that while, according to the Gospel of Mark, the very teaching in parables was aimed at hardening the Jews, according to the first Gospel it was a consequence of the hardening of the Jews: therefore, Christ answered, I speak to them in parables, “because it has been given to you to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but it has not been given to them... For this reason I speak to them in parables, that seeing they do not see, and hearing not they hear and do not understand. And the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled over them... for the heart of this people has become hardened, and their ears have difficulty hearing, and they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and lest they be converted, so that I may heal them” (Isaiah 6:10; Matt. 13:11–15). This difference is easily reconciled by the fact that first the Jews closed their eyes, and then God’s judgment followed on them through their complete blindness. Both evangelists are completely reconciled on the truth that to the one who has it is given, and from the one who has not, even what he has is taken away: these words are also given in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 13:12). In Luke's gospel, Christ's answer is conveyed briefly, but in the sense of Mark's gospel (ἵ να - Mark 8:10). So, Christ taught in parables in order to blind and harden the Jews. In view of the clear words of the Gospels about the purpose of the parables, the questions of paramount importance for us are no longer: how did the parables achieve this goal, whether by their form or content? Did all the parables have this purpose, or were the parables spoken earlier than the “day of parables”, and some of the later ones were only an explanation of the teaching? In any case, no matter what the answer to these questions is given, what was said above about the purpose of the parables will remain unshakable. In answering these questions one must be most wary of narrow theories, remembering that different paths often lead to the same goal, and that the same path can be followed in two opposite directions. And first of all, just as in general the judgment of God over the Jews was not similar to human judgments, but was a consequence of the granting of the highest good to people - spiritual life, the advent of the kingdom of God, and the inability of the Jews for this good, so blindness by parables suggests that the parables contained deep truths for those who understood them, and that they were blinding for those who either did not understand them or, understanding them, did not accept those truths. Thus, while some were hardened by parables, others had blessed eyes that saw and ears that heard parables (Matthew 13:16–17). The misunderstanding of the parables was caused by their form, the fact that they were offered to the people without explanation, and the non-acceptance of the truths hidden in them when understanding them is explained by the properties of these truths, the content of the parables, and the initial reason for the misunderstanding of the speech of Christ and its non-acceptance was that the Jews could not hear His words (John 8:43), it did not fit into them (therefore Mark 4:33). The consequence was the same: when the Jews did not understand Christ’s parables (John 10:6), they departed from Him (John 6:60–66), and when they understood them, they tried to seize Him (Matthew 21:45–46 par.), and meanwhile both parables contained deep truths and made the apostles blessed. Therefore, in Christ’s parables, form and content are inseparable. Without going into discussions about what a parable is, it is easy to see the peculiarity of Christ’s parables that in them the form was not (not to say alien, but even) external to the content, in an external way, as happens in works of art in general and, in particular, in fables. In Christ's parables, images serve as forms or symbols of living relationships (His to the people), and not as images of thoughts and feelings. The seed in His parables symbolizes His word, because His word actually grows in the human heart or is drowned out - it rises and grows in such a way that man does not know; He likens the kingdom of God to good seed, with which the tares grow, because just as the tares are gathered and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of this age; He likens Himself to a shepherd, a bridegroom, a son of the owner of the vineyard, because He is truly a shepherd, a bridegroom, a son. Even if we agree that the very images that He used in parables were often not created by Him, but were borrowed from the treasury of folk wisdom, still in His mouth these images acquired a completely new meaning, from fiction they became symbols of living relationships. There was no more symbolism in His parables than in His miracles - as much as there is in our very temporary life, the blessings of which, being real blessings, just as the miracles of Christ were real blessings, must nevertheless raise man's gaze to the invisible divine, which is the only complete and true reality. The difference in their effect on the listeners, who were either blinded by them, or, understanding them, were hardened, or were enlightened by them, was not based on the essence of the parables, so that the parables served as an explanation of the teaching, direct speech: this difference was based either on the difference in the listeners, or on whether the parables were combined with an explanation or not. Offered without explanation to “outsiders,” they blinded them with their darkness; offered to them with an explanation, they hardened them; addressed to students with explanations or in connection with direct speech, they served as a source of learning. And before the “day of parables,” Christ could teach his listeners with parables, which gave His teaching clarity, and after this day He used the same parables; but this did not deprive the special character of the effect on the listeners of those parables that blinded and embittered the people. These last parables are especially important for the history of the Gospel. It is difficult to single them out from a number of others with precision in characterizing each parable separately, and there is no need for it. But perhaps significant results will be obtained by observing the Gospel of Matthew. This evangelist divides most of Christ's parables into two groups 432: Matthew 13 (cf. Mark 4) and Matthew. 21–22 (cf. Mark 12; Luke 20). Of these, the first group was offered by Christ to the people precisely on that day when He spoke to the people in many parables without explanation, and without parables He did not tell them anything. These are the parables of the sower, the tares, the mustard seed, the leaven, the treasure, the pearl of great price, the net. They reveal the law of the kingdom of God - its growth in the human heart and its meaning in the world. These are parables that were incomprehensible to the people, because they were offered to them without explanation, at the same time making the disciples of Christ scribes, taught by the kingdom of heaven, like a master bringing out new and old things from his treasury. Another group of parables dates back to later times. These are parables about two sons, evil winegrowers, invited to a wedding feast. All of them express the idea of ​​​​the rejection of the Jews. Listening to these parables, the high priests and Pharisees understood that Christ was talking about them, and tried to seize Him. Christ combined these parables with direct speech - with a threatening denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees 433. The historical position of the parables of the second group will be discussed below; Now let us turn to what followed the first “day of proverbs.” According to the Gospel of Mark, in the evening of the day, in parables, Christ crossed to the eastern shore of Lake Galilee, where the healing of the demoniac took place (Mark 4:35 cf. Luke 8:22), and according to the Gospel of Matthew, soon after Jesus Christ finished the parables of that day. He came to His fatherland, and then, again crossing to the eastern shore, fed five thousand with five loaves. All these works of Christ had the same meaning as His parables - these were the works with which He hardened the people. In the evening, in a parable, Christ and his disciples crossed “to the other side” of the lake; calming the rising storm. He arrived on the other side, in the country of the Gadarenes, or Gergesines. As soon as He got out of the boat, He was met by a demon-possessed man (according to the Gospel of Matthew - two demon-possessed people), very ferocious. Seeing Jesus from afar, he ran, bowed to Him and shouted in a loud voice: “What is it to me and to you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I conjure You by God, do not torment me.” Christ healed this sick man, but at the same time a very strange event occurred: the sick man asked Christ not to send out the unclean spirit that was in him (cf. Mark 5:8) from that country, but to allow him to enter the herd of pigs. Jesus immediately allowed it, and the herd rushed down the steep slope into the sea, and there were about two thousand of them, and they were drowned in the sea. Many answers have been given to the question of why Christ allowed a huge herd of pigs to die - and not one of them is satisfactory, because usually the event is considered in isolation from other events of the gospel history, outside its planned course, whereas this, like every other event of the gospel history, can be explained only in its sequence. Christ, having healed the demoniac, allowed a herd of pigs to die in order to harden the inhabitants of that area, harden their faith in miracles. Here in a few words is a complete explanation of the event. This is precisely the meaning of the event suggested by the gospel narrative. After the death of the herd, those tending the pigs ran and told in the city and villages what had happened to the possessed man and about the pigs. And the inhabitants were afraid and began to ask Jesus to move away from their borders. It was not just one material loss that removed them from Him, but the fact that the miracle He performed stood against them—the divine power manifested in the miracle was directed against their material well-being. It was terrible for them. Of course, if they had love, they would have neglected the material loss for the sake of the demoniac, who was now in decent shape and of sound mind, but they did not have love, and the miracle frightened them and removed them from Christ. It is significant that now Jesus no longer forbids the healed man to talk about Him, but even commanded him to go to his own and tell them about what had happened. Returning after this to the western shore of the lake, Jesus came to Nazareth, where he was raised, and, as was His custom, entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and began to read. He was given the book of the prophet Isaiah; and He, opening the book, found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, for He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor, and He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are tormented, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord (Isa. 61:1-2). And, closing the book and giving it to the servant, he sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them: Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And everyone witnessed this to Him. Everyone agreed that the prophetic promises about the time of the Messiah were fulfilled, that the ongoing activity of Jesus of Nazareth made the favorable summer promised by God a reality for the Jews. But the Jews accepted the miracles of Christ with unclean passion, they accepted His benefits as due to them from God, as belonging to them by right of descent from Abraham, by the right of Judaism, by the right of kinship with the miracle worker. And this biased attitude towards miracles had its reverse side, an exclusively human, based on external considerations attitude towards the miracle worker: from the external, exclusively human side. He was nothing more to them than the son of Joseph. This seduced the Nazarenes, and the temptation gave birth to a thirst for the miraculous, which was strengthened in them by earthly calculations: they wanted Him to perform in His fatherland the miracles that He performed in Capernaum and the surrounding area. So they did not accept Jesus as the Son of God, not having the strength to break away from the biased judgment according to appearance, according to the flesh, and the general law was fulfilled on them: no prophet is accepted in his own country. But not to accept the prophet, to remove him, means to move away from him, to lose him for oneself, to lose the benefits that he brings with him: the Nazarenes who did not accept Christ must be completely rejected by Him. And He not only did not perform any miracle for them, only healing a few sick people (Mark 6:5), but also took away from them, just like His compatriots, like the Jews, all hope for a miracle. Thus, during the famine, Elijah was sent not to one of the many widows of Israel, but to a widow in Zarephath of Sidon; Thus, under Elisha, not one of the many lepers of Israel was cleansed, but Naaman the Syrian. Hearing this, everyone in the synagogue was filled with rage and, driving Jesus out of the city, overthrew Him from the top of the mountain on which their city was built. “The Nazarenes,” according to Ephraim the Syrian, “saw that He rejected the entire land of Israel, and honored the pagans immeasurably (higher), rebelled against Him and took Him out with reproaches (from the city) and overthrew Him. For they were inflamed with zeal for the descendants of Abraham, saying, “God has honored them more than all the Gentiles.” Having passed through the midst of the wrathful Nazarenes, Jesus withdrew from them. At this time, John's disciples announced to Jesus about the martyrdom of their teacher, killed by Herod the tetrarch 434 1). And having heard, Jesus went again with His disciples to the other side of the Lake of Galilee and withdrew to a deserted place near a city called Bethsaida 435 . His disciples had only recently returned from preaching; immediately upon their return, Christ began to teach the people in parables; then followed on the same and perhaps the next days the events in Gerges and Nazareth. During all this time, the apostles could not rest from the road, and now the Teacher chose a deserted place for them. However, many people followed Him here, because they saw the miracles that He performed on the sick. Perhaps these were crowds of pilgrims to Jerusalem on the occasion of the approaching Easter. Christ took pity on them, and began to teach them a lot, and so delayed them until a late time; and then, knowing what he wanted to do, he discovered through the apostles that the people had no bread and there was nowhere to get it in this deserted place, that only one boy had five barley loaves and two fish, and with these few loaves and fish he fed the entire people, which numbered up to five thousand people. It was an amazing miracle. It was amazing for the people, despite the fact that they had already seen many miracles of Jesus Christ - it was extraordinary in comparison with previous miracles. These were miracles over the sick (John 6:2), which saved individual people from suffering, caused by their need, and this miracle gave positive well-being to a huge crowd of people. The wildest messianic dreams of the Jews became reality: they ate bread in the kingdom of God. This miracle brought their sensual messianic expectations, their national dreams, their passionate attachment to the miraculous to the highest tension. Then the people who saw the miracle performed by Jesus said: “This is truly the prophet who should come into the world,” and they wanted to come and accidentally take Him and make Him king. They wanted to take possession of the kingdom of God by force: what crude sensuality, what inability to see spiritual meaning in a sign, to tear oneself away from the earth and raise one’s eyes to heaven! Christ, first of all, hastened to protect His disciples from this passionate outburst of national messianic aspirations: He immediately forced His disciples to get into the boat and go forward to the other side to Capernaum while He dismissed the people. Having dismissed the people, He went up the mountain alone to pray. He prayed unceasingly; however, at certain times He especially needed prayer. That's how it was now. We do not know what He prayed for, but we can easily assume that He was strengthened by prayer for the upcoming task - for the conversation that He had the next day in Capernaum and which was decisive in the people’s attitude towards Him. This conversation was a continuation of the miracle; it gave it a certain historical significance. Having miraculously walked across the sea, He entered Capernaum with his disciples. Here crowds of people met Him, diligently looking for Him on both sides of the lake, and they said to Him: Rabbi! when did you come here? Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the bread and were filled. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give you.” To this, the Jews, with an uncontrollable impulse of carnal passion, asked Him to continuously feed them with wonderful bread, just as Moses fed their fathers with manna. Then Jesus began to explain that the true, living, heavenly bread is the one that gives a person eternal life, life after the resurrection; that such heavenly bread is He Himself, Jesus, sent by the Heavenly Father; that in order to receive eternal life, a person must eat His own flesh and drink His blood - it is necessary to believe in the humiliated Son of Man and participate in His sufferings. These words of Christ caused a murmur among the Jews. They murmured because Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother they knew, called Himself the bread that came down from heaven; they grumbled because He wanted to give them His flesh to eat. What actually caused their indignation? According to John Chrysostom, “they were apparently annoyed that He said: I came down from heaven; but the real reason for their indignation was not this, but the fact that they had lost all hope of enjoying a bodily meal. They heard that they would no longer receive food (bodily) ... and they grumbled and expressed their annoyance that He did not give them the meal they wanted.” In addition, the Jews were seduced by the strange parable speech of Christ. Many of His disciples, hearing His speech, said: “What strange words! Who can listen to this? They understood well that they were denied sensual bread, but they did not understand what kind of bread the Son of Man promised them. They could not understand His words, whereas His words are spirit and life, “divine and spiritual, and do not contain anything carnal.” The Spirit gives life, the flesh does not benefit at all. So the word of Christ was truly “cruel” for the Jews. If we now ask what significance the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand had in connection with the Capernaum conversation, then the answer can be one: by this miracle the sensual faith of the Jews in miracles was brought to extreme tension, in order to then be hardened. And the bitterness was great. From that time on, many of Jesus' disciples left Him and no longer walked with Him. The bitterness of the people and numerous disciples against Him was so great that He even said to the twelve: “Do you also want to go away?...” Meanwhile, these closest disciples of Christ were impressed not only by the miracle of feeding the people, but also by the miracles of taming the storm and walking on the waters. It was a strong impression. In the evening of the day of the parable, the disciples of Christ, having dismissed the people, took Him with them into a boat and sailed to the Gadarene country. A strong storm arose, so that the waves drowned the boat, and He slept at the stern at the head. They woke Him up in horror. He stood up, rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was great silence. Then a new fear seized the disciples, and they said to each other: “Who is this, that both the wind and the sea obey Him?” The walking on the waters took place after the people were fed, when the disciples alone set sail on the sea. A strong contrary wind also arose, and they had trouble sailing. About the fourth watch they saw Him walking on the sea. They were scared, thinking it was a ghost. But He told them: “It is I, do not be afraid.” And he entered the boat with them, and the wind died down. And in this case they were also extremely amazed and amazed. These miracles were undoubtedly manifestations of Christ's personal glory before his closest disciples. But in order to correctly assess their significance, one must remember that this was a time of hardening faith in miracles. For the same purpose that Christ performed the miracle of feeding the people, it was for the same purpose that He performed these miracles for the disciples. They strengthened His miraculous power in the eyes of the disciples. And just as the people’s faith was tempted and hardened by His actions in the Gadarene country and in Nazareth and His conversation in Capernaum, so the disciples experienced an even greater temptation... But they overcame temptation. To the words of Christ they answered through the mouth of Simon Peter: “Lord! who should we go to? You have the words of eternal life." However, even from among them, from that time on, one became a devil: enmity towards the Teacher arose in the heart of Judas Iscariot. This is how Christ ended Galilee. After this He brought the judgment of bitterness upon Judah. The Jewish holiday was approaching - the setting up of tabernacles. Then Jesus’ brothers said to Him, “Get out of here and go to Judea, so that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing. For no one does anything in secret, and seeks to be known. If You do such things, then reveal Yourself to the world.” For, the evangelist notes, His brothers did not believe in Him. To this Jesus said to them: “My time has not yet come; but for you there is always time. The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me, because I testify about it that its deeds are evil. You go to this holiday, but I am not going to this holiday yet, because My time is not yet fulfilled.” Having told them this, he remained in Galilee. But when His brothers came, then He also came to the holiday, not openly, but (as if) secretly. These words: he came to the feast not openly, but (as if) secretly (οὐ φανερῶς, ἀλλ ’ (ὡ ς) ἐν κρυπτῷ) - serve as the theme of an entire section in the gospel of John (John 7–10), characterizing Jesus’ stay in Jerusalem and His the teaching and deeds there are like the blinding and hardening of the Jews. These are parables and symbolic actions of Jesus in Jerusalem. The Jews were looking for Jesus at the festival, and there was a lot of talk about Him among the people. We know that the Jewish leaders already hated Him; but the people’s opinion about Him was uncertain: some said about Him that He was good, and others that He deceives the people. The influence of the leaders on the people was evident only in the fact that no one, fearing them, spoke about Him openly. This uncertainty in the people’s relationship to Him had to be stopped. Halfway through the feast, Jesus entered the church and taught. His speech was adjacent in its beginning to the previous Jerusalem conversation regarding the healing of the sick at Bethesda. He explained to the Jews that His teaching is such that only those who want to do the will of God can accept it, and, on the contrary, to reject it means to love human glory more than the glory of God; that His work - healing the sick on Saturday - is God's work, and to persecute Him for this work means to persecute Him for a good work. Then some of the people bowed to His side and, hearing His bold speech, asked if the rulers were convinced that He was truly the Christ. They were only embarrassed by the knowledge of His origin, whereas, according to their tradition, the origin of Christ should be unknown. To this, Christ publicly answered that unbelief cannot be based on external signs, that in essence it stems from ignorance of God and unwillingness to serve Him. Then they sought to seize Him, but 436 they could not, because His hour had not yet come. Amazed by this, many of the people believed in Him and recalled all the many miracles He had performed. The Pharisees and high priests, having heard such talk about Him among the people, sent servants to arrest Him. Therefore Jesus said to them: “I have not yet long to be with you, and I am going 437 to Him who sent Me. You will seek Me and will not find Me, and where I am now, you cannot come there.” This amazed the Jews... On each of the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles, which commemorated the Israelites’ wanderings in the desert, one priest, accompanied by the people, went with a vessel to the pool of Siloam, drew water there and brought it to the church. The Israelites in the wilderness “all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from a spiritual rock that followed: and the rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:3–4). On the last great day of the holiday, Jesus stood and cried: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.” It was an inspired cry. Then some of the people said: “He is certainly a prophet,” and others said: “This is Christ.” Some were again embarrassed by His origin from Galilee, and not from Bethlehem, the city of David. So, there was dissension among the people about Him. Some of them wanted to seize Him; but no one laid hands on Him. The ministers returned to the chief priests and Pharisees without bringing Jesus, and this again aroused the indignation of the Jews. In the evening Christ went to the Mount of Olives, and in the morning he came again to the church and stopped at the treasury. There were probably two huge lamps here, which were lit at night during the holiday. Опять 438 начал говорить Иисус и сказал: «Я свет миру; Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Then the Pharisees asked Him, who testifies about Him? where is His Father? Christ again answered them that they did not know God and that they could only know God through Him. The Jews again wanted to take Him, but no one took Him, because His hour had not yet come. Поэтому опять сказал им Иисус: «Я отхожу, и будете искать Меня, и умрете во грехе вашем. Where I am going, you cannot come" 439. The Jews were in great perplexity, but Christ continued to say 440: “You are from below (cf. Acts 2:19), I am from above (cf. John 3:31; Gal. 4:26; Phil. 3:14); You are of this world, I am not of this world. That is why I told you that you will die in your sins: for if you do not believe that it is I, you will die in your sins.” The attention of the Jews was brought to extreme tension; The way Jesus acted forced them to ask Him a very specific question: “Who are You?” Jesus said to them: “What shall I tell you about my beginning? I have a lot to tell you about you, and not only to talk, but also to judge you. However, although I will not speak to you about Myself, but about you, My speech is true, because I tell the world what I heard from Him who sent Me, and He is true.” So the quality of His speech about them pointed them to His Father and gave an answer to the question of who He is, but they did not understand what He was telling them about the Father. Then He pointed out to them His coming death and said: “When you lift up the Son of man, then you will know that it is I.” When He said this, many believed in Him. This was a schism among the Jews: those who believed separated from the leaders. But this was the Jewish faith; it was not accompanied by self-denial; on the contrary, national preferences grew stronger along with it. This was the kind of faith that awaited bitterness. Then Christ began to speak to the Jews who believed in Him that true faith in Him as the Son of God requires from them freedom from national biases. Since they remain in trust in their descent from Abraham and do not accept the truth of the universal sonship of man with God - the sonship of all people with God, they themselves cannot be the children of God - they are the children of the devil. This was a terrible rejection of the Jews as children of Abraham. Then the Jews took up stones to throw at Jesus; but He hid himself and left the church, passing through their midst, and went further 441. And as he passed, he saw a man blind from birth. Christ healed him, saying: While I am in the world, I am the light of the world. It was an amazing miracle, and it was the Sabbath when Jesus healed the man born blind. All of Jerusalem was in commotion. There was dissension among the Pharisees themselves. Some of them said: this man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath. Others said: how can a sinful person perform such miracles? This was not an external split of the Pharisees so that some of them would stand out as believers; in this respect they were of the same mind; it was a split in their conscience, so that their thoughts either accused or justified one another. Much more important is how this discord in the conscience of the leaders affected the people. The Jews have already agreed that whoever recognizes Jesus as the Christ should be excommunicated from the synagogue. Therefore, among the people, faith in Christ collided with fear of the Jews. And fear conquered faith. The people themselves took the former blind man to the Pharisees. Even the parents of the healed man refused to confess to the Pharisees who opened the eyes of their son. Only the healed one himself, despite all the malice of the Pharisees and their threats, alone resisted recognizing Jesus as a sinner along with the Pharisees, but openly confessed Him as a man who came from God. He was not afraid of being excommunicated from the synagogue. And for this he was awarded the highest revelation. Jesus, having heard that he was excommunicated, and having found him, revealed to him with perfect clarity that He was the Son of God. Then the healed man answered: “I believe, Lord!” and bowed to Him. Thus, only one man born blind received the highest revelation; all the other Jews found themselves on the other side - on the side of the rulers and Pharisees. Then Christ, explaining the meaning of the miracle performed, as well as His stay in Jerusalem in general, said: “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who see would become blind.” When some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard this, they said to Him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus told them: “If you were blind (i.e., considered yourself blind), you would have no sin; but as you say what you see, the sin remains on you.” Then Christ told them the parable of the shepherd and the one flock. He called Himself a good shepherd, laying down His life for the sheep in order to give them eternal life, and gathering all people into the single flock of the Heavenly Father, and the Pharisees and rulers as mercenaries and thieves, but all the Jews are not the sheep of His flock. This parable infuriated the Jews, and they said: “He is possessed by a demon and is going crazy; Why are you listening to Him? But in the depths of their own conscience the question did not cease: can a demon open the eyes of the blind? This conversation between Christ and the Jews continued at the Feast of Renewal. This holiday was established by Judas Maccabee in memory of the cleansing of the church from its desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes. It was a holiday during which the national dreams of the Jews especially came to life, expecting in the person of the Messiah a national hero like Judas. It took place two months after the Feast of Tabernacles. But the Evangelist John closely connects the events of gospel history that took place on both holidays, and we have no right to tear them apart, although we do not know how to fill this gap. Either Christ was hiding somewhere from one holiday to another, or during all this time His conversations with the Jews continued. Be that as it may, during the winter festival of renewal, Christ walked in the temple, in Solomon's porch. Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him: “How long will You keep us in bewilderment? If you are the Christ, tell us directly.” The question itself shows that the Jews saw Christ in Jesus, but they could not accept the kind of Christ that Jesus was: seeing, they did not see. Jesus answered them: “You are not one of My sheep. Only to My sheep do I give eternal life, because I and the Father are one.” Here again the Jews grabbed stones to beat Him for the fact that He declared Himself the Son of God. It is extremely significant that Christ compared the truth of His sonship with God with the truth of the sonship of each person. He answered the Jews: “Is it not written in the law: I said: you are gods (Ps. 82:6)? If He called those to whom the word of God came gods, and the scripture cannot be broken; Do you say to him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, “You are blaspheming, because I said, “I am the Son of God?” And first the Jews sought to kill Jesus because He called God His Father (John 5:18). But then the divine self-revelation of Jesus Christ was for them exclusively blasphemy; now, by the fact that the truth of the sonship of Jesus was compared with the sonship of the Jews, they were forced to resolve the question of the sonship of Christ in connection with their own sonship of God. Now the truth of Jesus' sonship with God appeared to them more clearly than ever before; Now for them to deny this truth meant to refuse heaven themselves. So what? They again sought to seize Him; but He escaped from their hands 442 . Now He completely left Jerusalem to return here for the crucifixion. He now left Jerusalem because the desire to kill Him as the Son of God grew stronger among the Jews. For this desire to ripen in them - this was the purpose of His stay in Jerusalem; He blinded them to such an extent that they were ready to make the insane decision to kill the Son of God. Until that time, the Jews had repeatedly wanted to take Him and put Him to death, but He evaded their hands, because His hour had not yet come, and again talked with them. “His hour had not come” - this means that the desire of the Jews to crucify Him precisely as the Son of God had not yet become stronger. His sufferings were saving for man only because they were the sufferings of the Son of God. Crucified by his enemies as the Son of God, He, as the Son of God, entered into the hearts of believers and gave birth to a more God-filial mood in them. And so, as soon as the Jews decided to kill Him because He called Himself the Son of God, He left the Jerusalemites as already prepared to crucify Him. He needed to do a little more so that this decision of theirs would reach complete clarity in them: this was done by Him in those few days on which He came to Jerusalem for the last time for mortal suffering. B) Alone with the disciples - in pagan countries and under Caesarea Philippi Who do you say that I, the Son of Man, am? You are Christ the Son of the living God. Matt. 16:13–16. The third period of Christ’s activity, which began on the day of the parables - the time of the bitterness of the Jews, the time of judgment over them, the coming of the Son of Man - continued until the day of His death. There was no new period in His life, the nature of His work did not change until the last day of His life, so on the question of the limits of the time of the coming of the Son of man, it is important for gospel science to establish terminus a quo - the time from which the coming of the Son of man began, and not terminus ad quem - the time with which it ended: having begun at a certain point, it continued until the last day of His life. The coming of the Son of Man did not even end with the last day of Christ’s earthly life: it has an eschatological character. However, the last period of His life, which began in the day of parables and continued until the death of Christ, has some steps that divide it into three sections: the first section, already considered by us, lasted from the day of parables until the removal of Christ to pagan countries, the second section embraces the time from the removal of Christ to pagan countries until His transfiguration on the mountain, and the last section is composed of His last coming to Jerusalem and suffering on the cross. The solitude of Christ within the boundaries of Tire and Sidon and in the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi was dedicated by Him almost exclusively to His closest disciples, close communication with them, and their upbringing: this solitude of Christ with the disciples constitutes, as it were, a break in His later relations with the Jewish people, which postponed the events of the last stay in Jerusalem from the Capernaum conversation and the “secret” stay in Jerusalem on the holidays of setting up tabernacles and renewal. The sufferings of Golgotha ​​did not follow the feasts of tabernacles and renewal because it was necessary to prepare the disciples for Golgotha, just as the Jewish people were prepared for it in their own way. We will now consider this solitude of Christ with His disciples - we will consider what He talked with them about, what He taught them, but first we will take a look at the teaching and deeds of Christ during this time in His relation to the people in general, since general relations to the people provided the background for His special relations to the chosen disciples. During the time we are now talking about, Christ sought solitude with His disciples and did not want anyone to know about His whereabouts (Mark 7:24; 9:30); but crowds of people found Him here and there and surrounded Him, and He continued to teach them and do things for them. In this regard, the gospel story provides rich material for the study of crowd psychology. Just as a person can hide for a time in the depths of his heart a strong impression and even a decision, so a crowd of people the next day, after strong excitement and a definite decision, acts apparently calmly, until finally the hidden excitement is resolved with a violent explosion. The popular storm that erected the cross of Calvary began in Capernaum and on the feasts of tabernacles and renewal, but during this period there was a kind of calm among the people, and crowds of people gathered around Christ again and again. How did He teach them at this time and how did He do it? After in Capernaum many of Christ’s disciples departed from Him and no longer walked with Him, and in Jerusalem the Jews repeatedly tried to seize Him, He began to teach the people about Himself with amazing clarity. His speeches became unusually harsh. He spoke before the audience in truly divine grandeur. He pointed out the Savior to the people in Himself. He demanded complete self-denial in His name. “If,” He said to the whole multitude of people, “whoever comes to Me does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and, moreover, his own life, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, whether he has what it takes to complete it, so that when he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all who see it begin to laugh at him, saying, “This man began to build and was not able to finish?” Or what king, going to war against another king, does not sit down and consult first whether he is able with ten thousand to resist the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Otherwise, while he is still far away, he will send an embassy to him to ask for peace. So, anyone of you who does not renounce everything that he has cannot be My disciple. Salt is a good thing; but if the salt loses its strength, how can it be corrected? It is not suitable for soil or manure; they throw it away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Luke 14:25–35 cf. Luke 9:23–26 par.)! And before He said similar things, but only to His disciples alone, and then in a prophetic foretelling of the coming persecutions (Matthew 10), and now He addressed the demand for complete self-denial in His name to all the people. To imagine the full power of these speeches of Christ, one must remember that in the eyes of the people He was accused of being possessed by evil spirits, that for believing in Him He was threatened with excommunication from the synagogue, that He rejected the most cherished messianic expectations of the people. Everything was against Him; On His side there was only truth, divine truth, accessible only to the spiritual eyes of a pure heart. Under such conditions, His speeches presented the greatest temptation to the people. But the history of the Gospel was determined by the law that true faith is free from all earthly attachments, that divine life is revealed to man despite his preferences, that its revelation requires complete spiritual freedom. That it is precisely in this connection of thoughts that one must present the demand on the part of Christ for self-denial in His name, this is evident from those cases reported by the Evangelist Luke (Luke 9:57–62; Matt. 8:19–22) when this demand was addressed to individuals. It happened that when Christ was with His disciples on the way, someone said to Him: Lord! I will follow You wherever You go. Jesus answered him: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has no place to lay his head.” Whether it was the path to the pagan countries, which the gospel of Luke does not know about, where Christ departed from His country, not accepted by His own either in Galilee or in Judea, although He was sent precisely to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, or was it the path to Jerusalem for the last suffering and death from the elders, high priests and scribes, the leaders of the house of Israel - equally in both cases, Christ Jesus did not have where to lay his head. To follow Him meant dooming oneself to all kinds of hardships and being prepared for all kinds of suffering. His disciple really needed to sit down and figure out if he had the strength to follow Him. His follower needed to renounce all earthly attachments in His name. At the same time He said to another, “Follow Me.” He answered: Lord! let me first go and bury my father. But Jesus said to him: “Let the dead bury their own dead; and you go, preach the kingdom of God.” Another one said: “I will follow You, Lord! But first let me say goodbye to my family.” But Jesus objected to him: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Once Christ visited the house of Martha, so famous in the gospel history. Her sister Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to His word, and Martha, who was taking care of a large meal, complained to Him that her sister was not helping her. He answered her: “Martha, Martha! you care and fuss about a lot of things; but only one thing is needed. Mary chose the good part, which will not be taken away from her... This personal self-revelation of Christ Jesus was accompanied by the preaching of the full spirituality of the kingdom of God, its unconditional universality, its incompatibility with earthly interests and national limitations. “Whoever wants,” He told everyone, “to save his soul, will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but to destroy or harm himself” (Luke 9:24–25)? He spoke about the madness of covetousness (Luke 12:20), demanded freedom from material worries and spiritual alertness (Luke 12), called on His disciples to acquire for themselves the kingdom of God with “unrighteous riches,” i.e., the good use of wealth (Luke 16), predicted destruction for everyone who does not walk through the narrow gate (Luke 13:1–9; 22–30), even taught cut off a hand and pluck out an eye if they cause offense (Matthew 18:8–9). In connection with this teaching about the spirituality of the kingdom of God, He warned His disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees and scribes, which is hypocrisy, denounced their self-righteousness, and castigated their self-righteousness (Luke 12:1; 16:14–15; 15). At this point, His speeches were a continuation of the bitterness of the Jews that began earlier - the rejection of their national isolation. These speeches gave a universal ethical basis to the rejection of the Jews; the narrow boundaries of their ritual faith were broken in the name of moral freedom of spirit. At this point, His teaching was a transition to that last act of rejection of the Jews in His last days, when He said to them: “Behold, your house is left to you empty” (Matthew 23:38). Of the actions of Christ, in which His teaching was manifested in essential content, during the time under consideration, the subject of disputes with Him among the Jews was the non-observance in the society of His disciples of the traditions of the elders, which the Pharisees and all the Jews adhered to. Thus, the Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes reproached His disciples for eating bread with unclean, that is, with unwashed hands. Then Christ began to reproach them for the fact that, while observing the traditions of the elders, they only honored God in words, but were far from Him in heart - they eliminated the word of God with their tradition. Then, in the hearing of all the people, He taught that nothing that enters a person from outside can defile him, and he called the Pharisees and scribes blind leaders of the blind. The nature of Christ's teaching corresponded to the image of His miracles. Having concentrated His teaching on His face, revealing Himself to the people from the side from which His self-revelation represented the most temptation for covetousness and pride, He and His works, unlike in the past, now presented Himself in the light of His exclusive significance for the kingdom of God revealed in them. Previously, massive miracles were performed through Him, amazing in their number; they were accomplished with the presence of faith according to His one word or even without His information and permission through one touch to Him - power emanated from Him, and the people sought to touch Him; healings were performed even at a distance. This was the power in which the kingdom of God was revealed, and His face seemed to recede into the background. Now He almost does not perform mass healings 443, and He performs a few miracles, although by faith, as before, although more than before, away from the people, not in their sight, which, however, was more His desire than the actual circumstance, however, in such a way that miracles were performed rather by Him than through Him. A series of such miracles began with the healing of the demon-possessed daughter of a Canaanite woman within the borders of Tire and Sidon. Here He wanted to be in the unknown, but could not. One Canaanite woman, coming out of those places, followed Him and shouted to Him: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David! My daughter is furious." But He did not answer her a word. This was the way of acting of Christ Jesus, alien to former times. The apostles must have seen something new and unusual in this delay of Christ. And they, approaching Him, asked Him: “Let her go, because she is screaming after us.” In response, He pointed to Himself, to His embassy only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The healings were performed by Him, and He only did what He was sent to do: “it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” This was a difficult test for the woman’s faith, but her great faith endured the test, she humbly accepted the comparison with dogs who eat the crumbs falling from the table of their masters, and then Christ, for this humility and faith, healed her daughter. From the countries of Tire and Sidon, Jesus went to the Sea of ​​Galilee through the borders of the Decapolis. Here they brought to Him a deaf, tongue-tied man and asked Him to lay His hands on him. And again He performs a miracle with the same slowness. He takes the sick man aside from the people, puts His fingers into his ears, and spits and touches his tongue; then, looking up to heaven, he sighs and says to him: Ephphatha, that is, open, and then his ears were immediately opened and the bonds of his tongue were loosed, and he began to speak clearly. And Christ commanded him not to tell anyone. The same techniques appear even more clearly in the healing of the blind man in Bethsaida. It was accomplished gradually, so that the patient had to feel the entire dependence of healing on the power of the miracle worker. Taking the blind man by the hand, Christ led him out of the village and, spitting in his eyes, laid his hands on him and asked him: does he see anything? He looked and said: “I see people passing by, like trees.” Then Jesus again laid his hands on his eyes and told him to look. And the sick man was healed and began to see everything clearly. Then Christ sent him home, forbidding him to talk about the healing. Soon after, Christ healed a deaf-mute sleepwalker at the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration. When He was on the mountain with Peter, James and John, one of the people brought his son, a sick deaf-mute sleepwalker, to His disciples who remained with the people at the mountain. And the disciples could not heal him. The reader delving into the gospel history cannot ignore this remarkable event: the apostles, who were given power over unclean spirits to cast them out and heal every disease and every infirmity, in this case could not heal the sick person! Of course, the immediate cause of this weakness of the apostles was unbelief, both their own and those who asked for the healing of the sick. But they believed both earlier and later: why has their faith dried up now? And how little faith they needed: the size of a mustard seed! The sick man’s father confessed to Christ himself: “I believe, Lord! Help my unbelief." It was not so much faith as a thirst for faith - and Christ heeded his tears. Did the apostles really not have so much faith? Obviously, the lack of faith of the apostles, in other cases sufficient to heal the sick, was now the cause of their weakness and was accompanied by sterility. We must see the highest providential goals in this: their powerlessness revealed the power of Jesus. The weakness of the apostles brought short-term triumph to the scribes, and they entered into a dispute with the disciples, to which the people listened with tension. When Jesus Christ appeared from the mountain, the people greeted Him in excitement. And He, having learned about the reason for the dispute between the scribes and the disciples, ordered the sick man to be brought to Him and said to him with authority: “The spirit is dumb and deaf! I command you, come out of it, and do not enter it again.” And the sick man was healed at that hour. The Gospel of Luke tells that Christ, going to Jerusalem and passing between Samaria and Galilee, healed ten lepers near one village. When they asked Him for healing, He told them: go, show yourself to the priests. And as they walked, they purified themselves. Then one of them returned and thanked Christ, and it was a Samaritan, and the other nine - of course, Jews - turned out to be ungrateful. Therefore, it is likely that the healing of ten lepers is included in the pages of gospel history. In this same feature of the event we see the only indication of its historical connection. Although the gospel does not say anything special about the act of healing, it should be assumed that it was performed in such a way that those healed could have a very definite incentive to thank the miracle worker 445. The next miracles of Christ were the healing of a blind man (according to the Gospel of Matthew - two blind men) near Jericho and the resurrection of Lazarus. And again we encounter here the peculiarity that is characteristic of His miracles during the time under consideration. Passing through Jericho on the way to Jerusalem, Christ was surrounded by many people. Hearing that He was coming, the blind man began to shout and say: “Jesus, son of David! have mercy on me." He probably shouted for a long time: many forced him to remain silent, but he began to shout the same words even more. Then only Christ stopped, ordered to call the blind man and expressively asked him: “What do you want from Me”? Then, seeing his faith, he healed him. In the resurrection of Lazarus, the slowness of Christ was revealed most noticeably. Jesus was notified of his illness by his sisters while in Perea. Hearing, He said: “This disease is not for death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” And although He loved Lazarus and his sisters, however, having heard about his illness, he stayed for two days in the very place where he was. Only when Lazarus had already died, He, having said to His disciples: “I rejoice for you, that I was not there, so that you might believe,” went to him in Bethany, so that when he arrived, he found that he had already been in the tomb for four days. Both sisters, Martha and Mary, when meeting Christ, said the same word to Him: “Lord! If You had been here, my brother would not have died.” But He answered: “I am the resurrection and the life; He who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live.” Then He approached the tomb, ordered the stone to be taken away from the cave where the deceased lay, raised his eyes to heaven and said: “Father! I thank You that You heard Me. I knew that You would always hear Me; But I said this for the sake of the people standing here, so that they might believe that You sent Me.” Then He cried out with a loud voice: “Lazarus! get out,” and the dead man came out. In this gospel narrative, every word testifies to the indicated feature of the miracles of Jesus Christ. In this feature, it is not the essence of Christ's miraculous power that is revealed, but it has historical significance. With what speed did Christ resurrect the son of the widow of Nain: barely seeing her crying, He already approached the bed to return her son! And He raised the daughter of Jairus as soon as she died; even as if diminishing the miracle. He said to those who were crying: “she is not dead, but sleeps,” and allowed only her parents to be present at the resurrection, except Peter, James and John. And the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus was performed in such a way that the Son of God would be glorified through him. The explanation of this historical feature is that now Christ was surrounded by the hatred of His enemies, that now His glory intensified their bitterness and led Him to Calvary. The resurrection of Lazarus served to the glory of God because Christ glorified Him by His death. The external “glory” of the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus had the same historical significance as the breaking of the Sabbath by the miracles of healing the paralytic at Bethesda and the man born blind (John 11 cf. John 9:3). The historical context of the resurrection of Lazarus was that now the hatred of Jesus’ enemies was so mature that it was no longer the violation of the Sabbath, but His very outward glory that intensified their bitterness. This outward glory of Christ's miracles had the same historical significance as His self-revelation in demanding self-denial from His hearers in His name. This rationale of gospel history is clearly expressed in the writings of the church fathers. Thus, John Chrysostom writes: “Christ performed many miracles, but not one of them hardened the Jews to such an extent - neither a miracle over the paralytic, nor a miracle over the blind, like the miracle over Lazarus.” That is why now the very solemnity with which the resurrection of Lazarus was accomplished only strengthened the indicated historical significance of the miracle. It was done in front of many Jews who came to Martha and Mary to console them in their grief about their brother, since Bethany, the village where Mary and Martha lived, was near Jerusalem. In this last respect, the miracle of the healing of the blind man of Jericho and the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus differed not only from the miracle of the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter and the miracles of that time in general, but also from the miracles just listed, already belonging to the third section of the last period of Christ’s life, when Jesus left His solitude with the disciples. By exposing His miracles in the light of His exceptional significance for the revelation of the kingdom of God, Christ thereby connected them with the self-denial that He demanded in His name. In this regard, first of all, the idea was expressed that the use of His miracles obliges self-denial in His name. By this, the work of the revelation of the kingdom of God, on the one hand, was placed on the subjective basis of the power of Christ, but, on the other hand, in His person the basis was given for a universal spirituality, alien to material limitations. The Jews were supposed to see in all this a continuation of the rejection of their national messianic aspirations, which was begun by Christ earlier, and now through the activity of Christ the Jews were clearly shown their judge in His person. But in the same activity, there was much that was instructive for His apostles, to whom His attention was mainly devoted during this time. Unlike the people, the disciples could see in the slowness of His miracles not only the special significance of His face for the revealed kingdom of God, but also His humiliation. They themselves experienced this humiliation when they could not heal the sleepwalker under the mountain of transfiguration. In the experience of this own weakness, for them, and in general, the slowness of Christ’s miracles could be presented as evidence of the weakened manifestations of His miraculous power 446. At least, when they told Christ about the Canaanite woman: “Let her go, because she is screaming after us,” there seemed to be confusion in their words. However, the later of the mentioned miracles of Christ, in their solemnity with which they were performed, were undoubted manifestations of the glory of Christ Jesus. Abandoned by many disciples in Galilee and leaving the Jerusalem Jews in extreme embitterment, Christ, seeking solitude with His closest disciples, went with them to the borders of Tire and Sidon, where he healed the daughter of a Canaanite woman, then, probably, along the northern border of Galilee he moved to the boundaries of the Decapolis, where he healed a deaf, tongue-tied man; then, after a short stay on the western shore of the lake, He went to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, healing a blind man along the way in Bethsaida (Julia). Before reaching Caesarea, Christ had a conversation with His disciples. It is easy to understand that the entire time of Christ’s solitude with his disciples was a preparation for this conversation. Christ asked His disciples: “Who do people say that I, the Son of Man, am?” They said: “Some for John the Baptist, others for Elijah, and others for Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” He asked them again: “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Peter's confession constitutes one of the few decisive moments in the gospel history - those moments in which the question of the fate of the sons of men and the fate of the Son of Man was decided, in which the solution of this issue, apparently, was made dependent on human will, when remembering which our mind, imagining the possibility of a different solution, becomes entangled in hopeless difficulties. What was the meaning of Christ’s question and what significance should be recognized for Peter’s confession? Some theologians believe that at that time the apostles, through the mouth of Peter, first recognized Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. This opinion contradicts not only individual facts of gospel history, but also its entire systematic course. Already at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, the disciples saw the glory of Christ and believed; Already during the first stay of Jesus in Jerusalem, at the beginning of His public ministry, many, seeing His miracles, believed in Him. Manifestations of such faith were then repeated many times. It reached its highest intensity among the people at a time when they wanted to come and accidentally take Him and make Him king. And these facts are not accidental; but essentially the starting point of the gospel story is the belief in miracles. This belief in miracles constitutes the beginning, not the end; she is an embryo that has the necessary development; it must inevitably be reborn either into hatred of the miracle worker in the name of earthly interests, pride and self-righteousness, or into spiritual faith, combined with self-denial and love for divine invisible blessings. At these points, the initial coincidence and subsequent division of the faith of the people and the faith of the disciples were given. That is why the closest disciples of Christ, destined by Him from the very beginning of His activity to constantly follow Him, only over time stand out from the people in a certain number; even later, the teaching of Christ in relation to them becomes different from the teaching addressed to the people; even later, Christ retires with His disciples for a long time. What deserves special attention is the fact that the disciples were not separated from the people from the very beginning, but they were part of their people, they were from their flesh, from their bones; their faith in its beginning was the same popular faith, their later faith was a degeneration of that same initial faith, which among the people degenerated into hatred, their faith was interpreted in opposition to popular unbelief, just as popular unbelief, in turn, received its full historical significance from the opposition to their faith. The people's faith, having reached its highest tension, turned into bitterness towards the miracle worker: He was rejected by those whom he came to as his own. Now he had no place to lay his head; He strongly predicted the cross for His followers; Now He performed the most miracles with slowness, as if with effort. Under such conditions, His question to the disciples did not have the meaning of whether they finally began to consider Him as the Messiah, whether they gradually came to believe in Him, but He asked them whether they now retained the faith in Him that they had before and for which there was now a time of temptation. Subsequently, He told them: “You remained with Me in My adversities” (Luke 22:28): this, of course, was the time of His exile by His own, His solitude with His disciples in pagan countries. It turned out that the apostles, unlike the people, retained their former faith in Him and remained with Him in adversity. Among the people, some revered Him as John the Baptist, who rose from the dead (cf. Matthew 14 par.), others as Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. The disciples could have recalled the blasphemy of the Jews, but they spoke only about the best, only about the most exalted opinions of the people. Scolded by the terrible blasphemy of the Jews, Jesus was not the Messiah for the people, but He was still a miracle worker, and it was with these opinions that they thought to explain His miraculous power (Matthew 14 par.). In contrast to popular unbelief and these popular opinions, the disciples of Christ retained their former faith in Him even during this time of adversity. But what did it mean to preserve a faith based on miracles during a time of temptation and humiliation? This meant having reborn faith: faith preserved in the days of adversity is necessarily spiritualized. There can be no stagnation in spiritual life: here every time there is either a step back or a step forward. regression or progress; apparent stagnation is necessarily a regression, a fall, but the actual preservation of the former is its affirmation, strengthening, progress. And the former faith of the apostles, preserved during temptation; reached the highest level, became spiritual. While the people, not believing in the inner messianic dignity of Jesus, completely determined their positive relationship with Him by faith in His miraculous power, His disciples, sharing with Him adversity and humiliation, having lost everything worldly for His sake (Matthew 19 par.), transferring all their hopes to Him, by the power of love for Him they believed in His inner living sonship with God: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” This spirituality was what was new in Peter’s confession, in contrast to the previous faith of the disciples. Separated from the people by Christ, they themselves now separated from the Jews, following Christ into the realm of divine spirituality. It was a sacred moment, and Christ Jesus marked its holy solemnity. He answered Peter: “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah; for it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I say to you: you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” The Jews were led by flesh and blood, thirsting for miracles, demanding signs from heaven, tied with all their souls to the earth; The apostles, however, comprehended in Christ that spiritual heavenly good, which an external miracle cannot reveal, serving only as its symbol; they comprehended it through the power of faith, acting love, and renouncing material attachment to a miracle. Then Christ forbade His disciples not to tell anyone that He was Christ, because this constituted the law of Christ’s self-revelation, that the truth of His sonship with God was not given to people in an external ready-made form, that a person must come to it through internal struggle. Therefore, Christ Himself revealed it to the Jewish people only in a form that tested the Jews and hardened them. Communicated in an external, ready-made form, this truth would necessarily become a revelation of external messianism. That is why He said to the Jews: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44). The solemnity of Christ's response to Peter's confession sufficiently testifies to the great significance of the event at Caesarea Philippi. The mortal suffering of Christ Jesus was, as stated above, saving for man solely because it was the suffering of the Son of God, that He was crucified by His enemies as the Son of God. That is why, as soon as the Jews decided to kill Him because He called Himself the Son of God, He left the Jerusalemites as already prepared for Calvary. But the malice of the crucifiers towards the Son of God, their disbelief in His sonship with God constitutes only one shadow in the mystery of Golgotha, which by itself, without light and colors, does not form a picture. Their malice towards the crucified Son of God was complemented and comprehended by the true faith of the disciples. If in order for the Son of God to dwell in the hearts of people by faith (Eph. 3:17), He had to suffer from malice towards His sonship with God, then, conversely, the malice of the crucifiers was, in a historical sense, real malice towards the Son of God only because the Crucified One was contemplated by at least a few true believers. Sacrilege is committed only when desecration occurs in relation to an object that is obviously sacred, when the culprit knows that he is desecrating a revered shrine; but beyond that, for sacrilegious desecration to take place, it must be committed in front of those who honor the shrine, for their knowledge. And for Golgotha ​​it was necessary to prepare not only the sacrilegious Jews, but also the disciples who revere the shrine of sonship with God. This preparedness of the disciples for Golgotha ​​was revealed at Caesarea Philippi in the confession through the mouth of Peter. This confession for the first time revealed to humanity the beauty of spiritual good, but at the same time it was a clear sign of the coming time of suffering of the Son of Man. Now not only the Jewish people were prepared for them by their malice, but also the disciples by their faith. And from that time on, Jesus began to openly speak to his disciples about His suffering. He began to teach them that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, high priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day rise again. But then it was revealed that the faith of the disciples, being a true spiritual faith, had not yet taken possession of the entire area of ​​their spiritual life, did not acquire all-conquering power in them - that power that the very death of Christ later gave them. The same apostle who had just made a great confession of faith now began to contradict his Teacher: “Be merciful to yourself, Lord; Let this not happen to You." In the Son of Man, mocked by terrible blasphemy, exiled and having no place to lay his head, he came to know the Son of God. But is the humiliation not over yet? Will it really reach mortal suffering? The disciples reached a high level of faith in the sonship of God of the suffering and humiliated Son of Man, but this faith still left room in them for the completely human thought that suffering and humiliation serve only as a transition to external glory, only as a preparation for it. This is what the Old Testament taught. In his writing, the idea is expressed in many different ways and clearly that God is not with the proud and self-satisfied, but with the suffering and humiliated, but the latter were called only to external hope and were consoled by the hope that the prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous were temporary, that God would hear the groans of the righteous and give him prosperity, as he gave to the righteous Job. So the apostles waited for the external glory of Christ. They came to terms with His humiliation and suffering, which were completely incompatible with Jewish ideas about the Messiah, but they still humanly thought that the suffering of the Messiah would be followed by His outer glory. They hoped that not only would this be the “exodus” of the Messiah, but that He would crown with glory the fate of all the righteous. At least for themselves, they expected participation in the external glory of Christ, a reward for their self-denial (Matthew 19:27 par.). And now they hear that a shameful death awaits their Christ, with which all their hope for external glory is destroyed. True, Christ spoke to them not only about His death, but also about the resurrection. But what is resurrection? The Jews had a certain concept of the resurrection: with it they connected a vivid idea of ​​external glory, complete prosperity, and even freedom from bodily limitations and the possession of miraculous power. Not believing in Christ Jesus, to explain His miracles, they made the most understandable assumption for them, that He was the resurrected one, or John the Baptist, or one of the ancient prophets (Matthew 14 par., Luke 9 par.). It was known about John the Baptist that during his lifetime he did not perform miracles (John 10:41): in the resurrection he could, according to popular belief, receive such power. But was Christ talking about such a sensual resurrection? Obviously not. The resurrection with the preceding humiliation on the cross, implying the collapse of all earthly hopes, gave the thoughts of the disciples a different direction, far from popular ideas about the resurrection. However, in the attitude of the apostles to the teaching of Christ about the resurrection, gradualism is noticeable: under Caesarea Philippi their attention was absorbed in the thought of the suffering of Christ, and it did not seem to stop at the resurrection. A little later, when Christ forbade them to divulge the vision on the Mount of Transfiguration, “until the Son of man rises from the dead,” they kept this word and asked each other what it meant to rise from the dead. The point of the teaching and life of Christ until his death was to educate his disciples in the correct concepts of spiritual resurrection - about death and resurrection: this was the direction of His later conversations with his disciples, this was the meaning of His death for them. Faith in the humiliated Son of God and external messianic expectations were correlative spiritual forces: the strength and growth of one depleted the other. And Christ rejected Peter’s contradiction with the same power with which he blessed his faith. And just as He called faith a revelation of the Father, so He called human aversion to humiliation a satanic temptation. Looking expressively at the disciples, He said to Peter: “Get behind Me, Satan; You are an offense to Me, because you think not about the things of God, but about the things of men.” Then, calling the people with His disciples, He began to tell them that the basis of satanic temptation is attachment to earthly things, while spiritual life requires from a person complete self-denial, the loss of the soul itself, the outer life itself. He spoke about the cross and self-denial to all the people with His disciples, but His words sounded differently to the disciples than to the people... The transfiguration of Christ is closely connected with the event at Caesarea, as indicated by the period of time that has already been noted by all three evangelists who narrate the event of transfiguration, which elapsed from the confession and contradiction of Peter to the transfiguration. The external transition from one event to another is the word of Christ, with which His conversation at Caesarea ended. Predicting His suffering in Jerusalem and calling His disciples to self-denial, He said: “Whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of man will be ashamed of him when he comes in His glory and the Father and the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God come with power.” After these words, after six intermediate days, otherwise after eight days, if you include the extreme days, the transfiguration of Christ took place. Taking Peter, James and John, Jesus Christ went up with them alone to the mountain to pray. During His prayer, the apostles fell asleep. Having awakened, they saw Him in radiance, which, according to Old Testament ideas, was a symbol of divine glory: His face shone and His clothes became white, like light or snow. Two men also appeared to them, in the same radiance, who talked with Jesus, and in whom they recognized Moses and Elijah, these greatest representatives of the Old Testament, its law and prophets. Appearing in glory, they spoke of His exodus, which He was to accomplish in Jerusalem. It was good for the apostles to contemplate this radiance; when the men who appeared left Christ Jesus, Peter wanted to hold them back and, not knowing what to say, invited Christ to build three tabernacles for Him and His interlocutors. And then a bright cloud overshadowed the apostles themselves and they heard a voice: “This is My beloved Son; Listen to him." They were in fear. Then the “vision” (Matt. 17:9) ceased, and Christ forbade them to publicize it until He rose from the dead. Christ made only three disciples witnesses of the transfiguration - Simon, whom He called Peter, and the brothers James and John, to whom he gave the name: sons of Thunder. It is instructive to dwell on the character of these apostles. They surpassed the other apostles in the strength of active faith in the coming of the kingdom of God, in the intensity of the effort with which the kingdom of heaven is taken, in the intensity of the desire to capture it. This is evident from the peculiarity of the calling of these apostles. Passing near the Sea of ​​Galilee, Christ saw Simon and Andrew, his brother, throwing nets into the sea. And he said to them: follow me. And they immediately left their nets and followed Him. Also, James and John, called by Him, left their father Zebedee and followed Him (Mark 1:16–20). Subsequently, Peter could say to Christ: “Behold, we have left everything and followed You.” Bound to Christ by such self-denial for His sake, they burned with zeal for the glory of Christ and guarded it as their own property. So John and others rebuked a man who cast out demons by the power of Christ, but did not walk with them. He and his brother Jacob suggested that Christ bring down fire from heaven and destroy the village that did not accept Him. At the same time, these apostles stood out for the passion with which they expected to participate in the external glory of Christ. Leaving everything for His sake, the Apostle Peter asked Him: “What will happen to us?” The Apostles James and John asked Him to seat them in His kingdom, one on His right side, and the other on His left. These three disciples were taken by Christ “especially alone” to the Mount of Transfiguration. Even earlier, they alone were allowed by Him to be present at the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter, and later at His Gethsemane prayer. Obviously, they were chosen among the elect: as the twelve were to the world, so were the three to the twelve. It is also significant for what events they were singled out from the twelve: they were witnesses of both the supreme glory of Christ and the extreme revelation of His weakness. If at the same time we pay attention to the fact that the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter took place even before the election of the twelve and that then the three were separated, together with the parents of the deceased, not actually from the twelve, but from the people, then the transfiguration of Christ and the Gethsemane prayer stand out as exceptional events of glory and humiliation. This comparison alone was very instructive for the chosen disciples: it told them that the external glory of Christ precedes His humiliation, and does not follow it. We also find the revelation of this law of gospel history, which determined the sequence of these events, in the teaching of Christ after the transfiguration. Having descended from the Mount of Transfiguration, Christ healed the demon-possessed youth. “And everyone was amazed at the greatness of God. When everyone marveled at all that Jesus did; He said to His disciples: put these words in your ears: The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men” (Luke 9:43–44). At that time the disciples did not understand this word; but later its meaning was completely revealed to them, and it was already presented clearly to the evangelist. The same law, which determined the sequence of ordered events and which was expressed in the quoted words of Christ, is the same law symbolically represented by the event of transfiguration, which is the meaning of this event. On the “holy” mountain of transfiguration, Christ appeared to His disciples in magnificent glory; at that time He received honor and glory from God the Father, and the apostles were eyewitnesses of His greatness (2 Pet. 1:16–18). In the radiance of His glory, the greatest representatives of the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah, also appeared and talked with Him. What were they talking about? “About His exodus, which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem,” that is, about His future suffering. The “Vision” was highly instructive for the apostles. Did they expect the glory of Christ, a share in His greatness? He has glory. He is the one who can give them outward greatness; but this is not why He was sent by the Heavenly Father. The radiance of divine glory is “terrifying” for man. He came to give people eternal life, inner spiritual glory, to give them the benefits not of immortality and not of carnal resurrection, but the benefits of spiritual resurrection. What the saturation of thousands of people with a few loaves of bread was for the Galileans, what His subsequent symbolic actions at the feasts of tabernacles and renewal were for the Jews, the event of transfiguration was for the apostles 447 . And this was the internal difference between the apostles and the people, that the people became hardened, and the disciples moved by faith from the visible to the invisible. Brought up by the life and teachings of Christ, the Apostle Peter later wrote about the glory of Christ following His sufferings, and called on the faithful to participate in Christ’s sufferings in order to rejoice and triumph at the revelation of His glory (1 Pet. 1:11; 4:13), but he already understood the glory of the resurrection (1 Pet. 1:21) and, equating all external human glory with the color on grass that quickly falls (1 Pet. 1:24), spoke of the bliss of suffering for righteousness (1 Pet. 3 ff.) ... However, the apostles did not rise to such a height of spiritual understanding immediately from the mountain of transfiguration, but approached it gradually until the death of Christ, which is thus associated with the confession of Peter and the transfiguration of Christ, illuminated by the meaning of these events. For Christ Himself, the transfiguration was that real experience of divine greatness, which made it a feat for Him to fight against the temptation of humiliation. All His miracles gave Christ such an experience of the external manifestation of divine glory, but before them, primarily the external revelation of divine glory in Him was His transfiguration. And, of course, in this experience we need to look for an explanation of the power of the Gethsemane struggle, when He “with a strong cry and with tears offered prayers and supplications to him who was able to save Him from” death and suffering, the habit of obedience,” a power that stands out especially clearly in comparison with the self-control and greatness of His struggle with temptations in the desert. This explanation is in no way weakened by the fact that the very suffering and humiliation in the life of Christ increased according to the degree of external revelation of divine glory in Him. If this was the case for Christ Himself, then equally for the witnesses of His transfiguration it was a tempting contemplation of His greatness. It was a time in which they felt “good” in an unearthly way. What a complex inner life, what a complex alternation and even coincidence of strength with weakness, self-denial with boldness, reward with trial! Honored for their high faith with the revelation of the coming suffering of Christ and then His actual external glory, in contemplation of the transfiguration they had to learn a spiritual understanding of His coming glory, but at the same time in this same contemplation they had a tempting experience, so that by victory in it they themselves could prepare to participate in the spiritual glory of Christ. In the light of this extraordinary intensity of inner life, due to the wealth of extraordinary inner experiences and outer experiences, we must consider the entire subsequent life of the apostles until the death and resurrection of Christ. Then we will see, in the outburst of their extraordinary love for the Teacher, clear signs of an imminent fall, and in the depths of the fall, the undoubted foundations of the complete triumph of spiritual faith, complete rebirth. Then we will see - what is especially important - the regenerating power in the death of Christ. The effect of the transfiguration of Christ on the apostles is like a grain thrown into the depths of their hearts, which only gradually sprouted and only at the death of Christ gave its fruit. If the apostles had not witnessed the transfiguration of Christ - His miracles and transfiguration - His death would have had no meaning for them; if the witnesses to the transfiguration were not also witnesses to His death, it would have a false meaning to them. Transfiguration and death, greatness and humiliation - this is the path to spiritual glory, to resurrection. This was the way of Jesus Christ; His disciples also had to experience this path with Him. So that their experience would be carried out in the right direction, Christ Jesus continued to teach them. For this purpose, for some time and after the transfiguration, Christ Jesus sought solitude with His disciples. Already after Peter’s confession, Christ told His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem to suffer mortal suffering. Which way did He go to Jerusalem? The Mount of Transfiguration was probably located north of Caesarea Philippi: perhaps it was Hermon. Having descended from the mountain and healed the demoniac, Christ from the borders of Caesarea or Hermon, which lay northeast of Lake Galilee, east of Jordan, went to Galilee along the northwestern shore of the lake through Capernaum towards Samaria. Passing through Galilee, He did not want anyone to know (Mark 9:30). It is quite consistent with this that in Capernaum Christ did not refuse to pay the church tax, which the collectors asked of Him through Peter, although He, as a “son,” was free from it. So as not to tempt the collectors with His refusal, He commanded Peter to catch a fish in the sea and, having found a coin in it, pay for Him and for himself. On the border of Galilee and Samaria, Christ healed ten lepers. Then He wanted to enter a Samaritan village, but was not received by the Samaritans, because He appeared to be traveling to Jerusalem. At the same time, some of the Pharisees came to Him with the news that Herod wanted to kill Him, and told Him to leave from here. Christ answered them that He must today, tomorrow and the next day go towards Jerusalem, because it does not happen that a prophet perishes outside of Jerusalem. Then He went into the borders of Judea along the Jordanian side. At this time, the people again gathered to Him and He, according to His custom, again taught them (Mark 10:1). His procession now becomes open and even solemn. This was primarily facilitated by the fact that He sent seventy disciples before His face to those places where He Himself wanted to go. Then He solemnly performed miracles of healing the blind man of Jericho and raising Lazarus, and thus prepared His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It is now important for us to look at what Christ continued to teach His disciples during his secret stay with them in Galilee, and also later, during the solemn journey to Jerusalem. When He descended from the Mount of Transfiguration, the disciples asked Him about the coming of Elijah, which, according to the scribes, should precede the coming of the Messiah. Christ replied that Elijah had already come in the person of John the Baptist, with whom the Jews did as they wanted; so, He added, the Son of man will suffer from them. This speech, therefore, was directly related to what Moses and Elijah talked with Him on the mountain. Christ Jesus, as it were, repeated this conversation to the disciples, focused their attention on the meaning that it gave to the transfiguration, clarified the meaning of this event, directing the thoughts of the disciples to what is God, to the spiritual kingdom of the Heavenly Father. In the same way, having healed a demon-possessed youth at the foot of the mountain, when everyone was amazed at everything that Jesus did, He again tells His disciples about the coming suffering of the Son of Man. This was the general direction of His solitude with the disciples in Galilee. Passing through Galilee, He did not want anyone to know, for He taught His disciples and told them that the Son of man would be delivered into the hands of men, and they would kill Him, and after He was killed, He would rise again on the third day (Mark 9:30–31). And later, already during the solemn procession to Jerusalem, He again calls the twelve to Him and tells them about His future sufferings (Mark 10:32–34). He prepares them for His death, educates them in the thought of it; He expels from their hearts everything that made this thought inconvenient for them. When He was still in Galilee, before reaching Capernaum, He predicted to them about His death and resurrection, they did not understand His words, because they argued among themselves who was greater. Arriving in Capernaum, Christ called the twelve and taught them: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then, calling a child and placing him in their midst, he said to them: “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” He said the same thing a little later, when children were brought to Him so that He could lay His hands on them and pray, and the disciples rebuked them. While teaching His disciples humility, Christ Jesus at the same time called them to fight against the spirit of self-righteous exclusivity and instilled in them condescending love. When John told Him about one man who cast out demons in His name and whom the apostles forbade because he did not walk with them, Christ commanded not to forbid. When then in one Samaritan village they did not accept Christ and his disciples, because He appeared to be traveling to Jerusalem, and the same John and James asked Him to bring down fire from heaven and, like Elijah, destroy the inhabitants, Christ forbade them and explained that they should not have the spirit of Elijah, but the spirit of the Son of man, who came not to destroy the souls of men, but to save. When after that Christ sent seventy disciples before His face and they, returning, joyfully proclaimed to Him about the miracles they had performed and especially about the casting out of demons in His name, Christ said to them: “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Behold, I give you power to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits obey you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Whether these words were spoken earlier to the twelve disciples, or now to the seventy, it makes no difference; in any case, Christ taught His disciples this way, and these words of His are very important for revealing the meaning of the Gospel story. They show with indisputable clarity that the miracles of Jesus Christ had the meaning of symbols of spiritual life and its blessings, that to believe in the miracles of Christ with true faith does not mean to consider them an enduring reality and a self-sufficient good, but to raise one’s gaze from them to spiritual life. All true Christians are raised in this faith and in this spirit. “Our promises are hidden in sorrows, sufferings, patience and faith, and our very heavenly glory is hidden in them. We must rise to glory through dishonor. He who prays to God and desires to have miracles and powers in his hands turns out to be boastful and weak in his conscience. True righteous people not only do not desire this, but also refuse when it is given to them; and not only in the eyes of people, but also in secret for themselves, they do not want this.” This is what the disciples of Christ’s apostles think. This is how Christ Himself instructed His apostles. Teaching all the people to be uncovetous, He especially taught the same to His closest disciples. Predicting the kingdom of the Father to this His little flock, He, in connection with this, invited them to sell their estates to distribute alms and prepare for themselves treasure in heaven (Luke 12). One day He, teaching a young man who asked Him what he should do to inherit eternal life, demanded that he sell his property and give it to the poor; the young man, who had great property, was embarrassed by such a demand and sadly departed from Christ. Then Peter, on behalf of the apostles, said to Christ: “Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what will happen to us? In response, Christ Jesus explains to the apostles that here on earth they can only expect the reward that will be given to them amid persecution, that suffering will not be followed by external glory, that the full reward for them will be spiritual, invisible, eternal life (Mark 10:30). No matter how much persecution and humiliation they endure with their Teacher or for Him, let them not expect external rewards for themselves, like a slave who, having returned from the field, still must serve his master (Luke 17:7-10). Likewise, let them not expect external advantages in the kingdom of God, where many will be first last and last first, where those who are called at the eleventh hour receive the same benefits as those who are called early in the morning and who have endured the hardship of the day and the heat. When after that, already ascending to Jerusalem, Jesus called the twelve on the way and again predicted to them that the Son of Man would be handed over to the high priests and scribes, and they would condemn Him to death and hand Him over to the pagans to be mocked, beaten, and crucified, and on the third day He would rise again - the hopes of external glory in the kingdom of God were again awakened in the apostles, and so John and James, together with their mother, asked Jesus so that they could sit down. He has one on the right hand, and another on the left in His kingdom. Christ in response explains to them that only those who are ready to drink the cup of suffering and be baptized with the baptism of death can seek a place in His kingdom, and that even the cup of suffering and the baptism of death will not give external glory in His kingdom, because the glory of His kingdom is spiritual glory, which is prepared by the Heavenly Father. Then He explains to all the disciples who were indignant at the two brothers that in His spiritual kingdom there will be no place for external power, that to be great and first in the kingdom of God means to be a servant and slave of others, since the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give His soul as a ransom for many. These conversations of Jesus Christ, together with His farewell conversation, which immediately adjoins them, represent a series of thoughts that for His disciples connected His transfiguration with the suffering of the cross and revealed the meaning of these events in their mutual connection. But from them it is also clear how much the apostles lacked before their faith, expressed in the confession of Peter, acquired full power over their soul: their faith acquired such strength only in the death of Christ, which thus appears before us in its great meaning. We have a law, and according to our law He must die, because He made Himself the Son of God. In. 19:7. The later period of the ministry of Christ Jesus - His last stay in Jerusalem - was the result of His entire life, all of His previous relationships with the Jews and disciples. All the features of these relationships now appear before us in the highest relief and certainty. Now He works the most solemn miracles, but these miracles, by their very solemn miraculousness, bring the hatred of His enemies to extreme tension; now He reveals His messianic dignity to the Jewish people with complete clarity and decisiveness, but He reveals Himself as a judge of the Jews and they, rejected by Him, crucify Him as the Son of God; Now, in quite direct speech, He reveals to His disciples the secret of the external humiliation and internal glory of the sons of the kingdom of God and appears to them in His death in the extreme humiliation of external God-forsakenness, and they, like sheep, are scattered when the shepherd is defeated, but this scattering of them was the burial of the last remnants of the Jewish leaven, and they, together with the resurrection of Christ, rise in the power of His spiritual kingdom. The last journey of Christ to Jerusalem, as soon as He entered the Trans-Jordan region, becomes solemn, and crowds of people again gather around Him, as was the case at the first time of His ministry. This solemnity was created by the embassy of seventy disciples who visited the places through which Christ then passed, and by His miracles - the healing of the blind man of Jericho and the resurrection of Lazarus, and its full manifestation was the solemn messianic entry of Christ into Jerusalem. These miracles were intended to prepare the messianic entry of Christ into the holy city. The nature of these miracles has already been said above: in this respect, they were adjacent to the previous series of miracles. They were performed, like other miracles since the rejection of Christ by the Jews, in the radiance of His personal glory. At the same time, they differed from previous miracles with the same character in their solemnity. Whereas previously the slowness in performing miracles, which showed His face in the eyes of the people, could appear to the apostles as His humiliation, now the same slowness, combined with solemnity, creates for Him an aura of greatness that captivated the whole people. In this regard, the small number of miracles of Christ during this time attracts special attention: now the miracles testified not to the abundance of gifts of the kingdom of God, but to the significance of Jesus for the revealed kingdom of God. During this time, according to the gospel of John, only the resurrection of Lazarus was accomplished, and according to the first three gospels, the healing of the blind man of Jericho 448 was accomplished. In each presentation of the gospel story we will find more or less lengthy discussions on the question of why the synoptic gospels are silent about the resurrection of Lazarus, which, according to the gospel of John, was of such great importance in the life of Jesus Christ; but, it seems, no one noticed that according to the Synoptic Gospels, the healing of the blind man of Jericho has the same meaning that, according to the fourth Gospel, belongs to the resurrection of Lazarus. The Gospels do not have as their task to list all the miracles of Christ; They limit themselves to indicating some miracles from each period of His life; in the narratives of miracles, they are content to mark out those stages of Gospel history that are indicated by various miracles. Поэтому евангелисты-синоптики, повествующие об одном из чудес, подготовивших торжественный вход в Иерусалим, именно, об исцелении иерихонского слепца, не имели нужды повествовать о другом подобном чуде, воскрешении Лазаря, равно как Иоанн, повествующий о воскрешении Лазаря, не имел нужды писать о первом чуде. – The historical sequence of these two miracles is usually presented in such a way that the resurrection of Lazarus is considered to precede, and the miracle of healing the blind man comes after Christ’s stay in Ephraim (John 11:54), but it seems more consistent with the essence of the matter to attribute both miracles to the same time, to the same movement from Perea through Jericho to Bethany, so that while passing through Jericho the blind man was healed, and then in Bethany Lazarus was resurrected, and the subsequent stay of Christ in Ephraim could only be very short-lived. The solemn miracles of the healing of the blind man of Jericho and the raising of Lazarus were a preparation for the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem, and their full significance was revealed in the consequences of this event. However, in their own consequences, these miracles preceded the meaning of the messianic entry into Jerusalem, as revealed by the Evangelist John in the story of the resurrection of Lazarus. Many of the Jews who saw what Jesus did believed in Him with the Jewish faith, and some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and Pharisees gathered a council and from that day decided to kill Him. This was the historical significance of the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus. In this regard, this last of the miracles of Christ Jesus performed in the eyes of the people constituted the highest level in their action on the Jewish people, their completion, which revealed their historical significance in its entirety. The Jews themselves saw it as the completion of all His miracles (John 11:47). “Christ performed many miracles, but none of them hardened the Jews to such an extent as the miracle over Lazarus.” It is significant that, in contrast to previous miracles that embittered the Jewish people, in the resurrection of Lazarus before the Jews the miracle appeared in complete solemnity, without weakening it by the accompanying circumstances, which was previously primarily the violation of the Sabbath. Now these hardening circumstances were not needed, since the bitterness of the Jews against Christ was already strong. They hated Him (Luke 19:14). Now the miracle itself, by its very solemnity, raised the anger of His enemies to extreme tension. Witnesses to these miracles were the Jews, the people and the disciples of Christ. The Jews were already enemies of Jesus. The numerous people surrounding Him at this time appear completely with the character of a crowd, which, having enthusiastically escorted Christ to Jerusalem, after a short time became an obedient instrument of His enemies. The effect of miracles on her was fleeting. Only the ostentatious side of miracles was addressed to the Jews and to her. But Christ treated His disciples differently. In them, the solemnity of miracles and the messianic entry into the holy city should not undermine the effect of Christ's conversations, with which He prepared them to participate in the spiritual glory of the kingdom of God. Therefore, it was necessary for them to weaken the impression of solemn miracles. This was achieved by the visit of Zacchaeus and the symbolic anointing of Jesus' feet by Mary. The first one is reported by the Evangelist Luke. When, after healing the blind man before Jericho, Christ passed through the city, a certain Zacchaeus, the chief of publicans, wanting to see Jesus surrounded by a crowd, but being of small stature, ran ahead and climbed a fig tree, past which He had to pass. He called Zacchaeus and entered his house. The publican accepted Christ with joy and with his readiness to distribute half of his property to the poor and quadruple to reward everyone offended by him, he won salvation for his home. But the people grumbled that Christ came to a sinful man. In response to this murmur, He said: “The Son of Man has come to seek and save what was lost.” Although this narrative does not indicate the relationship of the event to the disciples, it must be assumed that it actually had significance for them. Let everyone murmur, but among the people themselves this murmur did not lower their enthusiastic mood, and there was no need to lower it until the time of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and the popular murmur showed the disciples that Christ did not want to found His kingdom on the goodwill of the people. His words: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” are reminiscent of the previous instructions to His disciples. In the same way, the parable He told then about the minas, which were given to ten of his servants by a certain high-born man who had gone to a distant place in order to obtain for himself a kingdom over his fellow citizens who hated him, was addressed primarily to the disciples, although at that time everyone thought that the kingdom of God would soon open: however, it speaks of the punishment of the returning king of his fellow citizens who did not want him to reign over them, but its moral teaching relates directly to the slave students, who received the mines and gave the king upon his return an account of their use. In any case, the significance of the event in question must be understood by analogy with the event at the evening in Bethany, which followed shortly after the resurrection of Lazarus. After the resurrection of Lazarus, Christ withdrew to Ephraim. He withdrew from Jerusalem so that the sentence of His death, decreed in Jerusalem, would be carried out by the Jews no earlier than Easter, with a full gathering of people, which the high priests and scribes did not want (Matthew 26:4–5; Mark 14:1–2; Luke 22:1–2). However, He did not stay in Ephraim for long: when He left, Easter was already approaching, and six days before Easter He came again to Bethany (John 11:55; 12:1). Here they prepared a supper for Him, at which Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining. Mary, taking a pound of pure, precious ointment of spikenard, poured it on the head and feet of Jesus, and wiped the feet with her hair, and the house was filled with a fragrance. Seeing this, the disciples were indignant and said: “Why such a waste? For this ointment could be sold for a high price and given to the poor.” But Jesus answered them that they always have the poor with them, and this expenditure on Him has an exceptional symbolic meaning. “Having poured this ointment on My body,” He said of the woman who anointed Him, “she prepared Me for burial” (Matt. 26:12). In this narrative, first of all, attention should be paid to the relationship of the pouring of peace on Jesus to the event of the resurrection of Lazarus. This relationship is well revealed by Ephraim the Syrian. The Lord Jesus, he writes, “raised Lazarus, and Himself died in his place. After all, after he called him out of the tomb and (then) when he reclined with him at the table, He Himself was buried under the image of the ointment that Mary poured on His head.” We know that subsequent events justified this meaning of the raising of Lazarus, symbolically indicated by the anointing of Jesus. For whom was this symbolic instruction, explained by Christ Himself, needed? Of course, for the apostles, to whom His speech was addressed. It is noteworthy that the consequences of the resurrection of Lazarus were not only foreshadowed by Christ to the apostles in a symbolic explanation of the case of Mary, but also prepared by Him. According to the gospels of Matthew and Mark, the dark decision of Judas Iscariot to betray his Teacher was connected with the event at the evening in Bethany. Evangelist John reports that it was Judas Simon Iscariot who expressed the disciples’ grumbling about the waste of Mary, who spoke about the poor not because he cared about them, but because he was a thief. And it was on this disciple that Christ’s explanation of Mary’s act in the sense of a foretelling of His death had such a strong effect that he then went to the high priests to betray his Teacher to them. They offered him thirty pieces of silver for this; and from that time on he sought an opportunity to betray his Master. The decision of the enemies of Jesus to put Him to death, prompted by His miracles, especially the last miracle of the raising of Lazarus, and predecided by them directly after this miracle, fully matured after the solemn messianic entry into the holy city, prepared by the last miracles, so that in the consequences of this event their full significance was revealed. The next day after the Bethany supper, as the Evangelist John reports, the disciples, at the command of Christ, brought Him a young donkey, which they covered with their clothes, and Christ sat on it and headed to Jerusalem. He was surrounded by a huge crowd of people who had gathered for the holiday. Here were many of the Jews who, having learned that Jesus was in Bethany, came here to see Him, and also Lazarus, whom He raised from the dead. There were so many Jews who believed in Jesus as a result of this miracle and came to Bethany for Lazarus that the high priests decided to kill Lazarus too. Accompanied by His disciples and the Jews and people who were in Bethany, Christ went to Jerusalem. Also, the multitude of people who had gathered in Jerusalem for the feast, hearing that Jesus was coming here, came out to meet Him. Both those who accompanied and those who met Christ spread their clothes along the road, while others held palm branches in their hands, and everyone glorified God with a loud voice. This procession of Christ was His messianic revelation, according to the clear words of the prophet: “Fear not, daughter of Zion! Behold, your king comes sitting on a colt” (Zechariah 9:9). This form of messianic revelation was chosen precisely in fulfillment of this famous prophecy. However, the disciples did not understand this at first; but when the people praised Jesus, then they remembered the prophecy. The people, who turned out to be more sensitive to the external glory of Christ, were more likely to remember the prophecy and greeted Him as the predicted king. The whole multitude of people exclaimed: “Hosanna! blessed is the king of Israel who comes in the name of the Lord.” This was not “just a burst of provincial joy, the innocent delight of poor Galileans,” it was a clear triumph of the fulfilled messianic expectations of the Jewish people. This was a repetition, deliberately allowed and even to some extent caused by Christ Himself, of that delight of the Galileans when they wanted to accidentally take Him and make Him king - only now this delight was repeated on a wider scale, embracing the entire Jewish people. When He entered Jerusalem, the whole city began to move, and greeted the prophet from Nazareth with intense attention. Even the Greeks who came to worship on the holiday wanted to see Jesus, which the apostles Andrew and Philip reported to Him. In the history of this triumph of the messianic faith of the people, special attention is drawn to the fact that it was caused by the last miracle of Christ. The Evangelist John quite clearly notes that the people who were with Him before testified that He called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead, and that is why the people met Him, because they heard that He had performed this miracle (John 12:17–18). But this miracle was the highest revelation of the miraculous power of Christ and a reminder for the people of all His previous miracles, so numerous in the first time of His ministry. In this regard, the remark of the Evangelist Luke is valuable for us that the entire multitude of Christ’s disciples, when He approached the descent from the Mount of Olives, began to praise God with joy and loud voices for all the miracles that they saw (Luke 19:37). What was the historical significance of this most solemn glorification of Christ for His miracles? This celebration was the eve of the last outbreak of Jewish hatred of Christ, the last moment in His judgment over the Jewish people, the eve of His death. That is why Christ, when he solemnly approached the holy city, looked at it, cried for it and said: “Oh, if only you, even on this day, knew what serves for your peace! But this is now hidden from your eyes; for the days will come upon you when your enemies will surround you with trenches, and surround you, and press you in on every side, and destroy you, and kill your children within you, and will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visit.” We know that this prophecy of Christ was fulfilled in a terrible reality that the imagination can hardly keep up with. Jerusalem was razed to the ground, and the Jewish people were exterminated for not accepting the spiritual kingdom of God. When even the Greeks approached Christ upon entering Jerusalem, He told the apostles that the hour had come for the Son of Man to be glorified in death. And His soul was indignant at this approaching hour, for which He had come. Then thunder sounded in the ears of the people, which others mistook for the voice of an angel, and Jesus said to the people: “This voice was not for Me, but for the people. Now is the judgment of this world.” The significance of the entry into Jerusalem was symbolically represented by Christ in the withering of the fig tree that followed the entry, as was the visit of Zacchaeus for the healing of the blind man, and the anointing of Mary for the raising of Lazarus. On the evening of the day on which the solemn entry into Jerusalem took place, Christ left the city and spent the night with the twelve in Bethany. In the morning, returning to the city, He became hungry. And seeing on the road a fig tree covered with leaves, he approached it to see if he could find anything on it, and finding nothing on it except some leaves, for it was not yet time to gather figs, he said to it: “Let there be no fruit from you forever.” And the fig tree withered. – The symbolic meaning of this event is explained by most interpreters of Holy Scripture in the sense of the rejection of the Jewish people. According to Euthymius Zigaben, “a fig tree, decorated only with leaves, is a Jewish synagogue, which does not have the fruits of truth, but is covered, like leaves, with invented rituals - or otherwise, worship under the law, in the canopy and bodily images, and Jewish traditions.” But this general explanation of the event does not answer the question of who it served as a symbol for! Not for the Jewish people, for whom the event remained unknown. Neither was it for the disciples, who paid their attention only to the speed with which the fig tree, according to the word of Christ, withered. Therefore, in response to them, Christ only pointed out the power of faith in general. It remains to be assumed that the event had a symbolic foreshadowing for Christ Himself. The matter can be represented in such a way that He wanted to know the will of the Heavenly Father regarding whether the hour of His death, the hour of rejection of the Jews, had fully come, whether the Jewish people, with the exception of the disciples from among them, remained completely barren, 449 so that there would not be a single person in them who was now capable of faith, for the sake of which it would be necessary to extend the activity of Christ among the Jews. In this case, the hunger that He felt in the morning was for Him, as it were, an impulse from above to approach the fig tree, which He saw from afar, to look for fruit on it, and His words to the fig tree, which did not have a single fruit, were as if a question to the Heavenly Father: “if the fig tree withers, then the hour has come for the rejection of the Jews.” However, this question could not arise from complete obscurity; on the contrary, confidence is heard in the words of Christ. Along with the question, the answer is given. His question was, together with the sentence of the Heavenly Father, pronounced through His lips. In any case, it is remarkable that in fact the final rejection of the Jews, expressed primarily in Christ’s parable about the vinedressers and in His accusatory speech against the scribes and Pharisees, followed the withering of the fig tree. According to the Gospel of Matthew, the fig tree withered immediately after Christ’s words to it, and, in connection with this, parables and an accusatory speech were pronounced on the same day; According to the Gospel of Mark, the withering of the fig tree was noticed by the apostles the next day after Christ’s words to her, when they again, after another night spent also outside Jerusalem, returned past the fig tree to the city, and, in connection with this, the parable and speech were also pronounced the next day. The Gospels do not give a mechanical chronology, but they convey the meaning of events and their connections accordingly. According to the meaning of the Gospel story, the entry of Christ into Jerusalem with the miracles preceding it was in its course the moment when the triumph of Christ itself brought the hatred of the enemies to extreme tension. The meaning of this event is that the full messianic revelation of Christ to the Jews caused them to condemn Him to death. This view has evangelical evidence for it. According to the Gospel of John, the high priests and Pharisees, having heard about the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus, gathered a council and said: “What should we do? This man does many miracles. If we leave Him like this, then everyone will believe in Him” (John 11:47–48). When Jesus was solemnly greeted by the people in Jerusalem, the Pharisees said to each other: “Do you see that you are not getting anything done? The whole world follows Him” (John 12:19). From here, by the way, it is clear what connection there was between the resurrection of Lazarus and the entry into Jerusalem: the resurrection of Lazarus in the triumph of entry gave what the Jews feared, i.e., that the whole people followed Christ. The people themselves were now no longer the subject of Christ’s concerns 450: just as after the healing of the blind man of Jericho, his indignation for Jesus’ visit to Zacchaeus mattered only to the disciples, so his rejoicing at Christ’s entry into Jerusalem mattered to the Jews. The only reason it cannot be said that the people at that time was only an instrument of Christ’s action on the disciples and Jews is that right after Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, they merged with the Jews: for the people, participation in the triumph of Christ, as for the Pharisees, high priests and scribes, observation of His triumph, was a transition to the final outbreak of hatred towards the spiritual kingdom of God. The Gospels also convey the state of mind that the Jews experienced as they watched the messianic triumph of Christ. They, according to John, reasoned like this: “if everyone believes in Him, then the Romans will come and take possession of both our place and people” (John 11:48). They feared, if they accepted the spiritual kingdom of Christ, what would actually happen to them as a result of their rejection of Christ. Another evangelist, Mark, writes that the scribes and high priests sought to destroy Christ, for they were afraid of Him, because all the people were amazed at His teaching (Mark 11:18), followed Him - they were afraid of losing their power over the people. According to the same evangelist (Mark 15:10), as well as Matthew (Matthew 27:18), the high priests betrayed Christ Jesus out of envy. Throughout the entire gospel history, the deeds of Jesus Christ are accompanied by His speeches, which not only clarify the meaning of His actions and the events of His life, reveal their consequences, but also prepare these consequences, give events a certain direction, not only reveal, but also give meaning to His actions. The same speeches of Christ to the Jews followed His entry into Jerusalem. The Evangelist John about the content of these speeches of Christ makes only a brief remark that He gave the Jews to understand what kind of death He would die, and thereby took away from them their last hope for the external kingdom, just as earlier, after feeding five thousand people, He in the Capernaum conversation denied the Jews such food for the future; the Jews, both then and now, despite so many miracles performed by Christ, did not believe in Him (John 12:32–37). But the first three evangelists convey in more detail the content of Christ’s conversations with the Jews during His last stay in Jerusalem, on the first day or the first two days after the solemn entry into Jerusalem. The conversations were started by His enemies. Even during His journey into the borders of Judea, on the trans-Jordanian side, they surrounded Him with hostility and tried to catch Him in a word. So they, tempting, asked Him whether it was permissible for a man to divorce his wife for any reason. During the entrance to Jerusalem, they approach Him and demand that He forbid the disciples to accompany Him with exclamations. The next day, when He came to the church and taught, the high priests and elders of the people came to Him and said: “By what authority are You doing this? And who gave you such power? He answered this question with the same question: where did John’s baptism come from - from heaven, or from men? The question put the Jews in difficulty, since they did not believe John, but everyone revered him as a prophet. If they had given the answer that the baptism of John was from heaven, then they themselves would have condemned themselves for unbelief, and if they had answered that it was from men, they would have armed the people against themselves. They refused to answer. But then Christ revealed to them the meaning of the answer that they had to give. He told them a parable about two sons, the first of whom at first refused his father’s invitation to work in the vineyard, and then, repenting, went, and the second agreed, but did not go. Explaining the parable, Christ likened the first son, who fulfilled the will of his father, to publicans and harlots, and to the second to the Jews - high priests, elders of the people and scribes, and said to them: “publicans and harlots go ahead of you into the kingdom of God.” Then He told them another parable about winegrowers to whom a vineyard was leased and who killed the owner’s slaves who were sent to them for the fruits, some of them beaten and released with dishonor, and killed others, and even the owner’s son, having taken him out of the vineyard, they killed in order to take possession of his inheritance. “What,” asked Christ, “will the owner of the vineyard do? He will put the vinedressers to death, and give the vineyard to other vinedressers, who will give him the fruit in their own time.” Then He applied the parable to the Jews and said to them: “So the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and it will be given to a people who bear the fruits thereof.”451 Christ told the third parable to the Jews about the wedding feast that the king gave for his son. Those invited did not want to come to the feast and turned out to be unworthy; and the feast was filled with those gathered on the roads and admitted to the feast in wedding attire. Hearing all these parables of His, the high priests and Pharisees understood that He was talking about them, and would have seized Him if they had not been afraid of the people. It was obvious to them that the one who gloriously entered Jerusalem as the Messiah was for them a terrible judge, casting them out of the kingdom of God as those who had not fulfilled the will of God, had not brought forth the proper fruits and were unworthy of the wedding feast. This content of the parables was supplemented by Christ's conversation on the questions that were proposed to Him by the Herodians, Sadducees and Pharisees. The Herodians, adherents of the Herodian dynasty and therefore in Galilee supporters of Herod Antipas, and in Judea dissatisfied with the Roman power due to the elimination of the Herodian dynasty by the Romans, together with the disciples of the Pharisees, for whom this power was hateful and who hoped to free themselves from it with the help of the Messiah, asked Him whether it was permissible to give tribute to Caesar or not. The Pharisees, who sent their disciples and the Herodians, hoped that in His answer He should speak out either as a supporter or as an opponent of Roman power. But Christ answered them that the coins with his image received from him should be given back to Caesar, and to God - God’s. The true Messiah can be neither a supporter nor an opponent of Roman power; the spiritual kingdom lies outside the area in which questions about external power arise; in the spiritual kingdom of God there is no place for the national aspirations of the Jews. Then the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection of the dead and the existence of the spiritual world (angels) and lived only by material interests, raised the question of resurrection. In response, Christ explained the spiritual nature of the state after the resurrection and thus clearly rejected the sensual hopes of the Jews. Then, to the question of one scribe from the Pharisees, what is the greatest commandment in the law, He answered that it is the commandment of love for God and neighbor - that commandment that not to fulfill means not to fulfill the law, but to fulfill means to fulfill the whole law. Thus the legalistic arrogance and self-righteousness of the Jews was rejected. Three characteristic types of Jewish aspirations were rejected by the Judge-Messiah. After this, Christ Jesus Himself addressed the assembled Pharisees with the question: “What do you think about Christ? whose son is he? They answered him: David. If the Messiah is only the son of David, then He is exclusively the Jewish Messiah. This is what the Jews thought, and this formed the basis of all their aspirations, the fulfillment of which they expected from their Messiah. But Christ made them understand that the Messiah, as the king of the spiritual kingdom of God, is above the boundaries of nationality and is the Lord of David himself. The Spiritual Messiah is the Christ of all humanity. Thus, what constituted the vital nerve of the Jews collapsed. A researcher of gospel history involuntarily admires this completeness of the questions that were illuminated in Christ’s conversation with the Jews. All aspects of Judaism were considered, and this was the self-revelation of Christ Jesus in relation to all the aspirations of the Jews. But what is even more admirable is the connection by which this conversation is connected with the parables that preceded it and the accusatory speech that followed it. The parables were an indictment against the Jews in accordance with how they themselves wanted to interrogate Him: “By what authority are You doing this?” A conversation with the Pharisees, Herodians, Sadducees and lawyers is a judicial presentation of evidence, indicating the grounds for the accusation. Finally, accusatory speech is a condemnation, a sentence. In this speech, with terrible severity, the internal abomination of the Pharisees' hypocrisy, legalism, self-righteousness, their petty love of glory, insane blindness, neglect of the most important things in the law and internal impurity with external embellishment, their bloodthirsty hatred of the righteous was laid bare before the people and disciples. “May all the righteous blood shed on earth come upon you,” Christ said to the Jews. Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.” The final word of this speech of Christ was truly terrible. He said: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to you! How often have I wanted to gather your children together, as a bird gathers its chicks under its wings, and you did not want to. Behold, your house is left to you empty.” This was the last word of the Messiah's judgment on the Jews. If we now take a look at the events of Christ’s last entry into Jerusalem, starting with the healing of the blind man of Jericho and the resurrection of Lazarus and ending with His formidable speeches against the Jews, then they will all appear to us in strict sequence and inextricable connection, in which there was no place for chance, but everything was determined by continuous planning and united by one idea. Like the entire course of Gospel history, so, in particular, this section of it shows us a significant coincidence in the life of Christ of the eternal divine content with the temporary form of revelation, so that the essential self-revelation of Christ to the world in teaching and deeds was at the same time the hardening of the Jews, and the direction of the Gospel history towards the glorification of the Heavenly Father was at the same time the direction towards the death of Christ, in which He revealed the Father’s love for the world. The solemn self-revelation of Christ to Jerusalem was His preparation for death. And He went to death freely and with full consciousness, which is why His path was so strictly consistent. The speeches of Christ during His last stay in Jerusalem were addressed by Him - some, just stated, to the Jews, and others to the disciples. While the first joined the preceding miracles and the triumph of His self-revelation and were His last act, which called the Jews to kill Him, the speeches to the disciples were already entirely related to His death and revealed to them its meaning. In this meaning, the last speeches of Christ to the disciples are of an exceptional character among all His other speeches and of primary importance for understanding the gospel history. All the previous speeches of Christ either contain an essential revelation of the mind of the divine life, what it is in its universality, what it is as an ideal of every time and place, as a requirement from all people, and in this case they are important for understanding the gospel history in their general content, in their basic character, in their essential relation to the life of the world, or they represent a temporary and conditional form of the historical relations of Christ, and in this case they are important for the gospel history in their historical connections and consequences. An example of the first type of speeches can be called the Sermon on the Mount, and an example of the second type - parables 452. Neither one nor the other should be presented in an explanation of the gospel story in terms of its content. In relation to the first of them, it is enough to characterize the teaching of Christ according to its basic and unchangeable sign for the world, and in relation to the second, their historical significance should be indicated. Unlike those and others, the last speeches of Christ to the disciples, together with some of His previous conversations with the disciples, but mainly before them, represent the revelation of the very meaning of the life of Christ in its relation to all His disciples, His self-denial, His self-abasement, His death - and therefore these speeches are important for understanding the gospel history by their very content. This is precisely: according to the first three gospels - the eschatological conversation of Christ (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21; see also Luke 17:20-37), and according to the Gospel of John - His farewell conversation with his disciples, equally difficult to understand and differently explained. Of these, the farewell conversation is richer in content and therefore more attracts the attention of the researcher of gospel history, but the circumstance that the eschatological conversation of Christ has the same meaning in the first three gospels that belongs to His farewell conversation in the Gospel of John deserves special note. This circumstance makes it possible to explain these conversations through their comparison and thus greatly helps in understanding their meaning. Bearing this circumstance in mind, one should not understand the conversations of the Synoptic Gospels exclusively in an apocalyptic sense, and in this case one can avoid that apparent difficulty, so inflated by negative criticism, that it seems to present the end of the world to the modern apostles; but the sorrow of the farewell conversation should not be limited to the few hours of separation of Christ from his disciples from His death to the resurrection and its joy should not be attributed only to the visible appearances of Christ after the resurrection. Neither the first conversation can be called exclusively apocalyptic, nor the second only farewell; but in both, the meaning of the humiliation and death of Christ is equally revealed, those relationships between Him and His disciples are clarified, which became possible and necessary for them as a result of and after His death. When Christ, after a menacing speech to the Jews, walked from the church, His disciples drew His attention to the buildings of the church, to their wealth and splendor. To this Jesus said to them, “Do you see all this? Truly I say to you, not one stone will be left here upon another; everything will be destroyed." Then, when He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, from where Jerusalem, which He had just rejected, could be seen, where the echo of His formidable speech was still heard, the disciples approached Him in private and asked: “Tell me, when will this be and what is the sign when all this is to happen - what is the sign of Your coming and the end of the age?” In response to this question, Christ delivered His speech to the disciples, which he began with the words: “Beware lest anyone deceive you” and ended with the instruction: “Watch at all times.” We will not present the entire content of this speech and indicate all its private thoughts and their sequence, which would require a lot of space, but we will indicate its main motive and main thoughts. What awaits the disciples of Christ is not the visible, glorious and prosperous establishment of the kingdom of God on earth, but terrible times await them: there will be wars, people will rise against people and kingdoms against kingdoms; there will be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in places. The first unusually sorrowful phenomenon in which these times will be revealed will be the destruction of Jerusalem by the pagans, which will give these times the name: “the times of the pagans” and will serve as the beginning of many similar phenomena. Under such conditions, the gospel of the kingdom will be preached by the disciples of Christ throughout the entire universe as a testimony to all nations - this will be the case until the end of the century. All nations will hate the witnesses of the gospel for the name of Christ, hand them over to be tortured and kill them. For the sons of the kingdom, this will be a time of temptation - they will betray each other, they will hate each other, and because of the increase of lawlessness in the world, the love of many will grow cold. Then there will be great tribulation for them, but he who endures to the end will be saved. Then there will be the coming of the Son of Man - His dwelling in the hearts of believers (Lk. 17:20–21, - otherwise: His presence is where two or three will be gathered in His name). It will not be a conspicuous, visible coming, in a certain place and at a certain time, with great signs and wonders. Thus many false Christs and false prophets will appear to deceive the faithful. They will say: behold, here is Christ, or: there. But they shouldn't be trusted. Likewise, no one knows about that day and hour except the Heavenly Father. The coming of the Son of Man will embrace all time until the end of the age and will not be limited to any place, will not be accompanied by external results, a visible trace. Just as lightning comes from the east and at the same time is visible even to the west, but leaves no traces of itself, so will the coming of the Son of Man. True, it will have its own signs for each person, just as summer is foreshadowed by the leaves of a fig tree; but these will be internal signs. From the outside, people's lives will not change at all. They will, as in the days before the flood, eat, drink, marry and be given in marriage. Therefore, the disciples of Christ must watch at all times, like slaves who do not know the time of their master’s return. In the lamps of their spiritual life, the oil of good deeds, stored in abundance in the vessels, must constantly burn: then they will be like the five intelligent virgins who at midnight were ready to meet the groom and entered with him to the wedding feast, and not those five foolish virgins whose lamps went out at the right time. The talents of spiritual life bestowed upon them must be in constant use and continually bring benefit, whether someone is given five talents, or two, or one. Thus they will be good and faithful servants and enter into the joy of their master; otherwise they will be cast out into outer darkness. But even the external and tangible presence of Christ will not be deprived of His disciples at all times until the end of the century: they can feed Him, water Him, receive Him, clothe Him and visit Him. He will continuously be before them in the form of His smaller brothers, hungry, thirsty, homeless, naked, sick, prisoners. Whatever is done to one of these brothers of Christ will be done to Him. The attitude of Christ's disciples towards His lesser brothers will form the basis of the final judgment against them. This speech of Christ on the Mount of Olives was spoken by Him on Tuesday; He probably spent the night and the next day in Bethany, although we have no information about this day of His life. On Thursday there was an Easter supper, at which He delivered a farewell speech to the disciples. The supper was, according to His instructions, prepared by Peter and John in Jerusalem, in the room of one owner, where He came with twelve in the evening. At this evening, Christ gave the disciples broken bread and a cup of wine, and their feet were washed. On the part of Christ, the sacrament of bread and cup was a preliminary symbol of His mortal suffering, a symbolic establishment of the new covenant of God with people through the shedding of His blood, through His death. Taking the bread and giving thanks, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, saying: “Take, eat; This is My body, which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” He also took the cup, gave thanks and, giving it to them, said: “Drink from it, all of you; This is my blood of the (new) testament, which is shed for many.” The relation of this sacrament to the death of Christ is obvious: the broken bread is an image of suffering; wine is shed blood. But what deserves special attention is not that this symbol was made by Christ, but that it was made for the disciples. This symbolic anticipation of death was the dying testament of Christ to the disciples and not only the dying testament, but also the testament of His death itself. They were all invited to eat the broken bread and drink from the cup: this participation in the sacrament was on their part a symbolic experience of the death of Christ, their agreement to accept His will, to accept His death as the new covenant of the Heavenly Father with people, as an image of their own activity. This sacrament was the symbolic burial in the death of Christ of everything old, the abolition of the religion of rites and images, external theocracy and bodily purity, visible prosperity and the national kingdom, it was the establishment of a religion of complete self-denial in the name of God, invisible divine life, service to God in the spirit of real love: by participating in the sacrament, the disciples solemnly renounced Jewish messianic aspirations and took upon themselves the yoke of the new covenant... The entire gospel story is one continuous divine verb, a solemn revelation of the divine meaning of earthly life, it is all the unremitting singing of heavenly angels proclaiming the glory of God in heaven and on earth, it is the entire appearance of the angels of God ascending and descending to the Son of man, in its melody there is not a single weak sound, in its appearances not a single pale shadow. And yet, the researcher, accustomed to its high tone, to its bright colors, is involuntarily amazed by the grandeur of the Last Supper, the solemnity of the sacrament of body and blood. This was on the eve of the death of Christ, predestined for Him by the Heavenly Father. He walked towards this hour with full consciousness, with a bright gaze. He will shed His blood for the spiritual life of the world, for the salvation of people. But His death will be saving for people in the only case if His disciples accept it as the death of the Son of God, as the beginning of a new spiritual life for humanity, as a new covenant with the Heavenly Father, as an image for themselves. They are needed for the work of Christ, He chose them for the work of God; He taught them for a long time, lived with them, endured their infirmities, made them witnesses of His glory and participants in His misfortunes, in order to make of them His friends, children of the Heavenly Father. He gathered them for this last supper to reveal to them the secret of His death, to call them to be participants in His mortal suffering. And they ate the bread and drank from the cup: they accepted the new covenant - the covenant of the death of Christ. At the end of the supper, Jesus, knowing that He came from God and was going to God, got up from the supper, took off his clothes and, taking a towel, girded himself; then he poured water into the washbasin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. – First of all, it is worthy of note that the narration of this event is conveyed only by the Evangelist John 453, while the breaking of bread and the sharing of the cup is narrated only by the weather forecasters. This circumstance makes it possible to equate the meaning of washing the feet with the sacrament of the bread and the cup. The washing of the disciples’ feet was not a single lesson of humility on the part of Christ, given on some occasion, for example, on the occasion of a dispute between the disciples about primacy, which the Evangelist John would not have kept silent about, but it was His dying testament to the disciples with a character of universal significance, it was the way of life given by Him to the disciples, an example left by Christ for all His followers, in the highest sense of the word. In this case, the matter was added to the teaching not for clarity, but the very act of washing the feet of the Teacher to the disciples, His humiliation, had the meaning of actually convincing them in what image their future life should take shape, what they should expect for themselves. “A servant is not greater than his master, and a messenger is not greater than him who sent him”: disciples should expect for themselves no more than what is given in the example of the Teacher. But the essence of the event is not in the teaching and persuasion of the disciples, but in the obligation that was imposed on them by the Teacher and the Lord and which they accepted. Therefore, the disciples had to be participants in this event, taking upon themselves the obligation, accepting the will. Only in this single sense can we understand the words of Christ in response to Peter, the most mysterious in the entire narrative and otherwise inexplicable. When Christ, washing the disciples’ feet, approached Peter, he said: “Lord! Should you wash my feet? You will never wash my feet." In response, Christ said to Peter: “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” This participation of the disciples in the slave service of Christ, similarly to which their participation in the sacrament of bread and wine must be understood, was not participation in symbolic cleansing, which they no longer needed (John 13:9-10), but was precisely the acceptance of slave service from Christ, which was the obligation of the disciples to the same service to each other. And so understood, the symbol of washing the feet had what an indestructible psychological basis for the disciples! To allow their beloved Teacher and Lord to wash their feet, this for the disciples meant, in fact, of the deepest feeling, to accept the indelibly slavish image of the Teacher as the image of their own life. This slave face of Christ, with all the power of an excited conscience, must pursue the soul of a Christian everywhere and incessantly, giving it strength for feats of the greatest humiliation. The sacrament of bread and wine, performed to announce the death of Christ, if it is performed in this sense, cannot pass without a trace for a person, whether it is received worthily or unworthily, but it can and should be given to a person either to eternal life, if it is received worthily, or to condemnation and death, if it is received unworthily (1 Cor. 11:26-30). This is how it was with the disciples at the first performance of this sacrament by Christ Himself: it separated the pure from the unclean, being equally important in its consequences - for the pure “to life” and for the unclean “to condemnation.” That is why Christ accompanied the offer of bread and cup to the disciples with sad words: “Behold, the hand of him who betrayed Me is with Me at the table.” In the same way, the washing of the feet of the disciples by Christ was supposed to shake their souls to the depths, reveal their innermost thoughts and cause them to make an irrevocable decision to be with Christ or against Him. And Christ accompanied this action with the words to his disciples: “He who is washed only needs to wash his feet, because he is all clean; and you are clean, but not all,” because He knew His betrayer. Not for the first time at this point in Gospel history, a researcher has the opportunity to testify to the amazing coincidence in its events of the significant revelation of divine spiritual life with the temporary, historical consequences of its discovery. What was for Christ’s disciples a revelation of the very essence of spiritual life, preparation for the spiritual assimilation of Christ’s death, the same thing for one of them, Judas Iscariot, was a decisive urge to betray His Teacher to death: with one of the pieces of crushed bread, which for all the apostles signified the suffering of Christ, as an image of their own dishonor and suffering, with one of these pieces, which fell to the lot of Judas, he entered into it Satan; the washing of his feet by the Teacher was the last straw that overflowed the cup of his bitterness. How was such a fall of Judas possible? This is one of the questions that attracts the attention of researchers of evangelical history. How could one of the twelve, who saw the glory of his Teacher, who experienced adversity and hardship with Him, one of those who left everything for Him and through the mouth of Peter confessed Him at Caesarea Philippi as Christ, the Son of God, how could one of His closest disciples become His traitor? To explain this fact, learned theologians resort to various theories: some attach exceptional importance to the love of money, which the evangelist notes in Judas (John 12:6); others consider him a complete unbeliever for the entire time of his communication with Christ (John 6:64); others assimilate to him the desire to induce the Teacher, by betraying Him into the hands of enemies, to the speedy opening of the external messianic kingdom; some suggest in it a very special moral process of disappointment in the work of Christ Jesus. In all these cases, the betrayal of Judas would be a strange episode in the gospel history, which would not correspond to its strict planning, due to which Christ foresaw the betrayal of Judas long in advance (John 6:70–71). On the other hand, even assuming that the very election of Judas to the number of the twelve was determined by the will of the Heavenly Father, we, however, could not at all imagine his stay with Christ if Jesus's anticipation of Judas' betrayal was based on the exceptional strength of his love of money or on his complete unbelief. Therefore, one must think that the motives that determined the betrayal of Judas were the same ones that determined the relationship of all Jews in general to Jesus Christ. In this case, we can sufficiently appreciate the fact that Judas was the only one of the twelve disciples of Christ who did not come from Galilee, like everyone else, but from Judea. If Judas was a Jew from the Jews and this constituted the main feature of his character, then his love of money was nothing more or less than a tense expression of the national character of the Jews, which became especially disgusting for the evangelist due to the consequences to which it led, but completely, with the exception of the individual degree, made Judas akin to his people; Likewise, the unbelief of Judas was not an original special unbelief, but gradually degenerated from that Jewish faith in miracles, to which Jesus Himself did not at first entrust Himself. Judas, in his relationship with Jesus, went hand in hand with the entire Jewish people: he believed, along with all the Jews, in the miracles of Christ, experienced an extraordinary upsurge of common Jewish messianic aspirations, aroused by His works, and the transition of unfulfilled aspirations into unbelief and hatred of Christ. The only basis for this hatred is the spirituality of the heavenly kingdom of Christ, in which there was no place for the national and material messianic expectations of the Jews. The Gospels preserve an indication of the steps by which Judas's initial outward faith turned into unbelief and hatred of Jesus. The Capernaum conversation about the bread of life, from the time of which many of Christ’s disciples departed from Him, first pushed Judas into the power of the devil. From that time on, the consciousness was born in him and gradually matured that Jesus of Nazareth fully possessed the power to make the messianic expectations of the Jews actual, but had no desire to do this by preaching a universal spiritual kingdom. Judas's faith in the miracles of Christ, from which his national aspirations were strengthened, became disbelief in the spiritual kingdom of Jesus and degenerated into hatred of the humiliated Messiah. His position among the rest of the Jews was special because, being a Jew from the Jews, he was at the same time one of the closest disciples of Christ, so that the truth of the deepest humiliation of Christ was revealed to him more fully than to the rest of the Jews: this was the special tragedy of his position. This was precisely a Jew in the position of the closest disciple of Christ - in that closeness to the sun of spiritual life, in which it warmed the believers and burned the heart of the unbeliever. His hatred of Christ was the hatred of one of the Jews close to Jesus. His experience went further than the experience of all other Jews. The last stages of this experience are the waste of dear peace in the symbolic anointing of Jesus by Mary for death, the establishment by Christ of a new covenant of death and His humiliation to the point of slavishly washing the feet of the disciples. But with all the strength of hatred for the spiritual heavenly kingdom that we can only imagine in the heart of Judas, the consciousness that Jesus is the real Messiah could not fade away in him. With his terrible villainy of the tradition of the Son of Man, he went against the irresistible voice of his conscience, and therefore his repentance and suicide are least of all unexpected. And in this respect, he remained one of the Jews, with their continuous division in conscience in relation to Christ. The symbolic actions at the Last Last Supper, the breaking of bread and the washing of feet, which, being for the apostles a preparation for the assimilation of the spiritual fruits of Christ's death, were for Judas a decisive incentive to betray Christ, these symbolic actions of Christ were accompanied by His clear words, which gave them a certain meaning for Judas and the disciples. When Christ told His disciples that one of them would betray Him, they became sad and began to ask Him, each of them: is it not me, Lord? John, at a sign from Peter, fell to the chest of Jesus, as he reclined next to Him, and asked Him: Lord, who is this? Christ answered: “the one to whom I, having dipped a piece of bread, will give it.” Judas also said to Him: Isn’t it I, Rabbi? Christ answered him: “You said,” and, having dipped the piece, he gave it to him. After this piece Satan entered him. Then Jesus said to him, “Whatever you are doing, do it quickly.” After this, Judas left the illuminated upper room into the darkness of the night to fulfill his dark plan. It is so obvious that by His actions and words Christ prompted Judas to go about his business, and in this it was revealed that He walked towards death with complete freedom. This freedom expressed the love of the Son for His Heavenly Father - that love that was a revelation of the Father’s love for the world. The voluntary humiliation and death of Christ was the glorification of the Son of man, that is, the glorification of God in Him. We know that this glory of the Son of man, accomplished in all the humiliation of His earthly life and mainly accomplished in His voluntary death, this glory of the Son of man had before it His spiritual glory (Ἰ ησοῦς - πνεῦμα John 7:39), as the last goal of His ministry, since His spiritual glory, that is, Him as spirit, can be received by all people, and behind itself the glory of the Son of Man had His external glory from the Spirit, manifested mainly in His miracles. The spiritual glory of Jesus is His glory in God, otherwise the glory of God in the Son, since through His spiritual glory God dwells in all people, so that every person can become a son of God. While Christ Jesus had glory from God, the glory of working miracles, He did not yet have glory in God. In order to give the true eternal divine life, which He had in Himself from birth, to all people, He had to be glorified spiritually, glorified in God, and for this He needed external glory from God, personally bestowed upon Him, to be replaced by suffering and the humiliation of death. For this reason, external glory was given to Him by God, as a symbol of the coming spiritual glory, so that renunciation of it would make His humiliation real and free. While Jesus had glory from God, the glory of working miracles, while He was not yet abandoned by God (Matt. 27 par.), until He was glorified as the Son of man, He did not have spiritual glory, was not a spirit (ο ὔ πω ἦ ν πνεῦμα, ὅ τι Ἰησοῦς οὐδέπω ἐδοξάσθη John 7:39 ). Now, when His death had already been decided by the Jewish leaders and Judas had already gone to deliver Him into their hands, He was on the eve of His glorification in God. When Judas left the supper, Jesus said to the disciples: “Today the Son of man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God was glorified in Him, then God will glorify Him in Himself, and will soon glorify Him.” Thus began His farewell conversation with his disciples 454. Its main subject is His spiritual glory. In it He speaks to His disciples about His coming glory, not in the image of walking on the clouds of heaven and sitting at the right hand of power, He tells them about their participation in His glory, not in the image of sitting on twelve thrones, but speaks in direct speech. The glory of Christ is inseparably bound up with His sufferings, and their glory is bound up with their sufferings. His suffering is the path that they too will have to follow. And He now wanted to reveal this path to them, to show them the meaning of His humiliation, to prepare them for His suffering - such was the content of His farewell conversation. Apparently he won’t be with them long anymore. In vain they will look for Him in a certain place and wait for Him at a certain time. As they are now, they cannot follow Him. So before, to the Jews, pointing with symbolic actions to His spirituality, Christ said: “where I go, you cannot come.” Но ученикам Своим Христос не говорит, что они вообще не могут идти за Ним, но говорит только, что они теперь не могут идти за Ним. Afterwards they too will follow Him, and this is the way they can follow Him - self-sacrificing love following His example. But since He will fully demonstrate His love for them only in death, before His death they cannot follow Him. Peter said to Him: “Lord! Why can’t I follow You now? Even now I am ready to lay down my soul for You.” Jesus answered Him: “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow until you have denied Me three times this night.” Only His death will give them the strength to follow Him: and they must first experience His death in renunciation of Him. Let not their heart be troubled; let them only believe in God through Him and believe in Him in God’s way. He goes to suffering in order to prepare a place for them in the heavenly abodes, in order to give them strength for the spiritual life of the Heavenly Father. He goes to the Father in order to later take them to Himself. And what is the spiritual life of the Heavenly Father and what path leads to it, they know this, because they know Him, and He is the true path to the life of the Father, but they themselves will live His spiritual life only if He ascends to the Father through suffering. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I go to My Father.” The fruit of spiritual life in believers is higher than the works of Christ - His miracles. This will be the glorification of the Father in the Son. The Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of truth will dwell in them and will be their eternal, inalienable intercessor before the Father: the world cannot accept Him, since He is invisible, and the world can only accept what is visible; they know Him, since even now He remains with them, but He will be in them. This does not mean that with the indwelling of the Spirit in them, Christ Himself will be separated from them. He Himself will appear to them, but He will not appear as He could appear to the world, apparently; no, but whoever loves Him, He will appear to him, He will dwell in him together with His Heavenly Father, since He is in the Father. And as He is in the Father, so they will be in Him, and He in them. He will appear to them differently from how He now departs from them: now He is with them only temporarily. external communication, now He is an external intercessor for them, and then there will be intercession of the Spirit (cf. 1 John 2:1), then there will be spiritual communication, so that what He now tells them, they will remember and understand differently. That is why He commands them not to be troubled in heart: His Father is greater than Him, and they should rejoice in the fact that He goes to the Father, just as He Himself goes to the Father with love and readiness. So, “get up, let’s get out of here.” They should not think that after His departure they will live and bear fruit without communicating with Him. No, just as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it is in the vine, so neither can they unless they are in Him; on the contrary, in fellowship with Him they will bear much fruit. He is the true vine, planted by Heavenly Father to bear fruit. And in order to bear fruit, the grain dies (John 12:24): He is the true vine because He lays down His soul, going to suffering and death, for which His Father was glorified. But the branches of the vine, not only the withered ones (i.e., the Jews) are thrown into the fire, but also those bearing fruit are cleansed so that they bear more fruit. So are the disciples: they have already been purified through the word that they heard from Him; but they must be cleansed by the very deed, by following Him, in order to bear much fruit. This is why His Father was glorified, this is why He goes to suffer, so that they bear much fruit, and so they will be His disciples, followers. Therefore, they must abide in His love: just as the Father loved Him, so He loved them, so He commands them to abide in His love. He tells them about this, reveals to them the secret of the divine-human life in order to give them His joy, which will open their hearts to perceive His love, manifested in His death, and give them the strength to overcome the temptation of His death and their subsequent suffering. He reveals to them a great and joyful secret: He commands them His self-sacrificing love, which He will show in His death for friends - and here they are His friends, if they fulfill His commandment, they will be participants in His work, His co-servants for the glorification of the Father. He calls them His friends, to whom He reveals this secret, bestows this His joy. For this service He chose them. But they can fulfill their great calling only in suffering, in patience, in hatred from the world, just as the world hates Him Himself. A slave is not greater than his master. And they will endure precisely the same hatred with which the world hates Him, the Son of God, for His teaching and deeds - it hates in vain. By the reality of their spiritual life, emanating from the Heavenly Father, they will testify to His work, to His life. So they are facing persecution. And He tells them in advance so that they will not be tempted when the time comes. But, although their suffering will follow His departure to the Father, it is still better for them that He goes to the Father, because only in this case will they enter into communion of spirit with Him and, as participants in His work, will testify to the sinfulness of the vain hatred of the unbelieving world towards Him, to the truth of His own divine life and to the reality of the condemnation of the prince of this world accomplished in Him. All this will become clear to them when they actually receive the Spirit. He again repeats to them that this perception of the Spirit by them will not be their separation from Him, but it will be spiritual communion with Him. Then, after His departure to the Father and as a result of this, His communication with them will not be limited by the conditions of time and place: (just as lightning comes from the east and is visible even to the west, so) then - now He is not visibly with them, but now they feel Him in their hearts and find the joy of spiritual life in the very suffering. Then, although He will not intercede for them before the Father, as an outwardly separate intercessor from them, the Father Himself will love them, give them everything they ask, and everything about the Father will become clear to them due to the conviction of the reality of the divine life of their Teacher. They answered Him that even now everything in His speeches is clear to them, since He speaks to them in direct speech, and now they believe that He came from God. Christ said to them, as before to Peter: “Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming, and has already come, that you will scatter, each in his own direction, and leave Me alone; but I am not alone, for the Father is with Me. I have spoken these things to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but take heart: I have overcome the world.” After these words, Christ raised His eyes to heaven and said the so-called high priestly prayer. In it, He, as having dedicated Himself to the Father for the people, prayed to the Heavenly Father for the fulfillment of what He had previously instructed His disciples: for the fulfillment of spiritual divine life in them, for their spiritual union with the Father through Him, the Son of God. He asked the Father to glorify His Son with spiritual glory, to grant people His eternal life, for which they were prepared by His teaching, works and death and by their faith in His divine life. He asked the Father for those who believed in Him, whom He left in the world, leaving the world to the Father, so that the Holy Father would love them in unity, that is, in communion of His eternal spiritual life, just as the Son is in communion with the Father, having His divine life in Himself. While He Himself was in the world, He preserved them in the name of the Father and preserved them, so that none of them perished except the son of perdition, but now, leaving the world to the Father, He prays to the Father about this (in the hearing of the disciples), so that they would have His joy within themselves, which will give them the strength to endure suffering and persecution - He prays to the Father for this, because, remaining in the world, but being not of the world, like Him, they will endure the hatred of the world - He does not pray for that, that the Father would take them out of the world, but that He would preserve them from evil, He prays not only for this, but also that they, no longer of the world, would be sanctified for the world, in the reality of spiritual life (ἐν τ ῇ ἀληθεία John 17cp. John 4 ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθεί ᾳ), corresponding to the word of the Father, which has already been transmitted to them (John 17:14), - so that they are not only separate from the world, as not their own, but God’s own, but so that for the world into which they are sent by their Teacher, as He Himself was sent into the world by the Father, they would be witnesses of His divine life. For such sanctification of them in the reality of spiritual life, He Himself sanctifies (dedicates) Himself for them in death. Then He asked the Father not only about His disciples, whom He left in the world, but also about those who believed in Him through their word, so that they would all be in the unity of the divine spiritual life and that they would be witnesses to the world about the Father’s love for them in the Son. For this very purpose, He prays to the Father to show them (i.e., communicate to them) His spiritual glory, bestowed upon Him by the Father out of eternal love for the Son, so that this love of the Father for the Son would be in them - so that He would show them the spiritual glory of the Son, as if in a just (πατὴρ δίκαιε John 17:25) reward for their knowledge Father in the Son. Either during the farewell conversation, with the words: “Get up, let’s leave here,” or at the end of the high priestly prayer, Christ left the Jerusalem upper room with His disciples and went to the Mount of Olives, to the garden called Gethsemane. He often gathered there with His disciples, and Judas the traitor knew this place. Having arrived at the place, Christ said to His disciples: “Sit here while I go and pray there.” And taking Peter and both sons of Zebedee with him, he began to grieve, be horrified and yearn. And he said to them, “My soul is grieved unto death; abide here and watch with Me.” And, going away a little, as if to throw a stone, he fell to the ground and, being in struggle (γενόμενος ἐν ἀγωνί ᾳ), diligently prayed that, if possible, this hour would pass from Him; and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. He said to the Heavenly Father: “My Father! if possible, let this cup pass from Me; however, not as I want, but as You want. If this cup cannot pass from Me, lest I drink it, Thy will be done.” Twice He interrupted His prayer and came to the disciples, but found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy with sadness. When He came to them again at the end of the prayer, He said to them: “You are still sleeping and resting; behold, the hour has come, and the Son of man is being delivered into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us go: behold, he who betrayed Me has drawn near.” It was indeed Judas who walked at the head of a multitude of people with swords and stakes, with lanterns and lamps, from the high priests and elders. Approaching Jesus and kissing Him with a hypocritical greeting, he thereby gave a conventional sign to the people and Jesus was taken. This is the event known as the Controversy of Gethsemane. What did this struggle of Christ refer to and what is its historical significance? It referred to death; His soul grieved mortally (περίλυπός ἐστιν ἡ ψυχή μου ἕ ως θανάτου) - grieved with the horror of death. The physiology of His death took place on the cross, with physical torture preceding the crucifixion; but the event of His death, as His free act of obedience to the Father, began immediately after the farewell conversation 455. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ experienced the horror of death in His will, which they subordinated to the will of the Heavenly Father. What was the horror of death for Him? Why didn’t He go to death with the calmness with which the sages of this world greet it? Unlike the wise men of this world, for Him the horror of death consisted in the experience of a completely exceptional relationship with the Heavenly Father. He was the Son of God; God's self-consciousness completely filled His soul and was the only determining principle in His life. Already in one psychological aspect of His relationship with the Father, in the energy of His God-son self-consciousness, He lived precisely as the Son of God. Therefore, His death was for Him in this respect a completely different phenomenon than the death of the people of this world: it was the death of the Son of God. In addition to the sorrow of a cowardly attachment to life and fear of conscience for an unknown future, which did not exist for Him, just as they do not exist for some wise men and righteous people, except for the physiological side of death, the same for all people, for Him death was a special spiritual phenomenon - complete external abandonment from God the Father, which He testified to on the cross (Matthew 27 par.). We cannot, with our thoughts relaxed from sin, fully penetrate this mystery, imagine His state of mind; but from what we know about His self-awareness, and because He experienced mortal horror in the Garden of Gethsemane, we can understand that external abandonment of God was just as terrible for Him and He could not help but be horrified by it, just as deprivation of air is terrible for our body and how it cannot help but shudder when suffocated. But the meaning of this mortal horror of abandonment by God, experienced by Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, is more accessible to our minds. This dying spiritual agony, this experience of being abandoned by God by the Son of God, was the state when the human soul of the Son of God, outwardly abandoned by God, was left to itself and became, by virtue of internal sonship with God, a creative principle in human life, the beginning of a new spiritual life in humanity. In order to bear fruit, the grain of wheat dies. Jesus is the seed of our spiritual life. The dying of grain, as the beginning of a new life, was experienced by Him in the battle of Gethsemane. That is why such death agony cannot exist not only among the wise men of the world, but also among the followers of Christ, who are the branches of the vine, but not the grain. The disciples of Christ were witnesses of His struggle in Gethsemane and it was precisely those disciples who contemplated His glory on the mount of transfiguration. They now saw that His glory, which they longed for, was behind, and not in front; they learned to see the will of the Heavenly Father in His coming death; they witnessed the mortal horror of their Lord and Teacher - and together with Him from that moment they began to experience His death. They symbolically experienced it at the Last Supper, and in fact they began to experience it now. How was this experience expressed by the disciples of the death of their Christ? In Gethsemane sorrow, in an attempt at external self-defense, in dispersion and renunciation of Him. “My soul is grieved unto death; “stay here, pray and watch with Me,” Christ said to His disciples. And they saw and heard how He prayed and suffered; and His horror plunged them into deep sadness, so that they could not fight sleep. Here is a feature marked by the Gospel, which alone is sufficient as evidence of the veracity of the Gospel story: deep sadness plunged them into sleep. This weak dream was the beginning of their shame in which they experienced the death of Christ. Christ, with complete freedom, especially clearly noted by the Evangelist John, went out to meet Judas and surrendered into the hands of His enemies, who came against Him with weapons, as if against a robber. But His disciples showed cowardice. “Lord,” they said, “shouldn’t we strike with the sword?” И пылкий Пётр, имея меч, извлёк его и отсёк первосвященническому рабу Малху (неловкою рукою) правое ухо. But Jesus said to him, “Put your sword in its sheath; Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given Me? Then the Jewish servants and the soldiers who were with them took Jesus and bound Him, and the disciples, leaving Him, all fled. One young man, wrapped in a veil over his naked body, followed Him; the soldiers grabbed him, but he, leaving the veil, ran away from them naked. Only Peter and the other disciple, John, followed Him from afar. Those who took Jesus took Him first to Annas, the former high priest and father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. Annas asked Jesus about His disciples and His teaching and sent him bound to the high priest Caiaphas. It must be assumed that Annas and Caiaphas lived in rooms separated by one courtyard, through which Jesus was led to Annas and from Annas to Caiaphas, and this was precisely the courtyard of the high priest. John, who was familiar to the high priest and known to the high priestly servants, entered this courtyard after Jesus; John followed him, telling the doorkeeper, and brought in Peter, who stood among the servants warming themselves near the fire. And it was before these servants that Peter denied his Christ. He was exposed by his Galilean accent; some ministers, among whom was a relative of Malchus, who was wounded by him, saw him in the Garden of Gethsemane. At first he was recognized as a disciple of Jesus of Galilee by a servant, a doorkeeper, and he denied before everyone, saying: “I don’t know what you are saying.” After some time they asked him again if he was a disciple of Jesus, and he said, “No.” When they told him the same thing for the third time, he began to swear and swear that he did not know this man. And suddenly the rooster crowed. One observation can be made here that is not without exegetical interest. All the evangelists closely connect in their narratives the denial of Peter with the trial of Jesus by the high priest, although the narratives of the evangelists differ from each other in that according to the Gospel of John, Christ was first taken to Annas and then to Caiaphas, and he apparently describes the interrogation of Annas, only mentioning the trial of Caiaphas, while Matthew describes only the trial of the high priest Caiaphas, and Mark describes the trial of Caiaphas. the high priest according to Matthew, but Luke only mentions him. What is especially noteworthy for us is the description of the trial of the high priest according to the Gospel of John. The high priest asked Jesus about His disciples and about His teaching. Jesus answered him: “I have spoken openly to the world; I always taught in the synagogue and in the temple, where Jews always gather, and I did not say anything secretly. Why are you asking Me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; behold, they know what I have spoken.” Then one of the ministers struck Jesus on the cheek as if for a rude answer to the high priest. The question is: to whom did Jesus refer in his words? “behold, do they (οὗτοι) know what I said?” Whom did He call as witnesses of His teaching before the high priest? He could not point, as is usually thought, to the Jews and their ministers present in court, for what kind of witnesses were these to His teaching, although He taught before them? And the matter should be presented like this. In all likelihood, the room in which the interrogation of the high priest was carried out was open from the side of the courtyard, so that from this room one could see what was happening in the courtyard, and from the courtyard the ministers, among whom Peter was, could see the proceedings of the trial. In response to the high priest’s question about His disciples and witnesses of His teaching, Christ pointed to John and Peter who were in the courtyard, who had already denied once before the doorkeeper. Following this answer of Christ, the evangelist continues, without interruption, with a description of the legal proceedings before Annas sent Jesus to Caiaphas; but his description of Peter’s second denial is closely related to Christ’s response. “Then they said to Peter, “Aren’t you also one of His disciples?” He denied and said: no.” So, let's imagine what happened. Christ stood before the high priest as a defendant, in full view of Peter, and called on him to testify for Him before the judges. “Peter,” these were the words of Christ for His disciple, “Peter!” You know My teaching, go and testify for Me.” And Peter denied Him... In Matthew and Mark, who agrees with him, Peter’s denial is connected with the interrogation of Jesus by Caiaphas, to which Annas sent Jesus bound, but it is not related to the content of the interrogation, but to what followed it. After condemning Jesus, the judges and ministers “spit in His face and strangled Him” and mocked Him. Evangelist Luke, from his interrogation with the high priest, reports only about this torture, with which he obviously connects Peter’s denial. Probably, it was Peter’s third denial that was in connection with the interrogation of Caiaphas. Be that as it may, Peter and Christ saw each other. When Peter denied for the third time, Christ - either from the courtroom of Caiaphas, or when he was given over to the servants for reproach - turned and looked at Peter; and Peter remembered His prediction, and went out and wept bitterly. These details highlight the depth of shame into which Peter’s denial of Christ plunged him and which was the last step in the disciples’ experience of the death of their Teacher... They experienced His death through the shame of despondency, external self-defense, flight and renunciation of Him... What significance did this circumstance have in their lives, in their apostolic ministry? The Gospel story presents us with the apostles with the sharp features of Jewish leaven. With undoubted moral purity, deep religiosity and intense messianic expectations, which gave them the strength to leave everything and follow Christ, they probe before us with the character of arrogant righteousness, in the darkness of intensely personal external messianic aspirations and legal calculations for the protection of the Heavenly Father. Therefore, while deeply listening to the words and deeds of Christ Jesus, they did not understand the spirit of His teaching and His life, they still waited for the external revelation of His glory and external participation in His reign. On the contrary, the history of the apostolic church shows us the disciples of Christ reborn: they are imbued with the conviction of the corruption of all human glory (1 Pet. 1:24), inspired by joyful love for Christ, rejected by men, but chosen by God, beloved for those who have not seen Him by faith alone (1 Pet. 1:8; 2:4), they comprehend bliss in suffering for the truth following the example of Christ ( 1 Pet. 2:19–25; 3:14; 4:12) and in the patience of Christ’s sufferings they see spiritual glory (1 Pet. 4:12–13), for them the true and real eternal life bequeathed by Christ is in self-sacrificing love (1 John). They rejoiced, suffering dishonor for the name of Christ (Acts 5:41): in this alone, their new spiritual image was revealed with complete clarity. They no longer lived a personal life, but Christ lived in them; they did not live an external life, but an invisible spiritual one; they were guided not by sight, but by faith. When did this rebirth take place in Christ’s disciples? During the death of Christ, which they experienced together with Him... Usually the reason for the rebirth of the apostles is indicated in the resurrection of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit on them. And rightly so, as will be explained below. But to indicate the reason for the rebirth of the apostles only in the resurrection of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit, bypassing His death, means seeing in the resurrection of Christ an external fact and looking at the descent of the Spirit mechanically; it’s the same as explaining the restoration of organic forces not by sleep, but by awakening. If the apostles had seen the risen Christ without first experiencing His death, then His resurrection for them would have been a rebirth of the flesh, not the spirit, a revival of personal arrogance and external messianic aspirations... The death of Christ, experienced by the apostles, is the grain of the spiritual life that was born in them. To understand this meaning for the apostles of the death of Christ, we must know that for us, eternal true life is possible only after death and through death: life in the kingdom of heaven is not a continuation of our intensely personal carnal life; its impossibility for us in this world is not based only on the limitations of earthly life, and death is not only the transition of our life to another sphere; but heavenly life is completely different from our temporary life, it is essentially inaccessible to us now, we must die in order to live the divine life, death is purification for us. The work of Christ, who gave us spiritual life, has the power that our death does not remain only destruction, which it would have been without Christ, but from death we rise to the life of Christ, to spiritual divine life. However, we can inherit His divine life only through death. This is the significance of our death for our spiritual rebirth. True eternal life is available only to the sons of the resurrection. This is beyond doubt. But this must be understood in the sense that under the necessary condition of death, eternal spiritual life will become the complete and only reality for believers in Christ. In a limited sense, spiritual life can be our property even in this life - so that external mental-physical life invariably remains for us a complete visible reality, and spiritual life is an invisible area for us, an area of ​​faith and hope 456. Yet this is real spiritual life. And even after death, only one (Christian) who is already here living a spiritual life can live a full spiritual life. And so, just as for life after the resurrection we need to die, so for this spiritual life we ​​need to be baptized into the death of Christ, buried with Him, united with Him in the likeness of His death. "He who is dead is freed from sin" (Rom. 6:7): this has power for both. It was this “conformity to the likeness of the death of Christ,” as the beginning of spiritual life, that was experienced by the apostles in the shame that accompanied the death of Christ for them. It was a disgrace to the flesh, its aspirations, it was the stench of personal arrogance, it was the burial of an intensely personal, legally calculated, passionate attachment to the Messiah and His external glory. For this shame, the apostles had to hate themselves, and their former image fell from them, like the bark falls off from a healed place: the spiritual life that Christ poured into them broke through from the rotten shell, and everything became clear to them in His previous words. Of course, a double way out of this shame was possible: either the one that Judas followed, or the one that the rest of the disciples rebelled against. And perhaps there was a moment when the condition of the eleven almost approached the condition of Judas, but there was also that, at least apparently insignificant difference, which gave the apostles a tilt in the other direction. The condemnation of Christ by the Jews to death took place at a meeting of the high priests, elders and the entire Sanhedrin at Caiaphas, described by the evangelists Matthew and Mark, and at the afternoon (morning) meeting of the Sanhedrin, described in Luke and mentioned in Matthew and Mark. Whether these were two different meetings, as is accepted by most theologians 457, or one meeting 458, the essence of the narratives does not change, since the meaning of the condemnation by the evangelists is conveyed in the same way. Theologians love to present the Jewish trial of Christ as unjust (illegal) in a formal legal sense, in order to highlight the guilt of the Jews and the innocence of Christ all the more clearly. Meanwhile, as some scholars rightly note, we know too little about the forms of Jewish legal proceedings at the time of Jesus Christ to judge this issue, and it is unfounded to conclude from later Talmudic data to an earlier time, as is usually done. And from an ideological point of view, the idea of ​​the death of Christ as evidence of the worthlessness of worldly life, which does not accommodate Christ, is more consistent with a formally legal human trial of Him than an illegal one. Christ struggled not with deviations and accidents in the life of this world, but with its main direction, with worldly truth itself, and had to suffer from this truth, which acted fully armed with formal legality. Of course, the death of Jesus of Nazareth was decided by the Jews before the formal trial of Him, and the latter was actually an empty form; but precisely for this reason, in a formal sense, the Jews had to observe all legality: this court was supposed to give their decision a legal justification so that they could say: “we have a law, and according to our law He must die” (John 19:7). In any case, the high priests and the entire Sanhedrin sought evidence against Jesus in order to put Him to death (Mk. 14:55); however, they did not accept the numerous evidence presented either because they were insignificant, or because the testimony of witnesses, of whom at least two or three were required for each testimony, did not agree with each other (ἰσαι αἱ μαρτυρίαι οὐκ ἦ σαν Mark 14:56). Thus, the testimony of the witnesses who attributed to Jesus the words: “I will destroy this church made with hands, and in three days I will erect another, not made with hands,” was considered insufficient. When the interrogation of the witnesses did not produce the desired results, the high priest stood in the middle and, after a failed attempt to call Jesus to an answer to the witnesses that could be used, solemnly asked Him a direct question: “I adjure You by the living God, tell us, Are you the Christ, the Son of God?” Christ answered him: “You said; I even say to you, from now on you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” The answer was covered with a figurative veil, although quite transparent; and the judges wanted complete clarity. And so they all exclaimed: “So, are you the Son of God?” “You say that I am,” answered Christ. Let us delve into the psychological basis of the question so directly posed by the judges of Christ: “Are you the Son of God?” None of the testimony called them to this question; There was even less reason for it in the external position of Christ, betrayed by one of the disciples and abandoned by others, defenseless before the judges, dishonored by the hand of a despised slave and responding to false testimony with deep silence... This question came from the depths of their own souls, from the irresistible impression of the inner truth of the life of Jesus, which awakened their conscience, keeping them in continuous and unrelenting mental tension. Already from the time of Christ’s first open sojourn in Jerusalem, the idea of ​​His divine embassy arose among the Jews, or, rather, an involuntary feeling of His being sent by God. Initially caused by His miraculous deeds, this thought, under the influence of His moral character and teaching, gradually turned into that premonition of His sonship of God, which could not fade away in them, which they could not suppress in their hearts by any means, which floated into their consciousness against their will. The whole history of their relationship to Jesus presents us with their spiritual division, the internal struggle of this feeling with the disgusting conviction that He acted contrary to their national expectations, their theocratic ritual belief. Even when the decision had matured in them to kill Him in the name of their theocratic symbolism and national exclusivity, the question continually sounded stronger and stronger in their souls: is He not the Son of God, is it not God who is acting through Him against them, are they rebelling against God. For them it was a question of religious life or death, a question of their theocratic existence. It is this anxiety of people going against their own conscience that is heard in that spell, the name of God, terrible in Jewish concepts, which accompanied the question of the high priest and the Sanhedrin. Therefore, the grammatical form of Christ’s affirmative answer in this regard has full logical meaning: “you say that I am,” because you know that I am the Son of God.... On the part of the Jews, this was not a question of ignorance, it was a question generated by the clash of personal interests with conscience. Accepting Jesus Christ as the Messiah, recognizing the Galilean prophet as the Son of God was difficult and downright impossible for them due to His personal humiliation and due to His negative attitude towards their theocratic symbolism, national exclusivity and material messianic hopes. In His life, the matter of personal humiliation coincided with the preaching of universal sonship with God, and for them to recognize the humiliated Son of God meant to renounce their entire past, all worldly glory, all material hopes, and themselves. This they could not do, and hence their hatred of the humiliated Son of God. If in the atheism of classical peoples and in later European atheism we encounter a conscious denial of the divine principle - a denial not of God, but of the divine world order, this is the well-known “I do not rebel against my God, but I do not accept His world”; then predominantly such conscious atheism was the attitude of His enemies towards Christ. They did not deny God, they were attached to “their” God, but they could not accept His Son 459, His moral world order. Hatred for the humiliated Son of God gave them extraordinary sincerity, with which the high priest, having heard Christ’s answer, tore his clothes and said: “He is blasphemous,” and the entire Sanhedrin exclaimed: “He is guilty of death.” The Jews lived and judged Jesus according to the law according to which He had to die as the Son of God. The death of Jesus was the judgment of the Jews because they condemned and crucified Him as the Son of God: in their judgment of Christ, which was their own self-condemnation, it was revealed decisively and irrevocably, with the full light of consciousness and free will, that the Son of God cannot fit into them, that they are not fit for God’s work, that they are flesh. The entire process of the trial of Christ with the accompanying circumstances, within the meaning of the Gospel narratives, confirms and develops the idea that, having condemned Jesus, the Jews with full consciousness and complete freedom took upon themselves the burden of the divine curse. Such circumstances were the repentance of Judas and the trial by Pilate. Having condemned Jesus to death, in the morning the Jews took Him bound and handed Him over to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, since the Jews, after Herod’s son Archelaus, lost the right to carry out death sentences. Then Judas, seeing that Jesus was condemned, repented and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the high priests and elders, saying: “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” Thus, the last appearance of an internally just cause was taken away from the trial of the Jews over Jesus. Until now, apparently, their excuse was that Jesus was betrayed by one of His disciples: now this excuse was also taken away from them. Having accepted the guilt of tradition, they refused to be participants in Judas' repentance. “What do we care about that? They answered him: “See for yourself.” And, throwing away the pieces of silver in the church, he went out; went and hanged himself. Reading the latest works on evangelical history, one is involuntarily surprised by the insignificance of the issues in which their authors are interested, and the discrepancy between their content and the meaning of the gospel narratives. In fact, does the tone and purpose of the Gospel narratives about the trial of the Jews over Jesus correspond to the reasoning of any author that “the judges to whom the Lord was brought sat down in turbans, in the Eastern manner, on pillows or headboards, in a semicircle with crossed legs, which were barefoot”? This is not enough. Being carried away by such inappropriate realism, historians of the life of Jesus Christ even directly contradict the direction in which the gospel narratives are being presented by the content offered to the attention of readers. So, when describing Pilate’s trial over Jesus, they make every possible effort to portray the cruelty of this Roman ruler and conduct the entire description in such a way that it is exclusively an indictment against Pilate. Meanwhile, the gospels do not in the least affect the general character of Pilate. If he really was a bloodthirsty, morally impotent and lawless man, then, on the contrary, in the trial of Jesus he is an extremely humane and fair ruler. He is only guilty of the fact that in the face of the Truth itself he did not become a Christian and a participant in the cross of Christ, but, as a pagan, he did everything possible for him to free Christ. He is responsible for this guilt before God, but can we, from a historical point of view, blame him for not becoming a Christian at a time when Peter himself denied Christ? He still gave in to the Jews, it’s true; but is it possible to imagine circumstances that would more mitigate the guilt of a ruler signing a death sentence than what was the case with Pilate’s trial? Did he forget anything to absolve himself of the guilt of participating in the crime of the Jews? Could the best pagan not give in to the crowd in Pilate's place?... The meaning of the gospel stories about Pilate's trial of Jesus is solely that the Roman ruler did not diminish the guilt of the Jewish people one iota, that the entire burden of condemning Christ to death remained on the Jews; Pilate's trial was even the highest level to which the consciousness of the Jews and the fullness of freedom reached, with which they denied the Son of God, remaining His only murderers. This very meaning is expressed in Peter’s later speech to the Jews: “The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Son Jesus, whom you betrayed and denied before Pilate, when he thought to release Him. But you denied the holy and righteous, and asked to give you a murderer, and you killed the Author of life” (Acts 3:13–15). Pilate's entire trial of Jesus is a series of attempts by him to free Jesus. Demanding the death of Jesus from Pilate, the Jews were forced (John 18:29–31) to bring such an accusation against Him, which was a sufficient basis for a death sentence from the point of view of Roman legal proceedings: they accused Him of appropriating the royal title and of revolting the people against the authority of Caesar (Luke 23:2–3; John 18:33; Matt. 27:11; Mark. 15:2). Pilate, having learned from the interrogation of Jesus that He was a king in the spiritual sense, as a preacher of the truth (John 18:34–37), announced to the Jews that he recognized Him as innocent (John 18:38; Luke 23:4). Then, hearing from the ongoing accusations of the Jews that Jesus was from Galilee, Herod’s region, Pilate sent Him to Herod Antipas, who was also in Jerusalem these days. He, deceived in the hope of seeing a miracle from Jesus, humiliated Him and mocked Him, returned Him in bright clothes to Pilate, not finding Him worthy of death, which Pilate again announced to the Jews (Luke 23:6-15). Next, Pilate wanted to take advantage of the Easter custom of releasing to the people one prisoner they wanted. While he was sitting in the judgment seat, his wife sent him to say: “Do not do anything to that righteous man, because now in a dream I suffered a lot for Him.” The Gospel is not one of those books whose authors are interested in women’s dreams out of empty curiosity; but the evangelists do not forget even such a small feature as not to omit anything from the motives of Pilate and his efforts to free Jesus Christ. But the people, excited by the high priests and elders, asked the governor to release the famous prisoner Barabbas, who committed murder during the rebellion, and to destroy Jesus (Matthew 27:15-23; Mark 15:6-13; Luke 23:17-21; John 18:39-40). Next, Pilate handed Jesus over to be beaten and mocked by the soldiers, who laid a crown of thorns on Him, dressed Him in a scarlet robe, gave Him a cane in His right hand, and greeted Him as a king, and beat Him on the head with the cane; ridiculed and beaten, wearing a crown of thorns and a scarlet robe, Pilate brought Him out to the people with the words: “Behold, a man,” hoping to arouse compassion and pity for Him among the people. But the high priests and ministers and all the people, seeing Him in such humiliation, with a great cry demanded that He be crucified (John 19:1-6; Luke 23:16, 22-23; Matthew 27:27-30; Mark 15:16-19). Here it is appropriate to ask how the people, who had recently solemnly welcomed Jesus, who were afraid of the high priests, who did not want to take Jesus at first for fear of popular indignation, now found themselves on the side of the high priests, the furious enemy of Jesus? To explain this, we must remember that the people had long before become convinced of the inconsistency of the preaching of Christ with their aspirations; his excitement towards Jesus Christ in recent days was temporary and superficial, having no internal basis in his spiritual disposition. Nevertheless, the transition from the enthusiastic greetings of Jesus at His entry into Jerusalem to the frantic cries of “Crucify, crucify Him” must be recognized as extremely abrupt and, apparently, unmotivated. Its full explanation lies neither in accidental circumstances nor in external motives, but in the fundamental and unchangeable mood of the crowd. The humiliation of Christ, His helplessness in the hands of power - this alone was enough for the recent delight of the people to turn into the most sincere hatred of the “King of Israel.” Worldly man bows before external splendor and power; he is cruel to the humiliated. According to this spiritual law, the first accidental blow to the face of an innocent person causes the brutal cruelty of the crowd against him - this, in fact, is the law of the herd life of animals... In the relationship of the Jewish crowd to Christ Jesus, this law was manifested only in that peculiarity, which constituted the most striking revelation of it in world history, that Christ was the Son of God, that the hatred of the people was precisely hatred of the humiliated Son of God, that the people with their hatred paid Him for the deceived messianic hopes... After a failed attempt to arouse pity among the people for the humiliated man, Pilate simply wanted to get rid of the Jews, sharply telling them: “Take Him and crucify him; for I find no fault in Him.” But the Jews answered: “according to our law He must die, because He made Himself the Son of God.” Pilate, having heard this word, became more afraid and, even asking Christ, sought to let Him go. He, of course, was not a believer, but for him it was scary to kill a person precisely because he called himself the Son of God (John 19:6–12). And this is what the Jews did. “He who delivered Me to you has greater sin,” Jesus said to Pilate; but Pilate once again tried to free Jesus with obvious danger to his own position: he wanted to arouse national dreams in the Jews and, bringing Jesus to them, he said to the people: “Behold, your king!” But the people shouted: “Crucify Him!” - “Shall I crucify your king?” - asked Pilate. “We have no king except Caesar,” answered the Jews (John 19:14–15). And this was truly the renunciation of the Jews from their religious calling: from that moment they ceased to be the people of God, i.e. have lost the right to exist as a people. Pilate's last attempt did not work out, and meanwhile the Jews, apparently, took advantage of his own words in the fight against Pilate, the relaxation allowed in relation to their national dreams. “If you let Him go, you are no friend of Caesar,” they shouted to Pilate (John 19:12). After this, Pilate, seeing that nothing was helping, but the confusion was increasing, took water and washed his hands before the people, and said: “I am innocent of this blood; look." And all the people answered and said, “His blood be on us and on our children.” Then Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified, hitting Him with a whip (φραγελλώσας) as a sign of the death sentence (Matthew 27:24–26). When the Jews took upon themselves the blood of Christ, the Son of God, it was already discovered that the Jewish people were dry wood thrown into the fire. Jesus, betrayed to the will of the Jews, the soldiers, dressing Him again in His own clothes, led Him outside the city to a place called Golgotha ​​for crucifixion. He Himself carried His cross (John 19:17), but fainted under His weight, so they laid His cross on a certain Simon of Cyrene. A great multitude of people and women followed Him, weeping and lamenting for Him. He turned to them and said: “Daughters of Jerusalem! do not weep for Me, but weep for yourself and for your children. For if they do this to a green tree, what will happen to a dry tree? The Jewish people were already living on the eve of those days in which barren days were considered blessed and in which the Jews would be glad to hide under the ruins of mountains and hills (Luke 23:26–31). At Calvary, Jesus, the Son of God, was crucified on the cross, on which he died for people. The greatest mystery was being accomplished, constituting the core of human history, its highest meaning - the mystery of the transition of the divine spiritual life of the Son of God into people, its fruition in human history. During the few hours that the Son of God hung on the cross, Calvary represented a visual expression of the meaning of the entire life of Jesus and the entire history of the human race. No other spectacle (θεωρια Luke 23:48) in world history possessed such an abyss of instructiveness as Golgotha ​​in those hours. The extreme humiliation and complete external God-forsakenness of the Son of God, the unbelief of people thirsting for a miracle, the saving power of faith in the humiliated Son of God and, finally, the spirituality of His eternal life - these are the four ends: lower, left, right and upper - of the cross on which Jesus gave up His spirit. In itself, crucifixion was a curse in the eyes of the Jews (Deut. 21:23), and was an expression of the greatest humiliation. But all the power of Christ’s humiliation was created by the fact that He was not just a man, but the Son of God, the king of Israel - and this was indicated in the inscription above His head. The circumstances surrounding His crucifixion intensified His humiliation: before the crucifixion they gave Him wine with myrrh to drink as a stupefying agent, but He did not accept (Mark 15:23); They crucified Him along with two thieves, in the midst of them, so that the word of Scripture was fulfilled on Him: He was numbered among the evildoers (Mark 15:28); He was naked, and the soldiers divided His clothes by lot; He answered His crucifiers not with the thunder of heavenly wrath, not with the protection of twelve legions of angels, but with a meek prayer for them to the Father, for “they did not know what they were doing” 460; Moreover, He publicly declared His torment: “I thirst,” He exclaimed, and also: “My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me? Having filled a sponge with vinegar, one of those standing at the cross brought it to His lips on hyssop (Matthew 27:46–49; Mark 15:34–36; John 19:28–29)... The whole people, with the chief priests, scribes, elders and Pharisees, mocked the crucified Son of God: “if He is the Son of God, if He trusted in God and was pleasing to Him, if He saved others, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him.” Even one of the thieves crucified with Him took part in these mockeries (Matthew 27:39–44; Mark 15:29–32; Luke 23:35, 37, 39). These mockery of the humiliated Son of God revealed the whole spirit of this world, the main direction of his life... But then the first sprouts of a new spiritual life of people appeared - life by faith, and not by vision. While one of the hanged villains slandered the crucified Christ, the other calmed him down and said to Jesus: “Remember me, Lord! when you come into your kingdom." “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise,” Christ answered him (Luke 23:39–43). Self-righteous Jews, high priests, elders, Pharisees, thirsting for a miracle, crucified the Son of God, and the thief who was crucified with Him believed in Him and became the first heir of His kingdom of heaven. At the cross of Jesus stood some of the people close to Him: His mother with her sister and other women and his beloved disciple, John. Jesus said to His mother, pointing his eyes at this disciple: “Woman, behold your son!” Then he said to the disciple: “Here is your mother!” And from that time on, this student took her to him. Usually these words of Jesus are seen as the final expression of His filial solicitude for His mother. But if it were so, He would have said to His disciple: “Take care of My mother,” and He said: “Here is your mother,” and said not only to the disciple these words, but also to the mother: “Woman, here is your son.” In these words of the Crucified One one must see not earthly care for his mother, 461 but a deeper event of His transition to full spiritual communion with the human race. Jesus Himself, already during His public ministry, was free from material concerns about his mother; even once, when He was teaching the people, and His mother and brothers wanted to talk to Him, He said: “Who is My mother and who are My brothers”? And pointing His hand to His disciples, He added: “Behold, My mother and My brothers. For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven, he is My brother, and sister, and mother” (Matthew 12:46–50 par.). To one woman, who blessed the one who gave birth and nursed Him, He answered: “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it” (Luke 11:27–28). But His mother, according to the testimony of the Gospels, had purely human feelings for Him; her maternal attachment to Him gave her, as it were, some rights to Him and, in any case, was very important for the beginning of the miraculous activity of Christ Jesus. All His public activities were a difficult test for her maternal feelings; For herself personally, she lost Him, but her maternal affection for Him did not stop in her until the cross. And now, when He was hanging on the cross, this attachment of hers constituted the only “human” connection He had with the earth: His disciples fled and denied Him, so that they could then enter into a purely spiritual relationship with Him; Only his mother loved Him with her maternal love. Но и она должна была подавить в себе естественную привязанность к Нему, свободно отречься от своего Сына, чтобы дать возможность исключительно духовных отношений Его к миру. What was required of her was as great and difficult a feat as we can imagine. Then truly the weapon pierced her soul (Luke 2:35). It was then that all the greatness of her spirit was revealed. From that time on, this disciple took her to him, and she no longer knew her Son in the flesh. From that time on, “all things were accomplished” for Jesus. Having bowed his head and shouted loudly, He gave up the ghost. When the soldiers, who came at the intercession of the Jews, who asked Pilate to break the legs of the crucified, so that they would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, broke the legs of the crucified thieves and approached Jesus, they saw Him already dead and did not break His legs, but one of the soldiers pierced His ribs to make sure of His death. The centurion, who stood at the cross of Jesus and saw how He died, said: “Truly this man was the Son of God.” This was the second confession of faith in the crucified Christ. Then the same faith gave boldness to Joseph of Arimathea, a previously secret disciple of Jesus out of fear from the Jews, and he asked Pilate for permission to bury the body of Jesus. Nicodemus, who had previously come to Jesus at night, also came and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred liters. So, they took the body of Jesus and wrapped it in swaddling clothes with incense, as the Jews usually bury. At the place where He was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden there was a new burial cave, in which no one had yet been buried. They laid Jesus there. A stone with a seal was rolled at the entrance of the cave, and a guard was also posted by the Jews. So Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was crucified by sinners and died for the sins of people. Human thought has stopped over the explanation of this event more often than over anything else. That He died precisely for the sins of people is not an explanation of the fact, not a theological truth, but a fact of gospel history. Theology usually confines itself to the scholastic definition of this fact and the disclosure of this formula, when its real meaning should be clarified. The real meaning of the death of Christ, the Son of God, is that it is the transition of His spiritual eternal life into people, the birth of His spirit in them. This meaning is as mysterious as the growth of grain is mysterious, but it is also as undoubtedly evidenced by the reality of the spiritual life of Christians as the growth of grain is undoubtedly evidenced by the life of a plant. From the psychological side, this effect of the death of Christ on people is accessible to historical observation in His disciples, who with His death experienced the collapse of ritual self-righteousness and were reborn for the religion of spirit and truth. In a broader and externally historical sense, the death of Christ is a judgment on the prince of this world, it is an indisputable and deepest evidence of the sinfulness of man: as a historical event, the death of Christ testifies that people are extremely sinful, that the very truth of the world is evil and a lie, and that ... the only refuge for us is at the foot of the cross, in love for the Crucified One, in the assimilation of His spirit. Jesus revealed Himself alive through His suffering (Acts 1:1-3). The outer limit of the gospel story is the death of Christ, but its ideological result and ideal crown is the glory of His resurrection. The actual course of gospel history did not cross the line of “the new tomb in which they laid Jesus,” because the resurrection of Christ does not represent an external event: it is the subject of the apostolic faith and the spiritual result of Christ’s deed, and the faith of the apostles is included in the scope of this result and at the same time serves as a condition for the historical reality of Christ’s resurrection. Both the birth of Christ from the Spirit, the revelation of divine life in Him, and His life after death, His departure to the Father can be satisfactorily explained only from a religious-historical point of view. We must note the one-sidedness of the traditional view of the resurrection of Christ. According to this view, the resurrection of Christ was the most obvious proof of the divine omnipotence of Christ, and in this sense it served as the main basis of the Christian faith. By exposing the fact that Christ was resurrected by His own divine power, they put His resurrection in connection with His miracles, as His most important miracle and even incomparable with all previous miracles in its exceptional significance; Thus, this miracle is presented as the basis of the Christian faith, without which all previous miracles would be an insufficient support for Christian conviction and which, on the contrary, in itself is completely and even abundantly sufficient for this purpose and therefore determines the moral content of life, without itself being determined by the moral meaning of the Gospel story. In these latest theological conclusions, the view we are considering comes into direct contradiction with the connection in which the resurrection of Christ stood with the feat of His life. Against these one-sided conclusions, we point out that Christ was raised from the dead by God 462, and this was not a revelation of divine power, but was a consequence of the moral meaning of Christ's life, His moral truth: “God raised Jesus, breaking the bonds of death, because it was impossible for it to hold Him” (Acts 2:24). The glory of the resurrection is inextricably linked with the humiliation and suffering of Christ: since He, according to the apostle, made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of men, and, becoming in appearance as a man, humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to death, even death on the cross, then God exalted Him (Phil. 2:7-9 cf. Acts 2:36). The Resurrection of Christ was natural - in the realm of divine spiritual life and according to its laws - a consequence of His moral achievement and only in this internal causal connection with His humiliation - the crown of His life. Therefore, firstly, it is impossible to understand the essence of Christ’s spiritual life after the resurrection, if we consider the latter without connection with His entire earthly life, since the content of His spiritual life after the resurrection is given by the meaning of His humiliation. Just as the apostles were given a true understanding of the resurrection of Christ only because they had previously experienced the death and humiliation of Christ (cf. Acts 10:41), so we can comprehend the mystery of the resurrection of Christ only by first understanding the meaning of the humiliation of Christ... In the voluntary humiliation of Christ, the glory of God was manifested as internal, as spiritual, eternal life; the resurrection of Christ was evidence of the reality of His eternal spiritual life. It is in this and only in this meaning, only in this connection with the meaning of the entire life of Christ that it can be called the basis of Christian conviction. Just as the resurrection of Christ, not being connected with the previous humiliation, would be the crown of a building not only without a foundation, but even without a body; so the life of Christ without His subsequent resurrection and ascension to the Father would have been a building without a top, a symbol without real good, a whisper without an audible sound. In terms of content, it no longer adds anything new to the life of Christ; on the contrary, it itself takes its content from the latter; but it gives reality to this content, makes the building inhabitable, the sound audible. Secondly, it is impossible to understand the essence of Christ’s spiritual life after the resurrection without connecting it with the faith of the disciples. God made the crucified Jesus Lord and Christ, gave Him the name that is above every name (Acts 2:36; Phil. 2:9), but dominion is possible only with the presence of those who confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10–11), only under the condition of faith; in other words, the spiritual existence of Christ upon ascending to the Father coincides with the universality of His existence, with His indwelling of faith in the hearts of believers (Eph. 3:17); it became possible only when believers became capable of not knowing Christ in the flesh and knowing Him in the spirit (2 Cor. 5:16; also 2 Cor. 3:17, etc.) - it became possible only because believers became capable of this. The Resurrection of Christ was a triumph of the faith of His disciples, which matured throughout their lifetime communication with Christ, especially with their participation in His suffering and death, and which bore fruit at His resurrection. That the apostles at the death of Christ appear to us dejected and sad, and then, after some time after His death, turn out to be enthusiastic and joyful, this circumstance does not speak against our thought, but only constitutes the psychological task of the gospel story. A psychological analysis of the emergence of the apostles' faith in the resurrection of Christ provides the best confirmation that the resurrection of Christ was at the same time the resurrection of the faith of the apostles. Only in this connection with the resurrection of faith can the resurrection of Christ be called the reason for the rebirth of the apostles - only in the sense that the resurrection of Christ was the highest triumph of the faith of His disciples. But in any case - we repeat again - the final foundation of this faith was not the resurrection as an external event, but the impression of the entire earthly life of Christ, all of His ministry. In connection with the traditional dogmatic view of the resurrection of Christ, there is a different view on this subject, which is no longer only one-sided, but also downright false. This is a crudely anthropomorphic Judeo-sensual view of the state and life of the Risen One. According to this understanding, Christ rose from the grave to continue his bodily-sensory life, although surrounded by the radiance of divine glory: the gates of hell, having swallowed Christ, were deceived, they could not detain Him, His death was imaginary, He left the region of death the same as He entered there. He rose from the grave with the same bodily life that He lived on earth, with the only difference that His body after the resurrection acquired new properties of divine glory - omnipotence, omnipresence, while remaining our (earthly, spiritual) body - He, having ascended to the Father, took our (earthly, mental) body to heaven, literally sits in heaven at the right hand of God the Father. This is the popular metaphysics of the resurrection, exposed by the clear teaching of Holy Scripture. According to the undoubted teaching of the Word of God, Christ Jesus was resurrected spiritually. According to the Apostle Peter, He was put to death in the flesh, but was made alive in the Spirit (1 Pet. 3:18: πνεύματι ). The Apostle Paul, to whom the Risen One appeared (ὤ φθη) “after” others, “now no longer” knew Christ in the flesh, even if he knew Him “thus” before (2 Cor. 5:16); for him the risen “Lord is spirit” (ὁ κύριος τὸ πνεῦμὰ ἐστιν 2 Cor. 3:17), so that he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit (ἓ ν πνεῦμα) with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). An elementary position in biblical theology should be called the truth that the spirit is not the second or third part of human nature, but the spirit is the divine principle of human life, the divine principle in man. God is spirit (πνεῦμα ὁ θεὸς John 4:24) - this means that God is nothing more than spirit, and that everything spiritual is essentially divine, only the divine can be spiritual, the spiritual as a predicate of the divine most strongly expresses its opposition to the “human” base, humiliated. In particular, the spirit revealed in the resurrection of Christ (ζωοποιηθεὶς πνεύματι 1 Pet. 3:18) is the divine spirit, the divine principle of life, and not the spiritual, as opposed to the sensory. The Apostle Paul reveals in his first letter to the Corinthians that we will be resurrected in the image of the resurrection of Christ in a spiritual body, not in a natural body. The spiritual body is perishable, humiliated, and weak; the spiritual body is incorruptible, glorious, strong. Incorruptibility, glory, power, like spirituality, are predicates of the divine, the heavenly. We received our spiritual body from Adam, we have our spirit from Christ: Adam is the founder of our spiritual-physical life, which ends in death, Christ is the founder of our spiritual life, eternal. Why did Adam give us only mortal life, and why can Christ give us eternal life? Because “the first man is from the earth of earth, the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy one, so are the earthy ones (who came from him in the flesh); and as is the one in heaven, so are those in heaven (who have become one spirit with Him). And just as we have borne the image of earth, we will also bear the image of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47–49). The spirituality of the risen Christ is precisely divine spirituality. This “spirituality” does not exclude somaticity, but it excludes the earthly, spiritual nature of physicality, its sensuality both from the side of one’s own earthly interests and from the side of accessibility to external feelings. Divine reality is accessible only to the eyes of faith and becomes reality for this world under the condition of faith. Having arisen from previous humiliation, as from its root, the resurrection of Christ refers to His earthly glory, to His miracles, as its symbol. From faith in them, the disciples ascended to faith in the resurrection, not as from lesser to greater along homogeneous steps, but as from external to internal, from the visible to the spiritual through the feat of self-denial, through the transformation of faith, its rebirth, and the moment of the collapse and burial of external faith and at the same time the cradle of the revived spiritual faith was their participation in the death of Christ. Having made these general remarks about the resurrection of Christ, its relation to previous humiliation and external glory, as well as to the faith of the disciples, we now move on to an analysis of the gospel accounts of the resurrection, which will confirm the expressed view of the religious-historical meaning of the resurrection of Christ. Here, first of all, our attention is drawn to the fact that none of the believers witnessed the actual resurrection of Christ, that the apostles were “those who did not see and yet believed.” True, for the apostles this fact was the subject of the strongest faith, they even saw the risen Christ, therefore they call themselves witnesses to the reality of the resurrection of Jesus, for them this event was one of the events of His life, during the entire course of which they stayed and treated Him, starting from the baptism of John until the day on which He ascended from them (Acts 1:22; 2:32, etc.); despite all this, they were not eyewitnesses of the very moment of His rise from the grave, and were not present at His resurrection. The Apostle and Evangelist John, who stood at the cross of Jesus and was an eyewitness to the flow of blood and water from His pierced side, wrote in the Gospel: “And he who saw it bore witness, and this testimony is true; he knows that he speaks the truth, so that you may believe” (John 19:35); but he could not testify to the resurrection of Christ in a similar way. This circumstance suggests that the resurrection of Christ did not contain anything external that would exceed the faith of the disciples; whereas it is incomprehensible from the point of view of the opinion that the resurrection was that most obvious proof of the divine power of Christ, which lay at the basis of faith. Rather, it must be said that the resurrection of Christ, like the incarnation of the divine Word in Him, were not historical phenomena in their metaphysical abstraction, but received historical flesh and blood only in the hearts of believers. The accounts of the four evangelists about the resurrection of Christ are among those gospel accounts that are almost impossible to bring to unity in detail. In particular, it is difficult to establish in whom faith in the risen Christ was first revealed: in Mary Magdalene or in Jesus’ beloved disciple, His confidant (John 13:23), John. The question essentially boils down to the following: what happened first, the appearance of the Risen One to women (Matthew 28:9) or the coming to the tomb of Peter and John, as it appears in the gospels of John and Luke? For some reasons the latter must be accepted as probable. In this case, the events should be put in this order: on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and other women come early to the tomb and see that the cave in which the body of Christ was laid is empty; Mary Magdalene announces this to Peter and John, who rush to the tomb and also see that it is empty; Probably, Mary Magdalene also returned to the tomb with them, to whom the Risen One appeared upon his second return from the tomb. Let us now focus our attention on the journey to the tomb of Mary Magdalene and especially on the arrival there of John and Peter, as very important moments in the gospel stories about the resurrection of Christ. On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and other women with purchased aromas went to the tomb of Jesus to anoint Him according to Jewish custom, which they did not have time to do during His burial on Friday evening, which the Jews considered the beginning of Saturday - the day of rest (and that was Easter Saturday). When they came to the tomb cave, they saw that the stone had been rolled away from it and it was empty. That's all they could tell the apostles about. True, it is reported that when they saw the empty tomb, they remembered Christ’s prediction that “the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again” (Luke 24: 7–8); but it does not say that they believed the resurrection of Christ. On the contrary, when she came to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved, Mary Magdalene could only say: “They have taken the Lord away from the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him” (John 20:2). According to Mary Magdalene, Peter and another disciple (John) immediately went to the tomb. “They both ran together; but the other disciple ran faster than Peter, and came to the tomb first. And bending down, he saw the linens lying; but did not enter (the tomb cave). Simon Peter comes after him, and enters the tomb, and sees only the linen cloths lying, and the cloth that was on His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but especially rolled up in another place. Then the other disciple, who had first come to the tomb, also entered, and saw and believed” (John 20:4–8). Here is the first revelation of faith in the Risen One! At the same time, all the ancient and modern denials that belief in the resurrection of Jesus began with the hallucinations of a woman “out of whom came seven demons” must collapse. Faith in the Risen One was revealed first of all in the beloved disciple, who behaved under the terrifying circumstances of the death and resurrection of Christ with amazing calm. What was his faith based on? What is it generated by? It is said: I saw and believed. Says the same eyewitness who stood at the cross of Jesus and saw the flow of blood and water from His side; with the same detail he reproduces what he saw in the tomb of the Risen One. But what exactly did he see? The shrouds with which the body of Jesus was wrapped, and the cloth that was on His head, i.e., in essence, he saw the empty tomb, “the place where He was laid,” “only the shrouds lying” (Luke 24:12). Obviously, this vision could not be a productive cause of faith - it only provided the absence of an insurmountable obstacle to faith in the form of the dead body of Jesus. The presence of a dead body excluded the possibility of faith, but its absence could not in itself give rise to faith, because it could lead to the assumption: “they took the Lord away from the tomb, and we do not know where they laid Him.” John's faith is remarkable in that he was the one who did not see and yet believed. John's faith came from the depths of his soul, as the mature fruit of his previous experiences of communication with Life. This “saw and believed” gives the complete impression of a person who knew in advance what he now did not see. The risen Christ appeared to believers on several occasions. These appearances of the Risen One were a decisive act of faith. According to the clear meaning of the Gospel narratives, in the patristic interpretation, “the body of the Lord, although it was not a spirit 464, was spiritual 465, that is, alien to any material coarseness and was controlled by the spirit. The body we now have is spiritual, that is, it is controlled by the soul and is enlivened by natural and spiritual properties and forces. And Paul calls the body, as it will be after the resurrection, spiritual (1 Cor. 15:44), that is, it is quickened and governed by the Spirit of God, and not by the soul, having been recreated in an ineffable and spiritual way for incorruption, and being preserved therein. This is how we need to think about the body of the Lord after the resurrection, precisely as spiritual, subtle, alien to all coarseness, not needing food or anything else.” It is noteworthy in this regard that the Risen One appeared, as He appeared to the eleven, in a house when the doors were locked (John 20:19), that He did not have a specific appearance, and that those to whom He appeared did not recognize Him by appearance - they recognized Him only from His words and actions. So Mary, to whom He first appeared, “did not know that it was Jesus.” Even when He spoke to her, asking why she was crying and who she was looking for, she mistook Him for a gardener. Only when He, probably, especially expressively called her by name, did she recognize Him. Two of the disciples to whom He appeared on the way to Emmaus also did not recognize Him: “their eyes were held back, so that they did not recognize Him” (Luke 24:16). Only when, upon coming to the village, He lay down with them, took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them, did their eyes open and they recognized Him in the breaking of the bread. When He appeared to the eleven, they, confused and frightened, thought that they were seeing a ghost, so to prove the reality of His appearance, He showed them His hands and feet, allowed them to touch Him, and even ate food in front of them. But the Risen One appeared, that is, was visible, even allowed Himself to be touched, ate food? “Don’t be embarrassed, let’s say in the words of John Chrysostom: this was a matter of condescension... He does not constantly treat his disciples and not as before. He appeared in the evening and disappeared; then - once more, eight days later, and disappeared again; then he appeared again... But what does it mean: he appeared? From this it is clear that if He had not descended, He would not have been visible, since His body was already incorruptible and immortal... A body so thin and light that it entered through the closed doors was obviously alien to any fatness; but Christ shows him this way in order to assure him of the resurrection and to teach that it was He who was crucified, and not another who was resurrected in His place. That is why He was resurrected, having on Himself the signs of the cross; That’s why He also eats food... Therefore, just as before the crucifixion, we see Him walking on the waves and yet we do not say that His body was of a different nature, not ours; So even after the resurrection, seeing the wounds on Him, we will not call Him corruptible." Thus, according to the patristic interpretation, which fully expresses the meaning of the Gospel narratives, the appearances of the Risen Christ were actually His appearances, visions: there was nothing in them that exceeded the faith of those to whom He appeared, nothing carnal, outwardly convincing, visually evident; they were matters of faith. This general character of the appearances of the Risen One finds special confirmation in certain particulars. So, having appeared to Mary Magdalene, Christ said to her: “Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father, but go to My brothers and say to them: I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God” (John 20:17). Of the many interpretations of these words of the Risen One, the only one that corresponds to the meaning of the Gospel narrative must be recognized as their explanation given by John Chrysostom and especially clearly stated by Theophylact. “Having recognized the Lord, writes the latter (in h. 1.), Mary wants to approach Him, treat Him as before, and, perhaps, embrace Him as her Beloved. But He raises her thoughts so that she thinks of something higher and listens to Him with great reverence. Do not touch Me, that is, the circumstances are no longer in the same position, and I will no longer treat you as before. Although He did not say this in words, this is the meaning of the words: I ascend to My Father, I hasten there. And since I am in a hurry there and no longer have such a body to deal with people, then one must be more reverent towards Me, to the highest of ordinary conversation and touch, that is, address. Look how many thoughts the evangelist expressed briefly. The Lord said: do not touch Me. Потом, как бы кто спросил: почему? Therefore, he answers, that My body is no longer the kind that is typical for earthly life, but the kind that is appropriate for heaven and the mountain villages. Then the questioner continues: why do you walk on earth when you have such a body? Therefore, he answers, “I have not yet ascended to My Father, but I will ascend.” The state of the Risen One from the rise from the tomb to the ascension to the Father was a transitional state to that spiritual existence, after departing to the Father, when we no longer know Christ in the flesh (2 Cor. 5:16). But don’t we see something else in the image of Christ’s appearance to the eleven? The first time He appeared to them was on the first day of the week. When they, confused and afraid, thought that they saw a spirit, He showed them His hands, and His feet, and His ribs; when they still did not believe and were amazed, He took food and ate before them. – This time, one of them, namely Thomas, was not with the apostles. Having heard from the disciples about the Lord’s appearance to them, he said to them: “Unless I see in His hands the marks of the nails, and put my finger into the marks of the nails, and put my hand into His side; I won’t believe it.” After eight days, Christ appeared to them again while Thomas was with them. Standing in the midst of them, He said: Peace be with you! Then he says to Thomas: “Put your finger here, and look at My hands; give me your hand and place it in my side; and do not be an unbeliever, but a believer.” Thomas answered Him: “My Lord and my God!” Jesus says to him: “You believed because you saw Me; Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:24–29). Apparently, in these appearances of Christ, and especially in the last one, the vision serves as the basis of faith. But solid arguments do not allow us to stop at such a level in understanding the fact, without penetrating into its depth. If, in relation to John, “he saw and believed,” there is no doubt that the vision did not serve as a sufficient basis for his faith; then undoubtedly the same is true in relation to Thomas’s faith. What Thomas saw could not be the reason for His faith. Он для этого видел слишком мало: в изъязвленных руках и прободённом ребре Он не мог увидеть ничего божественного, которое невидимо. What he saw does not assuage doubt. Therefore, it should be assumed that Thomas, like the rest of the apostles, to whom Christ also showed his hands and feet, “did not believe for joy” (Luke 24:41), and not out of doubt. In this case, you need to pay attention to one circumstance that is not appreciated as it deserves. “I won’t believe it,” said Thomas, “if I don’t see the wounds from the nails in His hands.” Let us assume that Thomas doubted the resurrection of Christ, that he needed external evidence of the fact, external signs by which he could recognize the Risen One; Does his statement make sense then? If a son is brought to his mother, whom she lost twenty years ago as a five-year-old child, in order to recognize him, she will look for some memorable “mole” on his body, will look out in his face at least one familiar feature of his former expression, will look closely at the color of his body, feel his hair. Are these the external signs that the Apostle Thomas wanted? Was this the kind of external proof that the other apostles wanted? If Thomas's unbelief was a consequence of his rational doubt, he, of course, would have looked for external signs of conviction. But in fact, what he required was not an externally familiar facial feature. “I won’t believe it unless I see the wounds of the nails in His hands.” But besides His wounds on His arms, legs and ribs, wasn’t there a single feature in His face that was familiar to the disciples? Wasn’t His voice, His gaze dear and close to them? And on the contrary, why would they remember so much the wounds on their hands and feet from nails and on their ribs from a spear? This would also be understandable in relation to John, who stood at the cross and saw the flow of blood and water from the pierced side of Christ, for whom this vision was indelibly imprinted in his memory. But the rest of the disciples, even before Christ’s hands, feet and ribs were ulcerated, scattered and did not stand at His cross. Of course, they knew about these wounds, they were for them a symbol of the suffering of Christ, just as His cross was a symbol of their salvation, but, obviously, it was not the psychological significance of the signs of recognition that brought these wounds to mind... Finally, think about these words: “unless I see in His hands the marks of the nails, and put my finger in the wounds of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” Do they not emanate some kind of mystical horror, far beyond the boundaries of intellectual doubt? “I will put my finger into the wounds of the nails, I will put my hand into His side”: I will etch His wounds, I will reproduce for myself the horror of His death, His shame and my own humiliation... Is so much needed for recognition? No, here one hears some kind of thirst for new participation in the death of Christ - a thirst flowing from the mystical connection of the resurrection of Christ with His suffering and death, as well as the connection of faith in His resurrection with participation in His death. Undoubtedly, there was a moment in Thomas’s demand that temporarily deprived him of the bliss of “those who did not see and believed,” but it was not a moment of doubt, but of “slowness of heart,” of excessive realism in feelings. And, perhaps, for Thomas this material-sensual heaviness was especially heavy due to personal fallout from the past. Even earlier, this same Thomas, when Christ decided to go to Judea to raise Lazarus, although the Jews were already looking to stone Him, said to the other disciples: “Let us go and die with Him.” He loved Christ to the point of being ready to participate in His death, but did not yet believe that His death was a bridge to the resurrection and that participation in it was the path to participation in His glory. Therefore, now, after the resurrection of Christ, his thirst was especially strong to assimilate His resurrection not out of connection with death, so that in him faith in the Risen One would be strong to overcome the fear of his own death 466. However, Thomas’s personal characteristics distinguished him from the other apostles not in essence, but only in the degree of faith. The connection between the resurrection of Christ Jesus and His death essentially retained the same meaning for all of them. When He appeared to the two disciples going to Emmaus, He explained to them everything that was said by the prophets about His sufferings and glory, and “their heart burned within them”; Having entered the village, He remained with them, and, as he reclined with them, he took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them, that is, he reenacted before them the Last Supper, which foreshadowed His suffering and death (cf. 1 Cor. 11:26), and “He was recognized by them in the breaking of bread.” Appearing to the eleven disciples, He showed them his hands, feet and ribs - “showed the hands on which were the marks of nails, and showed the ribs from which the source of the sacraments flowed; He showed his hands to certify the truth of the resurrection, to assure those who doubted that He truly was resurrected by those who suffered, that the body that truly died and was buried by Her arose.” Then He took the food and ate before them. The last message is too short; Is it not possible in this case to mean the breaking of bread? At least during the phenomenon at the Sea of ​​Tiberias, described in Chapter 21. ev. Иоанна, Христос «говорит им: приидите, обедайте... приходит, берет хлеб, и дает им, также и рыбу» ( Ин. 21:12–13 )... Так не подлежит никакому сомнению ясное выражение в ходе евангельских повествований идеи связи веры в воскресение Христа с действительностью Его страданий и смерти, с участием верующих в Его смерти. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; and if he dies, he will bear much fruit” (John 12:24). Christ died - and for those who died with Him, He rose again; He died in the flesh and for those who died with Him in the flesh He rose again in the Spirit. The flesh does not benefit at all; the spirit gives life (John 6:63): Christ was put to death in the flesh, but was made alive in the spirit (1 Pet. 3 cf. 1 Tim. 3:16) and became a life-giving spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). And we, in order to come to life with Him, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal flesh, must die with Him, experience His death (2 Tim. 2:11; 2 Cor. 4:10). The resurrection of Christ, as a historical fact, was the resurrection of the disciples who died with Him. What constituted historical reality in the appearances of the Risen One to the disciples? This is the reality of the disciples’ spiritual communication with Him, the reality for them of His spiritual-divine eternal life. The content of spiritual life was revealed to them by all the deeds and all the teaching of Christ Jesus, and now they were convinced of the reality of His spiritual life - that it is independent in its existence from the material conditions of existence, that it is stronger than death, that it is an imperishable, eternal reality. “He is alive” - this is what the disciples were told by the appearance of the Risen One (Luke 24:23; Acts 25:19; Rev. 1:8), - He lives after all suffering and death. He lives and cannot die (Rom. 6:9; Acts 13:34). The appearances of the Risen One were the spiritual communication of the disciples with Him. When He appeared to Mary Magdalene, she did not recognize Him by appearance and could not touch Him, but she learned from Him that He ascends to the Father. When He went with two disciples to Emmaus and explained to them what was said about Him in all the Scriptures, their eyes were held back, so that they did not recognize Him, but their heart burned within them (Luke 24:32). However, all these were preparatory phenomena; The central one of the appearances of the Risen One was the appearance of His eleven: then He breathed into them the Holy Spirit... Apparently, in the transitional state of the Risen One before His ascension to the Father, there was something material and corporeal in His appearances. When the eleven and those who were with them were embarrassed at the appearance of the Risen One to them and thought that they were seeing a ghost, He said to them: Why are you embarrassed, and why do such thoughts enter your hearts? Look at My hands and at My feet; it is I Myself; touch Me and look at Me; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have. He even asked them for food and ate before them (Luke 24:37–43). This material-corporeal element in the appearances of the Risen One to the disciples before His ascension to the Father, of course, constituted their peculiarity from His later appearance to Saul (Acts 9:3–6). But what kind of physicality this was, for which closed doors did not serve as an obstacle, for which eating food and even the appearance itself was a matter not of necessity, but of indulgence, we cannot comprehend this. There is no doubt that this transitional physicality was a reflection of the “transitional state” in the faith of the disciples, which could not immediately rise to the level of pure spirituality. In any case, it was physicality, the presence of which in the appearances of the Risen One did not give them the significance of external convincingness and did not change their essential character as spiritual communication with Him. That is why the Apostle Paul does not distinguish his Damascus vision of the Risen One from His appearances to the disciples before the Ascension: “He rose again and appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, and some have died. Then he appeared to Jacob, and also to all the apostles. And last of all he appeared to me, as to a certain monster” (1 Cor. 15:4–7. Wed. Acts 22:17–18). Finally, Christ, risen from the grave, upon appearing to His disciples, ascended from them to His Father, which He had already predicted when He appeared to Mary Magdalene. Whatever the physicality in the appearances to His disciples, the meaning of His resurrection and His appearances must be understood in the light of this last moment of the appearance of the Risen One - His departure to the Father. Without this final moment, the appearances of the Risen One would have been a monstrous phenomenon. He ascended from the apostles to heaven, i.e. He became invisible to them forever. He ascended to the Father, so that we no longer know Him in the flesh. Just as the appearances of the Risen Christ Jesus had to end with His departure to the Father (John 20:17), so His departure to the Father necessarily presupposes His spiritual dwelling in the hearts of believers, or the gift of the Holy Spirit to them. Based on the gospel narratives, it is impossible to restore the chronological sequence of these events, since the evangelists Mark and Luke (cf. Matt.) report the ascension of Christ, but do not convey the gift of the Spirit to the disciples, and the evangelist John talks about the gift of the Spirit to the disciples, but does not talk about the ascension of the Risen One, although Luke also testifies to the joy that filled the hearts of the disciples at the ascension of Christ (Luke 24:52), and in the Gospel of John, the Risen One instructs Mary to convey to the disciples: “I ascend to My Father” (John 20:17), etc. And it is hardly possible to establish here a chronological before and after, since in essence the departure of Christ Jesus to the Father and the gift of the Spirit to the disciples are inextricably linked, as Christ explained to His disciples even earlier: “I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; and you know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you... It is better for you that I go (to Him who sent Me); for if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you; and if I go, I will send Him to you” (John 14:16–18; 16:7). Of the evangelists, only John reports about the gift of the Spirit to the disciples by the Risen One. “Jesus said to the disciples: Peace be with you! As the Father sent Me, so I send you. Having said this, he blew and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven; on whomever you leave it, it will remain on him” (John 20:21–23). Here freedom of spiritual life and free moral life are combined with the gift of the Spirit. Western exegetes (Augustine and Gregory Dvoeslov) in their explanation of this passage in the Gospel draw our attention to the gift of love as the primary gift of the Holy Spirit. And rightly so. This union of the gift of Christ’s love with the gift of His Spirit (Rom. 5:5) was already foreshadowed by Christ Himself in his farewell conversation with his disciples: “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever” (John 14:15–16). In the same sense, the Apostle John writes: “No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, then God abides in us, and His love is perfect in us. We know that we abide in Him and He in us from what He has given us of His Spirit... His commandment is that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He commanded us. And whoever keeps His commandments abides in Him and He in him. And we know that He abides in us by the Spirit which He has given us” (1 John 3:23–24; 4:12–13). So the Apostle Paul speaks of love in the spirit (Col. 1:8; Rom. 15:30), that the love of God has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, given to us (Rom. 5:5. Wed. Gal. 5:22; 2 Tim. 1:7). Other evangelists, although they do not talk about the gift of His spirit to the disciples by Christ during His ascension, nevertheless give valuable indications of the other side of spiritual gifting - namely, the universality of the spirit of Christ (Matt. 28:19; Luke 24:47. Compare 1 Tim. 3:16). In the fullness of its connection with the suffering of Christ Jesus, on the one hand, and with the faith of the disciples, as well as with the indicated spiritual gifts, on the other hand, the resurrection of Christ is revealed to us in all its greatness. Faith in the resurrection of Christ makes the meaning of His work and teaching a living reality for us, makes His spiritual life real for us. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). By this very faith we are already made alive together with Christ (Eph. 2:5; Col. 3:1), so that He was truly raised for our justification (Rom. 4:25). In short, we have been born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to a living hope, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven (1 Pet. 1:3-4). Afterword to the gospel story The Gospel story has its own afterword. This is primarily the fate of the Jewish people. “His blood be on us and on our children,” the entire Jewish people said to Pilate, taking upon themselves the guilt of Jesus’ death, and His blood actually fell on them. Even before His death, His betrayer committed suicide, realizing that he had betrayed innocent blood. The entire Jewish nation also perished in the terrible agony of the destruction of Jerusalem. Golgotha ​​was a death sentence for the Jews who crucified their Christ and denied the Son of God; the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 was the fulfillment of this sentence. The destruction of Jerusalem, described by eyewitness Josephus, exceeds in its horrors everything known in world history. Then there was truly “great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world, nor will there be.” It was the death of an entire people. As soon as the indignation began in Jerusalem (66), the massacre of Jews began in Syria and Egypt. Thus, “in Caesarea in one hour more than twenty thousand of them perished, and in all Caesarea there were no more Jews” 467. In Alexandria, the corpses of murdered Jews were collected up to fifty thousand 468. When the war with the indignant inhabitants of Jerusalem was entrusted to Vespasian, this commander, together with his son Titus, developed a war plan in order to approach Jerusalem from the north, first devastating Galilee and Judea, and then destroy the Jews in their holy city, as in the last refuge 469. And indeed, Galilee was devastated so that it would never rise again and so that the country of Jesus would no longer have a place in the history of Christianity 470. Idumea and Samaria were also devastated. When the Roman troops approached Jerusalem under the leadership of Titus, already the emperor's son, the usual number of inhabitants of this city was greatly increased by the multitude of Jews from distant countries of the east, who had flocked here even earlier in anticipation of the destruction of Nero's empire, then by fugitives from the destroyed countries of Galilee and Judea, and, finally, by pilgrims who, according to custom, came to Jerusalem for the Passover holiday. “Apparently the whole nation has gathered for extermination” 471. A terrible famine began in the city, which erased all human feelings from the inhabitants, forcing wives to take a piece of bread from their husbands and children 472. A rumor even spread throughout the city that one mother had killed and eaten her son 473 . Due to overcrowding and hunger, diseases and pestilence emerged; many were struck by madness 474. All the time of indignation and siege, discord between parties and robber gangs raged in the city; the leaders surpassed each other in cruelty. The Romans were also cruel. The captive Jews were crucified on crosses in such a multitude that there was not enough space either for the crosses or for the crosses to be crucified 475 . During the capture of the city, blood flowed in streams everywhere; only the piercing screams of those who scored and those who froze, cursing the sky 476 were heard. From Jerusalem, which saw Christ and did not accept Him, and from the church in which He taught, all that remained was a field covered with garbage; everything was destroyed and destroyed by fire. The Jews, spared by death, were sold into slavery in large numbers, sent to the provinces for hard work, and died in large numbers at the celebrations of the winner. In our place, we marked the beginning of the “coming of the Son of Man” - the teaching in parables, which revealed the bitterness of the Jews and the judgment against them. For gospel history, the coming of the Son of Man ended with the suffering and death of Christ, but this is not his final end, which He predicted to His disciples (Matthew 24 par.). In this prophecy of Christ, the end of His coming is primarily hidden in the fact of the destruction of Jerusalem and the death of the Jewish people, not being exhausted, however, by this fact, but extending into the distant future for us, for whom the death of Israel serves only as a warning. “No one knows about that day or hour, not the angels of heaven, not the Son, but only My Father,” said Christ (Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32). “Lord,” asked the disciples of the Risen One, “are you at this time restoring the kingdom to Israel?” He answered them: “It is not your business to know the times or seasons which the Father has appointed in His authority” (Acts 1:6–7). When they looked at heaven, during His ascent to the Father, two men in white clothes suddenly appeared to them and said: “Men of Galilee! Why are you standing and looking at the sky? This Jesus, who has ascended into heaven from you, will come in the same way as you saw Him ascending into heaven” (Acts 1:10-11)... And the apostles were deeply and vividly imbued with the expectation of the near end, the speedy coming of the day of the Lord, the appearance of the Son of God, the revelation of judgment, which will begin from the house of God (1 Pet. 1:5-7; 4:5-7, 17; 1Ин. 2:18 ; Рим. 2:5, 16 ; 1Кор. 1:8; 5:5; 7:29 ; 2Кор. 1:14 ; Флп. 1:6, 10; 2:16; 4:5 ; 1Фес. 1:10; 5:2 ; 2Фес. 1:10 ; 2Тим. 1:12, 18; 4:1, 8)... For a Christian, the most natural feeling is the anticipation of the day of judgment, the revelation of the glory of the Son of God and the sons of God, since his residence is in heaven. He lives in anticipation of God's judgment, because he has divine life within himself; he lives in hope of the revelation of the glory of the sons of God, because he lives by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7); he expects a quick end, although it is not given to him to know the times or dates, because all his attention is directed to this end, and it seems close to him, like a fiery point in the darkness. This expectation is the natural and only psychological basis of “Christian time.” The expectation of Christians is inaccessible to the torment of exposed self-delusion. They will say to us: “Where is the promise of the coming of the Lord? For ever since they began to die, from the beginning of creation, everything remains the same.” But we know that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, but is patient with us, not wanting anyone to perish, but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:4-9). God's forgiving long-suffering is the only source of the times of the Christian Church. The history of the Christian church began on the day of Pentecost, when all 477 believers were filled with the Holy Spirit. This filling of believers with the Holy Spirit must be distinguished from the perception of the Spirit of Christ that was given to the disciples by the risen Christ. “And then,” let’s say in the words of John Chrysostom, “the disciples received some spiritual power and grace, only not to raise the dead and perform miracles, but to forgive sins,” since the gifts of the Spirit are different. That is why Christ (said): whose sins you forgive, their sins will be forgiven, showing what kind of grace-filled power is bestowed upon them. And subsequently, after forty days, they received the power of working miracles, which is why Christ says: you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea (Acts 1:8); and they became witnesses through miracles.” The difference between the spiritual gifts received by the apostles from the Risen One and the spiritual gifts of Pentecost is the same as was, as indicated in its place, between the birth of Christ from the Spirit and the descent of the Spirit upon Him at baptism. The perception of the Spirit from the Risen Christ Jesus who ascended to the Father was for the disciples the perception of Christ’s life - eternal, invisible, spiritual and moral, the perception of the spirit of His life, as a result of which Christians become sons of God, although they carry this gift in a weak vessel, in mortal flesh, amid suffering. This perception of the Spirit consists in the freedom of spiritual and moral life, and mainly in love, which “never ceases, although prophecies will cease, and tongues will be silent, and knowledge will be abolished” (1 Cor. 13:8). And the spiritual gift of Pentecost was precisely the gift of miracles. This was, as the Apostle Peter said, “foretold by the prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy; and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams... And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs in the earth below” (Acts 2:16–19)... Indeed, the history of the primitive church is the history of signs and wonders, the history of “spiritual gifts.” Just as Christ, after the descent of the Holy Spirit on Him in baptism, appeared during public activity in the glory of inspiration and prophetic inspiration, in the glory of the external bodily revelation of the Holy Spirit and mainly in the glory of miracles; so His Church in the first times of its existence, starting from the day of Pentecost, was a society of “pneumatics”, in it the Spirit of God was revealed in the visible inspiration of its members, in various spiritual gifts 478. On the day of Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Spirit was revealed in believers as the gift of tongues (glossolalia λαλεῖν γλώσσαις or γλώσσ ῃ). When numerous residents of Jerusalem observed this inspired speech of the believers, they came to the greatest amazement; When the Apostle Peter in his speech revealed to them that in this event the prophecy of Joel was fulfilled, and exhorted them saying: “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,” about three thousand of them joined the believers that day. In Acts. 10:46; 19 There is evidence of the manifestation of this gift in those who joined the church later. In the Corinthian church, according to 1 Cor. 12–14, the gift of tongues was revealed abundantly. Another type of spiritual gift in the primal church was the gift of miracles and especially healings. So according to Acts. 2:43: “many signs and wonders were done through the apostles in Jerusalem”; also Acts. 4:30; 5:12: “by the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were performed among the people... Many from the surrounding cities also came to Jerusalem, carrying the sick and those possessed by unclean spirits, who were all healed”; Acts 6:8: “Stephen did great wonders and signs among the people”; Acts 8:6–8, 13: “Philip performed miracles. For the unclean spirits from many who were possessed by them came out with a great cry, and many paralytic and lame were healed. Simon (the sorcerer) also believed, seeing great powers being accomplished”; Acts 14:3; 15:12; 19:11–12, 17: “God did many miracles through the hands of Paul,” etc. In particular, Acts. 3 (Peter’s healing of the lame man, after which, according to Peter, up to five thousand people were converted); Acts 5 (death of Ananias and his wife); Acts 5:19; 12:7; 16 (release of the apostles from prison); Acts 9 (healing of Aeneas); Acts 9 (resurrection of Tabitha); Acts 13 (blinding of Elima); Acts 14 (healing of the lame man in Lystra); Acts 20:9–12 (resurrection of Eutychus); Acts 28 (Paul was not harmed by the viper), Acts. 28:8–9 (healing of Father Publius). Wed. Rome. 15:18–19; 1 Cor. 2:4; 4:20; 12:9–10, 28–30; 2 Cor. 12:12 ; Gal. 3:5; 1 Thess. 1:5; Heb. 2:4. In addition to those mentioned in the primitive church, there were many other spiritual gifts, mentioned mainly in 1 Cor. 12–14, such as: the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge (of all mysteries), faith, discerning of spirits, prophecy (cf. Acts 11:28; 13:1–2; 21:11), interpretation of tongues, revealing (1 Cor. 14:24–25. Compare 1 Tim. 5:20; 2 Tim. 4:2; Titus. 1:9; cf. John 2:24–25; also revelation (Apocalypse, e.g. Rev. 1 and many others. Cf. 1John 2:20, 27; Matt. 10par.), seeing and hearing unspeakable words (2 Cor. 12:1–4). Even extraordinary physical or external manifestations of a moral Christian mood were precisely “pneumatic” phenomena, spiritual gifts, for example, the gift of government (1 Cor. 12:28), helping (ib.) and serving the saints, i.e., complete renunciation of property (1 Pet. 4:10–11; cf. Eph. 4:12), the spirit of chastity, abstinence and other exploits ascetic self-denial (1 Cor. 7:7; 13:3; Gal. 5:23; 1 Tim. 6:7), etc. Spiritual gifts continued for some time in the post-apostolic age, although undoubtedly in a lesser volume and power. Over time, they completely stopped 479. The fact that there were extraordinary spiritual gifts in the early Christian church poses an extremely important problem for us. If the miracles in the Gospel history were only symbols of spiritual blessings, images of the invisible divine life, if the Gospel history has as its goal to raise our mind to the spiritual and in this sense is finally crowned with the resurrection of Christ and His departure to the Father, if the Last Judgment befell the Jews on the path of their passionate demands for miracles (cf. 1 Cor. 1:22), which, after the giving of temporary signs, was denied to them, and to this is the reason of the gospel story; then what does the revelation of extraordinary spiritual gifts in the Church of Christ mean? Is not the revealed wisdom of the gospel story undermined by the abundance of extraordinary spiritual gifts among Christians? Isn’t our entire “philosophy of gospel history” hanging by a thread? If, with this question, we experienced fear for the reason of the gospel history, then our fear would be a reflection of a historical phenomenon. Indeed, there were Christians who attached too high an importance to spiritual gifts and were zealous for them beyond reason, which caused real fear among the pillars of the church that the spiritual and moral Christian life—the life of free rational love—would not be extinguished in the ecstasy of spiritual gifts. It is with this concern that the Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians about spiritual gifts. Explaining to the Corinthians that all gifts are different gifts of the one Spirit and in this sense are equivalent (1 Cor. 12), the apostle, who himself spoke in tongues more than anyone else and was awarded spiritual visions and hearing ineffable verbs, places love above all spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 13) and subordinates them to the highest goal - rational edification (1 Cor. 14), i.e., puts them below the Christian inner a life based on freely rational love. “Be zealous,” writes the apostle, “for great gifts, and I will show you an even more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but do not have love, then I am a ringing brass, or a sounding cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries, and have all knowledge and all faith, so that I could move mountains, but do not have love, then I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions, and give my body to be burned, but do not have love, it does me no good... Achieve love, be zealous for spiritual gifts, especially to prophesy. For whoever speaks in a tongue 480 speaks not to people, but to God, because no one understands him; he speaks mysteries in the spirit. And whoever prophesies speaks to people for edification, admonition and comfort. He who prophesies is superior to him who speaks in tongues. Zealous for spiritual gifts, try to enrich yourself with them for the edification of the church. In church I would rather say five words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in an (ecstatic) tongue,” etc. Among these instructions, the holy apostle gives a highly remarkable explanation: “Tongues are a sign not for believers, but for unbelievers; prophecy is not for unbelievers, but for believers. If the whole church comes together, and everyone begins to speak in tongues, and those who do not know or who do not believe come in to you, will they not say that you are mad” (μαίνεσθε 1 Cor. 14:22–23)? Doesn’t this last accusation from unbelievers in relation to pneumatic Christians remind us of the accusations of the Jews against Christ that “He is raging” (δ &#94#945; ιμόνιον ἔχει καὶ μαίνεται – John 10:20), and doesn’t this equalize the meaning of the spiritual gifts of the church with the miracles of Christ? In the matter of the positive effect of Christianity on pagans and Jews, although the latter were converted on the day of Pentecost about three thousand souls and on the day of the healing of the lame by Peter up to five thousand, and although the sermon spread among the pagans with testimony from God with signs and wonders, the rational word and impression of the religious and moral life of Christians were of greater importance. So 1 Pet. 2:12. So St. Ignatius wrote: “And for other people (i.e., non-believers), pray unceasingly. For they have hope of repentance to come to God. Let them learn at least from your works” 481, etc. It was especially important that you could not believe every spirit, but you had to test whether spiritual gifts and signs were from God, because there were many false prophecies and miracles (1 John 4 cf. Matthew 24:24; 2 Thess. 2:9; Rev. 13:13). Although among other gifts of the Spirit there was the gift of “discernment of spirits,” however, a completely reliable test for every spirit was a good life, evidence of true love: “The children of God and the children of the devil are recognized in this way: everyone who does not do righteousness is not from God, neither does he who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10), etc. While in the Church of Christ the internal spiritual life gradually expanded, and the area of external manifestations of inspiration gradually narrowed and over time was completely destroyed, pneumatic phenomena and ecstatic inspiration, not restrained by reason and not strengthened by the power of love, became the heretical property of the ancient Gnostics and Montanists, who “went out from us, but were not ours” and the newest mystical sects. What significance did temporary pneumatic gifts have in the history of the church? The Church of Christ is His body and lives by Him. She experiences His life—she experienced, on the day of Pentecost and its aftermath, the temporary outward glory of Christ. And just as the outward glory of Christ and, in particular, His miracles were a temporary symbol of spiritual eternal life, so the pneumatic gifts of the primitive church were a temporary fence around the tender Christian planting. The Gadarene demoniac, who broke his chains and went on a rampage day and night, after being healed by Christ, “sat in his right mind.” This healing of a demoniac can serve as an image of the rebirth that Christ the Savior brought about in humanity. In patristic writing, the salvation granted by Christ is represented as the liberation of man from the power of unclean spirits. But this does not exhaust the work of Christ. He not only freed man from the power of the evil spirit, but also placed him above elemental inspiration - He revealed to him the Holy Spirit not only in the form of a pneumatic element, but also in a higher form, as the Spirit of rational freedom and self-sacrificing love. В естественном человечестве всё лучшее, всё истинно человеческое сводится к жажде чуда; there, a common mind that denies miracles and does not know pneumatic inspiration is nothing more than everyday, colorless common sense, everyday prudence. The divine mind is not before a miracle, but behind a miracle. The miracle must be overcome, the pneumatic element must be surpassed. Therefore, Christ appeared pneumatically in all the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and not only freed man from the power of unclean spirits, but also gave him the most complete experience of possessing the elemental gifts of the Spirit, so that through this experience he would lead him to possess the highest form of the Spirit - the Spirit of a free mind and self-sacrificing love - the Spirit of Christ. By the power of Christ, the religion of external miracles, which fed man’s self-loving attachment to the earth, became a religion of pure spirituality and holy love. The gospel story forms the greatest “day” in world history, truly the day of the Lord: this is the time of the rebirth of the elemental spirit of God into the free spirit of Christ... To be quite precise, I agree that the life of Christ can be written, just as one can write biblical zoology, biblical botany, but only it will be “life” in a nutshell: born in Galilee, was a carpenter, under the influence of John the Baptist became a preacher and Christ and was crucified at the insistence of the priests. But this is obviously a scheme without internal content, without evangelical content. This scheme can be expanded to thousands of pages by drawing the historical and everyday background of the Gospel picture, scientific solutions to historical issues and a rationalistic explanation of the Gospel miracles. But all this material also does not affect the actual content of the Gospel, just as there is no spirit of the Bible in biblical zoology or biblical medicine. In this regard, Jesus Christ generalized Himself even with the Jews, as God’s chosen people, in contrast to the non-Jews (John 4:22, although here one can also see a simple correspondence with “you” John 4:20). This was precisely His impression on the Jews, who said to Him: “You, being a man, make Yourself God” (John 10:33). If we do not want to leave the gospel soil, then in the question of the sinlessness of Christ we must limit ourselves to the historical facts of the continuity and all-conquering energy of the God-son self-consciousness of Christ; we will not find any reason to talk about the attitude of Christ to lust, the absence of which is considered in theology to be one of the conditions and signs of the sinlessness of Christ. Everything that has to do with lust is simply not mentioned in the Gospel image of Christ, because it is an image without the slightest earthly dust, without historical and everyday coloring, almost not touching the earth. However, the theological teaching about the absence of lust in Christ can be called completely consistent with the Gospel presentation of Christ, since the entire content of His life and work was determined by His divine self-consciousness. If in the life of a simple person such, at least temporary, passion for some business or idea is possible that silences any movement of lustful inclinations, then it must be said that the entire historical image of Christ is the embodiment of one religious impulse, one religious idea. Apart from any theological tendency, the Christ of the Gospel appears to be eminently “spiritual.” An impartial researcher of gospel facts will not lose the feeling of some kind of “miracle of history.” But in this character of Christ’s fulfillment of the law and the prophets - precisely in the fact that He fulfilled them - lies the basis that Christ is the end of the law (τέλος νὸμου - Rom. 10:4), that He, along with the fulfillment, abolished them, that after this the law ceased to have force as an Old Testament law, and the prophecies ceased to have meaning in the sense of prophecies: the prophets and the law prophesied until John, and after John the kingdom of God itself came. This is also the basis for the fact that the execution of the law could be at the same time a violation of it, which is discussed below. Yes, Deut. 32Moses said to the people of Israel about the Lord, “Isn’t this your father, who adopted you, created you, and formed you?” Therefore, by retreating from God and worshiping other gods, the Jewish people became a rebellious and corrupt generation (Deut. 32:5). Therefore, the Jews, who asked Samuel to set a king over them, like other nations, thereby rejected the Lord so that He would not reign over them (1 Samuel 8:5, 7). However, from the time of David, pleasing to God, the visible kingdom became the symbol and organ of theocracy (2 Sam. 7). Also Isa. 33:22. Therefore, the service of the Israeli people to other gods was fornication in relation to Jehovah (Jer. 2 ff.; Ezek. 16; Oc. 1-3). So already in Marah God sweetened the waters for Israel and said to him: “If you obey the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and listen to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, then I will not bring on you any of the diseases that I brought on Egypt; for I am the Lord who heals you” (Ex. 15:25–26). This was evidenced by the constant deliverance of Jews from enemies. As the fulfiller of the promises, Jesus is the Christ (Luke 4:18–22) whom the Jews were waiting for. But the name Christ does not indicate either the essence of Christ (Matthew 22:41–45 par.) or the manner in which the promises are fulfilled. False expectations of the Jews were associated with this naming. Eg. Ezek. 48:14–15. Holy (kadosch) is a religious concept, not a moral one; its opposite is not the concept of immoral, but the concept of the commonly used, ordinary, publicly accessible - Greek. κοινόν, βέβηλον (Am. 2 cf. Heb. 9:13). Although it does not follow from this that after the baptism of Jesus Christ, John should not have continued his activities. How in general did Christ accomplish the salvation of people not only who lived before Him and in His time, but also after Him; so, in particular, symbolically (and even more so symbolically) He took upon Himself in baptism the sins of not only those who managed to wash themselves before Him in the waters of the Jordan, but also those who did it after. Of course, this is why Christ allowed His disciples to baptize, of course, with the baptism of John, especially since this mattered for those who were baptized themselves. But Christ Himself, in the sense of His attitude towards the baptism of John, could not baptize (John 4:2). OK. 12:49–50 ; Matt. 20:22 ; Mk. 10:38. It was the Nazarenes who overthrew Christ from the top of the mountain, but He, passing among them, withdrew (Luke 4:29–30) unharmed. This is how Ephraim the Syrian understands the indicated place. (Cf. Divine. Vestn. 1897, Apr. pp. 92–105). Likewise, in Ev. John (John 7–10) Christ repeatedly becomes invisible to his listeners, as John Chrysostom strongly states when he says that Christ "could be present and not be visible." It is difficult to achieve a clear and definite understanding of these events. Именно трудно решить вопрос, что в этих событиях может быть названо объективными свойствами и действиями Христа, и что объясняется субъективными переживаниями зрителей и слушателей, трудно провести границу между объективною стороною этих явлений и субъективностью впечатлений. However, there is no need to take a philosophical-gnoseological approach to this issue, since the general symbolic nature of these phenomena makes their objective or subjective nature completely indifferent. However, it can be resolutely asserted that the basis of these events, as well as the miraculous healing power of Christ, lies in the inspiration of Christ, although we cannot imagine the limits of this inspiration. We do not want to depart from a religious-historical point of view, and it would be strange to demand philosophical clarity in such matters. From a religious-historical point of view, it must be recognized as undeniable that Christ was a pneumatic man and that His pneumatic inspiration began with the event of His baptism in the Jordan. That is, in pneumatic admiration (ἀνήχθη ὑπο τοῦ πνεύματος - Matthew 4 par.), in the fullness of that inspiration into which He entered on the banks of the Jordan. Due to their indicated characteristics as enemies of Christ, the Jewish people (Israel) are called Jews in the Gospel of John. The name of the Jews is used in the same sense in our study. The Jews were first of all the Jewish leaders (in this case, as opposed to the common people), then the Jerusalemites and, perhaps, the Jews in the ethnographic and geographical sense (as opposed to the simpleton Galileans), and finally, the entire Jewish people who crucified Christ. Throughout all these borders the Jews were distinguished by their utmost contempt for those who were not Jews. The Jews in the gospel history are presented primarily as rulers, headed by a high priest, scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees. A scribe, or lawyer, rabbi, teacher of the law is a person versed in the law, its guardian and teacher of the people. The real atmosphere of the scribes is the legends that explain the meaning of the law, complement it and apply it to various cases of life, forming a fence around the law. After the Babylonian captivity, the Jews began to observe the law and its ritual decrees especially zealously; hence the study of the law and its interpretation became the greatest need for them, and teachers of the law became the most honorable and influential persons. The "Great Synagogue", the prototype of the Sanhedrin, was a meeting primarily of scribes. Since the main sphere of their activity was traditions, among them the “eldership” was valued, which had government significance under the Maccabees and then transferred to the Sanhedrin, headed by a high priest and which was the highest religious institution, mainly with judicial power. The main character of the scribe is love of honor, proud contempt for the ignorant people and hypocritical execution of the law (Mark 12:38–40; Luke 20:46–47). In explaining the law, the scribes were slaves to the letter and tradition; they could not distinguish what was essential in the law from the petty requirements of tradition, therefore the question of the greatest commandment of the law was most difficult for them. The legalistic regime imparted extreme pettiness to the life of the Jewish people. The scribe usually appears alongside the Pharisee; often he is a Pharisee, but not always. The Pharisees were a brotherhood or union into which new members were accepted in accordance with certain rituals. The Pharisees set themselves the main task of the strictest observance of the laws and traditions regarding external purity and the fulfillment of religious duties - tithes, etc. (Mark 7; Matthew 23 par.). The Pharisees were distinguished by their extreme disdain for the “village people” and removed themselves from the society of sinners. Being extreme zealots of external purity, they neglected the most important things in the law, were lovers of money, fulfilled the law for show, so that their most important feature was hypocrisy. The Sadducees gave preference to scripture over tradition, and adhered to its literal understanding. They sought mainly freedom from the extremes of pharisaism. They denied the resurrection of the dead and the existence of spirits (Matthew 22:1-2; Acts 4:1-2; 23:8). These were rationalists. In the time of Christ, the Sadducees are predominantly the upper, governmental, wealthy classes; led an epicurean lifestyle. The Pharisees and Sadducees were at enmity with each other. An unbeliever can say that Christ's self-consciousness would have been His self-deception if He had agreed to tempting offers - the stones of the desert would have remained stones and the angels would not have supported Him with their wings. But in actual reality, the reality of temptations, the seductiveness of thoughts based both on the self-awareness of Christ and on His pneumatic inspiration, and the reality of His victory, the moral strength of His spirit, the all-conquering power of His religious attitude to life, stand above all objections. Since Christ did not teach without works, then in the gospels, even when only His teaching is spoken of, His works are usually also understood. Actually about breaking the law below. For example, Matt. 5 and Matt. 6 words; also Lk. 9&Lk. 11:23. It is significant that in Galilee the next miracle was performed by Jesus in Cana of Galilee, “where He turned water into wine” (John 4:46). This incident, in the words of the same John Chrysostom, shows that “without virtue there is no benefit in carrying Christ in the womb and giving birth to this wondrous fetus, which is especially evident from the words of Christ: Who is my mother? He did not say this because He was ashamed of His mother, or because He denied that she gave birth to Him; but by this He wanted to show that this would be of no benefit to her if she did not fulfill all that was due. In fact, her action stemmed from excessive jealousy of her rights. She wanted to show the people her power over her Son, whom she had not yet thought highly of, and therefore came at the wrong time. So, look at the carelessness on the part of her and her brothers!” etc. About the “hour” of Christ, His “hour”, see John. 7:30; 8:20; 12:23–27; 17:1. Without citing examples from the Old Testament, we will point to New Testament examples. The unclean spirits cast out by Christ turned to Him with these words: “What do we and You (τί ἡμῖν καὶ σοί), Jesus of Nazareth? You have come to destroy us” (Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34; also Matt. 8:29; Mark 5:7; Luke 8:28). When Pilate judged Christ, his wife sent him to say: μηδὲν σοὶ καὶ τῷ δικαί ῳ ἐκείνω - nothing to you and to that righteous man, that is, do nothing to that righteous man” (Matthew 27:19). In a close circle of relatives and a few students. The symbol was too clear and eloquent. An expression quite different from John. 6:30 : τί ποιεῖς σύ σημεῖον , ἵ να ἕ δωμεν καὶ πιστεύσωμέν σοι - what are you doing a sign so that we can see and believe You? The question of what connection to place the cleansing of the church, whether according to the Gospel of John or according to the weather forecasters, is one of the many insoluble questions of gospel history. We are guided by the following considerations. If the cleansing of the church had been more accurately connected with the rejection of the Jews, it would have been more consistent with the character of the last days. But in fact, it, testifying to Christ’s jealousy for the church, was not directed decisively against the Jewish church authorities, who, in essence, could not be indignant at this jealousy. Only the symbolic meaning of this action was addressed to them - the demand for moral purification. Also, the fact that Christ’s answer about the destruction of the church was not understood by the Jews shows that it was not pronounced in the last days. U In. 19:38–39 it is said about Joseph from Arimathea that he was a secret disciple of Jesus out of fear of the Jews, but this is not said about Nicodemus, who came to Jesus at night: obviously, he did not come at night out of fear of the Jews, and John. 3applies to all bosses. About the healing on Saturday of the demoniac Mk. 1:23–28; OK. 4:33–37 and the healing of the Gadarene demoniacs will be discussed below. In this regard, the first miracle of Christ is noteworthy, the turning of water into wine for the joy of those who feasted; this is Luxuswunder, in which the general nature of the miraculous activity of Christ during the first period was clearly expressed. This circumstance will be assessed again below. Of course, this moment cannot be taken in an unconditional sense: as has been seen, there was partly room for temptation before. We only want to highlight the degree. It is likely that this healing also took place on Saturday (Matthew 12 “then”). This general remark is in connection with the story of the blasphemy of the Jews in the Gospel of Mark, and therefore we are not at all confused by the fact that according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke this blasphemy is connected in particular with the healing of a demon-possessed mute. In order to avoid unnecessary detail, we refrain from revealing the opinion that the muteness of the demoniac could be a manifestation of the same mental state that was expressed in the demoniac’s confession of Christ, that in this case the tongue was taken away from the same horror that the confession of Christ caused in other demoniacs. Meanwhile, short-sighted negative criticism sees in these words of Christ a truly pathetic indication that the demoniacs healed by Christ again fell into illness, without comprehending the deep meaning of Christ’s speech as applied to the Jews. However, in offering our explanation, we must say about ourselves in the words of Cicero: explico non quasi Pythius Apollo, certa ut sint et fixa, quae dico, sed ut homunculus unus e multis, probabilia conjectura sequens. We ask the reader to understand this about what precedes and what follows. This, as we can probably say, was at the same time the election of precisely the twelve closest disciples from a wider circle of Christ’s disciples. See Greek text. According to Is. 6:9-11 (Heb.) God gave the prophet a command to make the hearts of the Jews insensitive, etc. The evangelist considers this work of the prophet as a prototype of the activity of Christ. That precisely the “groups” of parables have a historical basis for themselves is clear from Mark. 4:13: “all” parables. The remaining parables of Matthew's gospel (Matthew 7:24–27; 9:16–17; 15:14; 18:12–13, 23–35; 24:32–33, 45–51; 25:1–30) are not grouped, scattered here and there, of a teaching nature. Of the other synoptics, the gospel of Mark contains an extremely limited number of parables (Mark 2:21–22; 4, 12 and 13, with Mark 4 corresponding to Matthew 13, and Mark 12 corresponding to Matthew 21–22), and the gospel of Luke generally weakly emphasizes the historical significance of the parables of Christ, and the numerous parables contained in it, with the exception of a few (Luke 5:36–38; 6:39, 47–49; 13:18–21; 15:1–7; 21:29–31), which do not coincide with the parables of the gospels of Matthew and Mark, are scattered, not grouped: they are part of an accusatory nature (Luke 13:6–9). fig tree; Luke 14:16-24, Matthew 20, about those called to the supper; 10:30-35; 12:16-20, 14:28-33; 16:1-8; 17:1-6; 19:11-27; Of course, the abundance of the latter does not violate the historical plan of the parables given in the Gospel of Matthew. However, cf. Matt. 17:12–13. In Russian translation by In. 6 it is erroneously said: “on the other side of the Sea of ​​Galilee, in the vicinity of Tiberias” instead of: “Galilee, Tiberias.” Named in ev. Luke Bethsaida (Luke 9:10) lay on the eastern bank, was called Juliana, in contrast to Bethsaida Ev. Mark (Mark 6:45), about which John. 12:21; 1:44, but in Mark. 8:22 again of course Bethsaida Julian, in which the healing of the blind took place. “No one laid hands on Him,” just as one cannot lay hands on an elusive shadow. At this time, Christ becomes invisible, which symbolically indicated His spirituality in contrast to the Jews with their earthly attachments. We omit the story of the wife taken in adultery for reasons that are understandable to anyone familiar with the history of the Gospel text. At the same time, Christ again becomes invisible. His voice was heard from above: “I am above, you are below,” which symbolically meant: “you are of this world, I am not of this world.” This was the rejection of the Jews. It is obvious that the symbolic-pneumatic actions of Jesus Christ had the same meaning for the Jews as the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand for the Galileans. In these actions, the Jews were given, as it were, a sign from heaven, in them Christ was revealed to the Jews, as it were, in a form that was convincing to them, but this revelation was combined with the rejection of the Jews - with the rejection not of material expectations, but of their highest hopes for descent from Abraham. This was the rejection of the Jews precisely as Jews. Ἐξηλθεν ἐκ της χειρος αὐτων - came from their hands - a very strong expression; it can be conveyed as follows: slipped out of their hands, like a shadow or water that is squeezed in the hand. Regarding Matt. 15:30–31; Mk. 7cm. next note. Explanation of Matt. 15:30–39; Mk. 7:37–8:9, which tells about the repetition of the miracle of feeding thousands of people with a few loaves of bread, is not part of our task. That the miracle of the healing of ten lepers belongs specifically to the group of miracles under consideration, the author does not insist on this. In general, the explanation offered in the text for the peculiarity of some miracles should not be understood in such a way that the peculiarity itself was invented by the author in support of some tendentious thought, but in such a way that this peculiarity was noticed by other authors who pay attention to it, but either do not try to explain it at all, or give it some pitiful fragmented explanation in the circumstances of one or another miracle in particular. On the contrary, in the proposed explanation, the peculiarity is noticed in a number of miracles of a certain time and finds a significant explanation in the connection of the Gospel history. Therefore, if the reader did not agree to include in this series, for example, the miracle of the healing of ten lepers, or if they had proven another connection for this miracle, then neither the veracity of the indicated feature of Christ’s miracles for a certain time, nor the thoroughness of its explanation would have suffered from this. What stood in connection with the weakened popular faith. And than before, for them there were miracles of taming the storm and walking on water, but to a lesser extent. According to Matt. 21:14, Christ, after his solemn entry into Jerusalem, healed the blind and lame in the church; but not to mention the fact that this verse is. Matt. (like Matthew 19:2) has no parallel not only in John, but also in Mr. and Luke, it cannot be given a strictly chronological meaning (like Matthew 21:12–13 par.) due to the fact that the first evangelists do not talk about Christ’s previous visits to Jerusalem during His public ministry and nothing prevents Matthew from seeing. 21:12–14; Mk. 11:15–17; OK. 19:45–46 parallels in John. 2:13–23. That the question referred specifically to the sterility of the Jewish people in the past of their history, to the result of their legalistic discipline, and that therefore the drying up of the fig tree had a completely symbolic meaning in the sense revealed, this is clearly indicated by the evangelist’s remark that “the time was not yet for gathering figs” (Mark 11:13), that only last year’s fruits could be expected from the fig tree. Moreover, it was in this stone, which the builders rejected, but which became the head of the corner, that Christ showed the Jews their judge, that is, in his murder by them, the judgment upon them: “whoever falls on this stone will be broken, and on whomever it falls, he will crush him” (Matt. 21 par.). Of course, the first group of parables itself, because when they heard the parables of the second group, the Jews understood their relationship to themselves, i.e. their content had historical significance. Some theologians see an indication of this event in Luke. 22:27, and in general the description of the Last Supper is often preceded, according to Luke. 22:24–27, a depiction of a dispute about primacy that arose between the disciples, and this dispute refers to theologians either to the choice of places at meals or to the question of who should wash the feet of those who arrived from the journey instead of the servant. But Lk. 22:24–27 the parallel must be recognized. Matt. 20:20–28; Mk. 10:35–45; otherwise it would be strange for John to remain silent about this dispute. In the proposed explanation of the farewell conversation, the dogmatic meaning of the conversation is not at all meant, for reasons that are quite understandable in the philosophical-historical work; but the explanation itself is completely consistent with the conclusions and applications that are made in patristic interpretations from the dogmatic meaning of the conversation Doesn't the high priestly prayer according to the gospel of John correspond to the conflict in Gethsemane according to the first three gospels?.. But now for us the invisible region cannot be the complete and only reality. In this case, Christ was tried by Annas (John 18:13), Caiaphas (John 18:24; Matt. 26:57, also undoubtedly Mark 14 and presumably Luke 22:54) and in the morning, or afternoon, meeting of the Sanhedrin (Matthew 27:1; Mark 15:1; Luke 22:66). What do others think, referring to Mk. 15 the word “in the morning” does not mean “they held a meeting” (according to the Greek proverb), but to the main verb “they took them away,” which is not according to Matt. 27 and even more so Lk. 22:66. But on the other hand, Lk. 22same as Matt. 26:65; Mk. 19:63. In this case, Christ was tried by Anna (John 18:13; Luke 22:54) and by Caiaphas in the Sanhedrin (Matthew 26 and Matthew 27:1; Mark 14:53 and Mark 15:1; Luke 22:66). We need to remember the parable of the winegrowers, who, seeing the owner’s son, said to each other: “This is the heir: let’s go, kill him and take possession of his inheritance.” OK. 23:34. The Lord Jesus prayed this way, perhaps, for the Jews; but it is quite possible to relate His prayer to the soldiers who crucified Him, which apparently corresponds to the contextual connection of this verse of Luke’s gospel. The earthly care of His mother crucified for the sins of the world would not correspond to the universal meaning of His death, would not be in harmony with the exceptional solemnity of the moment; it would not even correspond to the general character of His ministry, since He, calling people to renounce even family ties for the sake of the kingdom of God, appears to us as alien to material concerns about the mother throughout His entire service to the kingdom of God. In addition, was it really necessary to entrust her to the care of one of the disciples, while all the disciples loved their Teacher so much and were already accustomed to fellowship in property, so that later they, and the wives, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and even “all the believers were together and had everything in common” (Acts 2cp. Acts 1:14)? Acts 2:24, 32 (cf. Acts 2:36); Acts 3:15; 4:10; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30, 34; 17:31; Rome. 4:24; 8:11; 1 Cor. 6:14; 15:15; 2 Cor. 4:1 ; Gal. 1:1 ; Ephesus 1:20 ; Col. 2:12 ; 1 Thess. 1:1 ; Heb. 13:20 . The indicated places are unreasonably opposed to John. 2:19; 10:18; Matt. 17:9; Mk. 8:31; OK. 24:7, since John. 2:19; 10:19; not to mention Matt. 17:9; Mk. 8:34; OK. 24:7) can be summarized through John. 5k Acts. 2:24, 32, etc., as was done in Acts. 3 (God raised the Author of life from the dead), in other words, John. 2:19 etc. is explained through Acts. 2:24, etc., and not vice versa, and it is impossible Acts. 2 reduce to John. 2:19 . The narratives of the evangelists Matthew and Mark contradict this presentation of the matter. But in Matthew’s gospel the events are depicted too briefly, omitting the journey of Peter and John to the tomb and the Jerusalem appearances of the Risen One to the apostles. In the Gospel of Mark, the transition from Mark is unnatural. 16k Mk. 16:9, and at this point the text must be considered corrupt. In this case, the women told the apostles only about the emptiness of the tomb cave (John 20:2), and the disciples did not believe the women who saw only the empty tomb (as is the case according to Ev. Luke 24:11) and have not yet seen the risen Christ (as, on the contrary, this is according to Ev. Mark 16:11). If so, then there is no basis for reproaching the disciples for “unbelief and hardness of heart, that those who saw Him risen did not believe” (Mark 16:14), so they very plausibly admit Mark. 16:9–20 later added); on the contrary, the unbelief of the disciples at the appearance of the Risen One was unbelief out of joy (Luke 24:41). This also includes the remark made below about Thomas’s unbelief. That is, a ghost, which is clear from Luke. 24:37–39. In. 7:39; 2 Cor. 3:17; 5:16; 1 Pet. 3:18 p.m. 1 Cor. 6:17 ; 1 Tim. 3:16 ; Heb. 9:14. Wed. Rome. 14:9; 1 Cor. 15 Wed. Heb. 2:14–15. Joseph Fl. de bello jud. lib. II, ХVIII, 1. Ibid. lib. II, p. XVIII, 8. E. Renan L'antechrist, 2 ed.. Par. 1873, p. 276. De bello jud. lib. V, p. X, 3; VI, III, 3. E. Renan, L' antechrist, p. 506. De bello jud. lib. V, p. XI, 1. E. Renan, L'antechrist, p. 517. Acts 2 (for all flesh). On this subject see N. Gunkel Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes nach der populären Anschauung der apost. Zeit und nach der Lehre des Apostels Paulus, Gött. 1888 and H. Weinel Die Wirkungen des Geistes und der Geister im nachapost. Zeitalter bis auf Irenäus. Freib. 1899. The history of spiritual gifts in post-apostolic times is not part of our task, because 1) this subject, due to its complexity, requires special research (see Weinel’s work mentioned above) and 2) the gradual weakening and even complete disappearance of spiritual gifts in church life cannot be subject to any doubt; for our task it is important to point out the very fact of the manifestation of spiritual gifts in the history of the primitive church. If it were objected to us that it is impossible to talk about the complete disappearance of spiritual gifts in the later life of the church, for miracles are still possible, then we will answer that we say this in the words of John Chrysostom (3 demons on the inscription D.A.). The apostle calls glossolalia an ecstatic language that no one understands (1 Cor. 14:2) with the mind. Eph. With. X; cfr. Trall. With. VIII, 2. Also Clement 2ep. With. XIII, 3. Also St. Justina 1 Apol. XVI. Cp. Weinel Die Wirkungen des Geistes und der Geister im nachapostol. Zeitalter bis auf Irenäus, Ss. 55–62. You might be interested in: