События в девятом столетии первого тысячелетия

It is time to remember what is written about Adam and Seth in history: both of these fathers, partly due to the prophetic gift and revelation that was in them, partly as a result of considering the currents of the heavenly circles, foresaw that God would punish this world with two plagues - water and fire. Not knowing quite reliably which of these two plagues would be the first, fire or water, they erected two pillars, stone and brick, and wrote on them (some say that they wrote on copper boards, which were embedded in those pillars) about God’s creation of man, about the fall, expulsion from paradise, and about the deliverance of the human race promised by the Lord. They also prophetically wrote about the coming executions on unrepentant sinners, showed their knowledge of the heavenly circles and the signs of astrologerism, wrote down instructions in some earthly newly invented arts, as well as some commandments affirming a godly life, so that humanity, increasing on earth, would please God through a virtuous life, fulfilling His holy will. They wrote this precisely on two pillars, stone and brick, in case that if the earth had previously suffered a fiery execution, the stone pillar would have disintegrated from the fire, but the brick pillar with the inscriptions should remain intact. If the first execution is water, then the brick pillar will be destroyed by the water, and the stone pillar will remain intact for the subsequent human race. The Jewish historian Joseph says that before his time that stone pillar was located somewhere in the countries of Syria. For the first plague was the water plague in the days of Noah. We expect fiery execution at the second terrible coming of Christ. At the beginning of the world, it was revealed by God to our first forefathers both about the water flood and about the upcoming fiery execution for sinners, so that subsequent generations of men, knowing about it, would fear it and would not dare to anger the righteous Judge and Rewarder, who would judge with fire and torment. The execution by flood was terrible and cruel, but the execution by fire will be even more terrible and cruel. The water of the flood only covered the earth, and the fire will not only burn the earth and all the things on it, but also the heavens, as the holy Apostle Peter narrates, saying: “The heavens will be destroyed, and the elements will be melted when scorched” (2 Pet. 3:12). What fear and trembling will attack sinners at the time when fire comes before the coming terrible Judge and a terrible fiery river draws everyone to His place of judgment! Most of all, we must fear the fire of Gehenna, in which all those condemned and driven away from the face of God will perish, as in a flood. Oh, how terrible is this fire, which even Satan himself trembles at! When our Lord drove out the demonic legion in the country of the Gadarenes, the demons prayed to Him, so that He would not order them to go into the abyss, so as not to suffer prematurely in the fire of Gehenna. And if the hellish abyss is terrible for demons, then even more so it should be terrible for people. For if here execution by fire, when a person is condemned to burning, is terrible, then incomparably more terrible is the execution that will be in fiery Gehenna. The fire that will be in Gehenna is so superior to the power of the earthly fire that we use that the latter, in comparison with the Gehenna, appears as depicted only on an icon board. Demons are not afraid of this fire (just as we are not afraid of the fire depicted on the board), but they tremble with that fire of Gehenna; for this one only burns bodily substance, while this one burns and torments the disembodied spirit. This fire, if there is not enough combustible substance supplied for it, goes out, but it will never go out, according to the unfaithful lips of our Lord Himself, who in the Gospel says: “It is good for you to enter into the belly of the lame or the poor, since both hands will be cast into unquenchable fire, even though their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” ( Matt. 18, 8 and Mark 9, 43–44). The earthly fire of grief shines, and the flame of that fire of grief only burns, but does not enlighten the pitch darkness. If it enlightens, as it were, a little, then this will only cause greater fear and trembling for the condemned, so that they can see the terrible images of demons, the mere sight of which is more terrible than any torment, and also so that they can see the faces of other sinners, suffering together, who with them in this life committed iniquities and became defiled, together angering God. The local fire temporarily torments: having engulfed a person thrown into it, it immediately kills him and in one hour turns him into ashes; the same fire of Gehenna burns, but does not kill, for those thrown into it will not die burned and tormented forever. And if unbearable and great torment is experienced by those who are burned for one hour, then let us imagine how great the torment will be for those who will be burned for endless centuries and not be burned! But woe to us sinners, since we do not at all want to remember the torments awaiting us and are not afraid of them, but, day by day and hour by hour, falling into greater and greater sins, we kindle an ever greater flame for ourselves and add fire to fire; and we turn the torment that is prepared for demons onto ourselves! For the fire of hell was prepared by God not for people, but for demons, as the righteous Judge says in the Gospel: “Depart from Me, cursed, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angel” (Matthew 25:41). For the Creator, foreseeing the fall of the luminous angel from angelism into the devil, prepared for execution for him and those who were with him, in in the depths of the earth in the bottomless abyss there is a special unquenchable fire (except for the element of fire, which was created for the needs of people), so fierce and strong that even the immaterial spirit in it experiences unbearable torment. Oh, if we opened our intelligent eyes and looked at this fire in advance, then we would not plunge ourselves into it, we would not dare, I say, to anger God with our sins, we would not kindle the unquenchable flame of Gehenna for ourselves, for the constant remembrance of eternal torment will greatly prevent a person from falling into sin! In the Patericon it is written that once twelve desert-dwelling fathers, perfect in virtuous pleasing to God, came together in one place, and each of them said something about himself that would benefit his correction. One of them, the last in number, said: “O fathers! You have a heavenly life, you have acquired heavenly wisdom, and it is not marvelous. I, considering myself unworthy of such, see that wherever I go, my sins will precede me on the right and on the left; and I condemned myself to Gehenna, saying: be with those whose parts you are worthy of and with whom in a short time you will be numbered. I see there terrible lamentations and incessant tears that no one can convey; I see some grinding their teeth and shaking their whole bodies; I also see an immense bubbling sea of ​​fire, the flames of which seem to reach to the heavens; and in that terrible sea I see countless numbers of cast-out people, burning like dry brushwood, all screaming and sobbing so loudly that no one has ever heard such sobbing and screaming on earth. I also see that God’s mercy turns away from them for the sake of its justice. I cry and sob, my mind dwelling on them for a long time, and I think about what is written: “My tears were my bread day and night” (Ps. 41:4). And throwing myself to the ground before God, I pray to Him to deliver me from this torment.” We will pay attention here to how effective the remembrance of Gehenna and its torment is for those who want to correct their lives. You might be interested in: