События во втором столетии третьего тысячелетия

When in these years many iniquities were committed among people who lived very badly, there was a godly man on earth, Noah, about whom it is written: “Noah was a righteous man and perfect in all his generation, and please God, and find grace before the Lord God” (Gen. 6:8-9). The Lord God, sparing His saint, righteous Noah, and wishing to preserve him whole from the flood execution coming upon the whole world and to make him the second father and ancestor of the world that was to arise after the flood, informed him in Divine revelation about the approaching time of the flood, that in one hundred and twenty years the flood would come on the face of the whole earth. The following is written about this announcement: “God spoke to Noah: My Spirit shall not abide in these men, who are but flesh” (Gen. 6:3). He seems to be saying: since these people are mired in carnal lusts and wallow in sinful impurities like pigs in feces, therefore My Spirit hates them, and I will destroy them from the face of the earth; however, I will endure a little longer, waiting for their appeal. The days of their life (during which I will endure them) will be one hundred and twenty years. When they are fulfilled, and I do not see their repentance, then I will no longer tolerate them, but in every possible way I will destroy them with a flood, and I will wash the desecrated earth with waters from the sinful impurities of men. This revelation to Noah about the flood was - according to Russian Bibles in 2042, and according to chronographs in the summer of 2122. God commanded Noah to build an ark from rotting wood and taught him how to do it and what size it should be, as written in the book of Genesis (Genesis 6:14–16). Noah began to make this ark with great difficulty on a high mountain. People, seeing this, were surprised that he was making such a great ship, and not making it near the waters, but in a high place. And they asked Noah why he was undertaking such an extraordinary undertaking, coupled with such difficulties? He informed them about the flood punishment coming to the whole earth from the wrath of God for the multiplication of human sins. And, he said, the water will reach that high place on the mountain where the ship stands, and will lift the ship; and not only this mountain, but also all the highest mountains under heaven, the flood water will surpass and cover. Telling sinful people about this, Noah exhorted them to repentance, so that they would fear God and cease from sins, and then, perhaps, the Lord would be merciful, spare His creation and turn away His anger. Noah's work became known throughout the universe, and his words were transmitted everywhere that such and such a man was building a ship of extraordinary size and talking about a flood that would cover the whole earth. Many came from afar to look at this ship in progress and listen to the sermon to Noah. The Man of God, urging them to repentance, preached to them about the approaching flood vengeance on sinners. That is why he was called by the holy Apostle Peter a preacher of righteousness (2 Pet. 2:5). Of those who heard this, some doubted, others did not attach any faith, they mocked Noah’s preaching and laughed at the construction of the ark, while others, believing his words, were horrified and seemed to begin to correct themselves. When a year, two or more passed and they did not see the approaching flood, they again returned to their previous iniquities, considered Noah’s preaching to be very false and turned his case into a subject of laughter. However, God, more and more irritated by human sins, became angry and said: “I will consume man whom I created from the earth: from man, even to cattle, and from creeping things, even to the birds of the air” (Gen. 6:7). Just as any king, enraged at one of the boyars subordinate to him for some great sin, not only executes the one who sinned with death, but also ruins his house and wastes his household, so the Lord God, very angry with those sinful people who irritated Him, righteously judged not only to destroy them themselves from the earth, but also to destroy all living things and make the earth empty. The Chaldean historian Berosus writes that not only Noah alone, but also other righteous people preached about the coming punishment by the flood and wrote down this prophecy on stones. What kind of righteous people were these? It is probable that the interpreters have suggested that Lamech (not the one in Cain's family, but the one in Seth), the father of Noah, and Methuselah, the grandfather of Noah, and the father of Lamech, both of whom were still alive at that time, righteous and godly men - they helped Noah in this sermon, raising sinners to repentance. But the lawless people, mired in the depths of evil, were negligent, since their hearts were hardened, and they laughed and reproached the admonitions of the holy men Noah, Lamech and Methuselah. When Noah was five hundred years old from the day of his birth, he gave birth to three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth; He was diligently busy every day making the ark and preaching repentance. From the very names of the sons of Noah, one can see Noah’s mind and his prophetic insight, for he called them by the names that would be the generations that would come from them. This is interpreted from the Hebrew language as “glory”, or “glorious name”; Ham means "warmth" and "blackness"; Japheth means “space” or “excellence.” And these names came true in them and in the generations that descended from them, like prophecies in deeds themselves. For Shem (as it will later be clarified) was an image of the priestly order, which receives glory for itself by serving God and glorifying Him, since God says: “I will glorify those who glorify Me” (1 Samuel 2:30). Ham prefigured the rank of workers, the mob, the common people, who warm themselves in labor, by the sweat of their brow eating bread and performing menial tasks. Japheth was a type of royal majesty, spreading his power and power. What is also surprising about righteous Noah is that until he was five hundred years old, he was unmarried, remaining in chaste virginity, as St. John Chrysostom believes, with which some of the historiographers agree (Nauclerus and Jacob of Bergomite). And it is truly amazing how, among such a lawless people, constantly and openly defiled in the uncleanness of prodigals, he alone kept himself pure from his youth. O great chastity! It is known that virginity is not preserved without much and great mortification of the body. From this we can understand that this righteous man, pure in body and spirit, mortified his body with many fasts and labors, and for so many years removed himself from friendship with the lawless and avoided being with them; in silent and seduced places he settled down and prayed to God with the hope of eternal salvation that would come with the coming of the Messiah. When he received from God a revelation about the global flood, and at the same time that he would be saved from this flood by means of a ship, since the human race would multiply from it, then after five hundred years of his virgin life, at the command of the Lord, he took a wife with the fear of God a hundred years before the flood, and took him not for the sake of carnal sensuality, but in order to, having begun to be fruitful, prepare the seed from which the nations would come after the flood; Having given birth to three sons, he, it seems, stopped marital relations. For in Scripture no more children are remembered from him, either before or after the flood: it is not said about him what is said about other forefathers, that they (after the birth of the firstborn) “begat sons and daughters.” If some of the foreign historiographers (Nauclerus) say that after the flood Noah gave birth to a fourth son named Jonah, then, since this is not mentioned in the Holy Scriptures, this seems incredible to us. It seems that this Ionikh was the one who, among the sons of Japheth, bore the name Ioian, or Jovan, from whom the Ionian people descended, and from this people the Greeks descended. You might be interested in: