События в первом столетии четвертого тысячелетия

Raghav, the son of Peleg and the grandson of Eber, gave birth to Serukh, Abraham's great-grandfather, in the year of his life 132, and after him he gave birth to other sons and Daughters (Gen. 11:20–21). George Kedrin narrates that in the days of Raghav, people, one before the other, began to rise with pride and assume royal titles; They also began to manufacture weapons and wage war against each other. Then the tribe of Canaan began to grow weak and was subjected to the yoke of slavery, as forefather Noah had predicted. Here we must remember what we previously said regarding Assur, called Bel, that after the death of Nevrod, he could not tolerate the Hamite tribe reigning in the east in Babylon, and he himself prevailed in Babylon, no longer allowing, as the son of Shem, the Hamites to rule. One can understand Kedrin’s story in the same way about Vilov’s son Nin, who was the first distributor of the Assyrian monarchy in the Middle Kingdom; Many historians say about him that he, wanting to possess many countries in which people lived peacefully, content with their borders, and were not taught the art of war, he conquered them and thereby expanded and established his monarchy. However, with this he did not satisfy his power-hungry desire, since he began to conquer distant countries, and he had a war with the Bactrian king Zoroaster, whom he also defeated and killed, and subjugated his kingdom. The Bactrian kingdom was located beyond Assyria and was adjacent to Asian Scythia; it received its name from the name of the Baktros river flowing there, on which stood the city of Bactra, which was the capital of this kingdom. There were only up to a thousand cities in it. In this kingdom, inhumane cruelty was practiced towards those who grew old: when the father and mother reached old age and already began to become exhausted, the children of these parents were given to dogs to be devoured. These dogs were kept carefully for this purpose and were called burial dogs, since they buried human flesh in their bellies. O ingratitude of children to their parents - to repay such torment for birth, upbringing and parental love! Oh, the blindness and delusion of the pagans, deceived by demons and considering this godless deed to be a pious deed! It is possible to think that this was allowed by the righteous judgment of God on these people, who were given as children to be devoured by dogs, since they themselves did not spare their little children, but sacrificed them to the demon. The Israelites later learned this from the pagans, as it is written in the psalms: “They devoured their sons and their daughters to the demon, shedding innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters” (Ps. 105:37-38). That is why they themselves were subsequently not spared by their remaining children, but were sacrificed to dogs, thus accepting retribution worthy of their deeds, in accordance with, as it were, God’s justice speaking to them: what you did to your children, you yourself will accept from your children; You have sacrificed your children to demons, but let your children devour you to dogs. It is said about Zoroaster that when he was born, he laughed, and this caused surprise among people, since all babies born into this world tend to cry, but he did not cry, but rejoiced and laughed joyfully. As he grew older, he became very quick-witted, and he is considered the first inventor of the wisdom of astrology and sorcery after the flood, and a skilled physician. He wrote numerous books with his teachings, but Nin burned them all, killing Zoroaster himself. This Zoroaster clearly revealed the variability of our life and the inconstancy of human happiness, or fortune. He was born laughing and died crying; He entered the world with joy, and left the world with lamentation. He did not shed tears at his birth, but at his death he shed blood. Having spent all his days safely in royal glory, he finally lost everything and, falling into the hands of his enemy, found an merciless death. What benefit did he have from that joyful birth when he ended his life with a bitter death, being killed by his enemy? Such is our life in this world, such is our well-being and joy! We begin with joy, we end with sadness; We rejoice a little about something, and immediately our joy turns into crying. For sadness unexpectedly comes from some occasion and takes joy away from our hearts, giving us lamentation instead of joy. And most of all this happens at the time of death, when everything joyful ceases, and sorrowful and sorrowful things begin for a person who spent his life in prosperity and sinful pleasures. Our life is like river waters, which are sweet to the taste, but which flow continuously until the bitterness of the sea, and when they enter the sea, they immediately destroy their sweetness and become bitter, like the waters of the sea. Likewise, our days seem sweet to us, for we are looking for various sweets in this life, either in quickly perishing riches, or in vain worldly glory, or in carnal peace and sinful pleasures; but with all this we flow day and night and approach the bitter sea, the hour of death. And when we enter this sea, we are immediately filled with sorrows, and we forget all the sweets, and then the past sweetness does not bring us any benefit, since a bitter time has come, for the past cannot sweeten the present. Oh, how many rivers flow into the sea! However, the sea does not sweeten its bitter nature, but also transforms the sweet river waters into its bitterness, how many sweets there are in this world! But if someone gathered them together and brought them to the bitter hour of death, he would not be able to sweeten a single feature and a single minute of the bitterness of that time, but would only increase the bitterness even more. For all present-day sweetness is then transformed into bitterness, and the more someone here has enjoyed temporary blessings, the more he is grieved there, according to that heavenly word that says about the Babylonian voluptuousness: “As soon as you are glorified and fierce, you will give her torment and weeping” (Apoc. 18:7). Blessed is the one who in this life does not laugh, but cries, does not rejoice over temporary blessings, but laments about sins, does not seek vain sweets, but carries the sorrow of death, judgment and Gehenna in his mind and worries about how to please God and be worthy of eternal pleasure in the joy of his Lord. Let it be known that subsequently there was another astrologer with the same name - Zoroaster, who lived in Persia. It is said about him that he predicted his death, which would befall him from lightning. He commanded the Persians to honestly preserve his bones, promising the Persian kingdom indestructibility as long as his bones rested in it. His first prophecy regarding his death came true, for he, being burned by lightning, died; another prediction concerning the Persian kingdom turned out to be false, for after a short time the kingdom was destroyed. You might be interested in: