События в пятом столетии четвертого тысячелетия

Sarah, Abraham's wife, knowing the repeated promise of God given to Abraham about the multiplication of his seed, and seeing her barrenness, when she was already approaching old age and maturation in years, thought about how this word of the Lord would come true? She did not expect in her old age to have from herself the fruit that she did not receive in her youth; for there has never been such an example in heaven of any woman giving birth in old age. Therefore, she mated her slave Hagar to her husband for the sake of the fruit, yielding to the honor of her marriage because of her barrenness, so that for the sake of her barrenness no obstacle to God’s promise would be created, for she put the will of the Lord her God above her life and wanted to have the children of the slave as her true children and heirs. She said to Abraham: “Behold, the Lord has imprisoned me not to give birth, so go in to my handmaid and give birth to her” (Gen. 16:2). Hagar, having conceived in the womb of Abraham, became proud of her mistress: for the slavish disposition is cruel and arrogant in joy and prosperity, just as the Scripture says: “The earth shakes in three, but cannot bear the fourth; if a slave reigns, if a madman is filled with food (that is, if a simple man becomes rich); If a slave prevails over her mistress, a vile wife will have her way with a good husband” (Proverbs 30:21-23). Hagar had such a disposition, but the power of her mistress prevailed and taught the slave to know her slavery and not to be arrogant. Hagar, unable to bear the punishment and not wanting to be obeyed, ran away from the face of Sarah. However, the angel of the Lord, having met her, exhorted her to return to her mistress and submit under her hand, and announced about the fetus conceived in the womb that there would be a son, and commanded that she give him the name Ishmael. Therefore, Hagar returned to Sarah and obediently reconciled with her, and at the end of her days she gave birth to a son, Ishmael, from whom the Ishmaelites later descended, they are also the Hagarians, named after Ishmael’s mother Hagar; they are also called Saracens on behalf of Lady Agarina Sarah. Izmailovo’s birth took place in the 86th year of Abraham’s life, after the tenth year of his stay in the land of Canaan. “You shall call his name Ishmael” (Gen. 16:11). Holy Scripture tells that five famous men were given a name from God before they were born: 1) Ishmael - Gen. 16, 11; 2) Isaac - Gen. 17, 19; 3) Solomon – 1 Chron. 22, 9; 5) John the Baptist - Luke. 1.13. After all of them - to Christ, our Savior (Matthew 1:21-23 and Luke 1:31). When Ishmael was thirteen years old, and Abraham was already 99 years old from his birth, God appeared to him, again renewing his previous promise: “You will be,” he said, “the father of many languages” (Gen. 17:4). And he changed his name, calling him Abraham instead of Abram, that is, the father of many; He also renamed Sarah Sarah, that is, the mistress of many. When she had already reached ninety years of age, the Lord promised her the resolution of infertility and the birth of a son, Isaac, from whom a great nation was to come. For Abraham, as well as for his entire household and the entire tribe that would come from him, God instituted circumcision, which was a prototype of Christian baptism, repentance and the mortification of carnal passions and the cutting off of all evil deeds. Moreover, circumcision was a foreshadowing of the resurrection. Just as it was ordained by God for newborn babies to be circumcised on the eighth day, so when on the day of the general resurrection everyone, as if from their mother’s womb, emerges from the tombs, “the youth of an eagle will be renewed like an eagle” (Ps. 102:5) and after seven centuries of time the state of the whole world will begin, as it were, the eighth day, the eighth century of endless life, then all natural corruption of man will begin. the flesh will be completely cut off. “It is fitting,” as the Apostle says, “for this corruptible to be clothed with incorruptibility, and for this dead thing to be clothed with immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53). After this, after a short time, God appeared a second time to Abraham at the oak of Mamre in a trinity of angels who came to him in human form at noon (Gen. 18:1-2). Abraham, sitting at the door of his church, not knowing that they were angels in human likeness, believed that these were some wandering people walking by. Like a stranger, he immediately got up and went to meet them in order to bring them back to himself, treat them and rest them in the coolness under the shade of an oak tree in the hour of midday heat. Approaching them, Abraham was horrified, for he saw their faces shining with the extraordinary glory of God. He realized that these were some saints or angels of God; he worshiped them (as the theologians suppose) first with that worship which is called “dulia” and which befits the veneration of the saints of God; then, having recognized by the revelation of God Himself in three persons the one God, he fell prostrate to the ground and worshiped Him with Divine worship, called “latria,” with which only the one God should be worshiped. Abraham began to converse with the Three as with one, saying: “Lord, if I have found grace before You, do not minimize Your servant from me” (Gen. 18:3). O most beloved and most honored Guest, Lord and King of glory! O blessed hospitality of Abraham, who kindly received wandering people and was deemed worthy to receive God Himself into his home! Although the incorporeal nature did not require food, the Lord did not forbid Abraham to take care of the provision of food, so that his zeal in love of hobbies would be more revealed. And Abraham, although he knew the Lord who had appeared to him in spirit, nevertheless tried to treat God Himself in the same way as he usually treated strangers for God’s sake, and did this either because he saw humanoid faces and thought humanly and cared about food, or because from joy and horror he did not know what to do. Or, perhaps, wanting to show Him the Omniscient his usual zeal in welcoming strangers, he slaughters the calf, orders unleavened bread to be prepared immediately, arranges an extensive meal for a loving treat, that everything was favorable and pleasing to the Lord God, as if done out of zealous love for Him. So, Abraham treated God not so much with the food offered, which the incorporeal nature did not need, but with pious faith and zealous love, with which God rests in the hearts of the righteous. The God-loving husband, having been honored to host his invisible Master in the visible presence of his host, was honored with greater His grace than before, and enjoyed a rather pleasant conversation with Him. For the philanthropic God talked with him as someone talks with his sincere friend. Abraham received a reward from the Lord for his love of hospitability: a second promise of the birth of a son from Sarah. Sarah doubted this, because she laughed and mentally said to herself: “Having never given birth before, when I was young, will I really be able to give birth in old age?” (Gen. 18, 12–13). The Lord immediately rebuked her thoughts and said: “Is it not possible to eat food from God and make every word come true? About this time and hour last year, by my presence you will have a son” (Gen. 18:14). After these words, the humanoid angels, forming the Trinity of persons of a single Divinity, rising from Abraham’s meal, turned their faces to go to Sodom. Abraham walked with them, seeing them off. During this procession, the Lord revealed to him His secret that he wanted to destroy Sodom and the surrounding cities for their great and most vile iniquities. “The cry,” He said, “of Sodom and Gomorrah has multiplied to Me, and their sins have been great: I have come down and see if such things are” (Gen. 18:20-21). And immediately two angels, leaving, went to Sodom, and the third remained to talk with Abraham. Abraham was imbued with courage and began to ask the Lord: “Will the city of sinners destroy, where will there be 50 righteous people? (Gen. 18, 23–24). The Lord, having heard this, mercifully answered: “If 50 righteous people are found in Sodomech, I will spare the whole border for their sake” (Gen. 18:26). Abraham was imbued with even greater boldness and, trusting in God’s love for mankind and calling himself ashes and earth, asked with great humility: “For the sake of the number of the righteous, will the city of sinners not be destroyed by less?” (Gen. 18, 27–28). The Lord, seeing that he was merciful for the sake of the righteous, reduced the number to forty, thirty, twenty and even ten people: “Shall only ten righteous people be found? The Lord answered: I will not destroy the city of ten sinners for the sake of the righteous” (Gen. 18:32). Having said this, the angel left him, and Abraham returned to his place. The first example of homosexuality was the righteous Abraham. How pleasing this virtue is to God was revealed in him, since God Himself, as if on a wandering journey, entered his tent. Let it be known from here that he who receives strangers and gives them rest receives angels and God Himself, just as Abraham received them. He receives angels, according to the apostolic word: “Do not forget your love of strangers, for there are angels who are ignorant and accept strangers” (Heb. 13:2). He also accepts God, as Christ our God says in the Holy Gospel: “You were hungry, and give Me food; you were thirsty, and you gave Me a drink; you were strange, and you knew Me” (Matthew 25:35). This also became known in very recent times, as can be seen from the life of St. Gregory the Dvoeslov, Pope of Rome. When one day the pope had twelve strangers at his meal, a thirteenth one appeared among them, who was an angel of God, as he himself later revealed to the holy pope (see this on the 12th day of the month of March). Another time, Saint Gregory, again inviting strangers to dinner, out of his usual humility, wished to pour water on the hands of one of them; he turned around and immediately took the vessel with water, but at that time the one to whom he wanted to pour water into his hands was not there. The saint looked for him diligently, but did not find him and was very surprised. The next night, while he was sleeping, the Lord appeared to him, saying: “On all other days you received My members, who are poor, but yesterday you received Me Myself.” How great was the zeal for hospitality among ancient Christians, see this in the life of the Monk Pachomius the Great (May 15), and also after his life read Rufinus’ story about the so-called city of Oxyrhynchos. An ancient Christian love of homosexuality is expressed there, of which there are no traces at present. In addition, about love of hospitableness, see the teaching of St. John Chrysostom in Margaret, recently published in Moscow, in word 2 about the rich man and Lazarus, as well as in the conversations on the letter of the Holy Apostle Paul to the Romans, moral teaching 21, and in the conversations on the Acts of the Apostles, moral teaching 45. “Abraham walked with them, leading me on” (Gen. 18:16). Another translation reads the words “conducting me” as follows: “showing them the way,” as if the angels sent by God to execute Sodom seemed not to know the way to Sodom; in a similar way, God in paradise called out to Adam: “Adam, where are you?” and Cain asks: “Where is Abel, your brother?” The All-Seer knew, but seemed not to know, where Adam had disappeared and where Abel had gone. In a similar way, here the angels going to Sodom seem to not know the way, so that Abraham, seeing them off, showed them the path leading there, as if asking: where is the city of Sodom? This thing is worthy of consideration and surprise, that the holy angels, looking down on the entire universe from above and passing everywhere at the command of God, knowing all the ends of the earth, seem to be ignorant of the path to Sodom. And to Abraham, who at that time lived alone in the oak grove of Mamre, why (I will say this in human terms) they came without a guide or guide; But to the city of Sodom, which stood on a high place, to which the path was known, since many people passed along it every day, they demand Abraham as a guide and wayfinder, as if they themselves could not get there? What is the reason for this and what is the mystery? One of the historians speculates as follows: “One house of Abraham was clean, but that whole country was filthy. The angels know well the pure people hiding somewhere, but they do not recognize the bad ones visible anywhere.” Here the reason and mystery are revealed why the angels without a guide reached Abraham, who lived in solitude, and demanded a guide to Sodom. In the entire country in which Sodom and the surrounding cities were located and with which Mamre was adjacent, only the house of righteous Abraham, who feared God, was clean: there was no lawlessness in it, but everyone lived their lives chastely and pleasing to God. That is why the holy angels knew the way to Abraham’s house, although he lived alone in the wilds and oak groves, for they constantly invisibly visit pure and godly people, no matter where they live, whether in the mountains, in deserts, or in any other place. As for Sodom with its surrounding villages, in view of the fact that it was all filled with lawlessness and sinful filth, and angels never visit vile sinners and do not even want to look at them because of their supernatural impurities, then in view of this they seem to have never passed through and do not know the way to the great and glorious city of Sodom that stood on a high place. Saint John Chrysostom seems to agree with this, saying the following: “Sodom had great pillars, but Abraham had a koliba (kusha, tent). But the angels, passing by Sodom, approached Abraham’s hulk; for they were not looking for the lordship of the house, but bypassed spiritual virtue” (Margaret about the seraphim). If at the present time there are any imitators of those ancient Sodomites (I think that there are), then let them know from here how abominable the sin of Sodom is for God and His angels; for not only do they not live with those who do this, but they don’t even want to know or see them; Pure spirits are driven away from such, driven away by the stench of sin, like bees by smoke. When the holy angels depart from the Sodomites, then who dwells with them, except unclean spirits? Where people, having changed their human disposition, become like pigs, loving pus and feces, there retreat the angels of God, who love to make friends with clean people, and not with pig-like people; Instead of angels, demons approach them and enter into community with them. Demons love such people and ask Christ to allow them to live in them, as in the pigs of Gergesin (Matthew 8:28-32); and is allowed to them, and they inhabit them, and drive them into that abyssal, stinking and stingy Lake of Sodom and even drown them in the abyss of hell. O accursed sodomite temperament among Christians! O extreme destruction! For the destruction of such does not sleep: the wrath of God and vengeance are near, fiery Gehenna is near, into which they will unexpectedly fall and perish if they do not repent. “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is multiplied in Me,” says God (Gen. 18:20). The Church Catechism teaches, on the basis of Holy Scripture, to know that there are four mortal sins, more serious than other mortal sins, crying to heaven, prompting God to take vengeance and attracting fierce execution. The first sin is voluntary murder, which began with Cain, who innocently killed his brother Abel. This sin cries out to God, as the Lord says to Cain: “The voice of the blood of your brother cries out to Me from the earth” (Gen. 4:10), cries out asking for vengeance. So John the Theologian subsequently heard in Revelation the holy souls, beaten for the word of God, crying out with a great voice and saying: “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will you not judge and avenge our blood from those who live on the earth?” (Apoc. 6:10). The second sin, crying out to heaven, as was already said above, is the lawlessness of Sodom. The third sin is oppression and bitterness inflicted on innocent people, the poor, widows, the orphaned and the poor, which was inflicted by the Egyptians on the Israelites, as the Scripture tells about this: “The children of Israel groaned from their work and cried out; and their cry to God from their labors went up, and God heard their groaning” (Ex. 2:23–24). The fourth sin, crying to heaven, is the withholding of mercenary wages, as St. James the Apostle says to the unrighteous rich: “Behold, the wages of the laborers who worked your fields, withheld from you, cries out; and the cry of them that reaped in the ears of the Lord of hosts was heard” (James 5:4). We must judge that the one sin of Sodom is the greatest of all, the most grave, the most cruel and the most wrathful of God, more than all the other sins that cry out to heaven. He who kills a person kills only the body, but cannot kill the soul; and he who embitters the poor and withholds mercenary bribes only takes away temporary blessings from them, while the eternal blessings prepared for them in the Kingdom of God remain inalienable. He who commits the lawlessness of Sodom not only deprives himself and another of the eternal heavenly blessings and not only defiles his and the other’s body, making him guilty of the death penalty by God’s and human judgment, but also kills his soul, which is more honorable than the body, and kills the soul of another with eternal death, making his and the other’s souls guilty of fiery hell. So, when a double murder is committed in such a Sodomite sin of two persons - mental and physical, and people are deprived of the Kingdom of Heaven, then it is obvious that this sin is the most cruel and greater than murder, in which only the body is killed, greater than the bitterness of the poor and the withholding of mercenary bribes, greater than all other mortal sins and the most abominable of this Sodomite sin before God, even more abominable than all others by nature frequent fornications. For such a sin, God wants not only to suffer eternal punishment in hell. But he also commanded that such a sinner be put to death by temporary execution, as it is written about in the book of Leviticus, in the twentieth chapter (Lev. 20:13). And He Himself was the first to bring fiery execution upon the Sodomites (which we will talk about now), giving an example so that they would subsequently be executed without mercy. Even if one of these does not accept execution in the present temporary life, hiding his Sodomite sin from human knowledge or in some way apologizing, however, unless he truly repents, he will not escape execution in the future eternal life, when the body and soul are united and are given over to fiery hell. For he who hides himself from people cannot hide from God, who sees everything, and, having escaped the hands of men here, will not escape the hands of God there: “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hand of a living God, who will wash His hands in the blood of a sinner” (Heb. 10:31; Ps. 57:11). As for the rest regarding the severity and abomination of this sin, let those who wish to know read the 4th conversation of St. John Chrysostom on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. “I went down and saw” (Gen. 18:21). The Lord God, having told His faithful servant Abraham about the cry of Sodom that it “came into His ears,” says: I will go down and see whether what is heard from their cry is really happening among them, and let me understand whether it is so or not. This is truly marvelous that the All-Seer is God, about whom Sirach writes: “The eyes of the Lord are like the brightest shadows of the sun, perceiving all the paths of man and looking into secret places; it will not even be done before, everything will be known to Him” (Sir. 23:27–29). And the Psalmist says to Him: “Thy eyes have seen my unfinished work” (Ps. 139:16). Such a seer is our Master, who sees the abyss, who knows the thoughts and counsels of the heart, and who sees what is happening in the most secret places and the darkness of the night, as if it were happening in reality, says: I will go and see whether what is heard about the Sodomites is true, whether they act as I hear about them, or not? He seems to be saying: I don’t believe the rumor, but I will go and see with My own eyes and then I will believe and bring execution on them. Why is this so? Or was it really necessary for the All-Seer Himself to descend from heaven to see the deeds of the sodomites? No, but let him instruct us so that we do not quickly believe the words of those who slander someone, so that we do not quickly incline to condemn our neighbor and punish him, until we ourselves see and know in perfection what is happening. This will be cowardice if we quickly believe the words of those who slander our neighbor and become angry and furious at him, without knowing for sure whether what is said about him is true. Many times the malice of evil people has been the beginning of evil glory about the innocent, and gullibility multiplies it. For what the wicked lie out of malice, the gullible multiply; giving faith to a lie and condemning their neighbor before many, they sow among people, like tares, evil rumors about that person who did not commit the sin of which they condemn him. Sometimes it happens that condemners, talking about someone’s small sin, inflate it with their false words and turn it into a great sin; they make a lion out of an ant, a camel out of a mosquito, an elephant out of a hare, and a great log out of a twig. Therefore, in such cases, it is necessary to carefully consider and fear that in some way a lie will not be accepted as the truth and that the small will not turn into the great, and the forgivable will not be put into the unforgivable. Teaching us this, God Himself shows us an example when He says: “I see the devil.” He heard the cry of Sodom, but was not immediately moved to anger, as if not giving faith to the hearing, although he knew well that it was true. He also did not immediately stretch out His hand to punish sinners, but He Himself drew near to see with His own eyes what He saw from afar, so that we too might be convinced not so much by hearing as by seeing. Oh, how many, and especially those in power, greatly sin by giving faith to hearing, and not seeing with their own eyes; They, without thoroughly examining the matter, condemn the sinless instead of the sinners! Did not Pentephry condemn the pure and holy Joseph to prison and chains in Egypt, believing his nasty wife, who slandered him, and not testing her words? And what did Constantine, the greatest among kings, do? He killed his beloved son Crispus, kind, innocent and beloved by all, with his own hand, since his stepmother, in the name of Favsta, slandered falsely, without receiving satisfaction for her nasty desire. For she was captivated by the beauty of Crispus (like the Egyptian woman by the beauty of Joseph), but could not persuade him to her foul lust (since the chaste young man did not want to desecrate his father’s bed) and lied to her husband, as if she had been raped by his son. The king, not experiencing the truth of this, immediately killed his son. Subsequently, having learned reliably about the lie, how much his heart hurt, he cried and sobbed, repenting of the unreasonableness of his action, but he could no longer revive the murdered man! He also killed his wife Favsta, who was responsible for the death of her son. So he committed two murders at the same time, righteous and unrighteous: he lost his son and wife, because at first he believed the rumor without experiencing its authenticity. (See about this in the suffering of the holy martyr Artemy, October 20.) Saint Chrysostom well admonishes those in power, saying: “Do not judge according to your opinion before you know whether it is really so, and do not immediately make anyone guilty, but rather imitate God, who says: I came down and saw.” Likewise, Saint Gregory the Interlocutor says: “God, before Whom everything is naked and open, punished the Sodomites for their sins not on the basis of what he heard, but on the basis of what he saw.” Saint Isidore Pelusiot, admonishing his relative Saint Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria, who was unjustly angry with Saint Chrysostom, wrote: “Without examining righteously and without testing reliably, no one should be condemned. For the Lord God, who knows everything before being and foresees everything that has been done, deigned Himself to descend from heaven to the cities that had sinned and angered Him: “Cry,” it is said, “of Sodom,” etc. This is what the All-Seer did, giving us an example, so that we would not immediately believe the slanderous words, but would first consider and find out for ourselves whether what we hear about is true. In a similar way, the Monk Pimen, answering a certain brother who was talking about the fall of another, said: “You yourself have not seen, and therefore do not believe the words you heard, for God, having heard the cry of Sodom, did not believe, but He Himself came down to see with His own eyes.” “Now I have begun to speak to my Lord, for I am earth and ashes” (Gen. 18:27). Abraham knew God who appeared to him, and he also knew himself, who he was: “I am earth,” he says, “and ashes.” The moon hides its rays when the sun shines, a star darkens during the light of day, and a lit candle in the sun’s rays does not spread its radiance; and the worm, which glowed gold at night like precious beads, when the day comes, turns out not to be a bead, but a worm. Likewise, as man approaches God, he recognizes his own thinness and insignificance. Abraham approached God so close that, just as a sincere friend converses with a sincere friend, so he too was vouchsafed to converse with God face to face and lip to lip: “Now,” he says, “I began to speak to my Lord,” and immediately in this closeness he recognized himself as a nonentity, and called himself earth and ashes. He seemed to be saying this: You, O my God and Creator, You are the unapproachable and unceasing light. I'm darkness! You are immortal, eternal and imperishable, but I will soon rot in the grave. You are Lord of the Lord and King of the King (Apoc. 17:14 and 19:16), but I am a worm crawling before the majesty of Your unapproachable glory. You live in heaven, but I dwell in the dust, for I am earth and ashes! O good humility of Abraham, which was born in him from knowing himself through the knowledge of God! For, having known God, he knew himself and humbled himself even to the earth and dust. From this we can see that from the knowledge of God, man comes to the knowledge of himself. Experienced people say that from the knowledge of oneself, a person comes to the knowledge of God, and insofar as one recognizes one’s own insignificance, one also comes to know God. For both, knowledge of God and knowledge of oneself, are interconnected: where one is, there is the other, although sometimes one precedes the other. Sometimes knowledge of God precedes knowledge of oneself, sometimes the first follows the second, and one gives rise to the other over time. However, from knowing ourselves we come more clearly to the knowledge of the existence of God, as those who have experienced this say about it. Clement of Alexandria says the following: “If anyone knows himself, he will also know God, and knowing God, he will become like Him.” Cassiodorus, the interpreter of the psalms, writing on the words of David: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak” (Ps. 6:3), says: “Great ascent to God is the knowledge of one’s weakness.” And again: “It is of great benefit for the servant of the Lord to know his weakness and not trust in his good deeds.” Isaac the Presbyter in his book on the creation of the world says: “Consider yourself nothing, and you will see the glory of God in you, for where humility is born (through self-knowledge), there the glory of God shines.” In Diopter it is written: the more you know yourself, the more perfectly you know God. You will say: we all know God and we are not atheists (atheists) or idolaters. I answer: we all know God by faith, but not by love and fear, and we do not love Him as we should love, and we do not fear Him as we should fear. If we really loved Him, then for the sake of this very love we would not want to grieve Him; if we really feared Him, then because of fear itself we would not transgress His commandments. We know that God exists, but we do not know what He is like. How pleasant He is to those who love Him, but how terrible He is to those who lovingly fear Him! We know God by what we have perceived by hearing, that is, we know from the words of God, but our mind does not deepen in Him and does not learn from His law. We are confident in His existence, but we do not delight in Him and do not consider His ineffable benefits that are revealed to us at every hour, and we are not grateful for this; We are also not afraid of His judgment and we are not afraid of His threats. He gives us heaven, but we treat this gift with neglect; He threatens us with torment, but we are not afraid. It would be better for sin lovers to avoid eternal torment than to avoid the eternal Kingdom! We think that we know God, but we are lazy and do not even want to please God, for in reality we are similar to those who do not know Him. We are advised to come to the knowledge of God through knowledge of ourselves. One of the wise men called self-knowledge a great philosophy. He says: you will be better if you know yourself than if, neglecting the knowledge of yourself, you acquire knowledge of stellar currents, the power of potions and flowers, knowledge of the nature of people and dumb animals and any other knowledge relating not only to heavenly, but also to earthly things. Not to know oneself means to be worse than cattle, for for cattle ignorance of oneself is a natural phenomenon, but for people this is not such, since it stems from self-willed madness. Truly such a person is like cattle that does not know itself. Was Nebuchadnezzar turned into a beast, who did not want to recognize his human weakness, but was exalted with pride, considering himself God? Where does pride come from among people, if not from here, for no one wants to know his own insignificance, but everyone thinks and imagines very much and lofty things about himself? Another is elevated by his origin from a noble family, although he is of the same nature as the last beggar; another is exalted by his wealth, although it is soon perishing; with other glory he puffs himself up, although impermanent, but like a passing wind; others boast of bodily strength and courage, although they are subject to sudden weakness and unexpected death; others are magnified by the beauty of their face, although it fades like a flower; another is famous for his wisdom, although there is much that he has not comprehended; others consider themselves great for their holiness and good deeds, although they are not successful in anything before God; and in general, many people think highly of themselves in different ways, and all this comes from the fact that they do not consider and do not know themselves. Saint Abraham gave an example of how to know oneself, saying about himself: “I am earth and ashes.” The Lord promises him great and many benefits, promises a son from whom his family will multiply like the stars of heaven; gives his tribe the entire land of Palestine as an inheritance and brings all the tribes under his blessing: “All the tribes of the earth will be blessed because of you,” he said; All the nations of the earth will be blessed because of your seed" (Gen. 12:3; 22:18). He makes him famous among the kings and forefathers, with high honor, great holiness; although he accepts all this with gratitude from his Lord, he seems to rather despise himself, considering him unworthy; heeding himself, he learned to know himself even to the depths of the earth He brought himself down; having his badness before his eyes, he called himself earth and ashes, and did not exalt himself in intelligence and was not proud. Truly, a person in this short life has nothing to be proud of, if he considers himself, what he represents. Having recognized his insignificance, he can easily humble his arrogance and come into tenderness and fear of God, resort with humble repentance to God and know Him in whom he has eternal life, and please Him who, for those who know, love and fear Him, is a crown, honor, glory, inheritance and reward in His endless Kingdom of Heaven. “If ten righteous people are found” (Gen. 18:32). For the sake of the ten righteous, if they were in the city of Sodom, God would have spared the city with all its borders; but even for the sake of one righteous Lot, who lived there, He did not subject Sodom to destruction until He brought Lot out of there. From here we see the following two truths: how useful righteous people are for cities, countries and kingdoms, and how great disasters cities, countries and kingdoms are subject to if there are no righteous people in them. Righteous people are useful where they live, and they are useful in two ways: partly through their lives and words, and partly through their prayers. They are useful in their life and in their words, for by the example of their virtuous life and spiritual exhortations they lead the wicked away from evil and instruct them on the path of virtues. And they are as useful as leaders are needed for the blind and lost, doctors for the sick, and skilled pilots for those exposed to storms, lighted candles for those sitting in darkness, and as heavenly lights for the whole world, so also for the righteous sinners, to whom the Apostle says: “You appear as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15). And the Lord Himself in the Gospel says to them: “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). For through them those who are in spiritual blindness are enlightened and the lost are guided towards the path of salvation; They are used to heal those who suffer from a conscience filled with sinful diseases, and those who are troubled by the vanity of this world are brought to the calm refuge of God, if only one of them looks at their godly life and tries to imitate it. Abba Dorotheos wrote well in his book about Divine fear: “The brother asked one of the elders: What will I do, Father, so that I fear God? And the elder answered him: go, cleave to a man who fears God, and he, himself fearing God, will teach you to fear God” (On the fear of God, 4th word). The same must be said regarding any other virtue, if anyone wishes to strengthen himself in one. If anyone wants to acquire a chaste and pure life, become a friend of the chaste and pure and imitate his life. If you want to be humble, meek, and kind, make friends with someone who is humble, meek, and kind. Are you looking to learn spiritual intelligence, talk often with spiritual men, and you will become accustomed to every godly thing from those pleasing to God, as David says: “You will be with the venerable one” (Ps. 17:26). Cohabitation with the righteous will greatly correct a sinful person, if the sinner begins to listen to the righteous. In the Books of Kings it is written: by chance a dead man was thrown into the tomb of the prophet Elisha, and as the corpse of the dead touched the bones of Elisha, immediately the dead man came to life and stood on his own feet (2 Kings. 13, 21). If from the dead bones of the righteous the dead body received life force through touching them, then all the more from the proximity of the living righteous can souls deadened by sins rise to repentance and stand up for the correction of their lives, unless someone turns out to be hardened harder than a stone, as Judas was in the time of Christ the Lord among the holy apostles, and as in the days of Lot the Sodomites turned out to be, to their greater condemnation. The righteous are also useful through their prayers, for they help a lot to those with whom they are with, since they save them from troubles and evils that the wrath of God brings or is allowed to happen to people who have sinned and irritated God. In such cases, the righteous are as useful for cities, countries and kingdoms as pillars for churches and walls for a city, for that is what they are called by the holy fathers. Saint John Chrysostom called righteous men the pillars of the fatherland, and Saint Ambrose called them stone walls. Just as pillars strengthen a building and just as stone walls protect a city and make it strong, so the righteous, if they are found somewhere, establish and protect the fatherland and the country, appeasing the angry God and protecting them from impending executions. God wanted to destroy the entire people of Israel, brought out of Egypt, in the desert with His righteous wrath for their many sins, and the house of Israel was about to fall and perish, but righteous Moses, like a pillar supporting a building, stood before God, pleading for them; and he begged Him and supported the tribe of Israel, which was about to fall and perish, as it is narrated in the psalms: “Say ye to them, if His chosen Moses had not stood in contrition before Him, turn back His wrath, lest He destroy them” (Ps. 105:23). At that time, Moses was like a pillar and strength for the house of Israel. The same people of Israel, when they had already received the promised land as an inheritance and lived in it for many years, this people wanted to destroy the enemies of the Philistines and completely exterminate them from among those living on earth; For this purpose, he gathered his forces in great numbers and approached the city of Mizpifah, where there was a gathering point for the Israelis. And the Philistines would undoubtedly have defeated the Israelites and destroyed them, since the Israelites were without weapons and were not skilled in wars at that time, since they could not match the Philistines in numbers and since, and this is the main thing, they had God angry with them. Because of all this, they had to fall under the feet of their adversaries. But among them was the righteous Samuel, who, with his warm prayers to God for them, protected them like a wall and not only did not allow the opposing forces to approach the city, but also miraculously defeated the Philistines without fighting, beat them without weapons, drove them away without arrows and slings. For as he prayed, the Lord that day thundered over the foreigners with a great voice, and they became dismayed and fell before Israel. Then for the Israelites only Samuel the righteous was like a stone wall, protecting them from adversaries (1 Samuel 7:3-13). Also, the prophet Elisha, righteous before the Lord, was not a stone wall for the city of Israel Dophaim, which was enveloped by the multitude of Syrian troops? Truly, he was a wall when he not only kept the city intact, protecting it with an angelic invisible force, sent to him through his prayers by God, struck those who resisted with blindness and led them from Dophaim to Samaria (2 Kings 6:8-20). In the same way, the Christian Greek city called Nisivia, which was heavily besieged by the Persians and was already ready to fall, was defended by one righteous James, the saint of this city (Jan. 13). For when he climbed the city wall and prayed to God, then Persian mosquitoes and dog flies were sent by God to the regiments, the bite of which was so fierce that the horses and camels, unable to endure, tore their bridles and reins and ran uncontrollably to and fro. However, not only for dumb animals, but also for the Persians themselves, those mosquitoes and flies were very difficult and unbearable, worse than even the darkness of armed warriors. And they fled in shame from the city, driven away not by weapons or arrows, but by mosquitoes and flies. Was not that righteous man then a stone wall for the city? Blessed is that city and that country where at least one righteous man is found, for for his sake God spares many sinners, without destroying them for the sake of the one righteous man who prays for them, as has already been said. But one can also see from the Gospel parable that for the sake of the righteous, God spares sinners (Matthew 13:24-30). A certain homely man sowed good seed in his field, but a secret enemy sowed tares among the wheat. When the grass sprouted and the fruit was ready to appear, then the tares also appeared among the wheat. Therefore, the servants tell the master to command them to destroy the tares, but he forbade them, saying: “Do not delight in the tares and the wheat along with them, but let them both grow together until the harvest.” In the interpretation of the parable, wheat refers to the righteous, and tares mean sinners. The tares are not pulled out to keep the wheat intact; Sinners are also spared for the sake of the integrity of the righteous, and thus, for the sake of the righteous, sinners are also whole. Woe to that city and that country where not a single righteous person is found, for ruin and destruction are near there. An example of this would be Sodom. Until then he was whole, as long as righteous Lot was in him; when he withdrew from it, then the whole country of Sodom perished. We are amazed at the wars that are taking place at the present time, the destruction of cities, the devastation of countries, internecine warfare, much bloodshed and countless troubles everywhere. What is the reason for all this? The one who has diminished in righteousness: “Everyone has turned aside, together with the indecent things that have come, not doing good, not even one” (Ps. 13:3). Everyone turned to corruption, everyone began to anger God and grieve His kindness, and irritate His long-suffering. Everyone, committing iniquities without fear or fear, brings up God’s justice for revenge and execution. That is why such great evil is being committed everywhere that the righteous who could plead with God for sinners have diminished. Two holy prophets mourned the decline of the righteous on earth - David and Micah. David cried out to God: “Save me, Lord, for the venerable one has become poor, for the truth has fallen away from the sons of men; vain words every one to his sincere, flattering lips in the heart, and evil words in the heart” (Ps. 11: 2-3). And Saint Micah not only complains, but also weeps, saying: “It is cruel to me, my soul, that the fearing of God perished from the earth, and there is no righteousness among men. Everyone hides in blood, each one embitters his neighbor with bitterness, he prepares his hands for evil, the prince asks (for gifts), and the judge speaks peaceable words, but the thoughts of his soul are flattery (Mic. 7:2-3). But what sorrow do you have, O holy prophets, because the righteous have diminished on earth? Sadness, they say, because troubles will follow. Saint David, having spoken about the scarcity of the righteous and the increase of the unrighteous, then quotes the following words: “The Lord will consume all flattering lips” (Ps. 11:4). What will follow, he says, is the destruction of all the false and unrighteous. Therefore, save me, Lord, so that I, along with them, will not be consumed from the earth! In the same way, Saint Micaiah proclaims the undoubted execution of God where there are no righteous, saying: “At the fierce, at the fierce! Having hastened to take revenge, now their laments will come” (Mic. 7:4). So from the words of both those prophets it undoubtedly follows that woe to that city and that country that does not have a righteous person in itself. Those two angels who had separated from the third angel who remained with Abraham came to the city of Sodom on the evening of the same day on which they were with Abraham. Lot, who had previously lived with Abraham for a long time and learned from him how to receive strangers, sat before the gates of the city of Sodom and waited for some stranger coming to the city, wanting to accept him into his house for God’s sake and keep it safe from the malice and stinginess of the sinful shameless and lawless Sodomites. And then those two angels in human form began to approach the city. Lot, seeing them and considering them to be people, stood up and went to meet them, and bowed to them, begging them to enter his house and rest until the morning. They pretended that they did not want to enter his house, but wanted to stop in the city square. They revealed this reluctance so that Lot would show greater zeal and love for strangers, and at the same time become worthy of greater God’s mercy. The righteous man forced them with his diligent prayers, and they turned towards him and entered his house, where he gave them a treat. The travelers had not yet fallen asleep after the evening meal, when the lawless people of that city, accustomed to dishonoring strangers coming to their city with fornicating violence, gathered together, from young to old, wanting to commit the same shameless violence and dishonor on those two strangers whom they saw entering Lot’s house. They surrounded Lot’s entire house and called Lot, saying: “Where are the two men who came to you to spend the night? Bring them out to us, so that we may put them to shame” (Gen. 19:5). O the shamelessness of these lawless people! Oh their extreme lustful fury, which is not only shameful to talk about and write about, but also stingy to hear and terrible to think about! However, it is narrated and written to notify God’s terrible vengeance on such people and to show the eternal and terrible destruction of those who, having rejected the fear of God from their hearts, dare to commit the same deeds. Let us therefore listen with chaste ears to the story told in Holy Scripture about the shamelessness of the Sodomites. It was not enough for the Sodomites to commit their most disgusting and unnatural impurities among themselves, but they raged with the same fornication against the strangers who came to their city and committed robbery, not in the deserts and not on the roads, but in the middle of their city, committing robbery; and they did not take away the travelers’ property, but their chastity and purity; They did not kill the body to death, but through mortal and stingy sin they desecrated, disgraced and dishonored, which was no less than death itself, for for a chaste person it is better to die than to suffer in such a way. But the most amazing thing is that everyone, from young to old, from young to old, the whole people was in the same evil spirit and equal sinful relish. It is not so surprising to see those who have grown old in sinful malice and uncontrollably commit shameless deeds, for in such people the sinful habit has turned into an inconvenient nature, and they no longer have the strength to lag behind the habitual sin - how surprising it is to see young, not yet matured youths, who have already fallen into shamelessness and lewd stinginess and, together with those who have grown old, attack the house of Lots. The reason for such a former fornication in the young men is known: the old ones clearly committed sins without shame, and the young, looking at the old ones, imitated them and committed the same evil that they saw their fathers commit. Oh, what great harm comes to young souls from the seductive example set by the elders! O fierce woe to the old who seduce the young! It would be better for them, according to the Gospel words, to hang a millstone around their necks and cast themselves into the sea (Matthew 18:6; Mark 9:42; Luke 17:2)! So in Sodom, from each other, the young from the old, learned evil and were all alike and equal in sinful impurities; There was not a single one in their entire city (except Lot) who was not defiled in their sins. For they all cried out with anger at righteous Lot so that he would bring out the two men who came to him to shame for fornication. Righteous Lot did not want to hand over those strangers whom he accepted into his home and to whom he promised a fearless stay with him to such desecration and dishonor and did not know what to do and how to protect them. To satisfy the desire of the Sodomites, he decided to give them his two daughters, maidens who were betrothed to their husbands, but had not yet known a husband, agreeing to accept the insult himself and bring dishonor on his daughters rather than betray strangers to such evil. In addition, the righteous husband also had in his mind that prudent reasoning that it is better if God is angry with a lesser sin, which naturally occurs with the female sex, than a greater one and committed unnaturally; and it is better for those citizens with whom he lives next door to suffer a lesser punishment of God for a lesser sin, rather than a greater punishment for a greater crime. Thus, reasoning within himself and partly pitying the wanderers, partly sparing sinners, and most of all preserving God’s honor (for those who transgress and violate the order of nature created by God create dishonor to the Creator), the holy man wanted to give them his beloved daughters. However, the Sodomites, inflamed not by natural, but by unnatural sin, frantic with prodigal desire, demanded not Lot’s daughters, but the men who came to commit their iniquity. They began to smash the doors of Lot's house in order not only to disgrace the strangers, but also to kill Lot himself. Then the holy angels, hiding their angelism in human form, struck all those shameless people with blindness, so that they could not find not only Lot’s doors, but also their houses (Gen. 19:11). So the holy angels delivered their stranger from trouble for their treat. Lot, seeing such a miracle, realized that these strangers were not ordinary people, but some saints of God, and began to honor them even more with reverence and fear, giving them gratitude for the fact that they had delivered both himself and his daughters from the hands of violent lawless people. Then the angels told Lot who they were and that they had been sent by God to destroy the city and all its surroundings, because the cry of the sins of Sodom had ascended to God; for human nature itself, raped and defiled by unnatural fornication, cries out to God, raising Him up for vengeance. Therefore, the angels said, the Lord sent us to destroy all those who rebel against their nature and anger God, who created nature and set limits for it. He does not tolerate His creation being subjected to violence and the laws of nature laid down by Him being violated and ruined. The angels, informing Lot of this, told him that he should take those whom he had as his relatives and loved ones with him and bring them out from there before he found the execution of God on the lawless city. Lot was filled with horror and went to his sons-in-law, to whom his daughters were betrothed, and said to them: get up and get out of this place with me, because the Lord God wants to destroy the city for the increase of lawlessness in it. Having heard this, they did not believe the righteous Lot and mocked themselves at his words; therefore, they became unworthy of deliverance from the execution approaching the city and died with the lawless, as lawless. For disobedience to good advice, which is given by godly men, is already lawlessness. When the day began to dawn, the angels forced Lot, leaving all his possessions, to hurry to save himself; for the estates will again be given by God in abundance, since He does not abandon His servants who please Him. And they dragged him, saying: “Rise up, take your wife and your two daughters and quickly leave the city, lest you perish with those who perish” (Gen. 19:15). The angels, taking Lot, his wife and daughters by the hand, led him out and said: “Saving save your soul, go from here quickly, do not look back, do not stay in all this border, but be careful in the mountain (which is beyond Zoar), so that the evil that is to be found in Sodom may not befall you too” (Gen. 19:17). Since it was a long way to run to the indicated mountain, Lot prayed that he would be commanded to enter a small town called Zoar, which was close on his way, and this was not forbidden to him. This town, which the Lord promised to keep intact, although it was located within the borders of Sodom and was subject to the same execution as Sodom, was nevertheless spared for the sake of the righteous. Lot hastily approached Zoar with all his household, and the Lord said to him: “I tried to save you there, for I cannot bring execution on the Sodomites until you reach Zoar” (Gen. 19:22). O great mercy of God to His servant, for whose sake His vengeful hand was restrained for a short time from punishing sinners, so that when they are executed, some fear would not seize the righteous! And God did not bring plague upon Sodom until Lot entered Zoar. When Lot entered this town, the sun rose over the earth, and the Lord rained burning stones from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah, set them on fire and destroyed them with their surrounding cities (with the exception of that small Zoar, into which Lot ran). Thus, the vengeance of God destroyed everything living in the land of Sodom, from man to livestock and animals, and burned all the gardens, forests and all the vegetation of the earth. When such a terrible execution on the Sodomites was carried out due to the great wrath of God and the indomitable wrath of God, which, in its righteous judgment, mercilessly destroys sinners, then Lot’s wife (when Lot was already entering Zoar itself) looked back, and immediately the execution of God befell her - she was turned into a pillar of salt, and she became soulless. Having escaped the storm and unrest, she died in silence and at the shelter; Having escaped the death of Sodom, she died in the place where salvation was prepared for her. On the same day and hour, Saint Abraham left his tent and came to the place to which he had led three angels yesterday and where the third angel remained to talk with him, while the other two retired to Sodom. Looking from this place at Sodom and Gomorrah and all the surrounding lands, he saw that a flame was rising from that land with great smoke, for that whole country was burning like a fiery furnace. This is how Sodom perished, executed by the terrible wrath of God for its nasty and unnatural sins! “Two angels came to Sodom” (Gen. 19:1). Let us hear: three angels came to the righteous man Abraham, and two to Sodom - why not three here, just as there were three there, and not two, since here there are two, and not three? The mysteries of God are unknown, and His destinies are untested. However, a right-thinking mind can guess from this that the Lord our God is generous in doing good to people, but more stingy in punishing them. Wanting to reward His servant Abraham with many gifts, in order to resolve his childlessness, give him a son in his old age, multiply his tribe like the stars of heaven and make him the forefather of the Messiah who was about to be born, he came to him in perfect form, in three angelic faces, all ready to pour out his blessings. Wanting to punish the sinful Sodomites, to burn their bodies with fire, and to betray their souls to eternal Gehenna, He seemed to belittle Himself, coming to them in only two persons, as if unwilling, but forced by the cry of their supernatural sins, day and night calling out to Him and demanding vengeance. Perhaps it was for this reason that he came to Sodom in two, and not three, persons, so that that sinner who, at the very hour of execution in his mind would turn to repentance, would have that one face of God merciful to him, who did not come to execute, but remained to be merciful, and so that such a sinner would have someone to resort to from an angry God to a merciful God. For when two persons execute and destroy those who have sinned, a third person is ready to have mercy and spare them from torments, if not from those that temporarily befall the body, then from those that eternally execute the soul, if only one of them were to repent. “There is blindness from the least to the greatest” (Gen. 19:11). The angels struck the fornicators with the punishment due to them - the blinding of their fleshly hair, executing in them first of all the blinding of their minds. For when lustful lust takes over in someone and becomes a habit, it blinds the person; if it does not blind the carnal eyes of such a person, it nevertheless destroys his intelligent eyes, so that he does not see either God, or people, or himself. For such a person no longer fears God, is not ashamed of people, and does not spare himself, but like a blind man in a pit, so he falls into the abyss of prodigy and perishes. Saint Ambrose explains this, saying: “Fornicating lust is blind and does not see anything in front of it.” The fornicator, blinded by his mind, does not see God, for he is careless of His wrath and is not afraid of His terrible vengeance. God is very angry with a prodigal person who is defiled by sin, for such a person not only transgresses the commandment of God, commanding him not to commit adultery, but also inflicts a great offense on the Son of God Himself in new grace, Christ our Savior, “by creating His harlots,” as the Apostle says, “the harlots of harlots” (1 Cor. 6:15), for our bodies are harlots. Christ's; he who defiles his body with fornication defiles the ouds of Christ within himself. We have put on Christ with holy baptism, as in royal purple: “For as we were baptized into Christ, let us put on Christ, that we may be heirs of His kingdom” (Gal. 3:27, 29). If someone had deliberately desecrated the royal purple, or, better yet, the king himself, with stinking pus, would the king not have been angry with him and given him over to severe torment? Truly, a fornicating Christian does the same thing: he defiles Christ, in whom he has clothed himself, with the stinking pus of his fornication. Doesn’t such a person greatly anger Christ God and expose him to severe torment? If in those ancient times, which were before the incarnation of Christ and before the giving of the law on the Tablets of Moses, if in those times God did not spare the fornicators, but destroyed others with a flood, and destroyed others with fire and hailstones sent from heaven, then how will He spare now, when the law of God is preached, when Christ already lives in human bodies, when civil laws prohibit fornication and when laws have been established everywhere for Are these things threatening punishments? How can God not eternally execute those who have despised and neglected all this and are not only not afraid of temporary torment, but also not afraid of eternal punishment and dare to commit their fornication without abstinence? Indeed, God will punish such sinners mercilessly. “For God judges the fornicator and the adulterer,” says the Apostle (Heb. 13:4). He has already prepared His sophisticated sword for them, as it is related in the Revelation of St. John the Theologian. Having appeared to His beloved disciple John, Christ our Lord says: “Write to the angel of the church of Pergamon: this says: He has a two-edged sword (Apoc. 2:12). On whom exactly did our Lord sharpen this sword and whom does he want to flog and execute with it, let us listen: you have, he says, “those who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak, set a temptation before the children of Israel to eat to idols and to commit fornication: so do you and you who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans, whom I hate”? (Apoc. 2:14–15). What was the Nicolaitan teaching? - having common wives and committing fornication without abstinence. And the Nicolaitans seduced the faithful people of Christ, just as in ancient times Balaam seduced the sons of Israel (Numbers 31:16). From here you can clearly see for whom the Son of God has prepared a two-edged sword: for those who live in the filthiness of prodigals. God hates such as His enemies, for, in the words of the apostles, “the wisdom of carnal enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7), that is, the lawless and uncontrollable lust of the flesh, committed in prodigal sins, is enmity against God. If the long-suffering Lord does not immediately cut off His enemy with the prepared sword, does not kill him in the most fornicating act, expecting his repentance, however, the time will come in which He will “wash His hands in the blood of the sinner” (Ps. 57:11), if he does not repent. It also happens that a sinner in the most sinful deed is struck by the wrath of God by unexpected death, for the flood came over the world when people got married and encroached, and fire unexpectedly fell on Sodom and caught many in that act. And at the present time, when a fornicator commits his sin, God is angry with him and is angry with him as if he were His enemy; the sword of God's punishment hangs over the sinner, hell opens its mouth under him, fiery hell ignites for him, never-ending worms multiply for him, pitch darkness and the torments of Tartarus await him, the hands of demons are ready to kidnap him and would have kidnapped him immediately if this had not been forbidden to them by God. The holy angels, in vain, turn away from his bad deed, the saints, seeing, abhor, the guardian cries, the demons rejoice, and the fornicator with his mind does not think anything about this, for he is blind and does not see God and the eternal punishment prepared for him by the wrath of God. Next. The fornicator, blinded by his mind, does not see people, that is, he is not ashamed of them, as if not noticing them, although he knows that everyone knows his iniquities and that everyone laughs at him; however, he neglects this, ruining his shame. Such was Absalom, the son of David, who went in to his father's concubines in the sight of all the Israelites (2 Sam. 16:22). Such was Herod, who took his brother’s wife, without being ashamed of all the inhabitants of Palestine. Such was Caesar Nero, who, naked and with naked maidens, was not ashamed to fish in the golden lake in front of all his nobles. For lust blinds the eyes, so that no one will be ashamed, just as a blind man is not ashamed of anyone. It was not in vain that the ancient Greeks, being in idolatry, depicted fornication in the image of a young man, whom they called Cupid, blind and naked, with his eyes covered and blindfolded, and his whole body without any clothing; In this image they denoted youthful vacillation in carnal lusts and shameless shamelessness in fornication, not caring about one’s nakedness and about the manifestation, I say, of one’s deeds to others; all this has become most common among high-ranking people, living autocratically by their own will, who have no one to fear, but who should most of all be abstinent and honestly observe their pure life as an example to the people under their authority, since they are both judges and punishers of human sins. Such people delve into carnal impurities most of all and, despising their honor and rank, enslave themselves to their passions. So those who rule nations are themselves possessed by their own uncontrollable lust. Diogenes, well known among Hellenic philosophers, called fornication the queen of kings, for she possesses kings: they possess the peoples, and she reigns over them. This can be seen in King Darius, from whose head his concubine Apaminya removed the royal diadem, placed it on her head and struck the king’s cheek with her hand; he looked at her with open lips, and if she laughed, he laughed too; if she was angry, he consoled her until she began to talk to him (2 Ezra 4:28-31). The story tells a similar story about the strong and glorious Gothic king Athanaric, that he did not hesitate to clean the boots or sandals of his fornicator Pinthia, performing slavish obedience to the prodigal wife whom he loved immensely. O passionate enslavement! The one who was terrible to many nations, invincible in battle, reigned over Rome and owned countries, he was the slave of a harlot! O extreme madness, blindness and shamelessness! Finally, the fornicator, blinded by his mind, does not see himself, that is, he does not care about his vanity, does not look at how many great benefits he is deprived of and destroys his triple benefits: either external ones, which he has from fortune or successfully acquired by happiness; or natural benefits for the body; or, finally, internal, mental, spiritual benefits. He destroys external blessings, acquired possessions, wealth, contentment and abundance and ends in poverty and poverty, as it is written in Proverbs: “He who tends fornicators will destroy his wealth” (Proverbs 29:3). An example of this is the prodigal son, given as a parable by Christ the Lord in the Gospel, who squandered his property, living fornication, and fell into such great poverty that he ate with pigs (Luke 15:13-16). Prodigal intemperance not only leads one person into trouble and deprives him of temporary blessings, but also ruins and devastates entire cities and countries, takes away the scepters of kings and makes the military force weak and dishonest. Was it not for the sake of this passion (after the destruction of Sodom) that the anciently glorious Greek city of Troy perished through the fault of one harlot Helen? Was it not for the same guilt that the city of Shechem was cut off with the edge of a sword and destroyed after Jacob’s daughter Dinah was raped there (Gen. 34:1-29)? Also, the city of Benjamin, Gibeah, was not burned for the sake of prodigal violence, and the tribe of Benjamin almost all perished in internecine warfare (Judges 20:4-48). What can we say about strong rulers? Sardanapalus, the Assyrian monarch, lost his life and kingdom for the sake of the fury of the prodigal. Tarquinius of Rome was expelled from the kingdom for raping his honest wife Lucretia. And King David of Israel, oh, how many troubles he caused, allowed by God for the sin of adultery! Even if the guilt of sin was absolved to him, so that he would not perish because of it forever, the punishment due for sin did not pass by, but he bore it according to God's justice. For he was driven out of the kingdom for a time when his son rebelled against him; Then he received annoyance and reproach from Shimei the Jerusalemite and suffered many other evils. The same sinful passion makes strong military regiments powerless and easily defeated. For did not the Israeli power fall defeated at the feet of the Philistines because of the fornication of their leaders Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of the priest Eli (1 Sam. 2:22-34; 4:10-11)? And Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian troops, although he did not commit violence on the beautiful Judith, however, for the very intention and desire of this, he himself lost his own head, and shamefully threw all the Assyrian power under the feet of the few citizens of Bethulia into trampling and eternal shame. Thus, prodigal passion is not useful to anyone, but it takes away and destroys the benefits of fortune or happiness from everyone! An intemperate fornicator also destroys the natural benefits of his body, which are the health of the body, the beauty of the face, the beauty of the eyes, the pleasantness of the voice, vigor, courage, strength and strength. Because of intemperate lust in a person, all this weakens and diminishes, just as a flower fades and dies. And most of all, when one of these is attacked by a stingy and very painful disease - the difficult-to-heal French leprosy, which is accustomed to being born and living nowhere else but among prodigals (is it by chance that sometimes an innocent person is harmed by an infected person); when this disease sets in, then it, like a never-ending worm, devours the whole body and covers it with scabs from head to toe, emits an evil stench and makes a person disgusting to everyone: everyone avoids such a person as their fiercest enemy. The fornicator also destroys his fruit, which he should have had in a legal marriage, honest and for the glory of God: by pouring it into a harlot, as into a swamp, he gives birth to dishonest babies and diminishes his honest family. Every adulterer destroys true love and union with his wife, for she, having learned that her husband is committing adultery, begins to hate him and abhor him, and another also begins to commit adultery in spite of her adulterous husband. Finally, he ruins the years of his life, for when a fornicator is intemperate, then his strength decreases from fornication, the days of his life are shortened, and he grows old and dies before his time. But before such aging, death quite often occurs either from poison or from murder. For some, because of harlots, fight with each other to the point of their souls, as because of Taisia, the Egyptian harlot, who was beautiful in face, many quarreled and fought, staining the threshold of her house with their blood. But let's not talk about it. We affirm that all internal spiritual blessings are diminished when a person is mired in prodigal passions. His memory becomes exhausted, his mind becomes darkened, and his free will begins to slavishly serve his passions; when this sin, with which he has already become accustomed, begins to dominate in him, then he “doesn’t even want to do this, but even if he doesn’t want to, he does it” (Rom. 7:19). All those good and godly deeds that merit salvation weaken in such a person and turn into the opposite, just as it is written in Wisdom: “The desire of lust changes the mind to a gentle mind” (Wisdom 4:12). But the greatest loss for a Christ-loving soul is the deprivation of God’s grace, since, if it does not repent, it becomes alien to the adoption of God, the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven, friendship with angels, communion with the saints, the eternal reign of Christ and His delightful contemplation, in which all the joy and joy, all the bliss and delight lies for the saints of God. “I will be satisfied,” it is said, “to never be revealed to Your glory” (Ps. 16:15). The lustful fornicator, who has given himself entirely to his carnal lusts, destroys all this and does not regret it at all. Finally, he is guilty of eternal torment, unquenchable fire and never-ending worm, pitch darkness and tartar, which Satan himself trembles at; however, like a blind man, he does not see all this and does not want to see, does not consider, does not reason and does not spare himself, preparing for himself such fierce torment. O extreme blindness with which a sinner is blinded for the sake of short-term sinful pleasure! The Psalmist speaks the truth on behalf of such a sinner: “My iniquity has befallen me, and I am not able to see it!” (Ps. 39:13). The holy angels, punishing this blindness of mind in the prodigal inhabitants of Sodom before the fiery execution, struck their fleshly eyes with blindness. “The Lord will rain on the burning stones on Sodom and Gomorrah” (Gen. 19:24). Jerome's translation reads: "The Lord shall rain brimstone and fire upon Sodom." From here you can see that those stones that were rained from heaven were burning brimstone, just as from the words of the Gospel the same can be understood, since the following is written in them: “On the same day Lot (from Sodom) came out, (the Lord) rained down fire and a bogeyman from heaven and destroyed everything” (Luke 17:29). Brimstone is called sulfur. Truly, the execution is cruel, for sulfur ignites more than any other substance, burns with the most terrible fire, and at the same time emits an unbearable stench. So this execution turned out to be similar to the stinking sin of Sodom: for the stripping of flesh - fire, for the stench of sin - the stench of sulfur. O people, how long will you be imitators of the Sodomites! Look at the example of the execution awaiting you! If this happened in Sodom, then what can happen in fiery Gehenna? What flame, what stench, what torment, who can announce all this? Listen to the holy Apostle Jude, who says: “Sodom, Gomorrah and their surrounding cities, which in like manner committed adultery and walked after other flesh, will stand as a sign of the everlasting fire of judgment” (Jude 1:7). Here let us remember this terrible thing, about which Blessed Jerome writes that on that holy night on which Christ our Savior was born from the Most Pure Virgin, all those people who found themselves committing acts of Sodom, throughout the entire universe were struck and killed by fire and lightning in this very sinful act. For the source of purity, Christ, entering the world with His most pure Nativity, did not tolerate in it at the hour of His Nativity the commission of that sin, which He, while living in heaven, did not tolerate to see from above being committed on earth and in one hour destroyed the five cities of Sodom. Hear this and take heed, O most lawless and nasty Sodomite! Tremble in soul and body, lest God suddenly strike you from above with thunder and lightning, or command the earth to open its mouth under you and bring you down to hell alive! “The Lord transform the cities and all that live” (Gen. 19:29). Just as before, in the days of Noah, for the sake of sinful people, God destroyed with a flood the beasts and cattle, and everything living on earth, so later in the cities of Sodom, the Lord did not spare a single animal, but destroyed them all, along with the nasty people who angered Him. And what is even more terrible is that infants feeding on the breasts of their mothers, gentle and not guilty of any sin, were not spared, but by the same execution with their fathers they were exterminated on earth from among the living. From here we will know that for the sins of important persons and lower ones they are subject to disasters. In any city or country, people in power are to the people as fathers to children. When they anger God with their lawless deeds and restore Him to vengeance, then the vengeance of God, which falls on the lawless rulers, also befalls the people under them, as was the case during the flood and in Sodom; When the fathers sinned, their children who did not sin, as well as all the animals, suffered execution. There is a question: why did the Lord God, both in the water execution during the global flood and in the fire execution during the burning of the Sodomites, not spare innocent children who had not done any evil, but destroyed them along with their wicked fathers - is this not contrary to the justice of God? I answer. This is not injustice, but rather the mercy of the Lord God, who builds everything for the good. For this purpose, he, along with his guilty fathers, destroyed innocent babies from the face of the earth, so that the latter, when they came of age, would not in any way become heirs and imitators of the evil deeds of their fathers and would not become the same nasty lawless people as their fathers, and so that they would not then be handed over to eternal torment. Therefore, having mercy on them, the Lord interrupted their temporary life with temporary execution, but kept their souls free from the eternal torment into which their fathers fell. They died with their bodies along with their fathers, but their souls were kept free from hell by the mercy of God, for “the Lord is righteous, and there is no unrighteousness in Him” (Deut. 32:4), and He is ready to forgive even the guilty. “The Lord transform the cities and everything that has grown over the earth” (Gen. 19:25). The country of Sodom, like Jordan, was like a paradise of God, until the Sodomites angered God and brought God’s punishment upon themselves and this entire country, as it is written: “Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw the whole border of Jordan flooded, before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, like the paradise of God (Gen. 13:10). And when the wrath of God came and the Lord rained fire on the sinners and destroyed them, then he turned their entire country into a desert. And just as before it was like paradise in its beauty, the abundance of beautiful fruits and the goodness of the air, so later it became like a hellish country - ugly, barren, gloomy and pernicious, as the Hieromartyr Pionius tells about it (March 11). “I,” he says, “traversed all the Jewish countries, crossed the Jordan River and saw the land, which even to this day bears the mark of God’s wrath for the sins of people. I saw smoke descending from it, fields and fields scorched by fire, devoid of any fruit and not having wet moisture. I saw both the Dead Sea (Sodom, which is also the Asphalt Sea, which gives birth to tar), and water, which, due to God’s punishment, had lost its natural nature, so that it could neither give water to any animal, nor retain in its depths a human body or anything else thrown into it, but immediately throws everything out.” Saint John Chrysostom talks about the same thing, saying: “Has any of you ever visited Palestine? Testify to me, you who have seen those places, testify to those who have not been there! At the very end of the Jordan River, above Ascalon and Gaza, there is a certain great country that was once fruitful, but is no longer. This country was like paradise: “You see,” it is said, “Lot the whole border of Jordan, and without soldering, is like the paradise of God.” It used to be prosperous, surpassing all other countries and comparable in fertility to the paradise of God, but now it is more deserted than any other country. For the trees stand there and have fruit, but these fruits are a remembrance of God's wrath. For pomegranates grow there, full of grains, having a beautiful appearance and giving great hope of taste to the ignorant. If they are picked up and broken, they will not appear to be fruit, since they contain dust and ashes inside themselves. The whole land is the same, and if you find a stone, then it too will turn out to be incinerated. And what do I say, stone, trees and earth, and even the air and water there are not without the same misfortune. Just as a body, when it is set on fire and burns, in the fire it retains its external outline and image, size and measure, but has no vital force, so there you can see earth, which has no resemblance to earth, but is all ashes; you can see trees and fruits, but they will not be trees and fruits; you can see air and water, but they will not be like ordinary air, water, for everything there has been turned into ashes. Although it seems impossible that air or water could ever catch fire, for trees and stones can burn, this is not the case for air and water; although it seems impossible to us, yet for the Creator all this is possible. All this there is like a kindled furnace - air and water, all barren, all rootless, and everything serves as an image of the wrath of God that was there and a sign of future torment" (Chrysostom. On the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, chapter 4). About the same thing it is written in the Book of Wisdom: “This (the Wisdom of God) delivered righteous Lot from the perishing wicked, who fled from the fire descending to five degrees, whose testimony is still smoking, the earth stands empty” (Wisdom 10:6-7). It is also known that the Jordan River, flowing into the Sea of ​​Sodom, immediately destroys its natural sweetness and turns into sorrow, and the fish entering with the river immediately die. We will think here about the power of godless sin, for the sake of which the angry God mercilessly executes the earth, and the trees, and the air, and the water, and all of His innocent creation. Let us be afraid, O people, who dare without fear to anger God with our vile sins and iniquities, so that God’s execution does not befall us! We will suffer in every possible way if we do not repent; if not in the present, then in the next century we will not escape punishment, for sin that is not cleansed through repentance will not remain without punishment either in temporary life or in eternal life. The ruined Eden is the image of our soul. Just as before the extreme wrath of God and his death he was like paradise, and then when, for the sake of his sins, the mercy of God was taken away from him and he was executed, he became like hell, smoky, stinking, deserted, waterless and barren - so our soul, before it deviates to bad deeds and before its corruption, is like paradise: God lives in it, the Holy Spirit rests in it, holy angels preserve it, rivers of God's grace fill it, spiritual fruits multiply. But as soon as she falls into the pit of sin, she does not bother to rise from it, but begins to fall even deeper from sin to sin, then she becomes like hell: God departs from her, the Holy Spirit is saddened, the angels turn away, the rivers of God’s grace dry up, spiritual fruits are destroyed, and she becomes barren, smokes with the stench of sin and increases the flame of sinful lusts in herself. The only blessed soul is that it is possible for it, if it wants, to again transform from the likeness of hell through repentance into heavenly beauty. But it is not possible for Sodom to ever be able to regain its former paradise beauty. O sinful soul, rise up and rise to repentance, May you again regain your former shrine! You can, if you only wish, but God’s help is ready for you, and the mercy of the long-suffering God awaits you. “The woman looked back, and there was a pillar of glory” (Gen. 19:26). Lot's wife was punished by God for three reasons: first, she did not believe the words of God, who said that he would destroy Sodom, and looked around, curious and wanting to see whether what God said was true, and whether what was said had become false; secondly, she did not maintain obedience to God, who commanded not to look back; thirdly, she regretted her estates, relatives and acquaintances who remained in Sodom. Eyewitnesses say that this pillar stands even to this day, undamaged by rain, wind, or anything else. They think that it will stand even until the General Resurrection and the Last Day of Judgment. There is such a study: why did Lotov’s wife turn not into any other stone pillar, but into a salt pillar? Jewish rabbis, and among them the interpreter of Holy Scripture Nicholas Liran, say that on the evening on which Lot prepared supper for two strangers he had received into his house, his wife, out of natural malice and dislike for strangers (for the Sodomites were not hospitable), hid the salt and did not serve it with the food provided. That’s why in the morning God turned her into a pillar of salt, as if saying: I didn’t want to give salt to strangers, so be all salt yourself. We will interpret this spiritually. Salt protects the eaten flesh of livestock, animals, fish and other animals from rotting. Lot's wife was turned into salt, so that by remembering the execution that befell her, our minds would be salted like salt, so that we would not be unbelievers of God's prohibitions and disobedient, like that wife was an unbeliever and disobedient to God, and so that we would not regret temporary blessings, having in mind eternal blessings, and, finally, so that we, having removed ourselves from sinful deeds through repentance, would not looked back, that is, did not return to previous atrocities, so as not to anger God, as she angered, and so as not to petrify in bitterness and lose eternal life. That is why Christ the Lord exhorts us in the Gospel, saying: “Remember Lot’s wife!” (Luke 17:32), that is, remember the punishment that befell her, and be afraid that you, in some way, angering the Almighty, suffer a similar unexpected disaster. After this terrible death of Sodom, Lot was afraid to stay in Zoar, lest the same execution of God should come upon this city, since Zoar was within the borders of Sodom. Together with his daughters, he retired to the mountain that was beyond Zoar, where the Lord had previously told him to flee, and he settled in a cave himself, and his daughters with him. How his fall occurred with his daughters, who gave him wine to drink, is written about this in the book of Genesis, where anyone can read about it (Gen. 19:30-38). Shame forbids telling in detail about Lot's sin; The story written in the Bible is enough about that. We will be surprised here by the power of drunkenness, that such a righteous man, whom the countless and clearly committed sinful temptations that were in Sodom could not overcome, was overcome by wine in a desert mountain and plunged into sin. But “wine is not wine, but drunkenness is cursed” (Proverbs 20:1), from which there is no need to talk about how much harm there is. For everyone can see this from everyday experience, and in church books everywhere there is much written about the dangers of drunkenness. However, we will also remember something about the same thing here. The famous philosopher Anacharsis among the ancient Hellenes said that the grapevine will bear three clusters: firstly, a bunch of delight, secondly, a bunch of rapture, and thirdly, a bunch of sorrow. The philosopher explained this in the sense that drinking wine in small quantities is a pleasure and is useful for a person, because it quenches thirst, gives health to the stomach and cheers the heart, while drinking in large quantities makes a person drunk, gives rise to numerous quarrels, kindles rage and incites him to war and battle, which is followed by considerable sadness. But if we wish to examine in detail the power of drunkenness and if we call drunkenness grapes, then we will find clusters of morals born from drunkenness that bring no benefit to a person, but harm and sadness, and we will find not three, but more, namely ten. Let drunkenness be called grapes, but not fruitful grapes, but perhaps those about which the prophet Moses writes in Deuteronomy: “Their grapes are from the vines of Sodom, and their vines are from Gomorrah, their grapes are a bunch of gall, their grapes are a bunch of bitterness; The wrath of serpents is their wine, and the wrath of asps is incurable” (Deut. 32:32–33). Truly, drunkenness is the grapes of Sodomo-Gomorrah and nothing other than clusters of gall, sorrows, filled with snake and slate poison and giving rise to rage, for as the garden is, such are the fruits (Luke 6:43-44)! The first bunch of bilious drunken grapes consists of darkening the mind, changing the mind and destroying memory, for drunken power, rising from the wine-filled stomach to the head, darkens the brain and confuses the mind. Therefore, it often happens that many in their drunkenness do not remember themselves and do not know what they are doing and what they are saying, like crazy; if some calamity or dishonor or injury befalls them, then in the morning they do not remember. On such, the words written in Proverbs are fulfilled: “I was beaten, and I was not sick, and I was mocked, but I did not understand” (Proverbs 23:35). The other cluster is shamelessness, for a drunkard is not ashamed of anyone, but, having destroyed shame, he utters words that are nasty, blasphemous, shameless, absurd, stingy and unworthy of chaste hearing, and his lips become like some kind of empty stable, filled with stinking pus, and his tongue is like a shovel with which pus is thrown out. The heart of such a person can be nothing else, except a hidden place of many evils, from where good cannot come, but only evil, as the Gospel says: “An evil man brings forth evil from the evil treasures of his heart, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). The third bunch of drunken grapes is a failure to keep secrets, for everything that a sober person hides deep in his heart, buried in silence, be it his own secrets or secrets entrusted to him by someone else, the drunken person makes all this known to everyone. In addition, everything that was done long ago and consigned to oblivion, he remembers and resurrects like a dead man. This is like a barrel full of new drink, in which, when the drink is noisy and pouring out, the yeast does not stay at the bottom, but rises to the top and, driven out of the barrel by internal warmth, flows out. Likewise, in a drunken person, the power of intoxication disturbs the secrets of the heart and drives them out. He reveals secrets with his lips, just as yeast rises from the bottom of a barrel, and, as usually happens, like food from a stomach filled with drunkenness, secrets are also thrown out by vomiting. When drunk, both of these, that is, food and secrets, turn into vomit. The fourth bunch of intoxicating Sodomo-Gomorrah grapes is the inflaming of lust for carnal confusion. That is why the Apostle exhorts: “Do not get drunk with wine, for there is fornication in it” (Eph. 5:18), and Saint Basil the Great says: “Undoubtedly, from wine, as from some source, flows unbridled lust, which far exceeds even the fury of all dumb people in relation to the female sex; for dumb animals do not cross the boundaries of the natural, but those who drink wine seek the female sex in men and the male sex in women.” The fifth cluster, full of snake and slate venom, is rage, anger, enmity, quarrels, fights and bloodshed. The prophet Hosea says: “When the princes began to become angry because of the wine, not only the princes, but also the common people, filled with wine, rebelled against each other with rage” (Hos. 7:5-7). That is why the Pritochnik expresses censure: “Who is being fierce? Word of mouth to whom? Courts for whom? Who needs tightness and diarrhea? Who needs contrition in vain? Who has blue eyes? Are they not in wine and overseeing where the feasts take place?” (Prov. 23, 29–30). And Sirach admonishes: “Do not take courage in wine, for wine will destroy many: the furnace tempts iron, but the heart is tempted by wine in the quarrel of the proud” (Sir. 31:29-30). And the same one also says: “Wine that drinks much wine brings grief to souls; with anger and slander it will increase the rage of the madman” (Sir. 31:34-35). The sixth gall bunch of drunken grapes is damage to health, weakening of bodily strength, trembling of hands, pain in the head, changes in the eyes, distress in the stomach, groans, illnesses, premature old age, shortening of years of life and early death. The seventh bunch is waste of property, destruction of wealth and lack of profits. “A drunken worker,” says Sirach, “will not be rich” (Sir. 19:1). Oh, how many there are who have come from great wealth to extreme poverty! An example of this could be the prodigal son (Luke 15:12-17). The eighth unsweetened bunch is deprivation of salvation, for drunkenness destroys, like material possessions, spiritual wealth. It dares to commit all sins, for the sin that a sober person abhors, fears or is ashamed of, the same sin he is not ashamed to commit while drunk, does not fear and does not disdain. In the Patericon there is a story about a certain Egyptian desert dweller, to whom the demon promised that he would no longer oppress him with any temptations, if only he committed one sin out of three. He suggested the following three sins: murder, fornication and drunkenness. Do, he said, one of them: either kill a person, or commit fornication, or get drunk once, and then you will remain in peace, and after that I will no longer tempt you with any temptations. The hermit thought to himself this way: to kill a person is terrible, for this is in itself a great evil, and deserves the death penalty both in God's court and in civil law. To commit fornication is a shame, to destroy the previously preserved purity of the body is a pity, and it is disgusting to defile one who has not yet known this defilement. Getting drunk once seems to be a small sin, for a person soon sobers up with sleep. So, I will go, get drunk so that the demon no longer oppresses me, and I will live peacefully in the desert. And so, taking his handicrafts, he went to the city and, having sold them, entered the tavern and got drunk. According to the action of Satan, he happened to talk with a certain shameless and adulterous woman. Being seduced, he fell with her. When he was committing a sin with her, the woman’s husband came and, finding him sinning with his wife, began to beat him; and he, having recovered, began to fight with that husband and, having overcome him, killed him. Thus, that hermit committed all three sins: fornication and murder, starting with drunkenness. Whatever sins he feared and abhorred when sober, he boldly committed while drunk, and through this he ruined his many years of work. Was it only later through true repentance that he was able to find them again, for by the mercy of God a man who truly repents is returned to his former merits, which he destroyed through the Fall. This is how drunkenness leads to all sins and deprives one of salvation, destroying virtues. Saint Chrysostom speaks clearly about this: Drunkenness, if it finds in someone chastity, shame, reason, meekness, and humility, everything plunges into the abyss of crime.” Will not that person who through drunkenness lose all his virtues be deprived of his salvation and will not be cut off from the heavenly inheritance? The Apostle speaks the truth: “Drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:10). The ninth gall cluster is the wrath of God, for the drunkard, breaking the commandments of God, is moved towards the wrath of God by his sins. Therefore, the prophet Isaiah exclaims: “Woe to those who rise in the morning, who drink strong drink, who drink until evening: for I will burn the wine. They drink wine with harps and trumpets, and tambourines, and flutes, but do not conduct the affairs of God” (Isa. 5:11-12). To such the prophet Jeremiah says: “Drink and get drunk, and vomit, and fall, and rise not from the presence of the sword I will send among you” (Jer. 25:27). The tenth and most bitter bunch of drunken grapes is the undoubted destruction of the soul, for other sinners, when they approach the hour of their death, can repent and regret their sins, having a sober mind; How can a drunk man, dying, repent if he does not remember himself and does not know that an unexpected death is approaching him? For those who die without repentance, Gehenna is inevitable. These are the bunches of those Sodomo-Gomorrah grapes, that is, drunkenness, the taste of which, although at first it seems sweet, later turns into bilious bitterness and into snake and slate poison. All this was said not to blaspheme wine, but to root out drunkenness, for wine was created by God for the joy and health of people, and not for drunkenness and harm. Let us listen to what Saint Chrysostom says: “Wine was given so that we would have fun and not be outrageous, so that we would laugh and not be ridiculed, so that we would be healthy and not sick, so that we could correct the weakness of the body and not destroy our spiritual strength.” He also says in another place: “Drunkenness does not come from wine, but from immeasurable consumption: wine was given to us for no other purpose than for bodily health, but this is prevented by its immeasurable consumption.” From these words of the teacher it is clear that it is not the wine that is to blame, but the intemperance of those who drink beyond measure. The same saint considers drunkards, for their immeasurable drunkenness, more dishonest than dogs, donkeys and other dumb animals, for every animal does not eat or drink more than it needs, and no one can force it to eat or drink more than its nature desires. A drunken person, without coercion, fills his belly more and more, so that he even harms himself. See about this moral teaching 5th in conversation 57th on the holy evangelist Matthew. When, due to the wrath of God, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, righteous Abraham left that beautiful place in Hebron, called Mamre, where he was honored by a beautiful oak tree to ripen and treat the Holy Trinity in three angelic faces, since from the Sodomo-Gomorrah destruction dust and ashes filled the whole land, and the air was infected with stench and smoke. Partly due to the infertility of the earth from the dust, partly due to the harm that the air caused to his people. Abraham withdrew from Hebron and Mamre to the noon country and began to live in Gerar. Gerara was the capital city of Palestine. In this city, something similar to what happened to him in the land of Egypt happened to Abraham. King Abimelech of Gerar, hearing that righteous Sarah was not a wife, but a sister to Abraham (for Abraham called her that), sent for her and took her to himself, although she did not want it. However, God preserved his faithful slaves both in Egypt and in Gerar unharmed. Having struck the king with a sudden illness in the womb, and also frightened him in a nighttime appearance, He kept Sarah pure, and delivered Abraham from sorrow and honored him with royal gifts. For Abimelech, returning Sarah to Abraham, gave him a thousand didrachms of silver, sheep and oxen, male and female servants, and begged him to pray to God for him to deliver him from his illness. He said: Behold the land of Gerar is before you; settle wherever you please. Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and his household, and his entire empire, for not only one king, but also his entire house, and all his subordinates, the Lord punished with illnesses. When a king sins, his entire kingdom is subject to disasters, as Abimelech was convinced of from personal experience when he said to Abraham: What have you done to us by calling your wife your sister? How did I sin against you, that you brought a great sin upon me and my kingdom? Abraham said: I thought that there was no fear of God in this place and that they would kill me for my wife. Abimelech took Sarah not for fornication and adultery, but wanting to take her as his lawful wife, as he justified himself before God in a dream vision, saying: I did this in the simplicity of my heart and in the purity of my hands, for Abraham himself said that she was his sister, and she (Sarah) said that he was her brother. This king was clean from the sin of adultery, but it was not without reason that he was punished for an unjust insult. This unfair insult consisted in the fact that the wife was taken by force and against her own desire. Abimelech wished to have Sarah for the sake of her beauty, since she had a very beautiful face; That’s why Abraham was afraid that he would be killed by evil people because of her beauty, and therefore he called her not his wife, but his sister, among the lawless and ungodly people in Egypt and Gerar. We here cannot help but be surprised that Sarah, being already in her mature years, did not lose the color of her youthful beauty, for she was already ninety years old from birth. Why she, being in her advanced years, seemed to have a young and beautiful face, in explanation of this, interpreters of the Divine Scripture point out the following reasons: she had a good natural structure and did not give birth to children, and did not feed them with her breasts; she was temperate, did not become satiated in eating and drinking, but was always sober; from the time when she realized her infertility and mated a slave with her husband, she no longer turned to male copulation, even until the time when God appeared to them in three angelic faces and promised to resolve infertility. All these reasons contributed to the preservation of Sarah’s beauty unfading until old age. We will add to this the fact that, in addition to the above-mentioned natural reasons that preserved the beauty in Sarah, what most contributed to her beauty was her righteous and holy life, attracting the grace of God to herself. “For,” as they say in Ecclesiastes, “wisdom enlightens a man’s face, making his face bright and red in life and a godly life” (Eccl. 8:1-3). Such was the face of Seth, such was that of Moses, such was Judith, such was the face of the first martyr Stephen, like the face of an angel. Just as a lantern, having a lit candle in it, is enlightened and shines, and shines in the darkness of the night, and without having a lit candle in itself, it becomes dark, neither itself is illuminated nor does it shine for others - so likewise a person, like a lantern with a candle, has a soul in himself, which, if kindled by love for God, shines with good deeds, and the face of such a person is bright and beautiful, for the grace of God is within him reflected on the face. Let us remember here about one of the monks, Saint Pamva. In his life it is narrated that due to the abundant grace of God that dwelt in him, he was like the inhabitants of paradise. In a corruptible body, while still living among people, he already showed in his face the image of heavenly incorruption, being enlightened not only in soul, but also in body, and his face shone with glory, as in ancient times the face of the holy prophet Moses shone. The following is written about this in the Patericon. The Monk Pamva spent three years in prayer to God, constantly saying: Lord, I pray to You, may you not glorify me on earth. God, who glorifies His saints, glorified him so much that the brethren could not look at his face because of the glory that he had. Thus the saint on earth was glorified in his body even before he was glorified in heaven! Just as a godly and holy life enlightens a person’s face, so, on the contrary, an unpleasing and nasty life, having a soul darkened by sins, makes a person’s face unseemly and dark. This can be seen from the life of Niphon. While still in his youth, he uncontrollably gave himself over to sinful lusts. One day he came to his friend Nicodemus for a visit. Nicodemus, looking in surprise at Nifontovo’s face, was horrified, but nevertheless remained silent. Then Niphon said: Why are you looking at me as if I were a stranger to you? Nicodemus answered: Believe me, brother, that I have never seen you like this, for your face is scary, like a Murin’s. The young man, hearing about this, was afraid and at the same time ashamed; covering his face with his hand, he walked away sad. Walking along the road, he said to himself: woe to me, a sinner, for if in this world I am black in soul and body, then what will I be at God’s judgment! This is how an evil, God-wrathful life makes a person’s face ugly! The face of righteous Sarah, even in old age, was illuminated with youthful beauty, for she lived in God righteously and holy, and her soul was in her like a lamp, burning and shining before God. For her inner, spiritual beauty contributed to her outer, carnal beauty. Some say about Sarah that God, resolving her infertility in old age and giving her strength for conception and birth, returned her to her former beauty, returning her because she pleased Him. He endowed her with the beauty of her face, wanting to reveal to human eyes her inner spiritual beauty. Here is an admonition to those wives who paint and paint their faces, and a shame for their ugliness. Why do they paint their faces like painted coffins? Because they don't have natural beauty. Why are they deprived of natural beauty? Most of all, because they do not live the way righteous Sarah lived - purely, abstinently, righteously and pleasing to God, but they exhaust their days in excessive voluptuousness without abstinence, not caring about pleasing God. Therefore, the appearance of their faces does not shine with natural beauty, for their souls are dark in them, and when, according to Christ, the eye of the soul is dark, then the body is dark (Matthew 6:23 and Luke 11:34); nothing kills the color of youthful beauty, destroys splendor and makes the face wrinkled and senile, like unpleasing intemperance from carnal lusts with satiety and drunkenness. “There is no fear of God in this place,” and they will kill me (Gen. 20:11). Where there is no fear of God, there is not only the murder of the body, but also every great sin that kills the soul is easily committed. A person who does not fear God does not dare to do what evil deed? He is not afraid of murder; rather, he will impute it to himself as bravery and courage; theft and robbery are self-interest. He does not at all count adultery and vile fornication as sin, but considers this a natural need. His wisdom lies in deceit and cunning, every sin becomes sinless, and villainy becomes a virtue or human custom; shamelessness for him is like honor and praise: “We praise him for he is a sinner in the lusts of his soul” (Ps. 9:24). What he should be ashamed of, he makes merry about; What he should cry about, he rejoices about; what should be abhorred, he desires and strongly strives for what should be avoided: “Do not fear God, he is (according to the apostolic words) a man of sin” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). For such a one constantly thinks about sin, desires it and delights in it, kindles the flame of passions in himself, increases impurity and collects lawless deeds as a kind of treasure, as the Psalmist says: “His heart has stored up iniquity for himself” (Ps. 40:7). A person who does not fear God is like a fierce horse, tearing the reins and running wild; so he who rejects the reins of the fear of God rushes where his evil desire leads him, until he falls with great desire into the ditch of destruction. A person who does not fear God is like an atheist, for he lives as if not believing in the existence of God, not expecting the Last Judgment of God, the terrible trial at the Judgment and eternal punishment in fiery hell. A person who does not fear God is not horrified by his destruction, is not afraid of God’s sudden vengeance and unexpected death; is not afraid of the cruel hands of demons, into which he must fall and suffer; he does not think about the future eternal life and considers everything that is said about rewarding everyone according to their deeds to be a fable, and only in this life does he look for temporary good in sinful pleasures, but does not care about his soul, which has to live forever, and does not hope for another life after death. A person who does not fear God is, as it were, a man who has fallen into despair, a son of perdition, a slave and friend of the devil, an enemy of God, a predecessor of the Antichrist. For just as the Antichrist will not fear God and will not want to know Him, but will be His opponent, calling himself God, so this one is as if he does not know God over himself, for he does not listen to His commands, but of his own will, as if he were his own god, does what he wants, doing what is not pleasing, but contrary to the Lord God. Rightly, Saint John the Theologian calls such people, who live without the fear of God, antichrists, saying: “And now there are many Antichrists” (1 John 2:18). Who they are is explained by the Western teacher Augustine, saying: “The Antichrist has many servants of his malice, many of whom no longer exist in the world, like Antiochus, Nero, Diocletian. And in our time we know many antichrists; for everyone, whether a layman, or a clergyman, or a monk, every one of them who lives unrighteously and does what is contrary to his Christian law, and blasphemes what is good, is the Antichrist and the servant of Satan.” Let us think about the following: who lives unrighteously, who commits what is contrary to Christian laws, who blasphemes the good traditions of the fathers? Isn't he the one who has no fear in himself? For people who do not fear God are antichrists, who have multiplied so much among us that it is hardly possible to find a true and God-fearing man among Christians; there are few chosen ones, everyone has strayed into a corrupt and unrighteous life, everyone is doing the opposite of true Christianity, everyone despises good and seeks evil. With the increase among Christians of ungodly people, ungodly deeds have also multiplied, which are impossible to count, and there is no need to count, for everyone can see for themselves if they look with their searching gaze at all the ranks, both great and small. We will briefly say: where there is no fear of God, everything evil is committed, as Saint Dorotheus says: “Undoubtedly, where there is no fear of God, there is every passion” (On the fear of God, 4th word). By this he seemed to say the following: just as rivers flow into the sea, so evil lusts flow into hearts that fear God. What follows after evil desires and deeds? God's wrath and punishment are temporary or eternal, or both. This is how a ungodly life ends! Isn’t this how the life of the nasty giants, the Sodomites, the life of Pharaoh and other sinners who did not fear God ended? Let us dwell a little on the fact that the Lord God did not spare either the Egyptian or the Gerar kings, who wanted to offend Abraham and Sarah, but immediately brought wounds and severe illnesses upon them. Our Lord does not want to see His servants offended and will give speedy vengeance to those who offend them. For if every earthly master cannot bear an insult inflicted on his slaves by anyone, but takes revenge for them, how much more so will the Heavenly Lord? The servants and servants of the Lord are His sincere friends. The Lord speaks to them like this in the Gospel: “You are naturally my friends” (John 15:14), and dear friends: “I,” it is said, “have loved you” (John 15:9); They are the kind of friends to whom He reveals His secrets: “To whom do I say that you are servants, for a servant does not know what his Lord is doing, but you have been made friends, for all the things that I have heard from My Father have told you” (John 15:15). The same kind of friends of God were the holy forefathers and prophets in the Old Testament, to whom God reveals His secrets; among them was David, who said: “You have revealed Your unknown and secret wisdom to me” (Ps. 50:8). We will reason: an earthly king, having some kind friend and a faithful keeper of his secrets, when someone dishonors him or wants to offend him, then doesn’t the earthly king get angry with the dishonor and protect his friend from the offender? Moreover, the King of Heaven is angry with those who offend His friends and keepers of His sacraments. The servants of the Lord are His beloved children, as He says to them in the Gospel: “My children, I am still a little while with you” (John 13:33). Doesn't a father take revenge for his children when the latter are offended by someone? Moreover, the Heavenly Father will take revenge on those who are embittered for the insults of His children. If only the Lord's people are as dear to Christ our God as our mother, brother and sister are dear to us. Do we not hear in the Gospel the Lord saying: “Whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven is brother and sister and is my mother” (MF-12:50)? Who can look with indifference when his mother, brother or sister is offended and dishonored, and doesn’t he immediately rush to the dishonor and offend and take revenge on him as much as he can? What will we think about Christ our Lord? What kind of vengeance will He give to those who persecute His servants, annoy and cause much anger? The servants of the Lord are as dear to Him, our Lord, as the apples of His eyes. We hear Moses speaking about Israel, beloved by God: “Please him in the desert, in the thirst of the heat in the arid waters, in his habit and in his punishment, and preserve him like the apple of his eye” (Deut. 32:10). That is why David prays: “Keep me, O Lord, like the apple of your eye” (Ps. 16:8). Every person guards the apple of his eyes with great diligence, so that nothing sticks to it and damages it, and does not blind the person; There is nothing more pleasant to a person than the apple of the eye, for it is the light and leader of all human life. In the same way, His servants are pleasing to the Lord God, more pleasing than all the visible creatures below and above, for for their sake He left the things above, came down to earth and guards them like the apple of his eyes. If someone harms them with some kind of insult, then He does not tolerate those who offend for long. We hear Him speaking in Zechariah’s prophecy to His servants: “Touching you touches the apple of My eye” (Zechariah 2:8). Does anyone bear it patiently when another pierces his eye? Likewise, the Lord God will not tolerate those who rape His servants with insults. Christ Himself announced this, saying in the Gospel with His most pure lips the following: “Will God not take vengeance on His chosen ones who cry out to Him day and night? I tell you that he will take their vengeance soon (Luke 18:7-8). What kind of revenge? This is clear from the words of David, which he spoke in his prayer to God: “Destroy all my afflicted souls, for I am Your servant” (Ps. 143:12). All those who oppress the servants of the Lord will perish noisily, executed by the vengeful wrath of God. When a year had passed since Abraham received the Holy Trinity at the Oak of Mamre, Sarah, according to the promise of the Lord, gave birth to a son and said: “The Lord give me joy; who will tell Abraham that he has given birth to a son in his old age and that he is milking the offspring of Sarah? And Abraham called his son’s name Isaac, and he was circumcised on the eighth day” (Gen. 21; 2–4, 6–7). When she grew up as a teenager, Sarah saw Hagar’s son Ishmael playing with her son Isaac and was saddened, for Ishmael offended Isaac, as the Apostle says: “He who was born according to the flesh is a persecutor of the spiritual” (Gal. 4:29), that is, he cursed, mocked him, and perhaps even beat him. Therefore, Sarah told Abraham to cast out the slave woman with her son, for the son of a slave woman has no share in the inheritance with the son of a free woman. When Abraham did not want to do this, God commanded him to obey, and Hagar and her son were expelled. Lost in the desert, she and her boy were exhausted from thirst, because all the water that was in the skin had stopped. She laid the boy under a tree, and she went away and sat down opposite him, at a distance that an arrow fired from a bow flies, and said: “Let me not see the death of my offspring” (Gen. 21:16). Meanwhile, the boy began to scream and cry, and Hagar cried with him. And an angel appeared to her, showed her a well of living water, and Hagar gave the boy something to drink and drank herself. When Ishmael reached adulthood, he became an archer and lived in the desert of Paran. His mother brought him a wife from Egypt, and his family multiplied there, for this is what the Lord God promised, speaking through an angel to Hagar: “I will create a great language” (Gen. 21:13). Sarah, who gave birth to a son in old age, was a prototype of the Most Pure Virgin Mary, who had to give birth to Christ in virginity; Isaac, who was born from the mature Sarah, was a prototype of Christ, who had to be born from an unartificial Virgin. Saint Ephraim discusses this as follows: “It is not a natural thing for dead wombs to conceive and dry breasts to give milk to Isaac; It was not the work of nature when the Virgin Mary conceived without a husband and without decay gave birth to the Savior of all. God made Sarah a mother in her old age, and showed Mary to be a virgin after birth” (Homily 109 about Abraham and Isaac). “Sarah milks the child” (Gen. 21:7). With the resolution of infertility, the Lord God miraculously gave sufficient milk to her breasts so that she could feed her child herself. From here, let mothers learn that they themselves should nourish their babies with their nipples, and not give the latter to their milking wives, for God gave them this position in their nature, giving them nipples as some kind of vessels filled with nutrients, so that they would nourish those born from them. And those mothers who, without any blessed guilt, entrust their babies to milkmaids, and do not want to feed them themselves, act sinfully. They act sinfully because this causes considerable harm. First of all, what happens from this is that a baby who feeds on the milk not of his mother, but of another wife, is unhealthy and soon dies. If he remains alive, then he becomes weak, since foreign milk is unusual for a baby, since it is from a different (albeit identical) body, and not from the one from which he was born, and is not as healthy as the milk of a true mother. A baby, nourished by its mother's milk, is healthy, and when it comes of age, it turns out to have a strong body and is witty. That's what natural scientists say about it, at least. Another harm is that babies who feed on the breasts of wet nurses, along with milk, take on their customs and illnesses, if the wet nurse has them. If the nurse is overcome by illness, then so will the baby she feeds. If the nurse is angry, angry, malicious, a gossip, unfriendly, then the same will be the one whom she feeds with her nipples. If she is a drunkard, lustful, shameless and lascivious, then undoubtedly the baby she feeds will be the same when he comes of age. The third harm is that a child who is fed with someone else's milk and not with his mother's milk, when he reaches age, will not have the love for his mother that those raised with their mother's milk have. Those children who have little love for their mother pay little respect to her. The worst thing is done by those mothers who raise their babies with cattle's milk, for along with the milk, bestial morals enter into the babies, and when they reach age, they become like cattle in their disposition. Just as cattle is senseless, having no mind and reason, not knowing what good and evil are, having no shame, not honoring anyone, not knowing love, mercy, compassion and not sparing oneself of a similar animal when the latter is slaughtered before its eyes, in the same way, one fed with cattle’s milk is senseless, stupid, unreasonable, unreasonable, unfriendly, shameless, malicious, unmerciful and unmerciful, unable to sympathize with his neighbor in trouble, having the heart of a tormentor, a hardened heart, not sparing a person. This is the harm that comes from feeding babies with someone else's milk! Let the mothers who raise their children not with their own milk be put to shame, let the dumb animals put them to shame! For every cattle and every beast does not entrust its young to someone else to feed, but the one who gave birth herself raises them with her breasts, and the human race is abandoned from its own mothers, and abandoned, God knows for what reason. Here we will offer in order the genealogy from Abraham to David, just as the genealogy of the forefathers of Christ from Adam to Noah and from Noah to Abraham was proposed above. Abraham gave birth to Isaac; Isaac gave birth to Jacob; Jacob begat Judah; Judah gave birth to Perez; Perez begat Hezrom; Hezrom begat Aram; Aram gave birth to Abminadab; Aminadab begat Naason; Nahson begat Salmon; Salmon begat Boaz; Boaz begat Obed; Obed begat Jesse; Jesse gave birth to King David. As for what time each of them was born, see this in the Chronology. Abraham lived within the land of Gerar (which is also Palestine), near a well he dug, which was later called the oath well, for there he swore with the king of Gerar, Abimelech, to live peacefully among themselves. After this, God, tempting Abraham, commanded him to take his beloved son Isaac to one of the high mountains that would be shown to him, and sacrifice him there. This command came to him in a night vision. Rising in the morning, Abraham saddled a donkey, took two slaves and his son Isaac, chopped wood to burn the sacrifice, and went to the place where God commanded him, for Abraham was a faithful servant of God, obedient in everything and not wanting to break His commandments in anything. The father did not refuse to be the sacrificer of his offspring for God, although this was contrary to his nature, for it is natural for fathers to love and spare their children. Abraham did not spare his beloved son, preferring God to his son and even to himself. He did not tell his beloved wife Sarah about this command of God, so that she would not interfere with this, motherly mourning her only begotten child. How she would weep when she saw her son being led to the slaughter! Abraham walked to the indicated place for three days. God determined such a long journey for His servant in order to further test his obedience and zeal for Him. Throughout the entire journey and for three days, Abraham constantly struggled with thoughts that came upon him from everywhere. Looking at his son, he was prompted by pity to show mercy; looking at the grief with his eyes and mind, he was afraid to disobey God. Natural love for his son kept him on the path, but love for God drew him to the place where the sacrifice was to take place. Filial love in his heart said: make a prayer to God, so that He will command to spare the boy, from whom he promised to produce your numerous tribe, for from whom will it multiply if Isaac is slain? Divine love in him said: do not spare the son, do not spare the boy, give him to God, from Whom you received him, from Whom you also have your being; Don’t worry about multiplying your tribe, for God can do everything and knows how to multiply it! Thus, in the heart of the righteous, filial desire on the one hand and God’s command on the other argued. On the one hand, there is a desire for the temporary, on the other, a desire for the eternal; on the one hand, natural heartfelt condolences for the child, on the other, great and strong faith in God, combined with hope and love. And heavenly thoughts with love for God took precedence over earthly thoughts and filial love. Constantly struggling with his thoughts for three days and overcoming the worst with his best, Abraham approached the place that was determined by God to perform the sacrifice. When Abraham looked, he saw a mountain from afar and knew that this was the place for the sacrifice. How did you know? The Jewish rabbis say that a pillar of fire appeared at the top of that mountain. Abraham said to his servants: sit here with the donkey, and I and my son will go up there and, having bowed there, will return to you. Abraham laid the wood on Isaac, and he himself took the fire and the knife in his hand, and they both walked together. (At that time, according to Joseph the Jew, Isaac was twenty-five years old from birth.) Isaac said: Father! Here is the fire and wood; where is the sheep for sacrifice? These words were powerful to soften a parent’s heart to have mercy on their child, but the true servant of God took courage, raising his mind to the Lord his God. He wanted to fulfill the will of God and therefore answered his son: God will provide Himself with a sheep for sacrifice, child! Having reached the place indicated by God, Abraham created an altar there, laid firewood not only that which Isaac brought on his shoulders, but also others that Abraham chopped near that place in the garden or forest, for the boy could not bring so much firewood on himself that he could be turned into ashes. These few pieces of wood were only a prototype of the ascension of the cross to Golgotha, which Christ would accomplish on His shoulders; for it is certain that he collected more wood from that place, so that there would be enough for the burnt offering. Placing wood on the created altar, Abraham then revealed to his son Isaac the will and command of the Lord God. According to the Jew Joseph, Abraham said to Isaac: “My son, asked of God by prayer! After you entered this life, I raised you with great care and did not consider anything happier for myself than to see you as a perfect husband and leave you as an heir. But God wants me, having accepted you, to lose you again; bravely endure the slaughter as a sacrifice to Him. For I obey God, who demands such a sacrifice from us, for the sake of His eternal mercy towards us, with which He preserves us both in times of battle and in times of peace. Since you were born according to the laws of nature, then by virtue of this you still have to die someday. Now you will not have a simple departure from this life, but you will be sacrificed by your true father to the Father of all God. And He Himself, as one must believe, does not wish for you to depart from this life due to any illness or battle, or any other mortal necessity that happens to people, but wants to accept your soul and rest with Himself during prayers and sacrifices. There, preserving the memory of me, your teacher, you will strengthen my old age not by yourself, but by leaving the Creator God in my place.” – Isaac, being the true son of his father, lovingly accepted his words, saying: “I would be unworthy of birth if I contradicted and disobeyed the will of God and the will of my father; The joyful thing is that this is the desire of both, but even if only one father had so deigned (besides God’s command), it would not be fitting for the son to be disobedient.” It is likely that righteous Abraham, wanting to bind his son Isaac for sacrificial slaughter, first announced to him the will of the Lord God, who commanded this to be done, and consoled him with the hope of God’s eternal mercy in the future endless life, and strengthened him so that he would be courageous in accepting the slaughter. Blessed Isaac did not refuse to be a sacrifice to God, was not afraid of slaughter and death, but deigned to do this with love, obeying God’s command and his father’s will, being an obedient son of an obedient father. Such was the manifestation of the generosity of both of them, unquestioning and diligent obedience to God, love and faith in Him. Saint Chrysostom, amazed at this, exclaims, saying: “O pious souls! O strong mind! O great spiritual powers! O reason, which overcomes all natural love in people! Should one be surprised at the firm generosity of the patriarch or at such constant obedience of the youth, who did not resist, did not grieve, but obeyed his father’s work and, like a lamb, silently lay down on the altar, awaiting his father’s (with a knife) right hand? (Discourse 47 on the Book of Genesis, moral teaching 3). Hieromartyr Zinon the Bishop says: “Wonderful was the temptation of Patriarch Abraham, thanks to which he could have become either a blasphemer if he had disobeyed God, or appeared to be a torturer if he had killed his son! Only thanks to special and truly God-given patience did he resolve the matter of love of God and love of children, in the hope of not denying to God what he had received from God beyond hope. That is why he did not spare his dear son Isaac to offer as the sweetest sacrifice to God in order to keep him whole. O new spectacle, truly worthy of God, in which it is impossible to discern whether the priest is more patient or the victim! For neither the one who kills nor the one being killed changes the appearance, the parts of the body do not tremble with fear, the face does not sadden, the eyes do not change, neither one prays, neither one is horrified by the other, no one refuses and no one is embarrassed. He took out his sword, and this one prepared his neck. Unanimously and with one piety, they do what is commanded with diligent patience, carefully watching so that nothing happens that is contrary to the will of God. And what one wished, the other agreed to: he carried the wood on which he was to be burned, and this one built the altar. With such great fear that surpasses nature, love according to the flesh unquestioningly gives way to love for God. The piety of both is evident. There is a sword in the middle, which is ready, without involving guilt in a terrible murder, to bring glory, not sin. And what is it? This torment (the father's) turned into faith, and ready to turn into murder became a sacrament: the child killer walked away innocent of shedding blood, and the one ascended to the altar remained alive! Both of them were examples of immortal glory, both became amazing evidence of true worship of God for subsequent centuries! Saint Ephrem, looking with intelligent eyes at both (I say at Abraham and Isaac), is moved and says: “The father sharpened the knife, prepared fire and wood, and then took his son. He does not resist at all, but gives himself over to his father so that he can do with him what he wants. Who will I marvel first or who will I weave a crown of praise first: Abraham, who laid his hands on his son for the sake of God’s love and affection, or the son who obeyed his father to death? For Abraham preferred the commandment of God to his son, and the son appeared obedient to his father until death (which he then expected). And he also says the following: “When I saw the written image of this brainchild (Isaac, sacrificed by the hands of his father), I could not pass by without tears.” Although the son deigned to sacrifice himself to God, Abraham tied him up so that the feared one would not begin to defend himself with his hands, then he laid him on the altar and extended his hand to take a knife and stab his son. The Lord God, looking at this from heaven, restrained his hand through His angel, saying: “Abraham, Abraham, do not lay your hand on the youth and do nothing to him! Now I understand that you feared God, and you did not spare your beloved son for My sake” (Gen. 22:12). Here Chrysostom on behalf of God says to Abraham: “I did not command this to happen, and I do not want your boy to be killed, but I want your obedience to be shown to everyone. Therefore, do not harm him. Your permission is enough for me, and for this alone I crown and glorify you” (Discourse 47 on the Book of Genesis, moral teaching 3). Saying this, God showed him a ram, whose horns were entangled in a thorn bush, and ordered him to be sacrificed instead of his son Isaac. Abraham did so and gave the name to that place: “The Lord has seen” (Gen. 22:14), for in this place the Lord looked upon him most mercifully, freeing him from infanticide, and delivering his son from death. And there was a second time the Lord’s word to Abraham, who said: “Because you did this and did not spare your beloved son for My sake, I will bless you and multiply I will multiply your seed like the stars of heaven and like the sand of the sea; and the cities of adversaries will receive your seed, and in your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have listened to My voice” (Gen. 22:16-18). Abraham returned with Isaac to his slaves, kissing his beloved child, who, by the grace of God, had been preserved alive from death. Getting up, they went to the Oath Well, where they lived. “God tempted Abraham” (Gen. 22:1). God tempts man, and the devil also tempts, but God is different and the devil is different, for one is God’s temptation, and another is the devil’s. God's temptation is a test of virtues in man; The devil's temptation is the seduction of a person into sin. God tempts a person, testing whether he is patient, whether he is obedient to Him, whether he is pure in heart, whether he loves God. With such a temptation He tested Job in patience, Abraham in obedience, Joseph in purity, the Israelites in love for God, just as Moses said to them in Deuteronomy: “The Lord God will tempt you, even if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deut. 13:3). But most of all, the Lord tests love for God in us, for if it exists in us, then all other virtues are easily acquired; for for the sake of the love of God, patience is shown, and obedience is accepted, and purity is observed, and any good deed is done for its sake. The Lord God will test a person not because He does not know what this person is like, for our Creator knows the hearts of men, and He knows what we have not yet created; but he tempts for the purpose of making human virtue more clearly revealed, both for the benefit of others and in order to weave a wreath for a virtuous person. On the contrary, the devil tempts a person, offering him the temporary sweetness of sin in order to catch him like a fish with a hook, like a bird with a cage or a net, and, taking him into his power, drag him with him to hell for eternal destruction. “God is not a tempter of the evil” (James 1:13), says the holy Apostle James. These words mean that God does not tempt evil. And let no one who is tempted to evil say that he is being tempted by God, for the Lord does not tempt anyone, but everyone “is tempted by his own lust, being drawn and deceived” (James 1:14). The devil tempts for evil, and there is no other temptation of the devil than for sins, and this is only so that a person with some sin angers and irritates God, and through this becomes worthy of condemnation and punishment and becomes a fellow participant with him in the torments of Gehenna. God does not tempt the evil, does not test the wicked, but tempts and tests His good and faithful servants. Saint Clement, the Pope of Rome, says this: “A man who is evil is not tempted by God.” The Holy Scripture testifies to this in the same way, saying: “As silver and gold are tempted in fire, so are the chosen hearts of the Lord” (Proverbs 17:3). Let us hear: the hearts of the righteous chosen and loved by God, and not those who are sinners and hated by God, are tempted by the Lord; Sinners are only punished or executed by the Lord, according to the Psalmist: “Many are the wounds of the sinner” (Ps. 32:10). The devil, with his temptations, attacks not only the evil, but also the good, although he is often put to shame by the latter; He has evil people as his slaves, who always obey him and do his will. God tempts by loving a virtuous husband; the devil tempts him, hating him. God tempts His beloved servant, allowing him to experience some temporary sorrows and sorrows in order to cleanse him of his sins, to reveal him as bright and worthy of heavenly treasures; about the righteous in the book of Wisdom it is said this way: “God tempt them and find them worthy of Himself, as He has tempted them as gold in the furnace and as a fruitful sacrifice He has accepted them” (Wisdom 3:5-6). The devil tempts a person not in order to cleanse him, but in order to plunge him into more sinful defilements and make him abominable for God and unworthy of the Kingdom of Heaven. God tempts to save; The devil tempts in order to destroy. God weaves a crown from Him to those who are tempted; The devil prepares torment for those who are tempted. God's temptation is initially bitter, because it is grieved by temporary sorrow, but later it is sweet, since it is rewarded with eternal pleasure in the future life. The devil's temptation is at first sweet, like honey, but only for a short time, for after this short-term sweetness there will come bilious and eternal sorrow in endless torment. So, there is one temptation from God and another from the devil, and the difference between one and the other is as great as between sweetness and bitterness, light and darkness, and “the east is far from the west” (Ps. 102:12). “As high as the mountains” (Gen. 22:2). The mountain on which God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son was named Moriah, which means “grief.” There is another interpretation of this name. It was called bitterness because many of the bitter-tasting plants of Marah grew on it. Jerusalem was then created on it. This mountain is divided into three hills, each of which has its own special name. The first hill is Zion, that is, the lookout, so named because from it you can see far; the other is Moriah; the third hill is Golgotha, that is, the Place of Execution, for there Adam’s forehead was buried after the flood by Noah’s eldest son Shem, as we said before when we described the events in the tenth century of the first millennium. All these three hills are called by one name - Zion or Moriah, but sometimes each by its own name. The house and city of David was then created in Zion; on Mount Moriah - the Church of Solomon; Christ was crucified on Golgotha. This three-hilled mountain forms a kind of semicircle, in which the city of lower Jerusalem is located under the mountain; however, the hill of Golgotha ​​remains outside of Jerusalem. “Give Isaac wood” (Gen. 22:6). Blessed Isaac, carrying firewood on his shoulders and being sacrificed, was a prototype of Christ, our Savior, who had to bear His cross, on which He wished to be a sacrifice to God the Father for the sins of the whole world. The Monk Ephraim discusses this as follows: “Isaac, carrying wood, walked up the mountain to be slain in kindness; and our Savior carried the cross, going to the Place of Execution, to be slain for us, like a lamb. When you see a knife, think of a spear; when thinking about the place of sacrifice, look at the Place of Execution; when you see wood branches, think about the cross, and when you see fire, think about God’s love for the world (“God so loved the world” (John 3:16)). You see a ram tied by both horns to an oak tree called “savek”; see also Christ, the Lamb of God, held with both hands on the cross” (Homily 109 about Abraham and Isaac). Augustine also says: “For Isaac there was a ram, but for us Christ was sacrificed.” And Saint Ambrose said: “Instead of Isaac there is a ram, but instead of the Divinity, the humanity of Christ.” Saint Ambrose also says that at that time it was revealed to Saint Abraham in revelation about the suffering and death on the cross of Christ, the Son of God, for the sake of the salvation of the world. This is what it means when the Lord said to the Jews in the Gospel: “Abraham your father would rejoice, that he might see My day, and see it, and rejoice” (John 8:56). He saw the day of Christ’s suffering at that hour in which he sacrificed a ram instead of Isaac. Saint Ephraim agrees with this, saying the following: “The Most High God showed him (Abraham) that He Himself would give His Only Begotten Son for the whole world in order to save the human race from the deception of the devil.” “Now I understand that you fear God” (Gen. 22:12). It is not that the Lord did not previously know Abraham to be God-fearing, but says: “Now I have understood” according to human custom, since a person comprehends a thing after testing it. Therefore, God, talking with man, said this: “Now I understand!” He saw Abraham’s fear of God before, as testing “hearts and wombs” (Ps. 7:10; Jer. 11:20; Rev. 2:23). We listen: what was the test that gave a clear conviction that Abraham feared God? This became certain from the fact that Abraham unswervingly obeyed God, who commanded him to sacrifice his son, and he obeyed because he loved God more than his son. If he had not loved God more than his son, he would not have acted this way; but he loved God not only more than his son, but even more than himself. Not sparing his son, he did not spare himself, for he was deprived of his joy and hope, which he had in his son; He did not spare his beloved wife Sarah, who would cry and sob, and would be wounded to death by inconsolable sadness about her filial death. He neglected all this, which is carnal love for himself, for the sake of the love of God. Oh, image of true love of God! He who loves God fears Him and listens to Him, sparing nothing temporal for the sake of His love, not even himself, being ready to suffer and die for Him, as a certain martyr’s face says to Christ: “I love You, my Bridegroom, and seeking You I suffer, and I crucify myself, and I die for You” (Troparion to the Martyr). And vice versa, whoever does not love God does not fear God, does not obey His commands and does not at all desire to endure or discover any feat for His sake; such a person not only spares his own goods for God, but also takes away God’s goods for himself and robs the goods of others. He does not fear God because he does not love Him! Someone will say: love and fear are essentially opposite things. Saint John the Theologian says: “Fear is torment; Be afraid that you will not be perfect in love” (1 John 4:18). And you can see in people that many do not love the one they fear; They rather hate him, are afraid of him and run from him as from some fierce beast. And vice versa, where there is true love, there is no fear, as the same Theologian says: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). How did love and fear come together in Abraham, how could he fear Him Whom he loved and love Him Whom he feared? I answer. Fear can be severe: according to the world and according to God, according to the flesh and according to the spirit. Fear of the world, or of the flesh, is a slavish, involuntary fear; fear according to God, or spiritual, is filial, free fear. That worldly fear in the flesh does not love the one it fears, for it is afraid of receiving any embitterment, torment or execution from him; if he fulfills the will of the one whom he fears, then he does not do this out of love, not by will, but without desire, like a slave and captive, out of fear of torment, so as not to receive wounds from him. This fear of God, or spiritual fear, loves the one it fears, and fulfills the will of the beloved according to its own voluntary consent, not for fear, but for love. He is only afraid of somehow angering the one he loves; he is afraid not of wounds, but of sin and anger, so as not to lose the love of his beloved; he is afraid only like the son of his father; so he loves and fears together, fears and loves! For the faithful servant of the Lord there is only one joy - to fear his Lord together with love, just as the Psalmist says: “Let my heart rejoice in fearing Your name” (Ps. 85:11). As for what Saint John the Theologian said about perfect love, that it casts out fear, Saint Dorotheus perfectly interpreted this, saying the following: “There are two fears: one is new, and the other is perfect. The first is for those who begin to live piously, and the second is for perfect saints who have reached the measure of love” (On the fear of God, 4th word). If anyone does the will of God out of fear of torment, he is still a novice Christian, for he does so not because of goodness as such, but out of fear of punishment; the other does the will of God in the name of that very love that he has for God, and pleases God out of his natural love for Him. This one knows what this true goodness is, has known what it means to be with God, and has true love, which the Holy Theologian calls perfect. And this love leads him to complete fear, for he fears and preserves the will of God not because of wounds or torment, but, as we have already said, having tasted and known the sweetness of being with God, he is afraid of falling away from it, afraid of losing it. This perfect fear, which comes from this love, casts out new fear, and therefore the holy Theologian says that “perfect love will cast out fear.” However, it is impossible to achieve perfect fear apart from new-introduced fear. There are, as Saint Gregory the Theologian says, three ways in which you can please God: either we, fearing torment, please God and are in the state of a slave; or we carry out commands for our own benefit in view of gain and become like mercenaries; or, finally, we do this in the name of the good itself, which consists in pleasing God, and are in a state of filial relationship with God. For the son, when he comes to his senses, fulfills the will of his father, not out of fear that they will beat him, and not out of a desire to accept bribes from him, but, loving him, he observes this paternal love and honor that is characteristic of him, believing that everything that belongs to his father is also his. Such a one is honored to hear the following: “To whom is the servant, but the son and heir of God, Jesus Christ” (Gal. 4:7). Such a one fears God, as we have already said, not because of a new fear, but because he loves, as St. Anthony the Great says: “I do not fear God, but I love Him.” And the Lord said to Abraham when he was ready to bring his son: “Now I understand that you fear God”; pointing to that perfect fear which springs from love. The already mentioned Saint Dorotheus, still in the same word a little lower, says: “Perfect fear is possessed by the one who, not out of fear of torment and not out of accepting a reward, does the will of God, but fulfills it lovingly, as has been repeatedly said, fearing to do anything other than the will of the beloved, and therefore the Theologian says that “love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Such a person does everything not out of fear, but out of love, and it is out of love that he is afraid.” “I will multiply your seed like the stars and like the sand” (Gen. 22:17). God likened Abraham's tribe, which was about to multiply, to stars and sand, indicating not only that it will be countless, just as the stars and sand are countless, but (according to the assumption of Saint Isidore Pelusiot) also to the difference between individual people in life, some of whom will be heavenly in life, like stars, and others – earthly, like sand. The good, the righteous are stars approaching God with their virtues; the evil and sinners are sand: their souls have fallen to the earth, seeking earthly pleasures, deepening their minds in worldly concerns. The wise and intelligent are the stars; stupid and crazy people are sand. High in honor and glory, and in their glory they are like the stars, which is why it is customary to write their titles: the brightest, the brightest and the most radiant; the common people are like sand. Just as the sand is trampled underfoot, so the poor and the poor are oppressed by the rich and powerful, as the holy Apostle James says about this, asking: “Do not the rich force you and drag you to judgment? Do you not blaspheme the good name that is given to you? (James 2:6–7). But most of all, the saints who came from the tribe of Abraham are like the stars, shining themselves with pleasing God and enlightening others in this life, instructing them on the path of salvation; those who were destined to be lawless, wicked, moving away from God and angering Him, are doomed to sand. Those who had the opportunity to accept the promised Messiah, Christ, our Savior, and believe in Him, were predestined by the stars as worthy to be in heaven with the stars; those who did not want to accept the Son of God sent to them from God the Father for the salvation of the whole world, who not only do not believe in Him, but also mock Him and kill Him, are truly called sand, as worthy of trampling and spitting on. Just as sand is swept away from the face of the earth by the wind, so now the Jews, the tribe of Abraham, the enemies of Christ our God, are scattered and scattered over the entire face of the earth by the wrath of God, until, finally, they are all swept away into the abyss of hell. Sarah's life lasted 127 years and she died in Hebron, in the land of Canaan; and Abraham wept for her, and even more his son Isaac wept inconsolably for his mother. Abraham did not want to bury her body in idolatrous tombs, although the local inhabitants did not forbid him, but even said: listen to us, sir, you are among us as a king sent from God, and therefore bury your dead in our honest tombs, and none of us will forbid burying your dead in our tomb. Nevertheless, Abraham, not deigning that the body of his pious wife should be near the corpses of those people who died, spending their lives in idolatrous wickedness, bought from Ephron the Hittite, in the presence of the other sons of the Hittites, a deep cave for four hundred didrachms of pure silver, so that he would have his own tomb and so that none of the wicked would want to have parts there for their burial the dead, but that only the bodies of the righteous and pious should be buried there. This cave, facing Mamre, is located not far from the oak tree where the Holy Trinity appeared to Abraham. The cave is called special because there were two caves inside it: one for burying male bodies, and the other for female ones. No one was buried in this cave before the burial of Sarah. There Abraham honestly buried the body of his beloved wife Sarah, and subsequently he himself was buried in her. Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Leah were also buried there. Righteous Abraham, wandering in the land promised by God to him and his tribe, did not have his own place, as the holy First Martyr Stephen speaks to the Jews: “God has placed him (Abraham) in this land in which you now live, and you will not give him an inheritance in it, not even one foot” (Acts 7:4-5). The righteous man did not care about having his own place to stay, but moved from place to place, from country to country and from city to city, living among strangers to him in a foreign land as a stranger and a stranger, being content with God’s Providence alone. When the need arose for him to bury his dead man, he did not want someone else’s land, but bought it for himself at a price, so that he could have his own place in which Sarah, himself and his children could be buried. From here let us learn two things: that our whole life is a journey, the grave is a fatherland and an inheritance for our body, and that everything that we have in this life is foreign to us, and the grave alone is ours, in which we will rot. Wandering is our temporary life, and not only because a person moves from place to place, not everyone grows old in the same place in which he was born: others will be born in the east, but live in the west; the other will be born in the west and live in the east. But life is also called wandering because it naturally does not stand in one place during its days of existence, but continuously flows and changes, moving from infancy to adolescence, from adolescence to adolescence, and then to the perfect age of the husband, who then grows old and becomes decrepit. There is not a single hour in which our life begins to flow. If the sun seems to stand in the sky, which to our eyes seems to be standing, then in reality it still flows with an incessantly rapid current, like an arrow fired from a drawn bow, and in twenty-four hours it circles such a great circle of heaven. Likewise, human life seems to stand, but it does not stand, but continually flows, and what happened to the sun in the days of Joshua never happens to it, when “the sun was a hundred in the midst of the heavens, and it was not quick to go west in one day” (Joshua 10:13), that is, as long as a whole day took, it stood continuously in one place, so that one day was as long as two days. Human life does not stop for a single moment of time, but flows quickly even when we do not feel it: quickly, because it appears for a short time, and then disappears, just as a wanderer passing along the way is visible for a short time and immediately moves away, disappearing from sight. Our life is also like a wandering because it is fickle in its fortune or happiness: today a person is rich, but the next morning he turns out to be a beggar; today he is joyful, and the next morning he is sad; Today he is revered, and tomorrow he is dishonored. And just as a wanderer on his way passes cities, villages, mountains, wilds, oak groves and sees many beautiful things to see, but, having looked a little, he passes by, so our life passes by everything beautiful and prosperous in this world, although we think of slowing down, holding everything in our hands and enjoying everything. How is it that life will soon pass all this, this is explained in the Wisdom of Solomon by those who say with lamentation: “What benefit did pride give us, or wealth with magnificence, what did you repay us? All of it has passed like a canopy and like a message that flows, and like a ship passing through the waves of waters whose passage cannot be found, and like a bird flying across the air, along the way not a single sign is found, and like an arrow shot at a deliberate place: such is the journey of our life” (Wis. 5, 8-13). That is why David, praying to God, says about himself: “I am a stranger among you and a stranger, like all my fathers” (Ps. 38:13). The holy Apostle Peter exhorts well: “Beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and strangers, to flee from the lusts of the flesh, which war against the soul” (1 Pet. 2:11). Where is the fatherland and heritage for a mortal man? The fatherland for man (I speak according to the flesh, and not according to the spirit) is a coffin, earth and dust, for from there we came out in our flesh and this is the fatherland for our body, and to this we return again according to the judgment of God, who said: “Earth you are, and to earth you will go again” (Gen. 3:19). And just as the soul, given from God to man, after its departure from the body to God as its Father and to heaven as its fatherland, returns (if it is righteous), so the body, born from the earth, departs to the earth as to its mother. Therefore, Saint John the Theologian, entering the tomb prepared for himself, said to his disciples: draw the earth, my mother, cover me. If such a great saint knew that the earth was the fatherland for his body, and called it his mother, then what will we sinners say, shall we go to that mother? Shall we not return to the earth and grave, as to our true fatherland? What do we inherit there? Nothing other than complete corruption and worms, as Sirach writes: “When a man dies, creeping things and beasts and worms will inherit” (Sir. 10:13). Since our life is a journey, and the tomb is a fatherland for our body, then everything that we have in this life is foreign to us. Only one coffin is ours. This is the same as for Abraham, who lived as a wanderer and alien in the land of Canaan, everything was alien: the cities were alien, the villages were alien, the fields and oak groves were alien, all that land was alien, and only one cave was his own, which was purchased for the burial of his dead. A wandering person going to a distant country does not call a single place his own, no matter where he happens to spend the night, and if he sees any riches somewhere, he also does not call them his own, but someone else’s. Such a traveler carries almost nothing with him, just the necessary clothes and a small piece of bread, which is enough for daily food; he has only one desire to quickly get to where he is going. So in wandering in our life we ​​have any place only for a while: if we have a house, then it is for a while; Whether we have any possessions, they are all temporary, because they are not ours, since they were given to us temporarily and accidentally and over time they will be taken away again and pass into the hands of others. If our life is according to God, then daily food and necessary clothing are sufficient for us, as for those who want to achieve a future life with Christ. People are accustomed to appropriating a lot of things in this world, and everyone cares to have his own house, his own estate, his own society, and everything that he acquires, he calls his own, but truly, O man, in a ghostly way, everything that you have acquired belongs to you, but in reality, all this is someone else’s, for it will not remain with you forever, but will soon pass into the hands of others, and you do not know who will become the owner of your acquisitions after you. You have a house, but will you stay in it forever? Will you not be driven out while you are still alive, or will you not be carried out of your house dead in order to hide you somewhere in the earth? Do you have any estates, villages, fields, gardens, but how long will you be the master of all this? Will someone stronger than you take everything away from you? Or will you not leave all this behind, moving into the coffin? You have gold, silver and many precious things, but do you know that one day you will lose all of this? Are you sure that thieves will not kidnap, robbers will not steal, fire will not burn, water will not drown? Let it happen that you will have all this intact, but the hour will come in which the death that befalls you will destroy all this, and you yourself will depart from this world deprived of everything, naked and barely having funeral clothes. For when a person dies, will he not leave everything, and will not his glory also go with him (Ps. 48:18)? “I fell asleep with my sleep and found all my wealth in nothingness in my hands. They will leave their wealth to strangers,” says the Psalmist (Ps. 75:6 and 48:11). For everything that is ours here is not ours, but someone else’s. You will say: all this is mine while I am alive, or as long as I possess it all. But I tell you that even at the very time in which you are the owner of your estates, the latter are not your own, for they did not arise from your nature. You were not born with them, you did not carry them out of your mother’s womb, but you borrowed everything, and they will not remain with you except for a short time. Your clothes, if they are made of wool, are borrowed from sheep, and if they are silk, they are borrowed from an Indian worm called the silkworm; your tunic is borrowed from flax or some other grass; your shoes are borrowed from the skins of beasts; gold and silver are borrowed from the depths of the earth, and you have a lot from unrighteous gains. And what you acquired through theft, robbery and the labors of others, you cannot even call yours, for it is someone else’s, not yours. You came naked from your mother’s womb, and naked you will go into the earth. What is truly yours? There is only one grave, and where you are buried, there will be your place, there is your home, as the Psalmist says: “Their graves are their dwellings forever” (Ps. 48:12). In that house you will remain hopelessly, even until the voice of the Archangel and the last trumpet. No one will drive you out of there, no one will envy your property that you will have there - your decay; no one will steal from there your worm, which eats your corpse; no one will say: this is my bastard, crawling out of your coffin, but he is your own, not a stranger, not common. So, the grave is our place for us, but everything else is not ours, for we have brought nothing into this world and will not take anything out of here. If all this is so, then we must constantly think about our place, about our fatherland, about the tomb, we must, I say, constantly remember about death. And just as Abraham the righteous bought himself a tomb at a price, so we should, through good deeds, buy that which would give us the opportunity to receive, by the mercy of God, a Christian death, an honest death, a righteous repose. If anyone wishes to receive such an end, let him, before his natural, carnal death, die a spiritual death for sin and bury his mind in a special cave: in the rib of Christ pierced on the cross and in his own tomb, that is, let him constantly remember the free suffering of Christ and His death on the cross, and let him always carry his death unforgettably in his mind. The death of such a person will be honest before the Lord and his death will be blessed. When Isaac came to the age of a perfect husband and was already forty years old from birth, then the righteous father Abraham, wanting to marry him, did not want to take him a bride from the maidens of Canaan, because he saw the evil morals of these people and their lawless life. Therefore, he sent his faithful servant to Haran, to the house of his brother Nahor, whose wife was Melkha (daughter of Arran, sister of Lot and Sarah), who bore Nahor a son Bethuel, and Bethuel gave birth to a daughter Rebekah and a son Laban. It was this maiden Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel, sister of Laban and granddaughter of Nahor, that he took as a wife for his son Isaac. After Sarah's death, Abraham took another wife for himself, named Keturah. The Almighty Lord, wanting to multiply the family of His servant, miraculously renewed the power of childbearing in him, despite his old age. Abraham fathered children with Keturah. When the latter came of age, he bestowed gifts on them and sent them away so that they would not co-inherit with his son Isaac. After this, he died in venerable old age, having lived 175 years, and was buried by his sons Isaac and Ishmael in a special cave, where righteous Sarah was buried. Keturah, whom Abraham took as his wife after the death of Sarah, is considered by some to be Hagar, who was his former concubine; Abraham sent her away with her son Ishmael while Sarah was alive. When Sarah died, he allegedly brought this concubine Hagar to him again and made her his legal wife, and she began to be called Keturah. But the Holy Scriptures do not talk about this. The numbering of years reveals that Abraham did not die until he saw his grandchildren born of Isaac, Jacob and Esau, for Abraham begat Isaac when he was a hundred years old, but lived only 175 years. Isaac was united in marriage with Rebekah in the fortieth year of his life; therefore, Abraham was then 140 years old from his birth. Isaac gave birth to Esau and Jacob in the sixtieth year of his life, when Abraham was 160 years old: Abraham still had 15 years of life left before completing the limit of his entire one hundred and seventy-five years of age. So, Abraham lived not only until the birth of his grandchildren, but also until they were fifteen years old, and was comforted by them. But most of all, he rejoiced in spirit about Jacob, prophetically foreseeing the Messiah, Christ, the Savior of the world, who would come from the tribe of Jacob. It is also likely that Abraham taught his grandchildren the knowledge of God in their adolescence. However, since the death of Abraham in the Bibles is placed before the birth of Esau and Jacob, then we will follow the Bibles. God blessed Abraham's son Isaac with every abundance of earthly blessings; but he had only one sadness - his wife Rebekah did not give birth. And Isaac prayed to God for his wife, so that He would resolve her barrenness. Although God promised Abraham to multiply through Isaac his seed, from whom the expected Messiah should come, He demanded that the promised gift be accepted through prayer. Therefore, for twenty years (as Saint Chrysostom says) Isaac begged God to grant Rebekah childbearing, and received what he asked: God heard him, and Rebekah conceived two children in her womb. When the time of birth approached, the babies jumped in it, as if fighting among themselves and oppressing each other and as if wanting to warn each other about leaving the mother’s womb. Rebekah was surprised and said to herself: what is this and what should happen from this? She asked God about this in fervent prayer, and the Lord spoke to her through His angel, saying: “There are two tongues in your womb, and two nations will come out of your womb, and one will prevail over the other, and the older will do the work of the younger” (Gen. 25:23). Rebekah did not tell this revelation of God to her husband, but she waited for the fulfillment of God’s words. When the time of childbirth ended, she gave birth to two twins: the first to appear was the red and shaggy first-born son, and he was followed by the other son, whose hand held the heel of the first, as if holding the first one in the birth. The father gave the name Esau to the first (for it was a father's business to name his children). He named his son that way because he was a shaggy baby, like a shaggy adult husband, for the word “Esau” means adult, perfect. In addition, he also gave it another name - Edom, that is, “yellow,” since it was chermen (red, red). There is, however, another interpretation of this name, which see in the Great Canon of Andrew of Crete, in the 4th song He gave the other child the name Jacob, which means heel-stoker, or heel-holder. At this time, Isaac was 60 years old from his birth. When both sons of Isaac came of age, Esau was a fisherman and a plowman, and Jacob stayed at home, serving his parents in meekness and simplicity of his heart, as the Scripture says about him: “And he was a man without guile, living in the house” (Gen. 25:27). The Jews say that Jacob lived in the house because he was diligent in his studies; according to them, at that time there was a teaching that originated from Melchizedek and taught (like Abraham’s teaching) the knowledge of one God, the Creator of all creation, and His love, in order to fear and please Him with good deeds and righteous living. This is what Jacob learned while staying in the house. Isaac loved Esau, since the latter's catch was his food. Rebekah loved Jacob, partly seeing in him good character, meekness, quietness, obedience, and partly knowing God’s favor about him, that he was pleasing and pleasing to God and that God had magnified him with honor before Esau, but most of all, by the revelation of God, foreseeing with his prophetic gift that from his tribe would come the most beloved of the whole world, the Lover, Christ. Because she loved Jacob, because she was a prophetess and wished him primacy; out of her love, she told him the revelation about him that had come to her from God and commanded him to keep this secret, as she herself kept. Jacob, having heard this from his mother, was inflamed with even greater love for God and began to work harder for Him, turning to Him with warm prayer and trying in every possible way to please Him. One day Jacob cooked himself a brew (porridge, sochivo, stew). Esau came from the field tired and hungry and said to Jacob: Feed me with your brew so that I can strengthen myself. Jacob said to him: Give me your primacy today. And Esau said: I am dying from labor and hunger, what use is this championship to me, what benefit does it have to me? Jacob said: Swear to me today that you will give me the primacy. Esau swore and gave primacy to Jacob. Jacob gave him bread and stew: Esau ate and drank, and got up and went away, not caring for the championship that he had sold to his brother for the stew. Let's see what the power and honor of primacy was in those ancient families. Firstly, the firstborn son was, after his father, like a second father for his brothers; the brothers had to bow to him as a father, which is clearly evident from the words of Isaac spoken to Jacob (instead of Esau) in the blessing: “Be lord to your brother, that your father’s sons may worship you” (Gen. 27:29). Let us note that it was the custom of the ancients to call their grandchildren sons. Secondly, such was the power of the firstborn that after the death of their father, when the division of the estate took place between the sons, they had to receive two parts, while everyone else accepted one part allocated to them. This is clearly expressed in Deuteronomy, where it is commanded: “Let a father give to his firstborn the wealth of everything, for he is the beginning of his children” (Deut. 21:17). Thirdly, the firstborn was accorded such an honor (which began after the flood) that the firstborn was also a priest, or, so to speak, a priest of the house, as the Lord later spoke to Moses about this: “Leave to Me every firstborn, opening the womb of his mother, that it may be done to Me” (Ex. 13:2), that is, may he be set apart for Me to serve as a priest. And He also says: “All the firstborn in Israel are sanctified to Himself” (Numbers 3:13). By virtue of this law, the firstborn offered sacrifices to God for the entire house of his father, and he had special priestly clothing for this. The Jewish rabbis say that Jacob, having bought his primacy from Esau, also accepted the priestly robe, in which his mother Rebekah later clothed him when Jacob anticipated his father’s blessing. In ancient times, the honor of the firstborn consisted in the fact that they served as priests by offering sacrifices to God. When God wanted to allocate a special priesthood, He chose for this the tribe of Levi, chosen by Jacob after the rejection of his firstborn Reuben for a reason that will be discussed later. Then God said to Moses: “Behold, I took the Levites from among the children of Israel, instead of every firstborn who opens his mother’s womb” (Numbers 3:12). By virtue of the same law, among the Levin tribe, after the death of the bishop, the first son accepted his bishopric, just as after Aaron his first-born Eleazar accepted the bishopric. Finally, the primacy was great because the father, dying, first of all blessed his first-born with a special and hefty blessing, surpassing the blessing of other sons. And this fatherly blessing actually came true on the firstborn, just as Isaac’s blessing came true on Jacob. Stupid Esau sold such an honor of primacy to Jacob for food and lost his leadership, priesthood and the greater blessing of his father! Esau was the image of each of us sinners: just as he sold the great honor of primacy for a small meal, so every sinful person sells the ineffable and endless pleasure of the Heavenly Kingdom for the small, short-term and vain sweetness of sin. Question: Jacob, buying the primacy from Esau, such an honest and holy thing, did not he sin with the sin of sacrilege, or, in our language, simony? Answer: he did not sin, since he did not buy someone else’s, but he returned his own, what he had anticipated, back to himself again, for in his mother’s womb he was chosen by God and predestined to be the firstborn, as the Apostle Paul says: “Not among those born by him, whoever did something good or evil, so that according to the election, the offer of God may abid, not from works, but from the one who called, speaking to her (Rebekah), for the greater will work for the lesser as he is.” it is written: I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau” (Rom. 9:11-13). Saint Chrysostom, giving an interpretation of these apostolic words, says: “Although they were not yet born, this one (Jacob) was revered, and that one (Esau) was condemned. This is the work of foreknowledge - to choose even in the event of illness (maternal illness), so that God’s election, which happens according to predestination and foreknowledge, may be revealed.” Saint Ambrose likens the struggle of Jacob with Esau in his mother’s womb to the leaping of John the Baptist in the womb of his mother and speaks of sanctification in Jacob’s mother’s womb, as this later happened with John. And when Esau was the first to emerge from his mother’s womb, Jacob held his heel, as if preventing him from being born before him. Therefore, Jacob, as chosen by God and sanctified in his mother’s womb for primacy, did not sin with sacrilege, buying himself primacy from Esau, for he did not buy someone else’s, but bought his own that which was anticipated by Esau in his mother’s womb. In the days of righteous Abraham, among all the peoples and pagans who lived in heaven, lost and raging in idolatry, their filthy gods were glorified, about which, for their wickedness, I should not even write, for this will not bring us any benefit. However, for the sake of knowledge, for in the lives of the saints and in the sufferings of martyrdom they are often mentioned by name, and also for the sake of exposing their wickedness, for the sake of ridiculing the madness of lost people who deified the image of a wicked man, we will briefly talk about those bad gods in this place. We have already previously mentioned in the events of the ninth century of the third thousand years about George Kedrin, who in the historical Synopsis narrates that the pillar-creator and first Babylonian king Nevrod was called Saturn and Orion, and his son Picos (he is also Zeus, or the Roman Jupiter, or the Greek Dius, or Jovis, and we will call him throughout our narrative Diem), and Semiramis considers Rhea to be the goddess. Let it be known that subsequently there were other Greek gods with the same names, which is why there are sometimes disagreements in stories. For one act of god is attributed to another, as, for example, Kedrin says that the Babylonian god Saturn, who is called Chronos by the Greeks, was expelled from the kingdom by his son Diem and retired to Italy; but this exile did not happen to the Babylonian Saturn, but to the Saturn who lived later and reigned in Crete, as will be said here. In the same way, there is more than one Orion, since there is also another. And Rhea was the wife of the Cretan Saturn, who is also called Opis and Kiveli (Tsibella). You can also find in the stories another Picos, who lived not in Babylonia, but in Italy, born not from the Babylonian, but from the Cretan Saturn. Diy is also not one, but there are many of them: one is mentioned by Kedrin; the other is the one whose true name is Lysanias, descended from the family of the sons of Eber, who was primarily revered in Arcadia for the sake of his mind. Then he came to the Attic country, to the city of Athens, where he saw people living like beasts and taught them civil laws. The inhabitants of Attica chose him as their king and considered him a god, and called him the god Diem. The other Diy was the son of Uranus and Gaia, whom we will now talk about. Another Diy is the son of the Cretan Saturn, also called Olympian, since he had his place on the mountain called Olympus. Let us begin here the genealogy of these lying gods. In Phenicia there was a king named Helius, which means the sun. He gave birth to a son named Uranus, which means heaven, and a daughter who was called Gaia, or Vesta (Hestia). It is said that there were two Vestas: the first is the Vesta mentioned here, who was later the mother of the Cretan Saturn; the other Vesta is the daughter of Saturn (Gerrard Mercator in the preface to Atlas). Uranus, having come of age, took his own sister Gaia as his wife. Gaia, or Vesta, was also called earth, just as her husband and brother were called heaven. Uranus, or heaven, gave birth to 17 children of both sexes from his sister and wife Gaia, and also gave birth to many more children from other wives, so that the number of his children was 45. Of these, the most remarkable male children were the following: Iapetus, who gave birth to Prometheus, the father of Deucalion; Titanium; Saturn, also known as Chronos; Hyperion; Atlas the elder, the father of Atlas the younger, and Diy, nicknamed the plowman, as if he taught people to plow the land, although he also had another name - Dagon, whom the Philistines considered their god. Of the female sex, two daughters were the most outstanding: Vasily, who was the firstborn among the children of Uranus, and Opis, whom Kedrin calls Rhea, and the others - Kiveli. Here, pious reader, listen and see how vile were the deeds of these wicked gods, about whom the Greek fables narrate. Saturn, seeing that their father Uranus was giving birth to many sons, and not sympathizing with this, since he himself would like to be the heir to the kingdom, committed a terrible and shameful act: he castrated his father with a sickle so that he would no longer give birth to children, and threw the circumcised part with blood into the sea; from this blood, combined with sea foam, a maiden was born, called Venus, who later became a glorified harlot and the goddess of fornicators. Uranus died from an ulcer. The brothers and sisters and the people were indignant at Saturn and entrusted the kingdom to one of the daughters of Uranus, Vasily, since she was very prudent and older than all the brothers and sisters. Vasily accepted the reign while still a virgin. Wanting to have a son as an heir, she took her brother Hyperion as her husband and gave birth to two children with him - male and female. She called the male child the sun, and the female child the moon. When her children began to grow up and discover great intelligence in themselves, Hyperion’s brothers became jealous and, fearing that the inheritance of the kingdom would not pass to his children, they killed Hyperion, their brother, and drowned his son the sun, who was still a youth, in the Eridanus River. They divided the kingdom among themselves. Atlas accepted Mauritania, and others - other countries. During the division, a dispute arose between Titan and Saturn over the Cretan country, since each of them wanted to reign in Crete. But since Gaia’s mother, who was still alive, as well as her sisters were more sympathetic to Saturn, Titan, the elder brother, seeing this, voluntarily ceded the Cretan kingdom to Saturn, however, with the condition that he should not leave behind a single son who could be the heir to the kingdom, for the inheritance of the kingdom should pass to his (Titanium) sons. Saturn, keeping the agreement concluded with his brother, ate all the sons born to him and left only his daughters alive. His wife was his own sister, the aforementioned Opis, who is also called Rhea and Kiveli. This wife, and together with the sister of Saturn, when she gave birth to male and female twins, hid the male child and did not show him to the father. His name was in Greek Zeus, or Dius, and in Roman - Jupiter, or Jovis. The name of the female child was Juno, also known as Ira. When this secret was later revealed to Saturn and he demanded that a son be given to him to eat (look what these fables are!), the mother, having wrapped a stone the size of a boy in swaddling clothes, gave him instead of a son, and Saturn, without looking at it, immediately swallowed the stone wrapped in shrouds, believing that he had eaten the son. His son was secretly raised and given to the Curetes, or priests of the Coryvantes, who served as tympans and cymbals for their vile gods. They were on the deserted Mount Ida. Among them were Amalopeia and Melissa, two daughters of the ancient Cretan king Melisson. It was they who accepted the baby and fed him with goat's milk and honey. They also talk about how the bees themselves brought honey into Dieva’s mouth. The Coryvantes, when the baby cried, struck tympani and played cymbals so that Saturn would not hear the baby’s cry, for they considered Saturn to be the god and believed that he heard the most distant voices. Then Opis gave birth to Neptune and also raised him secretly from her husband. Then she gave birth to Pluto along with her daughter Glauca - she showed her daughter to her husband, but hid her son and raised her in secret. When these children came of age, Titan saw them and was angry with brother Saturn because he did not keep the covenant made with him. He gathered his sons, went to war, captured him along with his sister and locked them both in stone walls. But Diy, uniting with his brothers, defeated the sons of Titan and freed his father and mother from captivity. In the place where Diy and his brothers defeated the sons of Titan, from the blood of the latter, which stained the earth, people were born - Giants, that is, Veletna, whose age is like oaks. Nevertheless, Saturn disliked the son of Dius and looked for a convenient time to destroy him. Diy, having learned about this, expelled his father from the kingdom. Saturn fled to Italy, where he was friendly received by the Italian king Ianos, or Janus, and stayed with him until his death, for Janus gave him part of his kingdom, and both of them ruled in peace and love. When Saturn died, King Janus built a church over his tomb and sculpted his idol, and honored him as a god, appointing priests and establishing incomes, which were called Saturn's income. This idol held a sickle in his hand, as a sign that he allegedly taught people sowing and reaping, or rather, as a sign that he killed his father with a sickle. Hellenic poets say that Saturn, also known as Chronos, reigned in heaven and was the father of the gods, and then, driven out of heaven by his son Dius, fled to Italy and hid there. His sons after him divided the universe for themselves: Diy took the sky, Neptune took the seas into his region, and Pluto prevailed over the underworld. Such are the Hellenic fables regarding their pagan gods, at which no one would laugh! You might be interested in: