Период девятый. Состояние ветхозаветной церкви от Ездры до Рождества Христова

XLIX. Return of the Jews from captivity. Creation of the second church. The activities of Ezra and Nehemiah. The last prophets. The fate of the Jews who remained within the kingdom of Persia: the story of Esther and Mordecai All Jews, to whom the memory of Jerusalem was dear and sacred, responded to the call of the royal decree of liberation. But there were few of them - only 42,360 people with 7,367 servants and maids. These were mostly poor people, and their entire property consisted of 736 horses, 245 mules, 435 camels and 6,720 donkeys. A much larger part of the captives, all those who managed to acquire a significant economy in the country of their captivity, chose to stay there, and among them the majority of the upper and rich classes, who easily lost their faith and nationality and were reborn as Babylonians. But even among the upper classes there were still truly patriotic and pious people, such as the Jewish prince Zerubbabel, who assumed command of the caravan of settlers. With him was the High Priest Jesus, the same name of the leader who first led the chosen people into the Promised Land, and of that Divine Redeemer who was to in the future bring humanity into the possession of the indestructible kingdom “not of this world,” and nine more elders who took upon themselves the burden of establishing the settlers on the soil of their native land. Having received assistance both from their fellow tribesmen who remained in Babylonia, and from the Babylonians themselves, and carrying with them 5,400 church vessels, once captured by Nebuchadnezzar and now returned by Cyrus, this small remnant of the once powerful people set off on their way to the promised land. Of the settlers, of course, each tried to see his old ashes as soon as possible, and therefore they returned to their various cities. But in the seventh holy month of Tisri they all gathered in Jerusalem and there, rebuilding the altar on a pile of ruins, they celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles. At the same time, they began to prepare materials for the restoration of the church, and at the same time, as in the time of Solomon, they were helped by the Tyrians and Sidonians, who hired to deliver them cedar wood from the mountains of Lebanon 277. In the second month of the following year (535), at the very time of the founding of the tabernacle by Moses, the solemn foundation of the new church was carried out. The entire ceremony of the laying was carried out “according to the statute of David,” with the singing of the priests and Levites, who glorified the Lord with trumpets and cymbals; “And all the people shouted with a loud voice, praising the Lord because the foundation of the house of the Lord had been laid.” But many, especially the old priests, Levites and elders, who saw the former church, could not help but cry, “and wept loudly,” “and the people could not recognize the exclamations of joy from the cries of the people’s lament.” Then the construction of the church itself began. In the absence of sufficient funds, this work was difficult and slow, especially since opponents of this work appeared in the person of the Samaritans, who, considering Palestine now their possession, were hostile to the settlers and with various slander before the Persian government even achieved a decree to stop the work. Work resumed again under Darius Hystaspes, who confirmed the decree of Cyrus, and the people, encouraged by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, set to work with even greater zeal, and the building was completed in the sixth year of the reign of Darius (515), 21 years after its foundation was laid. A solemn consecration of the new church was carried out, which was built on the model of the first, although from less valuable materials. In addition to the 700 burnt offerings, twelve male goats were sacrificed for sin, “for all Israel according to the number of tribes.” According to the Rule of David, the “orders” of priests and Levites for serving at the church were restored, although in order to compile the full number of these orders, the four orders that turned out to be present had to be divided into six parts. The consecration was completed with the solemn celebration of Easter. The rumor about the restoration of the church and worship in it spread throughout all the borders of the Persian monarchy, where only the Jews remained and, encouraged by the success of their brothers, many of them decided to take advantage of Cyrus’ decree; and now a new party of immigrants gathered, who, numbering one and a half thousand families, headed to the holy land. The leader of this party was Ezra, a learned priest from the Aaronic family, who enjoyed the special favor of King Artaxerxes Longiman, whose decree of 457 serves as the beginning for counting the weeks of Daniel. When the settlers arrived in Jerusalem, Ezra was struck by the sad state of the people. Many of the Jews married pagans, and their children were raised in semi-paganism. Distressed by all this, Ezra tore his clothes and so moved the people with his admonitions of the illegality and danger of such marriages that many decided to divorce their pagan wives. Meanwhile, despite all the efforts of Ezra, the situation of the people remained sad: due to their poverty and disagreement, as well as the opposition of their enemies, the Jews had not yet begun to restore Jerusalem, so its walls were still in ruins. The news of this extremely saddened the pious Nehemiah, who occupied the high position of cupbearer at the court of the Persian king. He decided to help his people, and when, after fervent prayer to God, he reported this to the king, the latter not only mercifully reacted to his request to dismiss him for a while in St. land, but also supplied him with royal letters to the regional governors to provide him with any assistance and a guard detachment of horsemen for safety on the way. An inspection of Jerusalem fully confirmed his information about the state of the city and the people, and he energetically began work, despite the hostile attitude of the leaders of neighboring regions and tribes, who, fearing the strengthening of the Jewish people, in every possible way interfered with the work, plotted to kill Nehemiah himself and slandered him before the king of Persia, as if he fortified Jerusalem with the treasonous intention of proclaiming himself king and secession from the Persian monarchy. But all their intrigues were in vain. To protect himself from an unexpected attack by enemies, Nehemiah armed the people and divided them into two shifts, one of which worked, and the other stood under arms. Things went so quickly that after 52 days Jerusalem seemed to be resurrected from its ruins, and the enemies of the Jewish people were amazed to see strong strongholds in front of them. This was in 444. Having completed the main task, Nehemiah began an internal transformation in the life of the people, and, first of all, eased the lot of the poor people, who suffered from the oppression and greed of the rich. Then, to commemorate the entry of the people into a new life, the Feast of Trumpets (in the month of Tisri) was celebrated with special triumph. All the immigrants gathered for the holiday, and Nehemiah and Ezra took advantage of this to renew the commandments of God and the law of Moses in the minds of the people. At the solemn meeting of the people, Ezra appeared accompanied by the bookish Levites and, with the greatest reverence, opening the book of the law, began to read it to the people, who listened with tenderness to the sacred reading. But during their stay in captivity, the people had already significantly forgotten the ancient Hebrew language in which the books of the Law of Moses were written, and therefore it was necessary to translate what was being read into the popular language, which was Aramaic, which is what the book Levites did, accompanying the reading of the law with translation and proper interpretations. The people wept with tenderness, thanking God for all His good deeds to His beloved people and repenting of all the sins and crimes that had brought upon His righteous wrath. This whole celebration was completed by the conclusion of a new covenant with God, which was sealed with the signature and seal of the princes, priests and Levites. Having taken steps to settle Jerusalem, Nehemiah returned to the Persian court to his former position. But rumors about new sentiments in Jerusalem again forced him to return to his native land. There he found that the high priest Eliashib, who was in charge of the temple, allowed terrible unrest, allowing even one of the enemies of the people - Tobiah the Ammonite to settle in the very courtyard of the temple and entered into a relationship with his other enemy Sanballat - as a result of which the religious and moral life of the people fell, the Sabbath was not observed, tithes were not paid to the Levites, and marriages with pagans continued to take place. Burning with zeal for the shrine, Nehemiah kicked Tobiah out of the dwelling allotted to him and threw away all his household belongings, reprimanded the elders for the disorder they had caused, prohibited trading on the Sabbath, restored the correct distribution of tithes to the Levites, and with strict measures forced the Jews to fulfill the law of not mixing with idolaters. Nehemiah described his activities in a special book bearing his name (“The Book of Nehemiah”) and ending with the prayer: “Remember me, O my God, for my good.” The activities of Ezra are described in the “books of Ezra.” The activities of the last prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi also date back to the time of the activities of these famous men. The first two spoke a prophetic word even under Zerubbabel and encouraged the people not to weaken in their zeal to build the church, predicting complete success for the holy work, although, at the same time, foreshadowing the imminent advent of the kingdom of the Messiah, when the people themselves, for their disobedience to Him, will be rejected again and in their place a new race will appear and settle in the holy city, over which the glory of God will shine. The series of Old Testament prophets ended with the last prophet Malachi. In his face, Old Testament prophecy said its last word. In his sermon one can already hear the foreshadowing of the approaching “fulfillment of times,” and he calls the people to repentance in order to meet this great moment with dignity. Since his preaching exposes the same sentiments that Nehemiah fought against, their activities should be considered modern. In any case, the prophetic activity of Malachi falls at the end of the 5th century, and it is possible that Ezra, who at that time compiled the canon of the books of the Old Testament, completed it by including in it the book of the “prophet Malachi,” with which the Jewish canon of the books of St. Scriptures. But raising up great and pious men to organize the lives of the Jews who returned from captivity to the Promised Land, the Lord did not abandon His providence to those who remained within the Persian kingdom. In times of disaster, His hand even there raised up for them worthy defenders from the malice of their enemies. Such is the famous Queen Esther and her relative Mordecai, a pious Jew, who was taken into captivity as a child along with King Jehoiachin. Being childless, Mordecai raised the young orphan Hadassah (this is the Hebrew name of Esther) as his own daughter, and his virtue was rewarded with a wonderful fate that led to the extraordinary rise of both of them. Mordecai, occupying the modest position of a gatekeeper at the royal palace, saved the king’s life by preventing one court conspiracy, for which his name was entered on the pages of the royal chronicle, and his pupil Hadassa pleased King Artaxerxes so much when he chose a new wife from among the most beautiful maidens of the entire state in place of Queen Vashti, rejected by him for her pride, that he “placed the royal crown on her head and made her queen in place of Vashti,” giving her the honorary name Esther - “star.” Such elevation of a representative of the Jewish people aroused extreme hatred and anger among some courtiers and especially a certain Haman the Amalekite, who, himself being placed “above all the princes” of the kingdom, used his power only to arrogantly oppress all who did not prostrate themselves before him with slavish servility. Having learned that Mordecai did not show him such servility as the court dignitaries generally did, Haman flew into a rage and decided to destroy not only himself, but also his entire people. By insidiously slandering the Jews, as the most harmful people in the state, Haman obtained the king’s consent to issue a decree on their extermination. Having learned about the fate threatening his people, Mordecai informed Esther about this and demanded that she intercede before the king on behalf of her people. Courageous Esther, under fear of losing her position and life, contrary to strict court etiquette, came to the king without an invitation and, having found mercy from him, invited him and Haman to a feast at her place. Haman, flattered by such an invitation and thinking that the queen had decided not to put any obstacles in his way in carrying out his vengeance on the Jews, ordered, at the same time, to erect a high gallows for Mordecai. Meanwhile, the king, in order to disperse the boredom of a sleepless night, ordered himself to read the royal chronicles, and when it was read to him about the feat of Mordecai, which had hitherto remained without proper reward, the very next morning he asked his favorite Haman: “What should the man whom the king wants to honor honor do?” Haman, fully convinced that the king had in mind none other than him, replied that such a person should be honored with a royal crown and royal clothing, put on a horse and forced one of the first princes of the kingdom to lead him around the city proclaiming the royal favor. To his extreme amazement and anger, he had to do all this in relation to Mordecai, who was hated by him. Broken in spirit, he went to Esther's feast, but there a well-deserved fate awaited him. Pleased with the treat, Artaxerxes invited Esther to ask him for whatever she wanted, “at least until half the kingdom.” Then Esther asked for protection for herself and her people from the fierce enemy, and when the king found out what the matter was, he ordered Haman to be hanged on the very gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai, and to cancel the decree on the extermination of the Jews, a new decree was sent out about their right to resist the execution of the first. By virtue of this decree, the Jews rose up in arms in defense of their lives and killed more than 75,000 of their enemies, and the ten sons of Haman suffered the same fate as their father. In memory of such a miraculous salvation, the holiday of Purim was established (from the word pur - lot, because Haman cast lots for the destruction of the Jews). This wonderful story is described in the “book of Esther.” L. Condition of the Jews under Greek Dominion. The time of the Maccabees and their exploits for the church and state. Jews under Roman rule. Reign of Herod After Nehemiah, power over the Jewish people was concentrated in the hands of the high priests, who ruled the state at the head of the elders, who formed a national assembly of 120 members, the so-called “great synagogue,” from which, subsequently, a special supreme court was formed - the Sanhedrin. Thanks to the gentle attitude of the Persian government, the high priestly rulers had the opportunity to freely engage in the external and religious improvement of the people, although in the absence of firm power there was no shortage of internal unrest. Thus, one of the high priests, Jonathan, even disgraced himself by killing his brother Jesus, whom he, suspecting an encroachment on the high priestly office, killed in the church itself. The final break between the Jews and Samaritans dates back to this time. The latter, under the leadership of the son of the high priest Eliashib, Manasseh, who came over to their side out of reluctance to divorce his pagan wife, erected their own special temple on Mount Gorizim, which supported their hostile rivalry with the temple of Jerusalem. But now, according to the prophecy of Daniel, the end of the Persian monarchy had come, and it had to give way to a third monarchy - the Greek. The founder of the latter was the famous Alexander the Great, who began to conquer the world with victories quickly following one another. Having conquered all of Asia Minor, Alexander moved to Phenicia and Palestine, and there only proud Tire delayed him with his stubborn resistance for seven months. After its destruction, the conqueror headed unhindered to Jerusalem. Its inhabitants trembled and prayed to God for protection, and the high priest Jaddui, in his full vestments and accompanied by priests and Levites, came out to meet Alexander. The conqueror graciously accepted this solemn deputation and, next to the high priest, entered Jerusalem, entered the church and, at the direction of the priests, offered a sacrifice, while listening to Daniel’s prophecy read to him about him. Moved by all this, he granted the Jews freedom from taxes during the Sabbath years and allowed them to live according to their own laws. Alexander, however, resettled a significant part of the Jews to the newly founded city of Alexandria, in Egypt. The Macedonian conquest brought Judea, together with the entire eastern world, under the influence of the Greek language and the Greek worldview, thus subjecting the devotion of the Jews to their religion and their laws to a new and powerful test. But the worldwide monarchy founded by Alexander lasted only until his death (323 BC) and broke up into four kingdoms, two of which - Egypt and Syria - received very important significance in the history of the Jews. During the subsequent wars of succession, Palestine became a bone of contention between the rulers of these two countries, but in 320 the Egyptian king Ptolemy Lagus annexed it to Egypt, under whose rule it remained for more than a century. Under the gentle rule of the Egyptian kings, the Jews led a peaceful and happy life. Little by little they settled in all the trading cities along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and, for their industrial enterprise, everywhere enjoyed great advantages and benefits from the rulers, who tried to attract them to revive industry. As a result of this, the Jews spread more and more, built themselves prayer houses or synagogues, into which pagans were also admitted, and through this spread the knowledge of the true God among them. The Hebrew language was increasingly forgotten by them and was replaced by Greek, which was adopted by all the Jews living outside Palestine, and especially in Egypt. As a result, even a translation of St. Scriptures into Greek, and this translation was completed during the reign of the Egyptian king Ptolemy II Philadelphus. For this purpose, the king entered into communication with the high priest Eleazar, who sent him the original St. Scripture and translators, including 72 people (six from each tribe). The translation was made successfully by them and, after approval by a special meeting of learned men, it entered into general use. It is known as the translation of the seventy interpreters (or simply the translation of 70) and is still used in the Greek church. In 203 BC. Egypt, however, lost its power over Judea, it came under the rule of the Syrian kings, and from that time on a difficult time began for the Jewish people. The Syrian kings, encountering resistance among the Jews to their plans to introduce Greek religion and culture into their state, began to oppress them in every possible way. King Seleucus Philopator ordered the temple to be robbed for the benefit of his state treasury, and his successor Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164) decided to completely destroy the religion of Jehovah and introduce Greek paganism in its place. In favor of his crazy plan, he even persuaded the brother of the high priest Onias, Jesus, who achieved the deposition of his brother and, under the Greek name of Jason, himself became a high priest. He became the head of the Greek-Jewish party formed in Jerusalem, began to displace the old religion and introduced pagan customs and rituals in its place. Antiochus Epiphanes himself (“Glorious”, but later renamed Epimanus - “Mad”), upon returning from the Egyptian campaign, having entered Jerusalem, robbed and desecrated the church and subjected to merciless beating everyone who only opposed the innovations of Jason and Menelaus, who were servile before him, but at the same time were mortally at odds with each other, alternately desecrating and dishonoring with his personality the high dignity of the high priesthood. The Greek cult was declared the state religion, and everyone had to confess it on pain of death. The proof of her recognition was the eating of pork; but there were such zealots of the fatherly law and true religion who preferred to die rather than “transgress the fatherly laws.” Thus, the ninety-year-old elder Eleazar the scribe suffered martyrdom for his courageous fortitude, “leaving in his death not only the young men, but also very many of the people, a model of valor and a monument to virtue.” He was followed by one widow, the mother of seven sons, who all also accepted martyrdom for their devotion to the faith, calling on the righteous wrath of God against the cruel tormentor king. This terrible persecution, however, had the good side that it aroused among the people an aversion to the forcibly imposed Hellenism 279 and strengthened devotion to their faith. The priests unanimously came out in defense of the true religion. The elderly priest Mattathias showed particular zeal, who, persecuted for his devotion to the true religion, retired with his five sons to the city of Modin. When the royal official arrived in Modin to carry out the royal decree, Mattathias killed the first one who approached the pagan altar, and then the official himself, and, calling on all Jehovah’s zealots to follow him, he fled with his sons to the mountains. From there they began to raid and destroy pagan altars. Mattathias himself soon died, but bequeathed to his son Judah the continuation of his work to free the country from the yoke of idolatry. The dying will of his elderly father inspired Judas with heroic jealousy, and he, under the name of Maccabee, i.e. “Hammer on enemies” 280, together with his brothers heroically came out in defense of religion. Having gathered around him all the zealots of Jehovah, he inflicted several severe defeats on the army of Antiochus Epiphanes and for a time reached the conclusion of peace, which he used to restore the true religion with all its worship. The church was again cleansed and consecrated, in memory of which a new holiday was established for the “renewal” of the church. Although Judas Maccabee died the glorious death of a hero in the renewed war, his work was continued by his other Maccabee brothers. Meanwhile, the tormentor king himself suffered the terrible wrath of God in the form of a terrible illness, and he, eaten alive by worms, died, cursed by all the Jewish people. After his death, the Maccabees became independent rulers of the country and were the ancestors of the so-called Asmonean family of princes (named after the ancestor of the Maccabees, Mattathias Asmoneus). Under their rule, the Jewish people again enjoyed peace and prosperity for some time; but soon internal unrest began both from the rivalry of various representatives of the Asmonean family itself, and from the division of the people into parties and sects, which all led to the weakening of the country. These troubles especially began under the successors of Simon Maccabeus, who himself, after gloriously ruling the people, was treacherously killed by his own son-in-law Ptolemy. Simon was succeeded by his second son John Hyrcanus, who, wishing to unite under his rule all of Palestine, which was now divided into four separate regions (Judea in the south, Samaria in the middle, Galilee in the north and Perea beyond the Jordan), began to call himself “the prince of (all) Israel.” With his reign, the peace established by the valor of the Maccabees ended and under his successors-sons (Aristovulus and Alexander Iannaeus and especially his grandson Hyrcanus II), terrible unrest and unrest began, which served as a reason for the intervention of the Romans. The Roman commander Pompey marched on Jerusalem (64 BC), took it by storm, beat up to ten thousand Jews, desecrated the church by bringing Roman standards into it, and himself even entered the Holy of Holies, although he did not touch the sacred vessels. From that time on, Judea, as Palestine with its four regions generally began to be called, became subordinate to Rome and paid tribute to it (from 63 BC). Power nominally belonged for some time to the successors of John Hyrcanus, but soon it passed into the hands of the cunning Edomite Antipater, who, with the help of the Romans, tried to secure it for his home. His son Herod actually seized power over the entire country and, through servile flattery before the Romans, achieved the title of “King of the Jews” (from 37 BC). Herod, the so-called great, was the founder of the new Jewish monarchy, which for a time seemed to promise the restoration of ancient power and glory. But in reality, it existed only during the life of its founder himself, who, with his insane wastefulness and bloodthirsty cruelty, completely undermined the moral and material strength of the people. An Edomite by birth and an obsequious caresser of the Romans, Herod only dishonored the sacred throne of David. He marked his accession to the throne by making a sacrifice to Capitoline Jupiter, introduced pagan amusements within the very walls of the holy city, and surrounded himself with a detachment of hired bodyguards. Feeling the precariousness of his position on the throne, he subjected to merciless extermination the entire family of the Maccabees and even all members of the Sanhedrin, whom he suspected of insufficient devotion to himself. The whole policy of this king of the Jews consisted in indulging his ambition with grandiose buildings and servilely ingratiating himself with the Romans. He built and expanded several palaces, strengthened the tower of Baris adjacent to the church and named it Antonia in honor of his Roman patron; The city of Samaria, restored by him, was renamed Sebastia in honor of Augustus, and in his honor he named the magnificent seaside city of Caesarea, which later became the Roman capital of Palestine. All this, of course, only irritated his own people more against him. But in order to drown out the people's grumbling, and at the same time satisfy his passion for construction, in the 18th year of his reign he began to rebuild the church and in a year and a half erected a new magnificent church, to which, subsequently, extensive extensions were made, which lasted for several decades. But this could only temporarily calm the feeling of discontent and irritation among the people, and at the same time did not eliminate Herod’s fears for the strength of his throne. Therefore, he continued with bloodthirsty cruelty to exterminate everyone who only attracted his suspicion. A terrible era of murders, executions and torture has arrived. Fearing everyone and everyone, Herod, this ruthless monster, as I. Flavius ​​calls him, attacked with rage everyone who came into contact with him, and even his own three sons, his beloved wife Mariamne, his father-in-law and mother-in-law, and his brother-in-law, the high priest Aristobulus, fell victim to his rage and suspicion among many others. Murders by hanging and burning, murders by tearing to pieces and drowning, secret murders based on confessions forced by unbearable torture, acts of shameless bestial lust - this is what the annals of this reign are filled with. Suppressed by all these horrors, the people trembled, and in them the desire and at the same time the expectation of the appearance of the true son of David, who would overthrow this bloodthirsty thief of the throne, grew stronger than ever. And this inflamed Herod’s gloomy suspicion and rage even more, and in the last years of his reign, already consumed by his disgusting illness, which soon brought him to the grave, he was completely overwhelmed by indomitable brutality and bloodthirsty fury. But at this very time, the eastern sages struck him with their news, coming from afar to Jerusalem to worship not him, Herod, but the newborn King of the Jews, the true Son of David, whose star rose in the east. LI. The religious and moral state of the Jews upon their return from captivity. Sects. Worship. Board. Chronology The Babylonian captivity, which, according to the explanation of the prophets and according to the consciousness of the people themselves, was a direct punishment from God for all those iniquities and idolatry that the chosen people shamelessly indulged in, taught him a very important lesson that made him think deeply about his fate. After a period of glorious power, the people of Israel suddenly found themselves again, as once in Egypt, as a pitiful crowd of slaves taken into captivity, where the very memory of them could perish. This terrible test again involuntarily awakened in him the consciousness that his strength, as a chosen people, lay precisely in God who had chosen him and in the strict observance of the covenant that He had made with him. And now a religious and moral revival begins among the Israeli people; faith strengthens in him, a fiery patriotism is ignited, which made him cry at the mere memory of Zion with its majestic, but now destroyed church, and the anticipation of that Deliverer flares up, who must finally crown all the great promises given to the fathers. This expectation was zealously supported by the prophets, who, while comforting the people with the hope of deliverance from captivity, constantly pointed to the higher deliverance that awaited them and all of humanity in the approaching future. During the captivity, the prophet Ezekiel predicted about a single Shepherd of a single numerous flock (Ezek.34:23, 29, 37:22), and St. Daniel even accurately calculated with his weeks the very time of His coming (Dan.9:24-27). Then the last prophets described in detail the signs of the Messiah who was about to appear, and the prophecy of Malachi already announces the coming of the immediate forerunner of the long-promised Savior, and his prophecy constitutes a direct transition from the Old Testament to the new. The people themselves, having learned through bitter experience the fragility of the earthly power of their kings, began to wait with increasing tension for such a king who would act by the power of God and establish truth and peace on earth. This expectation reached its highest point during the horrors of the reign of Herod, when the “fulfillment of times” came. This mood of the people, naturally, should have led to the awakening of a new zeal for the fulfillment of the Law of Moses. Since with the destruction of the church and the cessation of sacred ceremonies in it, which served as a clear implementation of the law of God for the people, the people lost the main guidance for their religious and moral life, a new means became necessary to maintain knowledge of this law in them. This means was reading and studying the law, and hence the natural strengthening of the meaning of the written law. The people were eager to listen to him and during his captivity they gathered at special private meetings, where people who studied the law read and explained to him various provisions of the law. Since over time the people forgot their original Hebrew language, in which the books of St. Scripture, then the study and explanation of the law, of necessity, had to become the exclusive property of special, most developed and enlightened people, who became the leaders and leaders of the religious life of the people, receiving the honorary name of “scribes.” Ezra the priest was just such a scribe, and upon his return from captivity he introduced the correct order of reading and expounding St. Scriptures to the people. Since St. There were already a lot of books at that time, and among them there were several books in circulation that, while having religious and moral significance and satisfying the pious feelings of the people, however, did not have a divinely inspired character, then Ezra, in order to give the people the opportunity to correctly judge which sacred books in the proper sense of the word, compiled a detailed list, which received the name of the canon, i.e. rules (of faith and life). The books included in this list were called “canonical”, and the rest were called non-canonical. From the books of recent periods, the canon includes: the books of the prophet Ezekiel and Daniel, as well as the last three prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi; the third and fourth books of Kings, containing the history of both Jewish kingdoms; two books of Chronicles, or additions to this story; the first book of Ezra, which describes the return of the Jews from captivity and the creation of the second church, and the books of Nehemiah and Esther - with the history of the activities of these individuals. The significance of the written law especially intensified with the cessation of the oral law, in the person of the prophets. The latter had as their task to bring spirit into the understanding of the letter of the law and thereby raise religious and moral consciousness to the highest level. With the cessation of prophecy, the letter acquired such significance that special zealots appeared who believed the entire religion in the most careful and literal fulfillment of the decrees of the law. Such were the Pharisees, who constituted a special class among the people, as a class of special (indestructible - “separated”) zealots of the law. These were devout lawyers who accepted the entire law, preached faith in the afterlife, supported faith and piety among the people, and together with ardent patriotism, which gave them enormous influence over the people. But their distinctive feature was that they were not limited to the Law of Moses alone, but considered it necessary to observe all those traditions that over time formed around this law as additions and explanations to it. Since these legends almost exclusively related to the external ritual side of the law, it was this that, predominantly, became the subject of the main attention of the Pharisees. This included regulations on the strictest, even petty, observance of the Sabbath rest, on the distinction between clean and unclean food, on washing, clothing, and so on. In order to more conveniently fulfill all these numerous traditions, the Pharisees separated themselves into a special class or community that was alienated from communication with the rest of the people, whom they treated with arrogant contempt as “people of the earth” and “ignoramuses” (Amgaaretz). The best side of Pharisaism was their zeal for the spread of the religion of Jehovah, and in this regard they did a lot, preparing the ground through their proselytes for the spread of Christianity among pagan peoples. But their ritual pettiness, cold soullessness, hypocrisy, arrogance and outrageous hypocrisy, which covered the most immoral acts with a mask of piety, were those shortcomings that brought upon them the lightning denunciation of Christ: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.” At the opposite extreme were another sect, the Sadducees, who took their name from their leader Zadok. Recognizing only the Pentateuch of Moses as sacred books, they did not attach any importance to ritual and were generally free-thinking in the field of religion, denying the immortality of the soul and the existence of spirits, the resurrection of the body and the afterlife, with the rewards and punishments awaiting it. The highest and richest classes belonged to this party or sect, which, not enjoying the love of the people, therefore sought support in foreign rulers and were friends with the Herod family. She seized the office of the high priest into her own hands and gave from her midst a whole series of high priests who only disgraced this high sacred rank with their personality. At the same time, among the Jewish people, deprived of religious and moral leadership, other sects and trends appeared in which pious people sought refuge and reassurance from the turmoil and gloomy moods of everyday life. Such is the sect of the Essenes, who avoided the noisy and hectic life of cities, formed communities of hermits and, abstaining from marriage and all pleasures in general, led a strict life, devoting it entirely to prayer and reflection on the law. They rejected slavery, war and trade, and in all their lives the rule for them, according to Philo, was “love of God, love of virtue and love of man.” The sect of the Ferapevts was even stricter and more closed, i.e. “healers” (of the ailments of the peoples), who indulged in strict asceticism and, exhausting themselves with continuous reading of the law and prayer, allowed themselves to eat only a little bread in the evening. On Saturdays they gathered for common prayer, and on Pentecost they also had a common meal. This sect was especially widespread among the Jews in Egypt. All these sects and parties were only the expression of private views on religion and law. The majority of the people continued to adhere to those religious institutions that were associated with the church. Church worship, naturally, had to stop and be upset with the destruction of the church, so that during the Babylonian captivity the people prayed in private meetings or even limited themselves to solitary prayer at home (as can be seen from the example of the prophet Daniel). But with the construction of the second temple, worship with all sacred rites was completely resumed in it, especially since the temple itself was built on the model of the previous Temple of Solomon, although in volume it was one third larger than it and with some new extensions (a courtyard for women and pagans), but, of course, from much less valuable materials 281. The entire hierarchy was restored to its previous composition, headed by the high priests, who were all the more important because for some time they were also the civil rulers of the people. New holidays were added to the number of sacred times, established in memory of new events in the life of the people. These are the holidays: Purim and Renewal. The first was established in memory of the miraculous deliverance of the people from extermination during the reign of Artaxerxes through the insidious slander of Haman. His forefeast on the 13th of Adar (in February) consisted of strict fasting, and on the 14th and 15th the people indulged in uncontrollable rejoicing. In the gatherings of the people, the book of “Esther” was read with reverence, and at every mention of the name of Haman, all those present struck their hands and stomped their feet, loudly saying: “Let his memory perish!” The Feast of Renewal was established in memory of the renovation of the church by Judas Maccabee after its desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes. It lasted eight days, was celebrated with extraordinary solemnity and was marked by magnificent processions and brilliant illumination, as a result of which it was also called the “festival of lights.” In the church, during all eight days of the holiday, a great alleluia was sung, consisting of psalms of praise 114–118. An important feature in the religious life of the people after the Babylonian captivity was that the people did not limit their worship exclusively to the temple, but had local meetings or synagogues, where prayers were performed along with the reading and explanation of the law, and where the people gathered on Saturdays. In civil terms, after the Babylonian captivity, the form of government of God in which it existed during the time of the judges, when the people were under the control of individual godly men who acted as if according to a special calling of God (such as Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Maccabees), seemed to resume again. But in accordance with the intensified spirit of religiosity, civil power was concentrated for some time in the hands of the highest representatives of religion - the high priests. Subsequently, the power of princes and then kings developed from it; but the royal power was finally stolen from the house of David by an insidious Edomite, who, however, was soon to cede it to the true son of David. To manage the affairs of internal, religious and moral life, since the time of Ezra, a special supreme council was established, consisting of 120 members, chaired by the high priest. This council subsequently received the name Sanhedrin and the number of its members, in accordance with the number of members of the ancient council of elders under Moses, was reduced to 70. He was very important in the subsequent history of the Jewish people. He had the responsibility to take care of protecting the purity of faith, interpretation and explanation of the law, the welfare of the church and decorum during worship, and at the same time he had the right to judge and punish apostates and heretics. Numerous abuses of the members of this supreme council subsequently deprived it of its significance, and the Sanhedrin tarnished its name with a terrible crime when, under the guise of a heretic and apostate, it condemned the Messiah Himself, the Son of God, to death. The ninth period of Biblical history covers about five and a half centuries, starting from 536, when Cyrus issued a decree on the liberation of the Jews from captivity. Chronologically, it falls into four separate periods: a) the continuation of Persian rule until 331 BC, b) the rule of the Greeks in Asia 331–167, c) the independence of Judea under the rule of the Asmoneans 167–63. and d) Roman rule together with the private rule of the house of Herod 63–1. The chronology of this period is made easier by the fact that here the history of the Jewish people comes into contact with well-known events of world history. LII. Jews of the Dispersion. The state of the pagan world. General expectation of the Savior The Babylonian captivity, in addition to its significance as a punishment for the Jewish people for their unfaithfulness to the covenant with Jehovah, had another, more important and deeper meaning for all humanity. Before him, the chosen people lived more or less alienated from the rest of the world, and the light of true religion only occasionally or in isolated cases penetrated beyond the boundaries of the promised land itself. Now, with the approach of the “fulfillment of times,” this light was supposed to shine brightly for everyone living in darkness and the shadow of death, i.e. for all pagan peoples, hitherto mired in the darkness of idolatry. And this great cause was provided with miraculous assistance by those formidable Assyro-Babylonian conquerors who, without realizing it, served as a powerful instrument of God’s highest providence. Moving the flower of the chosen people to their country, which was the center of pagan religion and pagan enlightenment, they, at the same time, resettled missionaries and preachers of the true religion, which was supposed to dispel the darkness of error. This influence affected, in part, the conquering kings themselves, as can be seen from the example of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus; but then it spread more and more widely and acted more and more deeply. From that time on, the Jewish people became a kind of worldwide people: only a small part of them returned from the Babylonian captivity to the promised land, while the vast majority either remained in Mesopotamia or gradually dispersed in all directions, everywhere carrying with them the light of true religion and the knowledge of the law of God. These Jews who lived outside Palestine are known as the Jews of the Dispersion, and they had a profound influence on the subsequent fate of the pagan world. The Jews of the Diaspora were at first actually divided into three large sections - the Babylonian, Syrian and Egyptian Jews; but then the conquests of Alexander the Great and the Romans significantly expanded the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe Jewish dispersion. The subsequent upheavals in the fate of the world brought the peoples into an extraordinary movement, and the stream of conquest or industry quickly captured scattered parts of the Jewish people and carried them to the most remote countries. The successor of Alexander the Great in Asia, Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the new kingdom of Syria, resettled many of them from Babylonia to the main cities of his kingdom, hoping that their industrial and enterprising spirit would contribute to the prosperity of his state. And after some time in Damascus they were already considered thousands and had several synagogues; and there were even more of them in Antioch, which later became the center of Greek culture in the east. The persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes did not destroy them, but only served as the reason for the penetration of their influence into the most remote parts of the state, where the Jews fled, hiding from persecution. At this time, they penetrated further east, into Media and, especially, into the kingdom of Adiaven (present-day Kurdistan, northeast of the Tigris River), where their influence was so strong that even Queen Helen and Crown Prince Izat became proselytes of Judaism. On this side of the Euphrates the Jewish population was scattered in many places, especially in Palmyra and even the cities of happy Arabia. Then many Jews lived in Armenia and in various countries and cities of Asia Minor. Antiochus the Great (223–187) resettled several thousand Jewish families from Mesopotamia to Phrygia and Lydia and gave them special benefits. From Asia Minor, the Jews, driven by their own industrial spirit, had already settled throughout all the islands of the Aegean and Mediterranean Sea, penetrated into the main cities of Greece and Macedonia, and we meet them in Philippi, Thessalonica, Veria, Athens and Corinth, where they had either synagogues or simply houses of worship. The same spirit of commercial enterprise moved them even further west, to Rome itself, as the capital of the new world monarchy, and even to Spain, where they could count on enrichment in a country famous for its mines of gold and silver. Many Jews were resettled to Rome by Pompey as prisoners, and upon their release they became Roman citizens and lived in a special quarter assigned to them beyond the Tiber. Under Emperor Augustus, there were already up to eight thousand of them in Rome, and then they multiplied to the point that subsequent emperors were forced to resort to such drastic measures as expelling them from Rome (the well-known decrees of Tiberius and Claudius, which ordered the Jews to leave Rome). Then Jewish settlements were scattered along the entire coast of northern Africa, and especially in the large city of Cyrene, from where Jewish pilgrims often met in Jerusalem (Simon the Cyrene - Matt. 27:32). Finally, their settlements were found, according to Philo, from the Libyan mountains to Ethiopia itself, where they probably moved from Arabia, which was in constant trade relations with these countries and especially with Egypt. The treasurer of the queen of Candace was from Ethiopia, and the fact that he was a proselyte indicates the strong influence of the Jews there. But, undoubtedly, the most important point of the Jewish dispersion was Alexandria in Egypt. Founded by the great Macedonian conqueror in 332 BC, for several centuries it was one of the most famous and glorious cities in the world. While, in fact, the ancient Egyptian population with its religion and customs continued to live in the Nile Valley, the cities of the Delta and especially Alexandria were filled with Greeks and Jews. Besides its wealth, its luxurious streets and buildings, Alexandria was famous for its extraordinary vivacity of mental life. Ptolemy I founded a famous museum there, which contained the Alexandrian library with many precious books, and it also had rooms for scientists, artists and poets who came from all over the world to visit the main church of world literature and art. And alongside this mental life, industrial activity was in full swing, so that Alexandria’s trade relations extended to Arabia and India, throughout all the countries of Asia Minor and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The position of the Jews in this center of world life (where the first batch of them were resettled by the founder of Alexandria himself) was extremely favorable. Using the patronage of the government, they freely indulged in all kinds of industry, lived as an independent community and were even governed by their own head or alavarch, who subsequently shared his power with a special council of elders. Even religiously, they were in a very advantageous position, since they had their own church in Aeontopolis, in the Iliopolis district, built by the high priest Onias (in 150) according to the plan of the tabernacle of Moses, and in it worship was performed in the same order as in the temple in Jerusalem. - In a word, the Jews, after the Babylonian captivity, were scattered throughout the then known world, so that the Roman geographer Strabo, not without reason, says that “one can hardly find a place on earth where this tribe would not exist and which it would not take possession of.” And to this the Alexandrian Jew-writer Philo adds: “The Jews, not like other peoples, locked within the borders of their country: they live almost all over the world and settled on all continents and islands.” What was especially remarkable was that, despite being scattered throughout the world, all these Jews of the dispersion were by no means lost among foreign and foreign peoples, but seemed to constitute one people, bound together by inextricable ties. True, they forgot their language, spoke and wrote mainly in Greek (as a result of which they were called Hellenists); but the common faith in the living God, who never ceased to care for his chosen people, not only instilled in the Jews a sense of their superiority over the surrounding pagans with their dead and insignificant gods, but also protected them from confusion with them. Their attachment to the Mosaic Law also helped to maintain in them the consciousness of their nationality as different from all other surrounding nations. This law determined every step of their life, established unique morals and customs, giving religious significance to every manifestation of life and activity, and thereby erected a mediastinum that did not allow Jews to mix with pagans. In addition, they had a common St. Scripture, on which the entire people were brought up, imbued with a spirit that had nothing in common with the pagan world. The teaching taught by St. books, supplemented in the synagogue. Wherever the Jews lived, they certainly gathered on Saturdays in synagogues, which were for them schools of the law of God, for common prayer and mutual edification and explanation of the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures and these meetings fostered a communal spirit of togetherness and mutuality. Besides St. The Scriptures, at that time already completed, they had a special edifying literature - non-canonical, which continued to develop at this time. Among it were such important works as the book of the wisdom of Solomon, compiled by an unknown author based on the orally transmitted sayings of the wisest king; akin to it is the book of wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach, containing wise rules for various occasions of life; the book of Judith, containing the story of the heroism of this Jewish woman, to whom the city of Bethulia owed salvation from a cruel enemy, and the book of Maccabees, containing the story of the heroic struggle of the Maccabees for the faith. All this literature is imbued with deep religious patriotism, which supported in the Jews the consciousness of their unity by faith and blood. But one of the most powerful means of maintaining unity between the Jewish world was its constant communication with Jerusalem, as the common center of all Judaism. Every year, from everywhere, through special commissioners, various communities sent to Jerusalem a legalized tax of half a sacred shekel and generous offerings; everyone who needed to get a solution to any important matters from the high priest or the Sanhedrin, as well as everyone who wanted to receive higher education in schools, arrived there; finally, the annual holidays attracted thousands of pilgrims to Jerusalem, who flocked positively from all over the world. And, on the contrary, scribes dispersed from Jerusalem to all countries of the world, who, having received an education in the schools of the “wise,” sought a field of activity among their fellow tribesmen in various countries. From Jerusalem, calendars were sent annually to all Jewish communities, in which sacred times were determined, and special messengers reporting the most outstanding events relating to the Jewish world. And the result of such lively mutual communication was that the Jews scattered throughout the land vividly recognized themselves as one people, and it was enough for the news to reach Jerusalem that some Jewish community somewhere on the Danube or in the Libyan desert was suffering from hunger or need, and the entire Jewish world began to move and hurried to help its suffering brothers. This national exclusivity and mutual cohesion of the Jews early began to arouse suspicion and enmity among the pagan peoples, and this hostile feeling was not slow to intensify even more when the Jews became strong rivals in trade affairs and seized into their own hands the entire industry of one or another country. Their main occupation was trade. Petty trade and small money transactions were almost exclusively in their hands. In some places they even took over the wholesale trade. In Alexandria, almost the entire grain trade passed through their hands, and they were almost the exclusive intermediaries through which Rome carried out relations with the distant east. And in general, wherever it was possible to earn money, a Jew certainly appeared there, and we meet them in Rome as scientists, poets, actors and singers. Many of them managed to accumulate enormous wealth, and their influence was felt in the very palaces. All this, naturally, aroused the native population against them, who often fell into monetary bondage to them, and by the time of the Nativity of Christ, the pagan world, even in its best writers, already treated them with extreme hostility and contempt. Monstrous tales were spread about them. Their ancestors were considered to be lepers expelled from Egypt. In the desert, when there was a lack of water, one donkey allegedly showed them a source, and therefore they worshiped the donkey as a god. Even such a serious writer as the historian Tacitus thought that Moses gave them laws that were contrary to all human morals. The prohibition of pork was an inexhaustible topic of wit among Roman humorists. Wherever a Jew appeared, he was certainly pursued by pagan ridicule; on the theater stage he was a constant subject of flat witticisms, which, however, always caused laughter, and on the street he often had to endure rather rough troubles from the crowd, sometimes turning into dangerous massacres that required government intervention, as happened more than once, especially in Alexandria and Antioch. Despite, however, this attitude of the pagan world towards the Jews, their influence on this world was not denied by the pagans themselves, and it intensified every year. This was facilitated by the very state of the pagan world. He was already heading towards decline and decay. The great monarchies of the east - Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian - all successively dominated and disappeared. Alexander the Great tried to recreate them on the basis of Greek culture, but the monarchy he created did not survive its founder and after his death fell into several separate parts, which easily became the prey of Rome. And so Rome became the ruler of the whole world. Roman eagles swept victoriously from the banks of the Euphrates in the east to the pillars of Hercules in the west, and from the shores of northern Africa in the south to the British Isles in the north. The entire area of ​​the globe, on which ancient history took place and which included new countries with new semi-savage peoples awaiting a cultural revival, became their property. The magnificent military roads of the Romans connected the peoples of the entire civilized world, and an amazing cycle began in the field of religion, literature, art and industry, which had never been seen in the history of mankind. Rome, as the capital of the world, attracted to itself everything that was best in the world of that time, and from it a unique Roman civilization spread back in all directions, carried by legions, rulers, writers, merchants and industrialists of all kinds. This extraordinary interaction of peoples had a profound influence on the religious and moral state of the pagan world. In Rome, all kinds of pagan cults came into conflict with each other, and their endless diversity necessarily had to lead to the conviction that the pagan gods were only the product of the peoples themselves and were by no means able to satisfy the inherent human need for the unconditional truth of religion. This had the greatest impact on the Romans themselves, whose faith in their gods had already been undermined by the spread of Greek philosophical works, which directly mocked the Olympians as an invention of a child’s mind. But since a person cannot be without religion, a painful search for the true God began, and in search of him all the religions and cults known at that time were sorted out, and the more mysterious the cult, like the Egyptian one, the more adherents it had. At the same time, many began to involuntarily pay attention to the mysterious Jehovah, whose religion struck the pagans who believed in their gods all the more powerfully because it rejected all symbols to depict this God. The Jews took advantage of this and acquired proselytes and followers, among whom were members of noble Roman families and even members of the imperial house (Empress Poppaea Sabina). The proselytes were divided into two classes: the newcomers of the gates and the newcomers of truth, who differed from each other in the degree of acceptance of Judaism. For the former, a common faith in Jehovah with the adoption of the “Noahic Laws” was sufficient, but for the latter, complete submission to all the provisions of the Law of Moses was required. Most pagans were limited to the first stage, but there were many who fully accepted Judaism. This movement was further facilitated by the moral decline of the pagan world, as an inevitable consequence of the fall of the religious. Along with the pagan cults of the East, Rome was invaded by that immoral decay that was inseparable from them. From here began a terrible social decay, leading the best people to despair (Rom. 1ff.). Seeing no joy in the present and having lost all faith in the future, people were suffocating from spiritual emptiness and sought an outcome either in insane orgies of pleasure, or in suicide, which had become the most common occurrence. Even the famous philosopher Seneca, depressed by the sad reality, pointed to suicide as the best way to get rid of an unbearable situation. But the very instinct of self-preservation opposed the acceptance of such a terrible method, and therefore, naturally, the majority sought another outcome and found it in the inherent hope of the human heart for a better future. The best pagans began to hope that salvation had to come from somewhere, if not from people, then from above. And this hope precisely coincided with the expectation of the Deliverer of the world, which flared up more and more in the Jewish world and spread more and more widely through the Jews among the pagan peoples. According to the testimony of the Roman historians Suetonius and Tacitus, at that time there was a widespread rumor between the Romans and other pagan peoples that a powerful king would soon appear in the east and conquer the world. Roman poets sang of the expected appearance of a miraculous deliverer. Virgil, in his famous fourth eclogue, praised the child who was to restore the golden age. This baby will descend from heaven, and peace will be established on earth; he will pour out his gifts generously; the flocks will no longer fear the lions, the yoke will be taken from the neck of the plowing ox, and the farmer will no longer work by the sweat of his brow. This glorious dream of the Roman poet was undoubtedly an echo of the famous prophecy of Isaiah that “a child will be born, whose name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” and then “the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion, and the ox will be together, and a little child will lead them” (Isa. 9:6; 11:6). Everything thus showed that the “fulfillment of times” was approaching. Actually, among the Jews, the expectation of the coming of the Savior or Messiah reached its highest tension. The ancient predictions of the prophets became the subject of the most careful study and interpretation, and the most beloved book was the book of the prophet Daniel with its most precise definitions regarding the time of the appearance of the Messiah. Non-canonical books confirmed and explained these predictions, supplementing them with their own considerations and declaring that the children of Israel would soon again be gathered to Jerusalem from distant countries to worship their Lord God (2 Mac. 2:18) and that the descendants of David would possess the throne forever (1 Mac. 2:57). These predictions were further developed in the so-called “Sibylline Books,” which are a collection of prophetic sayings in verse, similar to pagan oracles, and written, in all likelihood, by some Jew from Alexandria around 140 BC. They say that a king will soon appear who will put an end to all wars on earth. The Gentiles who gather against Jerusalem will perish. Under the protection of a king sent from heaven, peace and prosperity will be granted to Israel, and then the pagan peoples themselves will also be led to the worship of the true God and His temple. Finally, God will establish an eternal kingdom of peace on earth, “into which all nations will be gathered.” This expectation was so alive that the very rulers of the Israeli people during the time of the Maccabees accepted power only conditionally, “until the faithful Prophet arises” (1 Mac. 14:41). Everyone among the people involuntarily felt that the fulfillment of times and the salvation of Israel had come. When any outstanding preacher or prophet appeared, everyone involuntarily asked if he was Christ (John 1:19, 20; Matt. 11:3). Even the semi-pagan Samaritans expected that the Messiah would soon come, who would resolve all controversial issues between them and the Jews regarding religion (John 4:25). At the same time, many did not clearly imagine in what form the Messiah would appear, and expected to see in Him simply a global conqueror who would conquer the whole world to the Jews and establish an eternal Jewish monarchy. But more and more spiritually enlightened people expected in Him the true Messiah, who would redeem man from slavery to sin, establish peace in the indignant soul, call to himself all those who labor and are burdened, reveal the eternal truth of salvation and establish the eternal kingdom of God on earth. And the true Messiah finally came, and on the night of His coming the heavens over Bethlehem of Judea resounded with the solemn song of angels, heralding the advent of a new era in the history of mankind: “Glory to God on high, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Appendixes of additional notes on selected points from the Biblical history of the Old Testament Connected with the history of the creation of the world is the question of what exactly should be understood by those days that designate individual acts of God’s creative activity. Are these days in the proper sense of the word, or should they be understood as indefinite periods of time, containing a much longer duration? Our theological science does not give any categorical decision in this regard, leaving it to the expanding light of knowledge, although there is a noticeable desire to maintain a literal understanding of the word day. But the newest interpreters, using all the data of auxiliary sciences, are increasingly inclined to the conviction that by the days of creation there is no need to mean days in our narrow sense of the word. There was no need for the Creator to necessarily designate twenty-four hours for the creation of light, twenty-four hours each for the creation of stars, plants or animals: He could create all this in one moment, with one word of His. Such a limitation would be inconsistent with the very essence of God, for whom there are no limits to time, because for Him one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. Hence one can think that by “day” we mean simply an indefinite stretch of time. Many reasons lead us to assume that this is precisely the meaning, precisely the meaning of an indefinite, more or less long period of time, that the word yom used by Moses has, i.e. day. 1) Everyone knows that in Hebrew the word yom can and does mean in many places St. Scripture for an indefinite period of time (Gen. 2:4, 17; Lev. 7:35, 36; Deut. 9:24; 31:17, 18; 32:7, Ps. 2:7; Is. 34:8; 63:4; Jer. 46:10; Joel 2:31; Am. 3:14; Zech. 14:9; Matt. 10:15; John 8:56; 2) In Hebrew, the word period cannot be expressed otherwise than through the word yom, since in this language there is no other word to express this concept. Hence, the writer of everyday life, and understanding the period, necessarily had to use the word yom, as having this broad meaning. 3) These two grounds show the possibility of understanding the day in the sense of a period. Other considerations then prove that Moses actually uses the word yom not in the sense of a 24-hour day, but in the sense of an indefinite period. He specifically says that the sun and moon, as luminaries appointed to separate day from night, to govern day and night, were placed by the Creator on the fourth day of creation. Consequently, the first three days cannot at all be days in the proper sense of the word, since for them there was no main condition determining their duration, i.e. the relationship of the earth to the sun in which it is now did not exist. If the first three days were obviously indefinite periods, then so were the following days, since nothing gives us the right to make an arbitrary distinction between yom in application to the first three and yom in application to the last four periods of creation. 4) The writer himself in the second chapter of his narrative directly shows that by the word yom he means precisely an indefinite period of time. Summarizing the history of creation, he specifically says: “this is the origin of the heavens and the earth, at their creation, at the time (yom) when the Lord God created the earth and the sky, and every bush of the field that was not yet on the earth, and every grass of the field that had not yet grown” (Gen. 2 and 5). Here the word yom directly means the entire sum of the days of creation, as an indefinite period of time, and in any case no longer a day in the proper sense of the word, so that the Russian synodal translation here conveys the word yom as an indefinite time. 5) Cosmogonic traditions of other peoples - traditions in which one cannot help but see, albeit in a distorted form, an echo of the true tradition reported in God. revelation, consider the days of creation to be long periods. According to Indian legend, Brahma was imprisoned in a cosmic egg for 360 days, at the end of which the egg split into two halves and from them he formed heaven and earth; each of these 360 ​​days consisted of 12 million years. According to the legend of the Persians and Etruscans, creation occurred in six equal periods, each of which was equal to a thousand years. The same idea is found in the Chaldean creation story, in which the day of creation means a period of 43,200 years. a) It may be objected to such an understanding that it destroys the internal meaning of the narrative itself, namely as an explanation of the origin of the week and the establishment of the Sabbath (Ex. 20:10, 11). But although the story of the creation of the world explains the origin of the week, it cannot be concluded from this that the word yom must be understood in the literal sense. On the contrary, this rather explains the fact why precisely the indefinite periods of creation are called days. Since they served precisely as prototypes of the days of the week, Moses, in an adaptation to this, called them yom, and the seventh period became a prototype of the day that should be dedicated to God. Thus, the story of creation is divided into six separate days-periods, ending with a day of rest, in order to more deeply impress upon the soul of man the duty of keeping the Sabbath holy. Hence, it was natural for the writer of everyday life to use the words evening and morning, as well-known boundaries between days, and he puts evening before morning, according to the ancient reckoning of time, as it is still preserved in church services. b) It may be objected to the stated explanation of the days of creation that it does not have clear confirmation in tradition, in the interpretations of the fathers and teachers of the church. But to this it must be said that tradition does not give a unanimous decision, and although the literal understanding prevails among ancient interpreters, there is no shortage of allegorical interpretation, namely in the sense of indefinite periods. Thus, the entire school of Alexandrian fathers and church teachers understood the expression day, evening and morning allegorically. Then blessed. Augustine directly says that “it is difficult for us to imagine what kind of these days could be,” and to understand them he resorted to modern sciences, showing us that we must also use all the light that science sheds on the mysterious questions of existence. And the newest science, unknown to the ancients, namely the science of the earth, geology, provides positive data confirming that the days of creation are long periods, and their correct sequence, quite consistent with the testimony of the writer of everyday life, who wrote the history of creation thousands of years before the advent of geology itself, serves as new striking proof of the revelation of the book of Genesis. II. Biblical chronology Chronology is one of the most controversial points in Biblical history, since the Bible itself does not have sufficient certainty regarding chronology. In addition to the fact that the oldest texts of the Bible in their digital readings differ by hundreds of years, in the very details of chronology there is so much data for various conclusions that chronologists have built many chronology systems, at least up to 200. The main reason for such uncertainty, first of all, could lie in the mistakes of the copyists of St. books - mistakes that are easiest to make precisely in numbers, since if the manuscript is illegible, the copyist has no opportunity to guess from the context, as happens when copying illegible words. That there were such mistakes is evidenced by Genesis. 5:25-27 verses, where the translation of 70 commentators says that Methuselah lived 167 years before the birth of Lamech, and 782 years after him: “all the days of Methuselah were 969 years.” But with this definition of his years, there is a strange inconsistency, namely, that Methuselah lived 14 years after the flood. It is clear that an error has crept in here, and therefore in most lists and translations from Greek the number 167 is usually corrected to 187, as it appears in the Russian translation. From here we can conclude that chronology, as not directly related to the basic principles of faith and morality, is a secondary subject in the Bible and its precise definition was not part of the task of the writer of everyday life, but was left to the discretion of reason and the research of sciences. A thorough study, meanwhile, shows that for the compilation of an accurate and complete biblical chronology there is no solid data, not only in the individual numbers of the years of life of the patriarchs, but also in the genealogies themselves, which are not carried out with unconditional consistency. Thus, in the Hebrew text, Cainan is omitted from the genealogy of the post-flood patriarchs, and it is said that “Arphaxad begat Shelah,” while according to the Greek text 70 and according to the testimony of St. Luke (3:36) Salah was the grandson of Arphaxad and the son of Cainan. Thus, here we must either make an error in the Hebrew text, or, on the other hand, the word “gave birth” should be understood not in the strict sense of sonship, but in the sense of posterity in general. That this word is sometimes used in St. Scripture in this broad sense, Matt. 1, 8 verse, where we read: “Joram begat Uzziah”; Meanwhile, it is known from history that Uzziah was not the son of Joram, but his great-great-grandson (Joram - Ahaziah - Joash - Amaziah - Uzziah). Even more uncertain is the use in Hebrew of the word "son", which is often applied to distant descendants. Laban in Gen. 29 is called the son of Nahor, while in reality he was his grandson from Bethuel (Gen. 21 and 29); Shebuel in 1 Chronicles 24 is called the son of Gershon, the son of Moses, although he lived several centuries after him; Christ is called “the son of David,” etc. In view of this, it is not impossible that the writer of everyday life could omit some links in the genealogy of the antediluvian and post-flood patriarchs in order to bring them under a certain symmetry - ten genera in each, just as St. Matthew, omitting some links of the genealogy of Christ in order to bring it under three symmetrical groups, each making up fourteen genera (1:17). If so, then the biblical chronology cannot be determined with absolute accuracy, and its definition can only have an approximate value, which is completely sufficient for the main goal of the biblical narrative, namely, understanding the gradual progress of faith and morality of Old Testament humanity, which longed for deliverance from above. But the indicated uncertainty of biblical chronology does not at all give room for arbitrarily assigning the creation of man to tens and hundreds of thousands of years BC, as some geologists do, taking into account only the readings of the layers of the earth. On the contrary, increasingly solid and undoubted melons show that the historical life of mankind goes back no further than 5-6 thousand years BC, which is exactly what appears to be approximately according to the chronology of 70 interpreters accepted by the Orthodox Church. In view of this, the latter has more significance and credibility than the Jewish one, adopted by the Western Church, and even Western theologians (such as Vigouroux), who recall that the Greek chronology was accepted by the Western Church, were kept in it for six centuries and were abandoned not earlier than the 16th century, are beginning to lean towards this conviction. The difference between these chronology systems can be seen from the following comparative table (the numbers indicate years BC): But these figures fluctuate in the calculations of various scientific researchers, and for a final establishment they require consideration with the testimony of subsequent periods of Biblical history. The exodus from Egypt would then have to be placed at the end of the fifteenth century, which would tip the scales of probability in favor of the Jewish reckoning in these later periods of history. The legend of the flood is spread throughout the globe, and its very prevalence serves as a strong confirmation of its historical authenticity. We find traces of it in one form or another among the peoples of all parts of the world, although with modifications explained by the influence of local conditions and the peculiar views of various peoples. In India, Manu is saved from a flood in a ship that he built according to the prediction of a fish, and upon leaving the ship he makes an exemplary sacrifice. In Persia, Ynma is saved from a flood in a fenced garden on the top of a mountain, where representatives of all living things on earth were saved with him. The news of the end of the flood was brought to him by the bird karshipta. In Greece there were two legends about the flood: in Boeotia, Ogyges, the ancient king of Boeotia, who became the ancestor of post-flood humanity, escaped from the flood in the ship, and in Thessaly - Deucalion and Pyrrha, whose ship stopped at Parnassus. In Egypt, where the flood was considered a blessing, since the well-being of the country depended on it, the legend about the flood was changed in the sense that the wicked human race was punished by an ulcer that destroyed it all, with the exception of a few people who became the ancestors of the new humanity. The sacrifice of the saved people and the promise of the gods not to destroy the human race in the future clearly indicates that this legend means precisely a modified legend about the flood, especially since the main god acting in this event (Nun, Nu) has a sound similarity to the name of Noah. In America, specifically in Mexico, the legend of the flood comes very close to the biblical one. Mexican Noah - Cox-Cox escaped with his wife on a ship; to verify the condition of the land, he sent a kite, which did not return; but then a sent hummingbird brought him a branch from a blossoming tree, which testified to the end of the flood. The inhabitants of the Fiji islands have a legend that their islands were sunk soon after their settlement and all the inhabitants died, but the gods sent two barges, on which eight people were saved. But the legend most similar to the biblical legend is Chaldean. It has long been known as transmitted by the Babylonian priest Berosus, who lived in the 3rd century BC; but since one could suspect that Berosus, who wrote in Greek and at such a late time, could introduce into his story features borrowed from the Bible, he was not given due importance until recently, when the Chaldean original of this legend was discovered. It was during the analysis of the library of the famous king of Assyria Assurbanipal, found in the ruins of Nineveh, that the English scientist Assyriologist George Smith found and read a large poem in which the 11th canto contains a narrative about the flood. The poem was found in three copies with the designation that they were made from the oldest original (from the 17th century BC) and, thus, free from extraneous influences. The hero of the poem is a certain Izdubar, to whom his ancestor Xisuthr, the tenth of the primitive kings (Noah is the tenth of the patriarchs), tells how he escaped from the flood. When the gods decided to destroy the corrupted human race, the water god Nua (fish-shaped) ordered Xisutru to build a ship 600 cubits in height and width, take with him his family, male and female servants and everything that was necessary for the seed of life, and enter this ship. The story describes in detail how much materials were used to build the ship, how much provisions were stored. When Xisuthr entered the ship and closed the door behind him, all the sources of the abyss opened, rains poured down, lasting six days and six nights, and all life on earth perished. The ship stopped on Mount Nizir. On the seventh day, Xisuther opened the window and released a dove, but it returned without finding a dry place on the ground; The released swallow also returned, but the raven released later remained on the corpses and thereby signaled the end of the flood. The sacrifice performed upon leaving the ship was pleasing to the gods and they promised never again to destroy the human race with a flood. – Despite the individual differences, we immediately see that this is about the same flood that the Bible tells about. This is, as it were, just another edition of the same story, but already bearing signs of darkness and perversion and, most importantly, completely imbued with polytheism, while in the Bible the legend appears in all its original purity and truth. In general, all these legends, confirming the truth of the biblical narrative about the flood, prove at the same time that all the peoples now inhabiting the earth descended from exactly one ancestor or his sons and, thus, constitute one inseparable universal human family, having one Heavenly Father. IV. Death of Sodom and Gomorrah The location of the Sodom Pentacity has not yet been determined with sufficient accuracy; but most modern geographers believe that these cities were located north of the Dead Sea, in that part of the Jordan Valley that is now flooded. This itself suggests that the Dead Sea already existed before the catastrophe, since it served as a pool into which the waters of the Jordan flowed, but, undoubtedly, it was smaller in size and had other properties, perhaps it was as transparent and lively as the Lake of Galilee or Gennesaret. The destruction of these cities is one of the most terrible and remarkable events in the Bible, and references are most often made to it as proof of the terrible wrath of God for the violation of all moral laws. This event is narrated in the following significant words: “And the Lord rained down upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew these cities, and all this countryside, and all the inhabitants of these cities, and (all) the growth of the earth” (Gen. 19:23–27). When Abraham early the next morning looked in the direction of the lost cities, he saw: “behold, smoke rises from the earth like smoke from a furnace.” Here we see one of many proofs of how the Lord uses natural destructive forces to punish people for lawlessness. The cities perished not from internal strife, not from the hands of enemies, but from a disaster that could neither be foreseen nor avoided, and which was announced only when wickedness made this terrible punishment inevitable. It is not surprising that such a terrible event should have attracted the attention of writers of subsequent times, and we find references to it both in later Jewish and New Testament writers, as well as in pagan ones. Josephus says the following about it: “The Sodomite region adjacent to the lake was once a blessed country for its fertility, and was decorated with many cities, but now it is completely burned out. They say that because of the wickedness of its inhabitants it was destroyed by lightning. Even to this day some remains of the heavenly fire and traces of the five cities can be seen; ash appears in the fruit itself; in appearance and color they seem to be real fruits, but as soon as you crush them with your hand, they turn into dust and ash.” St. ap. Jude in his conciliar letter says that “Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, like them, committed fornication and went after other flesh, being subjected to the punishment of eternal fire, they were set as an example” to all workers of evil (Jude 7). According to the testimony of Ap. Peter, God “condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction and turned them into ashes, setting an example for future wicked people” (2 Peter 2:6). But even pagan writers testify to this event. The Roman historian Tacitus, describing in detail the Dead Sea with its amazing features, then says: “the adjacent plain, once fertile and inhabited by large cities, was destroyed by lightning, traces of which can be seen in the scorched earth, now completely barren.” The ancient geographer Strabo, speaking of the Dead Sea (which he, however, confuses with Lake Sirbon on the border of Egypt), explains its extraordinary features by the action of underground volcanic forces, although he adds evidence of a legend preserved among local residents that it was formed as a result of the catastrophe that destroyed Sodom and twelve other cities subordinate to it, most of which were swallowed up by the waters of the lake. All this evidence sufficiently confirms the historical authenticity of the terrible event, but at the same time, in part, contributes to the understanding of the very method of the destruction of cities. This area amazes with its extraordinary abundance of sulfur. “Sulfur springs, says one of the newest researchers (Canon Tristram), flow everywhere along the banks here; sulfur is scattered either in whole layers or in pieces throughout the desolate plain; at the same time, the resin floats in large masses from the bottom of the lake, seeps through the cracks of the rocks, is mixed with sand on the very reach of the shore, or even appears with an admixture of sulfur again, as if due to some extraordinary shock... The ignition of such a mass of flammable substances - whether from lightning, or from any other reason, together with an earthquake throwing resin or sulfur out of the lake, is capable of itself causing devastation in the adjacent plain." This feature, therefore, in itself makes the manner of the destruction of cities quite clear. For this there is no need to even assume the action of underground volcanic forces. Everything points precisely to the ignition of flammable substances found there in such abundance, and this ignition could have occurred from lightning or another cause that turned the entire valley with the cities into a “smoking furnace,” as the biblical narrative testifies. Pliny says that in Lycia in his time there were the so-called Ephaistos Mountains, which consisted of such a flammable substance that it could even be ignited with a brand; from the fire, the sand on the banks of the rivers became red-hot, and the water itself, due to its sulfuric property, not only did not extinguish the fire, but intensified it. In view of this circumstance, it becomes clear why there were no traces of the lost cities, assuming that not the entire valley was flooded by the lake. They could have been built from the same flammable substance that killed them. This catastrophe naturally produced a profound change in the surrounding area, which turned from a luxurious oasis into a gloomy desert. All these, of course, were only secondary reasons, serving only to clarify the very method of destruction of the wicked cities; but behind them stands the main and first reason - the will of the righteous Judge, who uses the most natural reasons as tools and means to achieve His holy goals. V. Famine years in Egypt Harvests in Egypt, both in ancient times and now, depend entirely on the floods of the Nile, irrigating the soil, since there is almost no rain there, with the exception of the coastal strip of the Mediterranean Sea. But this requires a certain degree of abundance of water, and in the event of a lack of it, either a bad harvest or a complete crop failure inevitably follows, and, naturally, famine follows. The disaster is further aggravated by the fact that the insufficient flood of the river is accompanied by east and south winds, which completely dry out the land and burn the vegetation. Both of these reasons seem to be implied in the narrative of the famine years that occurred under Joseph. In view of this, it is clear that the famine that occurred under Joseph was not an exceptional phenomenon. On Egyptian monuments there are often indications of the famine years, as well as measures against them. Particularly remarkable is one inscription on the tomb of a certain Abana Baba, testifying to the hungry years, which some Egyptologists identify with the hungry years under Joseph. This “chief at the table of princes,” as he calls himself, talks at length about his happy life and the general respect in which he was held by everyone, and then concludes his tombstone with the words: “I reaped the harvest, as a friend of the god of the harvest. And when the famine came, which lasted for many years, I gave grain bread to the city every year of famine.” Due to the extreme rarity of cases of famine lasting several years in Egypt, as well as judging by the life of Baba himself, many researchers suggest that this tombstone inscription refers to the same seven famine years that occurred under Joseph. Cases of long-term famine are also known from the later history of Egypt. Particularly remarkable in this regard is the famine that occurred during the reign of Caliph El-Mustansir-billah, especially since it lasted seven years (1064–1071 AD). This famine, in its severity, surpassed all others known in modern times. A terrible drought and plague, according to a modern writer, continued for seven years in a row, so that the people ate the corpses of animals that died of want; livestock died; a dog was sold for 5 dinars, a cat for 3 dinars and an ardebb of wheat (about 6 fours) for 100 dinars. Even the caliph himself lost all his horses, with the exception of three. Even entire gangs of child kidnappers formed and were devoured. This evidence sufficiently shows from what disaster Joseph, through his wise measures, delivered Egypt in his time. The book of Numbers (chapter 33) lists in detail all the camps that were made by the Israelites from the very exit from Egypt until they entered the Promised Land. Although most of these camps have not yet been determined with accuracy, since there is great disagreement among scientific researchers in the very determination of the direction of the Israelis’ path, nevertheless, the successive series of these camps serves a lot to clarify the wanderings of the Israeli people. Here is a list of these mills. I. Camps in Egypt: 1.Raamses, fortified city, starting point. 2. Sok-hof, a day's journey from Raamses. 3. Etham, near the fortress of the same name. 4. Pigahiroth, before Baal-zephon and Migdol, near the Red Sea. II. Camps on the way to Sinai: 5. Marah. 6.Elim. 7. Camp at the Red Sea. 8.In the desert of Sin. 9.Lofka near the Egyptian mines. 10.Alush. 11.Refidim. 12.In the Sinai desert, on the plain of Er-Raha. III. Camps on the way from Sinai to the Promised Land: 13. Kibrot-Gattaava (coffins of lust). 14.Asyrof. 15. Kadesh (in the desert of Paran - Numbers 13:1–27). IV. Camps during a 38-year wandering in the desert: 16. Rhyme. 17.Rimmon-Farets. 18. Livna. 19. Rissa. 20. Kegelaf. 1.On Mount Shafer. 22.Harada. 23.Makelof. 24.Tahaf. 25.Tarakh. 26. Mythka. 27.Hashmona. 28.Moserof. 29. Bene Yaakan. 30.Khor-Agidgad. 31.Iotvafa. 32.Avron. 33.Ezion-Geber. 34.In the desert Sin, also known as Kadesh. V. The last camps from Kadesh: 35. At Mount Hor, at the borders of the land of Edom. 36. Salmona. 37. Punona. 38. Ovof. 39. Iim-Avarim, on the borders of Moab. 40 – Divon-Gad. 41.Almon-Davlafaim. 42.On the mountains of Avarim, before Nebo. 43.On the plains of Moab, by the Jordan, opposite Jericho. Among the camps during the 38-year wandering, Kadesh attracts attention. This is the point from which the spies were sent into the promised land, and it constitutes the furthest camp that the Israelites reached on the direct route to Canaan. From it they were forced to return again to the desert, but it apparently served as a camp site several times and was, as it were, the central point during the entire wandering, which explains the repeated mention of it. Starting from the eighth camp - in the desert of Sin - manna became the source of food for the Israelites and served as such until they entered the Promised Land. This source was absolutely extraordinary and wonderful; But to clarify what this manna actually was, one can use, in part, the natural manna found on the Sinai Peninsula, the so-called tamarisk, with which some researchers, who are trying to bring down everything miraculous to natural soil, even try to identify it. In some parts of the Sinai Peninsula, natural manna is actually found, in its properties partly similar to the biblical one and even now called manna essema by the local Bedouins, i.e. "heavenly manna" This is a whitish resinous substance that has a fragrant odor and oozes from the trunks of a special shrub - tamarisk (tamarix mannifera). Tamarisk grows in the western half of the Sinai Peninsula, in rocky Arabia and in the countries beyond Jordan. Actually on the Sinai Peninsula, the outflow of this resinous substance occurs in the months of May and June, generally after the winter rains. In other months it does not happen at all. It tastes like honey and oozes from the bush in exactly the same way as the famous resin that sometimes oozes from the cherry trunk and, in cases of particular abundance, falls to the ground. When manna falls to the ground, it naturally takes in other elements, so that certain devices are required to use it. The Arabs boil it in a pot, then pass it through a cloth to purify it, and then pour it into cans, in which it can be stored for several years. Local Bedouins and Greek monks eat it with bread as a honey condiment, but it is never used as a substitute for bread itself. It is clear that such manna cannot serve as a source of food, since it is not able to maintain vitality. Even one of the researchers trying to identify the heavenly manna on which the Israelites ate with tamarisk finds himself forced to say that “the latter would be completely insufficient for nutrition, since it does not contain a nitrogenous element” (Barthelot). But, besides this, between the heavenly manna, which served as the source of food for the Israelites, and the tamarisk manna, there are many other significant differences that make their identification completely impossible. The Israelites received it for the first time in the desert of Sin, in the eighth camp (Ex. 16:1-14), when it was on the surface of the earth, to the amazement of the people, that “something small, grain-shaped, fine as frost on the ground” appeared, and they fed on it throughout their forty-year wandering in the desert. It stopped falling already when they crossed the Jordan (Joshua 5:12). During the entire journey, it fell every morning like dew and in such quantities that it was enough to feed an entire people, consisting of no less than two or even three million souls. Each one collected as much of it as was enough to feed himself and his family, exactly one heap per soul (Ex. 16:16). On the eve of the Sabbath, the fall of manna and its collection were in double quantity, so as not to disturb the Sabbath rest (16:22-24), and it did not spoil, although on the other days of the week any excess was subject to spoilage and rotting. On Sabbath days, manna did not appear at all, although some first went out to collect it on these days (Ex. 16:27). According to a further description, “the manna was like coriander seed; white, but the taste is like a cake with honey” (16:31). Coriander is a small umbrella-shaped plant with small round seeds. In Numbers 11 the manna is likened to bdellium in appearance (“looks like bdellach”); Bdolach is a resinous substance that flows from the bdoll, a special kind of palm tree. It was so hard that it had to be ground with millstones, pounded in a mortar, boiled in cauldrons and then made into cakes, which tasted like cakes with oil or honey (Num. 11:8; Exod. 16:31). Over time, this monotonous food naturally became boring and boring to the Israelites, so they grumbled and called the manna “worthless food” (Num. 21:5), or more precisely, “too easy”; but in reality they did not starve and, in any case, did not die of hunger, as would inevitably happen with tamarisk manna. From these details it is clear that biblical manna is by no means the same as tamarisk manna. Apart from the latter being unsuitable for food, it would be positively insufficient for the Israelis. For them, at least, up to half a million poods of manna was required weekly, while tamarisk manna, even in good years, is collected no more than 25–30 poods per year, and it serves only as a tasty seasoning for bread for local residents. Moreover, tamarisk manna was well known in Egypt; it is often mentioned on monuments under the name “white manna,” and therefore it could not have amazed the Israelites in the same way that miraculous manna struck them. Balaam is one of the most remarkable personalities in Biblical history for the duality of the spirit and the mixture of truth and error in him that he reveals in his actions. He came from the city of Pephora, which lay on the banks of the Euphrates, in the northern part of Mesopotamia. This city was the center of all kinds of magicians and soothsayers, and enjoyed wide fame in all surrounding countries. The most remarkable of them was Balaam, who possessed knowledge far superior to that of ordinary pagan soothsayers. In some of his sayings, he directly reveals knowledge of the true God and even those promises that were given to Abraham and subsequent patriarchs of the chosen race. This is undoubtedly explained primarily by the fact that on the river. Euphrates, among the population, legends were preserved about the former revelations to Abraham, who came out precisely from this area, but then also about the very nature of the situation of Valaam. As a soothsayer who enjoyed wide fame among various neighboring peoples, in order to maintain his fame, he obviously had to follow the progress of the religious views of these peoples, study them, so as not to reveal his ignorance to the kings who resorted to his help. Hence, if we compare his saying in Num. 23:10 with God's promise to Abraham in Gen. 13:16, and especially Num. 23:24 ; 24s Gen. 49:9; Number 24s Gen. 49:10, then it will immediately be clear that Balaam was well acquainted with the religion of Jehovah and the history of the chosen people. This acquaintance could not but have a beneficial influence on him, and in the depths of his soul he carried a spark of true knowledge of God and conviction of the superiority of Jehovah over all pagan gods; but his external position as a soothsayer and especially the greed common among the Magi did not allow this spark to flare up in him and drowned it out to the point that he resisted the direct suggestions of God. In view of this, the very views on him are twofold. Some, such as Tertullian and Blessed Jerome, they consider him a true prophet, but only one who sinned through his self-interest and ambition; others, such as Philo, St. Ambrose and Blessed Augustine, they see in him a false prophet and a pagan who only became an instrument of blessing for the Israelites. St. itself Scripture rather gives reasons in favor of the latter view, since it is not called the word nabi, attached to true prophets, but only kosem, i.e. a soothsayer, a sorcerer, which is usually applied only to people engaged in sorcery, which is prohibited by law (Deut. 18 et seq.; 1 Chron. 15 et al.). Contrary to his deepest convictions, he wanted to curse Israel for the “unjust reward”, but at the most solemn moment, under the influence of the Spirit of God, the truth in him triumphed over the lie and he turned into a true prophet, who uttered one of the most sublime prophecies about the Messiah: “I see Him, but now I am not yet; I see Him, but not close. A star rises out of Jacob, and a rod arises out of Israel, and slays the princes of Moab, and crushes all the sons of Seth” (Num. 24:17). This star rising from Jacob, this rod that strikes Moab and all the enemies of Israel, is precisely the Messiah, as is indicated by the very solemnity of the tone, the sublime allegory, the remoteness of time itself and the unanimous tradition of both Jews and Christians. The opinion that the star here meant the Messiah was so widespread among the Jews that one of the false messiahs, who appeared under Hadrian, directly called himself “the son of the star” (Bar Kochba). The fathers and teachers of the church unanimously understand the Messiah. IX. Solstice under Joshua One of the greatest miracles ever recorded in the Bible took place at the Battle of Gibeon. Namely, Joshua stopped the sun and moon in their usual course and thereby continued the day, which gave him the opportunity to complete the defeat of his enemies. This miracle is described in the book of Joshua as follows: “Jesus cried to the Lord on the day that the Lord God delivered Ammorite into the hands of Israel, and said before the Israelites: Stand, O sun, over Gibeon, and the moon, over the valley of Aijalon! And the sun stood still and the moon stood while the people took revenge on their enemies. Isn’t this what is written in the book of the Righteous One: the sun stood in the middle of the sky and did not hurry towards the west for almost the whole day? And there was no such day, either before or after that, on which the Lord (so) would hear the voice of man. For the Lord fought for Israel” (Joshua 10:12–14). Then, in confirmation of this, the author of the book of Jesus, son of Sirach, characterizing I. Joshua, says, among other things: “was it not by his hand that the sun was stopped, and one day was like two?” (Sir. 46:5). Since this miracle concerns the astronomical field, where the operation of correct and unchangeable laws is recognized with particular certainty, it is not surprising that it meets with many objections. First of all, they point out the incorrectness of the expression itself: stop, sun, since to lengthen the day it would be necessary to stop the earth, which, by its movement around its axis, produces the phenomenon of day and night. But to this it must be said that I. Navin did not mean to observe the accuracy of astronomical expressions in the heat of battle, but expressed his command in an ordinary colloquial term, which fully allows such an expression. This solstice resulted in a lengthening of the day so much that this day was completely extraordinary, “it was like two days.” Some interpreters, in order to avoid both the above and other objections to the miracle, try to explain this length of the day by the subjective impression of I. Joshua and the Israelites, precisely in the sense that the defeat they inflicted on the enemies was so complete that, apparently, one ordinary day would not have been enough for it, and therefore that day seemed to actually be twice as long. In support of this, they cite the fact that the very narrative of the miracle is taken from the “Book of the Righteous,” i.e. a collection of heroic songs in which various events and exploits of Israeli heroes were sung with the usual poetic license. But to this it must be said that the quotation from the “Book of the Righteous” is not cited as the source of the event itself, but only to confirm the story of I. Navin himself, in the sense that this great event by the time I. Navin wrote his book (at the end of his life), had already become the subject of folk poetry, was sung in the “Book of the Righteous”, thus was a well-known event that did not require special certification of its reality. As for the length of the day itself, due to the lack of certainty of expressions in the narration of the miracle, it is impossible to determine it. The day, apparently, was already setting to the west, since the crescent moon was visible in the sky. Therefore, one can only assume that from the moment of the miraculous stopping of the sun, night did not come for so long that the Israelis had every opportunity to complete the task of defeating the enemy and the day itself became, as it were, double compared to the usual one. But how could such a miracle happen without disrupting the entire orderly flow of world order? – To this question asked by astronomers, the Bible does not answer in a single word, leaving the decision to his own powers of reason. In this case, two assumptions are possible: 1) either God really stopped the globe in its daily movement around its axis, or 2) without stopping the earth, he made the sun remain visible to Joshua for the entire time required for victory. It is objected to the first assumption that a sudden stop of the earth would cause a terrible shock to all objects on its surface, as well as significant disorder among the celestial bodies, since the earth would leave its orbit and would disrupt the regular movement of the moon. But this objection is not difficult to resolve. The One who could stop the earth in its movement in this way is so wise and omnipotent as to prevent the disastrous consequences of such a stop. Moreover, the objection suggesting the possibility of a violation of order in the very relationship of celestial bodies is untenable in itself, because the annual movement of the earth around the sun and the movement of the moon around the earth are independent of the rotation of the globe around its axis; As a result, even when its rotation around its axis stopped, its movement in space around the sun and the movement of the moon could not receive any strong shock or modification. As for the second assumption, namely, allowing for the apparent stopping of the sun without the actual stopping of the earth, those who prefer such an explanation of the miracle in question must admit the miraculous deflection of the sun's rays directed towards illuminating Palestine. And this deviation could have occurred either through the direct action of the omnipotence of God, who was pleased to give the rays of the sun exactly the direction that was needed to lengthen the day; or through natural means of reflection or refraction of rays, which would also make it possible to see the sun at such hours when it would normally be completely hidden from view. Another objection is made against the historical authenticity of the miracle, namely, that it would certainly have struck other nations due to its extraordinary nature; Meanwhile, we find absolutely no evidence of it in the chronicles of ancient peoples who could have witnessed this miraculous event. Although the Chinese have evidence of one day being longer than usual, in general it can be assumed that the miraculous length of the day could hardly have been noticeable anywhere else except Palestine. In addition to its purely physical significance, this miracle also had a very important religious and moral significance. It showed the Canaanite peoples, who idolized the sun and moon under the guise of Baal and Ashtoreth, that Jehovah, the God of Israel, is the one true God and at His almighty disposal are those luminaries that were insanely idolized by the pagans. The latter, thus, in addition to the cruel physical defeat from the Israelis, suffered an equally strong moral defeat, which should have finally taken away from them all courage in the fight against the aliens. X. Biblical timekeeping For a more complete understanding of many events in Biblical history, some familiarity with biblical timekeeping is necessary. The Jews counted the day from one sunset to the next, and such a count is accepted in the Bible, as can be seen from the definition of the length of the Sabbath day: “from evening to evening you shall celebrate your Sabbath” (Lev. 23:32). This account is still preserved in the church charter and in the liturgical books of the Orthodox Church. To designate the day, i.e. 24 hours of time, there was no special word, and in this case the expression evening and morning was used, as can be seen from the very history of the creation of the world (Gen. 1:5). The day, in the proper sense of the word, was divided into three parts - evening, morning and noon (Ps. 54:18), which, in turn, were divided into even smaller parts. There were actually two evenings, one of which was at the very beginning of sunset, and the other at the end of it, and the later Jewish sects argued a lot among themselves regarding the exact distinction of this division of the evening. The ancient Jews did not know the division into hours, and the word itself went - “hour” is first found in the prophet Daniel, and moreover, more in the sense of a short time in general, than an hour in the proper sense of the word (see. eg Dan. 5:5). Only after the Nativity of Christ did the Jews begin to divide the day into twelve hours, counted from sunrise to sunset, but this division was not particularly accurate, since the hours either lengthened or shortened in length, depending on the length or shortness of the days in the summer or winter months of the year. – Before the Babylonian captivity, the Jews divided the night into three watches (Ps. 62:7; 89:5); the first watch lasted from sunset until 10 o'clock at night (Lam. 2:19), the middle from 10 to 2 o'clock in the morning (Judges 7:19) and the third or morning watch until sunrise (Ex. 14:24). After the conquest of Palestine by the Romans, the Jews came into use of the Roman custom of dividing the night into four watches. Seven days or days made up a week (Gen. 29:27, 28). The seventh day was dedicated to the Lord - in memory of the rest of the Creator at the end of the creation of the world, which is where the name Saturday was given to it, i.e. peace (Gen. 2:2; Exod. 20:11). Individual days did not have special names, and were simply designated by numbers: the first, second day, and so on, starting from Saturday (Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). The Hellenistic Jews called Friday the day of preparation, since they dedicated this day to preparing for the celebration of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was very important in the social life of the Jews and was strictly observed until later times. Just as the days were determined by the setting and rising of the sun, so the months were determined by the movement of the moon (Sirach 43:6–8). The months were completely lunar, and since the moon rotates around the earth in 29 and a half days, the months of the Jews alternated in 29 and 30 days, the first being called “insufficient” and the latter “full”. At first they did not have special names and differed only in their numerical designation - the first, second month, etc. (Gen. 7:11; 8:4–5), but over time, special names also came into play, although in the Pentateuch only one month of Aviv bears this name, i.e. the month of new ears of grain, which became the beginning of the holy year and subsequently received the name Nisan (Ex. 12:2; 23:15); Deut. 16:1). During the Babylonian captivity, the Jews adopted the Chaldean names for the months, which came into final use. Here are these names in sequential order of the months of the sacred year, with the designation of the corresponding months according to our calendar: 1) Nissan, ancient Aviv (Neh. 2:1), in 30 days, corresponds to March. 2) Ziph (1 Kings 6:1), the month of flowers, with 29 days, corresponds to April. 3) Sivan (Baruch 1:8), in 30 days, corresponds to May. 4) Tammuz, in 29 days, corresponds to June. 5) Ab, in 30 days, corresponds to July. 6) Elul (Neh. 6:15), in 29 days, corresponds to August. 7) Tisri or Athanim (1 Kings 8:2), in 30 days, corresponds to September. 8) Bul (1 Kings 6:38), the month of rains, also called Marheswan, with 29 days, corresponds to October. 9) Haslev (Zech. 7:1), in 30 days, corresponds to November. 10) Tebeth (Esther 2:16), in 29 days, corresponds to December. 11) Shevat (Zech. 1:7), in 30 days, corresponds to January. 12) Adar (Esther 3:7), in 29 days, corresponds to February. The number of months was usually twelve (1 Kings 4:7; 1 Chronicles 27:1–15); but every three years, in order to equalize the lunar year with the solar year (against which it is 11 days shorter), the Jews added another month to the twelve ordinary months - the thirteenth, which was called Veadar, i.e. additional Adar; it was placed between Adar and Nissan and consisted of 29 days. According to the seasons, the months fell into six separate groups, which designated the periods of various agricultural work, and they proceeded in the following order: I. Sowing time: Tisri - last half, Markheswan and Haslev first half (early rains). II. Growing time: Haslev last half, Te-bef and Shevat first half. III. Cold time: Shevat last half, Adar and Nissan first half (late rains). IV. Harvest time: Nissan last half, Ziph and Sivan first half (spring equinox, barley ripening and Passover; in Sivan wheat ripening, Pentecost). V. Summer: Sivan last half, Tammuz and Ab first half. VI. Hot time: Ab is the last half, Elul and Tisri are the first half (in the latter, the gathering of fruits). Thus, in total, six months, from the last half of Tisri to the half of Nisan, were spent in cultivating the land, and the rest in reaping and gathering fruits. It should be noted that the above correspondence with our months is only approximately correct, since for the most part the Jewish months, as lunar months, did not exactly coincide with our solar months. Therefore Nissan for example. must be supposed somewhere between March and April, and so on. As for the year, the Jews distinguished between two Years - sacred and civil. The holy year began with the month of Nissan. It was established with the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and received special significance in the sense of the year in which all the great holidays and sacred celebrations that were connected with the event of liberation and legislation were distributed. In everyday life, the usual civil year remained in use, beginning with the month of Tisri - September, since according to Jewish legend the world was created in the fall. XI. Biblical scales and money 1) Libra. The unit of biblical weight was the shekel, the shekel - “weight”; The shekel was divided into two bekahs or half-shekels (Ex. 30:13; Lev. 27:25; Num. 18:16), and subsequently into thirds (Neh. 10:32) and quarters (1 Sam. 9:8). There were ten geras in a bek, so twenty geras constituted a full, so-called holy shekel. In addition to these small units of weight, complex higher units of weight were also used. This is the so-called mina, consisting of 60 shekels (Ezek. 14:12); 60 minutes, in turn, constituted a talent - the highest unit of weight (Ex. 38:24, 26). Talent is called kikkar in Hebrew, i.e. round, since the weight itself probably had a round shape. It contained 3,600 shekels. The weights were at first made of stone, and in order to constantly have a legal system of weight, Moses installed correct scales at the tabernacle, with which the people had to check their scales and weights and resort to them in case of any disputes. This weight was called sacred (sacred shekel - Ex. 30:13; Lev. 27:25). These scales and weights were subsequently transferred to the church and entrusted to the guard of the priests (1 Chron. 23:29). It is not known exactly what shape these weights had. Among the Assyrians and Egyptians, they took the form of various animals (lions, oxen, etc.), as can be seen from various images preserved on the monuments. In ordinary trade transactions, the seller and buyer usually used their own scales, which were constantly worn in a belt or in a special bag, and there were cases of deception using counterfeit weights (which is what a special decree of the law is directed against - Deut. 25:13). To determine the biblical weight, we have data only from the time of the Maccabees, namely silver shekels; but we can assume that they are of the same weight as was established under Moses. In this case, the biblical weight system can be represented in the following table: 1 gera 15.86 shares. 3 gold 34.40 d. 1 200 120 60 1 min. 2 f. 9 z. 48 d. 72 000 7 200 3 600 60 1 talent 3 p. 5 f. 90 z. But such a weight was only for silver, as the most common and used metal. For gold, this weight changed somewhat and was greater, as can be seen from the following table: 4 f. 22 gold 23 dollars 10 000 100 1 talent Using these tables, you can make a calculation to convert all the weight units found in Biblical history to our weight. Thus, Abraham’s servant Eleazar gave Isaac’s bride Rebekah, upon his first meeting with her, “a gold earring weighing half a shekel and two bracelets for her hands, weighing ten shekels of gold.” This means: the earring weighed 2 gold. 3 lobes, wrists – 40 gold. and 60 shares. 2) Money. The Israelites did not have money in the sense of minted coins until later times, namely the Maccabean period. Purchase and sale were mostly carried out through the exchange of the objects themselves, although already early on some objects, especially domestic animals, acquired the value of a kind of exchange coin, so that the value of a certain thing was determined by a certain number of calves, sheep, kids, and so on. But at the same time, the value of these items was soon transferred to precious metals, which began to be used as money, although they did not yet have a specific monetary value, which was determined solely by weight. Pieces of silver or gold, which circulated in the form of simple ingots, rings, and various figures, had a certain weight, and not only their value was determined by it, but their very name was also given to them. If a piece weighed a talent, a mina or a shekel, then it was called a talent, a mina or a shekel, and so on, so that the monetary system was originally quite consistent with the weight system, as defined above. The shekel (or piece of silver) in this sense is already mentioned in the book of Genesis. 20:16, and there are indications of its division into beks or half-shekels and gerahs, of which there were 20 in a shekel (Ex. 30:13). From large monetary units in Ex. 37st. talent is mentioned. But the ingots of precious metals did not have an exact, established weight, and therefore no value, and therefore, to determine their value, it was often necessary to resort to scales, as was the case in Egypt, where on monuments one can often see images of weighing ingots. In some places a special coin is mentioned, the so-called kesita (Jacob bought part of the field for a hundred “coins”, kesita - Gen. 33, etc.) What, in fact, is meant by this name is unknown; but judging by the fact that in 70 Greek commentators and in the Vulgate this word is translated by the word “lamb”, one can think that these were this kind of ingots that had the shape of a lamb and went at a certain certain price, having a certain weight. The biblical monetary system can be expressed in this way in a table corresponding to weights, from which together it will be seen that in this system some deviations from the weight system are made. But in order to determine the value of this or that weight of metal and, above all, silver, we take the Russian silver ruble as the norm. It contains 4 spools and 21 shares of pure silver. Since there are 4.05 shares of silver per kopeck, then, therefore, 1 ger of silver will be equal to 3.91 kopecks. For the calculation of roundness, we assume the value of a ger at 4 kopecks. and then the entire monetary system will be expressed in the following table: 48 rub. 60,000 6,000 3,000 50 1 talent 2,400 rub. To create a similar table for gold, you need to take into account the comparative values ​​of these metals in biblical times. According to the most thorough research, it turns out that in ancient times in Western Asia gold was 13 times more expensive than silver (in Athens 12, and currently 16). Calculating according to this norm, we obtain the following table of a gold coin: 1 min 1,250 rub. 10 000 100 After the Babylonian captivity, Persian chervonets, the so-called dariki, came into use among the Jews, with an image on the front side of a king with a spear in his right hand and a bow in his left hand, and on the back - an irregular quadrangle. These dariks, or darkmons in Hebrew, later became known as drachmas (1 Ezra 2, etc.). Their value is unknown, but is approximately determined at 6 rubles 25 kopecks, therefore, equal to a gold half-shekel. Under the Maccabees, minted coins appeared for the first time. It was Simon Maccabee who received in 140 BC. from the Syrian king Antiochus VII the right to mint coins (1 Mac. 15:6) and from this time many coins that can be seen in museums have come down to us. On the front side of the Maccabean shekels it says: “Shekel (or half-shekel) of Israel,” and on the back: “Holy Jerusalem.” Under the Romans, shekels were also minted, on which the image of one or another Roman emperor was stamped on the front side, and on the back - a woman under a tree with the inscription on the sides: Judaea capta (Captured Judea). When measuring length, the Jews, like all ancient peoples, used the most natural means, namely various parts of the human body. Hence, the most common measure was the elbow (amma), by which we mean the lower part of the arm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. There is no precise and clear definition of the elbow in the Bible, and therefore it has to be determined according to private instructions and considerations. It is approximately determined to be 21 inches, which is 3/4 of an arshin or 12 vershok. The cubit, in turn, was divided into two spans, by which is meant the space from the end of the thumb to the tip of the little finger in their extended position (Ex. 23:16; 1 Sam. 17:4). The span is divided into three palms (tefak), corresponding to the natural width of the palm (Ex. 25, etc.). The palm is then divided into four fingers (Jer. 52:21). Of the larger measures of length, the so-called reed (kape) of the prophet Ezekiel is known - “six full cubits” (Ezek. 41:8). This is what limits more or less specific measures of length. They can be presented in the following table: 6 1 cane 1 s. 1 arsh. 8th century For an example of translating these measures into Russian, you can take the message in 1 Samuel. 17:4, which says that "Goliath was six cubits and a span in height." In Russian terms, this means that the Philistine giant was 4 arshins and 14 vershoks tall, i.e. exactly 2 arshins taller than Peter the Great. XIII. Measures of dry and liquid bodies Capacity measures were the same for both bulk and liquid bodies, with the only difference being that the basic unit of measure for bulk bodies was called ephah, and for liquid baths, with the same capacity (Ezek. 45:14). Ten ef. made up a homer (Num. 11:32; Ezek. 45:11), which was later also called a kor (1 Kings 4:22). Then, along a descending line, the ephah was divided into sats, which made up 1/3 of the ephah (Gen. 18:6); sata for two hins (Ex. 29:40); a hin for three kabahs (2 Kings 6:25); cab on four logs (Lev. 14:10). In addition to these measures, the ephah was also divided into ten omers (Ex. 16:36). At the same time, it is impossible not to notice that the measures fall into two groups, one of which is decimal in nature (1 homer 10 epham, 1 epha 10 ho-moram), and the other is duodecimal, i.e. measures proceed in a progression determined by the number 12 or its component factors (1 epha 3 satam, 1 sata 2 ginam, etc.). But it is more important for us to determine the scope of these measures. We do not have hard data to accurately determine them, but rabbinists, i.e. Jewish scholars of later times believed that the contents of the log were equal to the contents of six chicken eggs. Based on this evidence, scientists calculated that six chicken eggs could contain 14.08 pars. cubic inches of water, or 6,588 grains of barley. Based on these data, a rough table of biblical measures can be compiled. Since we do not have one common measure for dry and liquid bodies, we will present a translation of biblical measures into the corresponding Russian measures for both dry and liquid bodies. With this calculation, we leave the more or less generally accepted position that an ephah was equal to 20 French liters, which would amount to 6 garnets for loose bodies and 1 bucket, 6 circles for liquid bodies. and 2 glasses. (In science, a definite view on the actual scope of biblical measures has not yet been established, and such a norm is proposed as the most probable. It was compiled on the basis of the testimony of Jewish learned rabbis. According to another view, based on the testimony of I. Flavia, this norm needs to be almost doubled (efa 36.39 liters); but this norm is more difficult to reconcile with private data, and it clearly reveals its unreliability.). Accordingly, the following table is compiled: In accordance with this table, it is possible to determine the volume of certain biblical measures; So, for example known from Ex. 16:16 that manna was collected daily by an omerah per person. This means that each Israelite received a daily portion of 3/5 of a garnz of manna. Assuming that the entire people numbered 2 million souls, we must also assume that 18,750 quarters of manna were collected daily. This figure alone is enough to refute the opinion that the manna on which the Israelites ate was nothing more than natural tamarisk manna, since the latter, even in good years, is mined on the Sinai Peninsula no more than 5-6 quarters a year. XIV. Synchronistic table of the most important events from the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt Renewal of the Church, 1 Esdras. 3ff. So, in the Russian Bible (following the Greek) the name of this king is translated - Agasver. It is more likely to assume that it was Xerxes 1, whose despotic character is more consistent with the data of the biblical narrative. The Persian kings are in the following chronological order: Cyrus (558–529), Cambyses (529–522), Darius I Hystaspes (521–485), Xerxes I (485–465), Artaxerxes I Longimanus (465–424), Xerxes II (424), Darius II (424–405), Artaxerxes II Mnemon (405–365), etc. Since the time of Alexander the Great, Hellenism began to be called a passion for everything Greek or Hellenic, since he himself set out to unite the whole world not so much through the power of weapons and politics, but rather through the unity of the Greek language, morals and education. Jews who spoke Greek were called Hellenists. In the second church there was only one altar of incense, one table of showbread and one lampstand (instead of seven); there was no longer in it the ark of the covenant with its most sacred accessories. You might be interested in: