A Word about Man

Preface to the 1995 edition The author of this work is Bishop Ignatius (Brianchaninov) (1807–1867), a famous Russian ascetic and spiritual writer of the 19th century. His works, published during the life of the saint and republished in 5 volumes in 1886, attract attention with their deep knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and the works of the holy fathers of the Orthodox Church, creatively revised and meaningful in relation to the spiritual needs of our time. Written, moreover, with extraordinary literary skill, the works of the saint represent a valuable guide for everyone who wants to walk the narrow and thorny path of experimental knowledge of God. This work - “The Lay of Man” - was not included in the 5-volume edition and generally remained unknown until now. It is one of the few works of the saint that have a philosophical and dogmatic character and present doctrinal truths in a systematic order. This work of Bishop Ignatius can be called an essay on Christian anthropology. Bishop Ignatius expounds his doctrine of man on the basis of the Tradition of the Orthodox Church - the Holy Scriptures and the works of the Holy Fathers. He simply does not consider all non-Orthodox and especially non-religious concepts of man - they are classified by him as “fabrications of the fallen human mind.” However, being in line with the patristic tradition, his anthropology has its own characteristics. The saint is primarily interested in ways to heal the human soul from sin, issues of pastoral practice and asceticism. That is why, of the holy fathers on this topic, the closest to him are Saint John Chrysostom, Venerable Macarius the Great and Isaac the Syrian. The fundamental idea of ​​the doctrine of man by Bishop Ignatius was taken from the holy Apostle Paul. Man is a church. Its purpose is sanctification, the filling of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, this “verbal” church becomes the dwelling of the forces of evil - demons. There is no third option. The saint equally sharply distinguishes between two lines of development of world history. The first is defined by those who strive for Heaven and consider earthly life to be a time of repentance, and earth itself as only a temporary refuge, a land of exile from paradise. The second line consists of those who, forgetting about repentance and returning to Heaven, are aimed at organizing earthly life, at strengthening the state of the Fall, leading, ultimately, to complete submission to the “prince of this age” - the devil. The content of “Tales about Man” is built according to the usual plan. First - an introduction, then - about the creation of the world and man, about being in paradise, the fall and the subsequent earthly life of mankind. Next begins the 2nd part - about the coming of Christ into the world, and here the manuscript breaks off. From this we can assume that the saint wrote his work shortly before his death (April 30, 1867). Many ideas in the “Tale of Man” - about hell and heaven, about the knowledge of good and evil, about the relative incorporeality of the human soul - are also found in other works of Bishop Ignatius, such as “The Tale of the various states of human nature in relation to good and evil”, “On the image and likeness of God in man” (Ascetic experiences, vol. 2), “The Tale of death” (Ascetic experiments, vol. 3). Moreover, in the “Tale of Man” itself the author refers to these works of his, which also allows us to attribute it to the last years of the saint’s life. It is a pity that the work of Bishop Ignatius remained unfinished and, in particular, questions of the doctrine of man related to Christology and soteriology were not considered. Nevertheless, even in this form, “The Word about Man” is of undoubted interest and may well serve for the edification and spiritual benefit of all who strive to “be saved and come into the understanding of truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). The text of this work was preserved in the Florensky family archive. It was probably intended for publication in the Theological Bulletin, whose editor was priest Pavel Florensky in 1912–1917. Text provided by Abbot Andronik (Trubachev). The text was prepared for publication by Archimandrite Isaiah (Belov). Archimandrite Isaiah, Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius. “Even if they had reasoned with themselves, they would not have been condemned” (1 Cor. 11:31). From the solitude of the monastery I look at the magnificent and vast universe we see - I am amazed by bewilderment and surprise. Everywhere I see the incomprehensible! Everywhere I see the manifestation of a Mind that is so much greater than my mind that, contemplating His countless works in the vast picture of the world, I cannot finally understand a single work of His, not a single action of Him. I am given the opportunity to contemplate only that part of creation that is accessible to my senses; I have been given the opportunity to tangibly verify the existence of a substance that is accessible to my senses due to its properties, but inaccessible to me due to my limitations 1 ; I have been given the opportunity to conclude with all certainty from a substance subject to my feelings and research, the existence of a substance inaccessible to me due to its subtlety; It has been given to me to know that nature is governed by the most extensive, wise legislation, that this legislation equally embraces both the largest and the smallest creations. Nothing that exists is exempt from the laws. It has been given to me to know, to know only partially and superficially, the slightest part of the laws of nature, so that from this knowledge, which constitutes the fruit of thousands of years of effort and the glory of the human mind, I can positively conclude about the existence of an unlimited, omnipotent Mind (Rom. 1:20). Nature proclaims Him, loudly preaches. The concept of God naturally exists in me: this concept cannot but be imprinted by the unclouded consciousness that the soul draws from viewing nature with a clear eye. She is incomprehensible to me! The more incomprehensible it becomes, the more I am introduced to comprehending it! It must be incomprehensible, being the work of an incomprehensible God! Incomprehensible to me, the wide vault of the heavens is spread out, the huge heavenly bodies are established in their places and in their paths; just as incomprehensibly a blade of grass grows from the ground, carelessly trampled under foot. It draws from the earth the juices it needs, decomposes them, and forms from them its own characteristic quality, taste, smell, color, fruit; next to it, another stalk, from the same soil, from the same juices, produces completely different accessories, following its own separate laws, and often, near the most delicious berry or the most fragrant flower, a cereal saturated with deadly poison grows. Among the objects of the vast universe I see myself – a human being. Who am I? Where and why am I on earth? What is the purpose of my existence anyway? What is the reason and purpose of my earthly life, this wandering, short in comparison with eternity, long and tedious in relation to myself? I appear into existence unconsciously, without any consent on my part; I am being taken away from this life against my will, at an uncertain, unforeseen hour. I show up and go away like a slave. More! I appear and go away like a creation. I live on earth without knowing the future. I don’t know what will happen to me in a day, in a few minutes. I constantly encounter the unexpected. I am constantly under the influence of circumstances and surroundings that enslave me to themselves. One habit, one reckless life makes one reconciled with such a strange situation. It cannot hide from the observer. What happens to me when, after spending a short time on earth, I disappear from its face, disappear into the unknown, like all other people? The method of my departure from earthly life is terrible: it is called death. Connected with the concept of death is the concept of cessation of existence; but within me there lives an involuntary, natural conviction that I am immortal. I feel immortal: I constantly act from this feeling. Those who die, while maintaining consciousness, speak and act as if they were departing and migrating, not at all as if they were being destroyed. Man is a mystery to himself. Is this secret really sealed and there is no way to reveal it? Yes! Sin sealed it for man, and his fall sealed it for him. Man is deprived of true self-view and self-knowledge. As long as I remain in my fall, until then the mystery - man - remains inexplicable for me: my perverted mind, stricken by blindness and lies, is insufficient to reveal it. I don’t understand my soul, I don’t understand my body; the concepts that I think to have about them turn out, when examined not superficially and not lightly, to be very insufficient, for the most part erroneous. The sages of the world wander in the darkness of self-delusion and delusion, having dreamed and pronounced arbitrary and vain teachings about man, replacing the truth with assumptions; The blind, led by the blind, are drawn into the same abyss of self-delusion and delusion. The mystery - man - is revealed to the extent accessible and necessary for us, by God incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ, “in Him are all the hidden treasures of wisdom and understanding” (Col. 2:3). The knowledge about man acquired through Divine Revelation still remains relative: relative to the limitations of our comprehension, relative to our essential need for knowledge. God gives us self-view and self-knowledge necessary for repentance, for salvation, or, what is the same, for our eternal bliss; but the main reason for the creation of man, the essential condition of his existence, his very being is known to the one God. The actions of the unlimited Creator cannot be explained with all accuracy to creatures, although intelligent, nor comprehended by them. Complete and perfect knowledge of all creatures is possessed by their Creator alone, God. This knowledge differs from the knowledge inherent and possible to us by an infinite difference. Illuminated by the light of the Word of God, shining to us from the Holy Scriptures and from the writings of the Holy Fathers, we offer here the teaching of the Holy Spirit about man, we offer it in accordance with the poverty of our abilities, especially in accordance with the poverty of our spiritual progress. Everything that the false mind of fallen man and the demonic, which proudly and exclusively recognizes itself as healthy and enlightened, has said about this subject, we leave without any attention. By doing this, we will follow the bequest of the Spirit, who bequeathed to Christianity through the medium of the Apostle: “Be careful that no one deceives you with philosophy and vain flattery, according to human tradition, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ” (Col. 2:8) 2. What is a person? The apostle answers this question to people: “You... are the churches of God who live, just as God said: for I will dwell in them and walk, and I will be God, and they will be my people” (2 Cor. 6:16). The Holy Scripture calls every person a house, an abode, a vessel. That person who does not want to be the house of God, a vessel of Divine grace, becomes the house and vessel of sin and Satan. “Whenever... an unclean spirit,” said the Savior, “comes from a person, passes through a waterless place, seeking rest, and does not find it: then he says: I will return to my house, from where I have departed.” And when he comes, he finds himself free, marked and adorned: then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits that are fiercer than himself, and when they come in, they live: and the last man will be worse than the first” (Matthew 12:43-45) 3. A person cannot help but be what he is created to be: he cannot help but be a house, not be a dwelling, not be a vessel. He is not allowed to be alone with himself, outside of communication: this is unnatural for him. He can be with himself only through the mediation of Divine grace, in its presence, under its action: without it, he becomes alien to himself and involuntarily submits to the predominance of fallen spirits for arbitrarily removing grace from himself, for trampling on the Creator’s purpose. The Apostle, reverently contemplating the freedom that God has granted to people to succeed both in good and in evil throughout their entire earthly life, says: “Like stone, being built alive into a spiritual church, the sanctity is holy, offering up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5), “in the great ... house of the world, not exactly vessels of gold and silver are, but also wood and clay: and ovi in honor, but not in honor. If anyone cleanses himself of these, the vessel will be an honor, sanctified and useful to the Master” (2 Tim. 2:20-21). Freedom is given, but the will of God remains unchanged: “This... is the will of God, your holiness, to keep yourselves from fornication, and to lead everyone from you to acquire his vessel in holiness and honor, and not in lustful passion, like the pagans who do not know God... For God did not call us to uncleanness, but to holiness. Moreover, whoever sweeps away does not sweep away man, but God, who gave His Holy Spirit in us” (1 Thess. 4, 3-5, 7-8). Man is made a vessel and a dwelling place of God through Christianity, a dwelling is built and adorned by the action of the Holy Spirit: “you are being created,” says the Apostle, “into a dwelling place of God by the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22). Satisfaction of the Divine purpose is desirable for man! It is desirable for a person to achieve the dignity granted to him by God! At the creation of man, this dignity was a gift from God; lost by the fall, after redemption it again became a gift of God. “I bow my knees,” writes Saint Paul to the Ephesians, “to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ... that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3:14, 16-17). Dignity is bestowed and established by God; rejection of dignity entails eternal destruction. “Abide in Me and I in you,” the Savior said to all His disciples, Christians, “Just as the rod cannot produce fruit on itself (by itself) unless it is on the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, and you are the birth: and he who is in Me, and I in him, will produce much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing: if anyone does not remain in Me, he will be cast out like a rod and dry up: and they gather it and put it in the fire, and it is burned up” (John 15:4-6). “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word: and My Father will love him, and I will come to him, and will make our abode with him” (John 14:23). All the chosen ones of God have become churches of the Divine, as the holy Apostle Paul says about himself: “Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). He calls those who have not satisfied the Divine purpose not what they should be. “Or do you not know for yourself,” he says, “that Jesus Christ is in you? Are you really unskillful”, that is (according to the Russian translation) “unless you are what you should be” (2 Cor. 13:5). For man's dissatisfaction with his appointment, the apostle announces to him eternal disaster. “Do you not know,” he says, “that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you? If anyone corrupts God’s church, God will corrupt him” 4 by retreating from Him, surrendering to one’s own state of fall, communion with fallen spirits and their consequence – burial forever in the fiery abyss of hell. “The church... of God is holy, as you are” - that is, “the church of God is holy; and this church is you” (1 Cor. 3:16-17). Not only souls, but also “your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit living in you, which you receive from God,” having received into yourself at the sacrament of baptism, “and carry your own? Purchased naturally at the price of the Blood of the God-Man. Glorify God in all your bodies and in your souls, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). Based on these testimonies of the Holy Spirit, we define man as follows: “Man is the God-created church of the Divine in soul and body.” We invite our beloved brethren, monks and all ascetics of Christianity in general who wish to strive correctly, legally, in accordance with the will of God, to pay due attention to the definition of man we have made! Indication and explanation of the correct feat is the goal of our wretched word. The fruit of the right feat, ordained by the Holy Spirit, is the renewal of the ascetic by Divine grace and the establishment of Christ with His Father and Spirit in His church - man. “Those who do not feel the indwelling of Christ,” said some great father, “the Holy Scripture calls unskilled, that is, those who do not know Christianity experimentally” 5 . The apostle invites the servant of Christ to the right struggle, as to an essential necessity: “Suffer evil,” he says, “for Jesus Christ is a good warrior... If ... and anyone strives, he will not be married, unless he fights lawfully” (2 Tim. 2, 3, 5). Naturally, the teaching of the Holy Scriptures about man is proclaimed and preached unanimously by the Fathers of the Orthodox Church. “We are the house of God according to the prophetic, evangelical and apostolic word,” said St. Mark the Ascetic 6. St. John Chrysostom says: "The grace of the Holy Spirit makes us ourselves, if we lead a pious life, churches of God, and we receive the ability to pray in every place. Our worship is not like what it once was among the Jews, associated with a significant external environment, requiring many rituals. There, those who intended to offer prayer had to come to the church, buy a turtle dove, and have in their hands firewood and fire; having invited the priest, proceed to the altar; in addition, fulfill many other orders: there is nothing like that here; wherever you are, an altar, and a priest, and a sacrifice are prepared for you.” “You... are the living church of God” (2 Cor. 6:16). Decorate this house, cast out every sinful thought, in order to become a precious member of Christ, in order to become the church of the Spirit." 8. "No one can lay other foundations... than he that lies, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 3:11), "in Him every creation is built" (i.e., every building is built) (Eph. 2:21). the matter, being examined with attention and accuracy, shows that the foundation cannot be laid otherwise than by sober and correct living. “The building grows,” says the Apostle, “into a holy church in the Lord ...,” he often repeats this, “into a holy church, into a dwelling of God by the Spirit” (Eph. 2:21-22). you constitute a church in which God dwells, as in the Body of Christ, as in a spiritual church." 9. The teaching of St. John Chrysostom is also read in the sublime words of St. Isaac of Syria. The bishop of Nineveh and a hermit in the deserts of Mesopotamia, and then Egypt (Isaac) clarifies this teaching from the experiences of holy asceticism. "I dare to affirm," says Isaac, following Saint Paul, "that we are the church of God. Let us cleanse His church, because He is pure, so that He will desire to dwell in it. Let us sanctify it, because He too is holy. Let us adorn it with all good and splendid deeds. Let us incense it - the repose of God by fulfilling His will, with pure and heartfelt prayer, which cannot be acquired through frequent communication with the world." participation in his actions 10. Then the cloud of God’s glory will overshadow the soul, and the light of His greatness will shine within the heart 11. The sky is within you; if you are pure, you will see the angels with their light, and their Lord with them and within them: it is the Church of grace, the one who is dissolved with God and abides in His judgment. in care of His judgment? Nothing other than to constantly seek all means for His repose, 13 to constantly grieve and grieve because of the weakness of our nature, which prevents us from achieving perfection, to constantly take care to constantly contain in our soul the uninterrupted memory of God, 14 as Blessed Basil said. Concentrated prayer, devoid of distraction, makes the will of God clear in the soul. This is the indwelling of God into man, when God, by constant remembrance of Him, is imprinted (embedded) in man.” 15 Saint Isaac was asked the question: “What is the totality of all the particular feats of living, that is, silence, so that the ascetic can understand from it that he has achieved perfection in living?” The Great Father gave the following solution to the question, which could only be given from deep ascetic experience: “When a speechless person achieves a constant stay in prayer. He who has achieved this has reached the highest level of all virtues and has henceforth become the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. If someone has not received the grace of the Comforter with certainty, he cannot freely remain in prayer in this way. The Spirit, says Scripture (Rom. 8:26), when it dwells in one of the people, does not cease from prayer: because the Spirit Himself prays unceasingly. Then prayer is not stopped in the soul either during sleep or during wakefulness; but whether a person eats or drinks, or whatever else he does, even during deep sleep, the fragrance and vapor of this prayer flow effortlessly from his heart. Then prayer is not separated from the ascetic, but constantly remains in him and with him: even if it becomes silent in appearance for a short time, then secretly it serves in him” 17. The Monk Macarius the Great very often, in his deep conversations with perfect Christians, turns to an explanation of the purpose given to man by the Creator. He constantly expresses himself about man as a monastery, church, vessel, throne of the Divine. The Heavenly Father has deigned to dwell in everyone who believes in Him and asks Him (John 14:21, 23). This is how the Father’s boundless mercy willed it! So pleases the incomprehensible love of Christ! Such is the favor of God's unspeakable goodness 18 . The inner man is a kind of living being that has its own image and appearance: the inner man is the likeness of the outer man. This is a most excellent and most precious vessel, because God was more pleased with it than with all creatures 19 . The throne of the Divine is our mind, and, conversely, the throne of the mind is the Divinity and the Spirit. Likewise, after Adam transgressed the commandment, Satan, the principalities and powers of darkness sat on his heart, mind and body, as on his throne. To destroy their kingdom, the Lord came, taking flesh from the Virgin, and cast down the spirits of evil sitting in the body from their thrones: from the mind and thoughts in which they lived. The Lord cleared the conscience and made the mind, thoughts and body His throne 20 . Our nature can be in communion with demons and evil spirits, as well as in communion with angels and the Holy Spirit, it can be the church of Satan and the temple of the Holy Spirit. So, brethren, consider your conscience: with whom are you in communication, with angels or with demons? Whose church and dwelling are you, God's or the devil's? What treasure is your heart filled with, is it grace-filled or satanic? Just as a house, defiled by stench and uncleanness, must, firstly, be completely cleansed, then decorated and filled with all kinds of fragrance and treasures: so we must also cleanse our hearts, so that instead of Satan the Holy Spirit will come and rest in the souls of Christians 21 . Souls seeking the Stranger of their nature, that is, the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, cleave with all their love to the Lord, live in Him, pray in Him, direct all their thoughts to Him, despising all other blessings of the world. For this they are worthy to receive the oil of God's grace. After this, they can spend their lives without any confusion, completely pleasing the spiritual Bridegroom in everything. But souls who dwell in their own nature alone, crawling with their thoughts on the earth, occupied with concerns only about earthly things—their mind lives in the land below. Moreover - what is worst of all - deceived by conceit and stubborn in it, they recognize themselves, being adorned with carnal truths 22, as true brides of the Heavenly Bridegroom. By the very thing it is impossible to recognize them as born from above, as those who did not receive the oil of joy 23 . A house in which its master does not live is in darkness, uncleanness and desolation, filled with rubbish and stench: so the soul, in which the Lord and the angels do not dwell, is filled with sinful darkness, nasty and humiliating passions. Woe to the path where no one walks, where no human voice is heard! This path becomes a den for animals. Woe to the soul in which the Lord does not walk and does not drive out from it with His voice the beasts - the spirits of evil! Woe to the house when its owner does not dwell in it! Woe to the earth when there is no farmer to cultivate it! Woe to the ship that has no helmsman! He will be crushed and perish from sea waves and storms! Woe to the soul that does not have within itself the true helmsman of Christ! Finding herself in a sorrowful and gloomy sea, overwhelmed by waves of passions and spirits of malice, suffering as if from severe bad weather, she is finally exposed to destruction! Woe to the soul if it does not have within itself Christ who diligently cultivates it, so that it can bear the good fruits of the Spirit! Being abandoned, it grows overgrown with thorns and thistles and is finally consumed by fire. Woe to the soul if it does not have its Lord Christ dwelling within itself! Being abandoned, it is filled with the stench of passions and becomes a dwelling place of vices” 24. In accordance with the definition we have given to man, we intend to depict, to the best of our ability, the wonderful architecture of this verbal church of God; we intend to outline his spiritual and moral history from creation to the end of the world: both man himself and his history will represent the factual conviction that the only purpose that is indicated to man by the Word of God, and not another, is characteristic of him. Man was created by God. With the creation of man, the Creator concluded the universe, that is, the creation of the worlds, visible and invisible. Before he began to create the final creation, in which he wanted to combine the visible and invisible worlds, he prepared a dwelling for this creature - the earth. He extracted everything from nothingness with a single word; He created new creatures from the previously created creatures with one word. For the Creator, perfect in wisdom, the work of reflection or deliberation was unnecessary; for the omnipotent Creator, the work of creation was unnecessary: ​​everything appeared according to His thought, according to His word. His thought is His word, and His word is His thought. “To that speech, and it was: He commanded, and it was created” (Ps. 149:5). At the voice of God, the sky, the earth, the heavenly lights appeared, the waters separated from the earth into their reservoirs, then the earth was covered with plants and inhabited by various animals. The earth, created, decorated, blessed by God, had no flaws. She was full of grace. “When God saw the completion of the entire universe, he created everything, and every thing was great” (Gen. 1:31). Nowadays the earth appears to our eyes in a completely different form. We do not know her state in holy virginity, we know her in a state of corruption and curse, we know her already doomed to be burned 25 (2 Pet. 3:10); she was created for eternity. The divinely inspired writer of everyday life says that the earth, in its original state, did not need cultivation (Gen. 2:5): it itself produced grain and other nutritious herbs, vegetables and fruits in abundance and of excellent quality. There were no harmful plants on it; the plants were not subject to decay or disease; and corruption, and disease, and the very tares appeared after the change of the earth following the fall of man, as one should conclude from the words of God to Adam, who was expelled from paradise: “The earth will grow for you with thorns and thistles” (Gen. 3:18). After creation, there was one thing beautiful, one beneficial thing, there was one thing adapted to the immortal and blissful life of its inhabitants. There was no change in the weather: it was always the same - the clearest and most favorable. There was no rain: a spring came out of the earth and watered its face (Gen. 2, 5–6). Beasts and other animals were in perfect harmony with each other, eating plants (Gen. 1:30). The Creator's wrath changed the earth. “Cursed is the earth in your deeds” (Gen. 3:17), He said to the man who trampled on His commandment: and the taking away of the blessing from the earth was immediately expressed by a variety of general disorder, foreshadowing its burning, making this burning as if a natural necessity. A curse fell on the earth - and the winds whistled, storms raged, lightning flashed, thunder roared, rain, snow, hail, floods, and earthquakes appeared. Animals have lost obedience and love for man, who has lost obedience and love for God. They entered into a hostile relationship with him. He conquers some by force and keeps them in obedience by force; with others he is in enmity and war, irreconcilable and murderous. Very, very few breeds remained with adherence to it, like a sad monument and example of the former universal love; the majority withdrew and hid from him in dense forests, vast steppes, mountain gorges and dark caves. They cast wild and hostile glances at their former owner when they unexpectedly meet him. They seem to see in him a criminal, an enemy of God: some quickly run away from him, others rush at him with frenzy in order to tear him to pieces. The animals also entered into hostile relations with each other: leaving the food that was first intended for them, sensing a change in their very nature, which became part of the curse that struck the earth, they rebelled against each other and began to devour each other. The death to which our forefathers were doomed for their sin, the death that they felt both in soul and in body after the retreat of Divine grace, but of which they did not yet know the obvious consequences, they saw and experienced in animals. The first murders were undoubtedly committed by animals, then man began to slaughter animals for sacrifice (Gen. 4:4); finally, death appeared between people from the murder committed by a villain brother over a righteous brother (Gen. 4:8). Before sin there was no death in the world. Death entered the world through sin (Rom. 5, 12), quickly embraced, infected, and irreparably damaged the world. The destruction of the world has become a necessity: its destruction is a natural consequence of his mortal illness. The earth will burn on the last day of this old, worn-out world; the heavenly lights fall from their places, like the fruits of a fig tree, knocked down by the wind; the very sky will roll up like a garment and disappear (2 Pet. 3:10; Apoc. 6:14). The small features of the original state of the earth, preserved for us by the book of Genesis, show what a huge, what a sad, incomprehensible change for us took place over the earth after the fall of man. We mentioned above about the visible and invisible worlds 26. This concept is relative. It was formed in us from the state of fall in which we find ourselves, in which it is very natural to call the visible part of God’s creation the visible world, and the invisible part the invisible world. In essence, there is no such distinction 27. To the invisible world we include angels and that part of the universe that serves as their habitat. The writer of everyday life says nothing about the creation of angels, but from the Holy Scriptures it is clear that they were created before the visible world. The description of the universe lies solely in the description of the creation of the visible world, which we also call the material world. This name is again relative; the description of the universe speaks of objects of the material world that are outside the earth, only in relation to them in relation to the earth and man. The Holy Spirit will tell us about the universe as much as our essential needs require, and not as much as the curiosity of a arrogant mind that abuses knowledge would like. Thus, it is told about the heavenly luminaries that they were created for the purpose of “illuminating the earth... and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years, and let them be for illumination in the firmament of heaven, as to shine on the earth” (Gen. 1:14-15). The Word of God provides the knowledge necessary for a life pleasing to God - a life pleasing to God makes a person the abode of the Holy Spirit, who teaches in a unique way, not according to the elements of the world, His verbal vessel the high teaching of Divine truth, unbearable and unusual for the carnal and spiritual mind (John 16, 12-13; 1 Cor. 2, 13-14). The creation of the universe was completed in six days; it ended with the creation of man. God created man in His “image” and “likeness” (Gen. 1:26). By the word “image” it must be understood that the very being of man is a snapshot (portrait) of the Being of God; and “similarity” expresses similarity in the very shades of the image or its qualities. It is obvious that image and likeness, combined together, constitute the completeness of similarity; on the contrary, the loss or distortion of the likeness destroys the entire dignity of the image. God created man in His own image and likeness: therefore, He created him in His perfect image. Man was an imprint of the Divine not only in his essence, but also in his moral qualities - in wisdom, in goodness, in holy purity, in constancy in goodness. Evil or defect could have no place in man: in spite of his limitations, he was perfect; despite his limitations, he had the fullness of resemblance to God. Completeness of similarity was necessary for man to satisfy his purpose - the purpose of being the church of the all-perfect God. Man's mind was to be the mind of God (1 Cor. 2:16), his word must be the Word of God (2 Cor. 13:3), his spirit must be united with the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 6:17), his qualities must be God-like (Matthew 5:48). The indwelling of God into man is also the closest union of God with man; man-creature is made a partaker of the Divine nature (2 Pet. 1, 4)! A person who has achieved such a state is called a god by grace! We were all called to this state by the Creator at creation, in our ancestors, as the Creator Himself announced: “Az rekh: you are gods” (Ps. 81:6). Our forefather was in this state immediately after his creation, so that the words he spoke about his wife were directly called by the Savior of the world the Words of God (Gen. 1:27; Matt. 19:4-5). Holy Scripture represents God conferring with Himself before the creation of man. “Let us make man,” the incomprehensible Deity said in an incomprehensible way, “in Our image and likeness, and let him have the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and the beasts and livestock, and all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Gen. 1:26). In these words, which preceded the creation of the wondrous image of God, the property of the Prototype Himself - God, is revealed, the trinity of His Persons is revealed. The Divine Conference, which preceded the creation of the man-husband, also preceded the creation of the man-wife. And “speech,” says the Scripture, “the Lord God: it is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a helper according to him” (Gen. 2:18). The wife, like the husband, is created in the image and likeness of God; her creation, like the creation of the husband, is honored by the meeting in which the three Persons of the One Divinity appear and they pronounce the majestic “let us create,” depicting the one will and the same dignity of the Persons The All-Holy Trinity, acting inseparably and unfused. The Trinity of Persons of the Divine with the unity of the Divine Being was also imprinted on the image of God - man - with amazing clarity. The husband is appointed as the representative of humanity, its leader: for this reason, the Holy Scripture mentions him alone when a person is taken into paradise and when a person is expelled from paradise (Gen. 2:15, 3:22–24), although it is clear from the same Scripture that the wife also participated in both circumstances. She fully participates in the dignity of man and in the dignity of the image of God: “God created man, in the image of God created him: husband and wife created he them” (Gen. 1:27). The action of the Creator during the creation of man-husband is depicted in the Holy Scriptures as follows: “God created man, taking dust from the earth, and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7). This image of the creation of man shows in him the most excellent and closest creation to God. Man is not produced by a single action, as other creatures were produced, but is formed and created gradually. The Creator of the world used His single word to create the earth, sky, enormous stars, countless plants and animals; The Creator of man appears to be first speaking in Himself, then acting; first forming the body, then breathing the breath of life into a person’s face. By creation itself, the dignity of the human body is incomparably higher than all other bodies, and the soul is incomparably higher than all animal souls, the souls that the earth produced from itself at the command of the Creator (Gen. 1:24). But the first principle of man is dust. The thought of this beginning should serve as an inexhaustible source of humility for us! The soul, from the first visible action testifying to its presence in a person, is called the “breath of life”; its very inspiration is attributed to the human face, as to that part of the body which alone primarily serves as a mirror of the soul, expressing the nature of its movements and sensations. The whole person is called a “living soul” because, after the union of the soul with the body, he became a single being, consisting of soul and body, but a being in which the soul has complete predominance 28. The body is the home of the soul, its clothing, its instrument. This is what both the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers call him. The two chief Apostles called it their hut 29 (2 Pet. 1:13-14; 2 Cor. 5:1-4). The body is clothing and at the same time an instrument of the soul. “The soul is surrounded and clothed by the members of the body,” said St. Macarius the Great 30. "The soul," says Saint John of Damascus, "acts through the organic body, imparts to it life, growth, feeling and the power of birth. It uses the body as an instrument" 31 . This concept of the relationship of the soul to the body is natural: it flows from the constant experiences of life, from our very sensation. The pagans believed that the human soul constitutes a particle of the Divine. The thought is false and very dangerous, as containing blasphemy! We considered it necessary to dwell on it in order to protect our brothers from it: because many members of modern society, having learned from the Book of Genesis that God “breathed into the face of man the breath of life,” rashly conclude from this about the divinity of the human soul by its very creation, therefore, by its nature. Holy Scripture directly testifies that man is a complete creation of God (Gen. 1:27; Matt. 19:4). “Thy hands create me and create me” (Ps. 119:73), - this intelligent creature prayerfully cries out to its Creator, at the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the only one who can reveal to man his beginning and the image of this beginning. Of course, this prayerful cry - the cry of the soul interceding for itself and for its body - is by no means the cry of the body alone. The Orthodox Eastern Church has constantly recognized man as a being created in soul and body, but capable of both soul and body being a partaker of the Divine Nature, being God by grace. The Monk Macarius the Great says: "O of the ineffable compassion of God, as Tuna 32 Himself gives Himself to believers, so that in a short time they would receive God as an inheritance, and God would dwell in the body of man and make it a good dwelling for Himself! Just as God created heaven and earth for man to dwell on them, so he created the body and soul of man in a dwelling for Himself, in order to live and rest in the body, as in His house, with a beautiful bride, that is, with a beloved soul, created in His image. “For I have betrothed you,” says the Apostle, “to present a pure virgin to one husband to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2). in his own way, with all diligence, all good things are treasured up: so the Lord also collects and invests heavenly spiritual wealth into His house, that is, into the soul and body. Below the wisdom of His wisdom, below the understanding of the mind, they were able to understand the subtlety of the soul, or to say how it exists, except for those to whom, through the Holy Spirit, comprehension and precise knowledge of the soul is open. hear that it exists. That is God, but she is not God; He is the Lord, and she is the slave; He is the Creator, and this creature; That is the Creator, and she is a creation: there is no similarity between the nature of That and the sow. But God, out of His boundless, ineffable, incomprehensible love and compassion, was pleased to choose this very intelligent 33, precious and rich creature for His dwelling, as the Scripture says: “For we were to be a firstfruits by His creation” (James 1:18), into wisdom, that is, and His communication, into His own dwelling, and into pure bride" 34. Saint John of Damascus, a writer of the 8th century, in his book “An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” collected the opinions of the most famous holy fathers who preceded him on the subjects of Christian Theology, why, citing here his teaching about the soul, we present together the teaching of Saint Gregory the Theologian, Athanasius the Great, Basil the Great, Maximus the Confessor and other greatest Teachers Churches. "God," says St. John, "created nature contemplated by the mind, that is, the Angels and all the heavenly orders, whose nature is, without a doubt, rational and incorporeal, that is, incorporeal in comparison with gross matter. For only the Divinity in the proper sense is immaterial and incorporeal. God also created the sensible nature, that is, heaven, earth and everything between them. And He created the first nature close to Himself, - for the rational nature, comprehended by one mind, is close to God; and the other, as subject to the senses, He created in all respects very far from Himself. But here by the word “ought” I mean the will of the Creator: for it is the most fitting statute and law for God... Thus, from the visible and invisible nature, God created man in His own image. in likeness; from the earth He formed a body, and a soul, endowed with reason and intelligence, He communicated to man by His inspiration... Body and soul were created together... God created man immaculate, upright, loving goodness, free from sorrow and worries, shining with all perfections, abounding in all blessings, as if a kind of second world - in the great small, like another Angel worshiping God; He created a mixture of two natures, a contemplator of the visible creature, the secret of the creature, comprehended by the mind, the king of everything on earth, subordinate to the Supreme King, earthly and heavenly, temporary and immortal, visible and comprehensible to one mind, as something between the great and the low - created by the spirit and together with the flesh, the spirit for the reception of grace, the flesh in warning of pride, - the spirit in order to so that he stands firmly and glorifies his Benefactor - in the flesh so that he is exposed to suffering, and, suffering, does not forget himself and comes to his senses if he decides to exalt himself with his greatness; created animals placed here, that is, in this life, and moved to another place, that is, into the future eternal life, and - which is the height of the mystery - a being adored for its cleaving to God, and adored by the participation of Divine illumination, and not transformed into the Divine Essence” 35. The repetition of the breath of God incarnate during the re-creation of man explains the breath of God during the creation of the human soul. Our Lord, Jesus Christ, having completed our redemption and preparing 36 humanity for the reception of the Holy Spirit, stood among His disciples after His resurrection, “breathed and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22), which soon descended on them with a sound from heaven, as if from a rushing strong breath of wind (Acts 2:2). This second blow explains It is indicated that at the first breath there was a descent of the Holy Spirit. At its very creation, Divine Grace was poured out abundantly; the soul of the primordial was primarily alive, as moved, enlightened and controlled by the Holy Spirit. This is convincingly proven by the very events that followed the creation of the first man. Saint Macarius the Great says: “How the Spirit acted in the Prophets and taught them. was within them, and appeared outside of them: so in the reasoning of Adam” 37, whenever he wanted, he was with him and taught him... The Word was all to him 38, and as long as he kept the commandment he was a friend to God” 39. To create the wife, God sent Adam into a frenzy. He fell asleep. During this extraordinary dream, the Lord took one of his ribs, and, creating a wife from the rib, brought her to Adam. Despite the fact that the taking of the rib took place during a strange dream and frenzy, Adam immediately learned, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit who dwelt in him, the origin of his wife. “Behold, now,” he said, “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this woman will be called, for this life was taken from her husband. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (Gen. 2:21-24). In these words of Adam, the law was pronounced on behalf of God for the married life of people, as he testified The God-man himself. In the taking of a wife from her husband we see an example of the dispassionate reproduction of the human race before its fall. The wife was taken from Adam’s rib: at this time Adam was not subjected to any sensation that violated his integrity; on the contrary, he was in a frenzy that was brought upon him by God. Only grace-filled people come to such a state. We do not see a pattern by which we could explain the reproduction of the human race before its fall from husband and wife, a reproduction appointed before the fall; but we certainly affirm that this reproduction had to be accomplished in the fullness of purity and dispassion. Instead of carnal, bestial pleasure there should have been holy, spiritual pleasure. We do not test the image itself, as undiscovered by God, believing that just as it was easy for God to allow a certain method, it was so easy to establish another method. Here the word used about the real method of reproduction is: let go. Yes! This method is God’s permission, it is a sad consequence of our fall, it is a sign of God’s disgust from us. We are already born killed by sin: “I was conceived in iniquity, and in sins my mother gave birth to me” (Ps. 50:7). Conception in iniquities and birth in sins cannot be established by God. The Lord brought before Adam all the animals and livestock of the earth, all the birds of the air: man, penetrating through the action of the Holy Spirit into the properties of each animal, gave them names (Gen. 2:19). Saint Macarius the Great says: "As long as the Word of God was with him (Adam) and (he) kept the commandment, he had everything. The Word itself was his inheritance, was the garment and the glory that covered him, and was his instruction. For he was given the power to name all things; this he called heaven, this he called the sun; this the moon, this the earth; this the bird, this the beast, and this the tree. As he was we ourselves teach, and so he gave names to the creatures... (The Spirit) taught him and commanded him: name it this way, call it this way” 40 . It is difficult in our fallen state to obtain a clear idea of ​​the state of perfection in which our forefathers in soul and body were created. It is impossible for us to conclude about their holy body and holy soul from our soul and body, struck and killed by a sinful death. They began to exist blameless and holy; we begin to exist defiled and sinful. They were immortal in soul and body; We are born mortified in soul, with the seed of death in the body, which must sooner or later, but certainly bear fruit - the death of the body visible to us. They were in constant peace with themselves, with everything that surrounded them, in constant spiritual pleasure, in contemplation of the graces of the universe, in the thought of God, in the vision of God; we are worried and torn by various sinful passions, shocking and tormenting both soul and body, we constantly fight with ourselves and with everything that surrounds us, we suffer and suffer, or we find pleasure in the pleasures of cattle and animals; everything around us is in the most terrible confusion, in ceaseless and mostly vain labor, in plywood making 41 and the slavery of Pharaoh. In a word, we have fallen and perished from our very birth, they were holy and blessed from their very creation. All the conditions of our existence and the initial existence of our forefathers are far, far different. The body of the first man was in perfect harmony with the soul, and the soul was in perfect harmony with the spirit, that is, with the power of words - this highest dignity of the human soul. The struggle between the constituent parts of a person is the discovery of living death inside - a struggle that now does not interrupt and does not give a person rest day or night, did not take place then. The spirit remained constantly in grief, with God; carried his soul there with him; she dragged the body there with her. It was not difficult and natural for a body incapable not only of sinful, but also carnal pleasures, on the contrary, capable only of spiritual pleasures, by the power of its innate desire and desire to abide with God, to feed and enjoy Him, to live by Him. Those who recognize carnal desires as integral properties of the human body, and their satisfaction as a natural necessity, are very mistaken, mistaken to their destruction. No! The human body descended to the bodies of cattle and beasts due to the Fall. Carnal desires are natural for a fallen nature, just as the properties of an illness are for an illness; they are unnatural to human nature in the state in which it was created 42 . Otherwise: why would human bodies be resurrected for a blissful eternity, in which only spiritual pleasures take place? Human flesh was created capable of rejoicing “in the Living God” (Ps. 83:3). So sublime was the purity and impassivity of the primordial ones that they did not need clothing; “And besta are both naked,” says Scripture, “Adam... and his wife, and not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). They came out of the hands of the Creator in a state of maturity and, at the same time, unfading youth, beauty and strength, not subject to any shortcomings, any changes in age or health. Adam's body did not burn from fire, did not drown in water, was not scorched by the sun, and was not influenced by the elements, which themselves were in perfect order and peace. “At first,” says Macarius the Great, “man was appointed by God to be the prince of this age and the lord of all visible things: lower, for the fire of its power could manifest itself over him, nor drown water, nor harm a beast, nor act on anything poisonous” 43 . Adam's body, light, thin, passionless, immortal, eternally young, was by no means a bond and a prison for the soul: it was a wonderful garment for it. Finally, this graceful body was, in its perfection, capable of living in paradise, where the righteous who have departed from here currently live only with their souls. They will become capable of ascending there as bodies after the general resurrection, when the bodies themselves will become spiritual. After the fall and expulsion from paradise, “skins of a robe” were given to man (Gen. 3:21); then, says Saint John of Damascus, “he put on mortality, or mortal and coarse flesh, which means leather garments” 44. We base our exposition on the human soul on the definition given to it by the above-mentioned teacher of the Church. "The soul," he says, "is a living being, simple 45, incorporeal, invisible by nature with bodily eyes, immortal, endowed with reason and intelligence, formless, acting through the organic body and imparting to it life, growth, feeling and the power of birth, having a mind not as anything different from it, but as the purest part of itself. The soul is a free being, endowed with the ability to will and act, changeable, and precisely changeable in the will, as a created being” 46. To complete this definition or description, it must be said, following the instructions of another holy father, that the soul is a good being by nature 47 . Although, after the fall, good was mixed with evil in her, and therefore became damaged; but the same can and should be said about her mind and about her freedom: damage to something is no longer its destruction. It is obvious that Saint John of Damascus gave such a definition of the soul relatively: in relation to our state and the degree of ability to know. He explains this further. “Incorporeal,” he says, “one is such in nature itself, and the other in comparison with gross matter. By nature, only God is incorporeal; Angels, demons and souls are incorporeal by grace and in comparison with gross matter. 48 Even further, St. John calls body “that which has three extensions, i.e. in length, width and depth" 49. From this definition of the body, a definition hitherto recognized as completely correct and supported by science, it follows as a most necessary and precise consequence that every limited being is inevitably a body. Every limited being is contained in a greater or lesser space; without any changes, without any space, as superior to all space and all measure - God. God is completely incorporeal, that is, the Being of God is completely different from the beings of creatures, no matter how subtle these creatures may be, and differs from the being of creatures by an immeasurable difference. To place God and created spirits in the same category of spiritual beings is the most impudent blasphemy. Both the Holy Scriptures and all the holy fathers of the Eastern Church, although they call Angels, demons and human souls spirits, but precisely in the sense as explained by Saint John of Damascus. Macarius the Great constantly calls them spirits in all his writings; but in these works of his we have his judgment about created spirits, even more definitive than the judgment of Damascus. The saint of God borrowed it from his most excellent perfection. “Some high,” he says, “and a deep word, according to the strength of my mind, I want to offer. The unsearchable and incorporeal Lord, for His immeasurable goodness, accepts flesh on Himself, and He is humbled to be, He is great and supernatural, so that He may be numbered with His rational creatures, souls, I say, saints and Angels, as even those immortal Divinities are partakers of His life. Each of these, by its nature, is a body, even an Angel, even a soul, even a demon. He puts on the eye and looks at it; puts on the ear, and he hears; hands, nostrils, and simply speaking, all members of the body accept and merge with all the soul, through which everything that is essential to human life is corrected." 51 When asked whether the soul has any form, the Monk Macarius answered: "It has an image and appearance similar to an Angel. Just as Angels have an image and appearance, and just as the outer man has an appearance: so the inner man has an image, similar to an Angel, and the appearance of an outer man." 52. St. Cassian the Roman, who talked with the greatest saints of God of ancient Christian Egypt, the disciples of the great Anthony, Macarius, Pachomius, conveys their teaching on this subject in this way: "Although we call some beings spiritual, what are angels, archangels and other powers, also our very soul, or, of course, this thin air; however, one should not recognize them as incorporeal. For they have a body peculiar to themselves, in which they are contained (abide), although much more subtle than we are. They are bodies, according to the saying of the Apostle, who says: “Both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies” (1 Cor. 15:40); and again: “A spiritual body is sown, a spiritual body is raised” (1 Cor. 15:44). From these (the words of the apostle) a clear conclusion follows that there is nothing incorporeal except the one God, and that, therefore, only He can penetrate into all spiritual and rational beings, because He is one, all everywhere and in everyone, so that He sees and foresees the thoughts and internal movements of people, all the secrets of the spirit (mind). About Him alone the apostle proclaimed: “For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, members... and brains, and is judgmental by the mind and the thought of the heart. And there is no creation that is not manifest before Him, but all... naked and declared before His eyes” (Heb. 4:12–13) 53. Guided by these testimonies of the holy fathers and numerous others, which we leave in order to avoid burdensome verbosity 54, we affirm the following about the soul. She is a spirit - like the angels, she has a mind, a spiritual feeling, free will, but, like a creature, she is limited both in her essence and in her properties; due to this limitation, it also has its own degree of subtlety; having a certain degree of subtlety, can and is contained in our gross body, can be imprisoned in a hellish dungeon, can be subject to hellish torment, an unquenchable fire, an everlasting worm, terrible and eternal darkness, can gnash its teeth from unbearable hellish suffering, can, if allowed, change places, can be placed in heaven, can taste the sweetness and peace of heaven as a place of sweetness and peace; she is capable of the highest pleasure, internal pleasure, appearing in the heart and spreading throughout the whole person, communicating even with his body, consisting in communion with God, when God makes a worthy soul according to its purpose His abode; finally, it has its own appearance, which is similar to the appearance of a person in his body, i.e. the soul has a head, and chest, and arms, and legs, and eyes, and ears, in a word, all members, like the body; the soul is clothed in the body as in clothing, and its members are clothed in the corresponding members of the body 55. After leaving the body, the souls of the righteous are clothed in light clothes, as St. John the Theologian tells about this in his Apocalypse (Rev. 6:11, 7:9), as St. Macarius the Great testifies: “(The souls of the righteous), he says, when departing from this world, having the Lord with them, go with great joy to the heavenly inhabitants; those who dwell with the Lord they receive and take them to the monasteries and cities prepared for them in advance and place precious and famous robes on them” 56 . Many passages of Holy Scripture confirm this; this is obvious from the writings of the holy fathers and their lives 57. With the opposite opinion, that is, that the soul is a spirit as subtle as the spirit of God, the following conclusions will certainly be required: it will be necessary to admit that the soul cannot be contained and held by any place, no substance, neither our body, nor heaven, nor hell, cannot feel the torments of hell, must be above the pleasures of heaven. We shy away from such an opinion, as if it were an obvious absurdity, from blasphemy harmful to our salvation, and we will follow with obedience and conviction the above teaching of the Holy Orthodox Church. Calling and recognizing the soul, together with the Holy Fathers, as a spirit in relation to the gross substance of the visible world, we, together with the Fathers, recognize it, in relation to God and the exact truth, as a body that “does not have flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39), but has its own substance, subtle in relation to us, invisible, like air, as the Monk Cassian puts it, and other gases 58. The Holy Fathers teach us that the soul has three powers: the power of words, the power of desire, or will, and the power of courage, calling this last power of rage; In common usage among us it is called character, energy, fortitude, courage, and firmness 59 . In the power of literature, the image of the Trinitarian Deity is predominantly imprinted. “What is the image of God if not the mind?” - says St. John of Damascus 60. The human mind constantly gives birth to and from itself a thought, or an inner word, which is not continuous and inseparable from thought, cannot be without it and constitutes a manifestation of verbal power separate from it, as if a separate face of it, since thought again constitutes a separate manifestation of this same power, another face of it, being at the same time inseparable from the mind. The mind is invisible and incomprehensible in itself; appears and reveals itself in his thoughts; thought, in order to open up in the land of matter, must be embodied, so to speak, in sounds and signs. The third manifestation, or face of the same power, is seen in our spirit, which is a verbal or mental feeling of the heart, emanating from and depending on the mind, contributing and conforming to thought. In this verbal feeling the Creator placed the consciousness of good and evil, called conscience. The control of man belongs to verbal power, which in an immaculate state acted in accordance with the power of will and the power of courage or firmness. The will strove towards God; the power of firmness kept man constantly in his correct aspiration; By the power of words, man remained in continuous union with God. The thought floated, as some famous ascetic put it, 61 in the Word of God, in the All-Holy Truth, and the Spirit of God, as the Spirit of the Word of God and the Spirit of Truth, rested on the human spirit; the mind of man was the mind of God, just as the Apostle Paul said: “We... are the mind of Christ imams” (1 Cor. 2:16). The whole person was in wonderful harmony with himself; his forces were not scattered in their action; They were scattered after our fall. After the fall, they began to fight and bicker among themselves. Our very spirit has become an accuser of its own beginning - the mind, which has been darkened, fights with thoughts, leads them to heteroglossia and confusion, and itself is carried away by deceived thoughts. Praying and lamenting about our many shortcomings, we pray for deliverance from the evil conscience 62 . Having depicted the creation of the world we see, the God-inspired writer of everyday life says: “And the Lord God planted a paradise (vertograd, garden) in Eden on the east side, and brought there man, whom he had created” (Gen. 2:8). According to this account of the everyday life writer, the Lord Himself announced that the Kingdom (or the land of eternal bliss), “prepared for men from the foundation of the world” ( Matthew 25:34), paradise is in the east; this is its position in relation to the earth. This indication is, apparently, rather vague and insufficient; but it is insufficient only for those who want to measure and explain everything solely in relation to themselves, to the circle of their senses and to the visible world. In the vast universe, not only we, but also the earth we inhabit are very insignificant spaces that are accessible to our measurement and seem to us. huge, do not define for us the size of the world, they only explain their immeasurability: behind these spaces known to us lie other spaces - of course, larger than the first 63, and behind those spaces - new, even larger spaces. Measuring and studying them is impossible for us as measuring and studying the incomprehensibly and inexpressibly great, connected with the idea of ​​the infinite. The Scripture's indication of a place for paradise in the east is quite sufficient for our limitations. Let us stop relying on our weak reason - this fragile rod, let us approach with faith the teaching of Divine Revelation: faith assimilates to man knowledge that completely exceeds his powers of comprehension. Paradise is located in the east and according to the instructions: the tribe from whose midst our Lord was to come in the flesh and which therefore had preference over the other tribes, camped to the east during the Israelites' journey through the desert to the promised land 64; in the famous Temple of Solomon, the gates of the Lord were in the east; the crucified Lord looked to the west from the east, and we, directing our gaze to Him, bow to the east 65. New Testament Orthodox churches are built with the altar to the east; when performing prayers outside churches, we always turn to the east; We bury our dead, turning them to face the east - “straight to the sweetness of paradise” (Gen. 3:24), in the hope of resurrection, in the hope of returning to paradise. The Monk Simeon of Divnogorets and some other saints of God, who were worthy of admiration to paradise, found it in the east 66. The holy writer of everyday life depicts paradise as a vast garden, filled with all kinds of fruitful and beautiful trees taken from the earth, among which, as especially noteworthy, are called the tree of life in the middle of paradise and the tree of distinguishing good from evil. A river flows out of Eden, watering paradise, and from there it divides into four sources. Such a description of paradise, the names of the channels of the paradise river, the calculation of the countries through which these channels pass, gave reason for some to conclude that paradise is on earth. But the channels of the river of paradise, bearing the name of well-known earthly rivers, have one common beginning, first they form one river, then they are divided into four channels; These conditions are not fulfilled by the earthly rivers that bear the same name, since their sources are very far from one another. Paradise is not on earth, although it has the closest relationship and similarity with earth. The very establishment of paradise is called not creation, but a planting borrowed from the earth (Gen. 2:8-9), since the inhabitants were also taken from the earth for it. The reason for the idea that paradise is on earth was, without a doubt, the previously dominant concept of matter, when one rough, tactile substance was called matter and when they could not yet guess that matter could have a degree of subtlety that exceeded human comprehension; Previously, refined matter was mixed with spirits and called spirit, or in everything invisible, unaffected and very little subject to our senses, they looked for infinite subtlety, which is equally sinful. Heaven is not on earth 67: heaven is in heaven. The Apostle Paul, caught up into heaven, ascending “to the third heaven,” told about himself that he was “caught up... into paradise, and there hearing inexpressible words” (2 Cor. 12:2,4). “Amen, I say to you,” said the crucified Savior to the thief crucified with Him, who confessed Him as Lord, “today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). It is obvious that the robber’s soul was placed in heaven; His body, after breaking his legs, was removed from the cross and buried in the ground. The placement of the thief's soul in paradise explains both the property of the soul (that it is a subtle body) and the property of the heavenly nature, consisting of a subtle substance corresponding to its inhabitants - created spirits. Moreover, this explains the state of Adam's body before his fall: in his holy body Adam was able to dwell in the same dwelling with created spirits, just as holy men will dwell with them in heaven in their bodies after the resurrection. "Heaven," says Saint John of Damascus, "is the volume of creatures visible and invisible. The mental powers of Angels and everything sensible are contained in it and are limited by it. The Divinity alone is limitless" 68 . Saint Andrew was caught up like Saint Apostle Paul to the third heaven; in the first heaven from the earth, according to the vision of this saint, paradise 69 is located. Other saints will also tell in accordance with this, borrowing their story from divine revelations and visions that they were granted 70. Taught by the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers, we recognize paradise, this place of immaculate pleasure in which Adam was placed, in which many souls of righteous people are now placed, in which many saints of God will be placed with their bodies after the resurrection, appropriate and conformable by nature to their inhabitants. Paradise is material, but its substance is subtle, just as souls are subtle, just as Adam’s body was thin before it was clothed in leather garments, just as the resurrected bodies of the righteous will be subtle in the image of the glorified body of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Paradise,” says Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria, “is a village of spiritual peace.” Paradise, according to the legend of this teacher of the Church, was sensual: Adam saw it, ate the fruits of the trees of paradise for food, and had spiritual fun there. The thief who confessed the Lord on the cross 71 was elevated to this paradise, the ancient heritage and fatherland of man. Saint Macarius the Great says: “Peaceful and heavenly Jerusalem, where is Paradise.” (Conversation XXV, chapter 7). The earth serves as some semblance of heaven. The Holy Scripture compared the most fertile valley of Sodom, before its desolation, watered by the waters of the Jordan, with God's paradise (Gen. 13:10). If before the time of its curse the earth was completely different from how we now see it in its state of disorder and doom to be burned, then how excellent paradise must be, far surpassing the earth in the abundance of its beauties and the abundance of its grace. This is how Saint Andrew saw heaven! He told about the river of paradise, about paradise fruits and flowers, about paradise birds and their wonderful singing, about paradise vineyards and trees; about these latter he added that they cannot be compared with any earthly tree, because, he said, God’s hand, and not man’s, planted them. This must be understood about all the objects that make up the refined and graceful nature of paradise. The saint of God related about himself that he walked through paradise, contemplating its beauty with amazement, and from contemplating its beauties, from the abundant influence of grace with which paradise is filled, he came into unspeakable delight, into the sweetest frenzy. Very clear condition! The beauties of the earth delight the contemplator when, with the pure eye of his mind, he begins to see in them the immense power and wisdom of the Creator - all the more so the wonderful beauties of paradise should attract a person entirely to contemplation, to the vision of God in His works, and from such a vision fill the seer with spiritual, incorruptible pleasure. All the stories of the saints about paradise agree with each other. St. Gregory of Sinai says that paradise is the lower heaven, that it consists of gardens planted by God, that the trees of these gardens are constantly covered with flowers and fruits, that in the middle of paradise a river flows, watering it and dividing into four beginnings 72. The Monk Joasaph, a king, then an apostle, and finally a monk of India, was honored to see heaven. One day, after a long prayer, accompanied by many tears, he fell into a subtle sleep. In a dream, he saw that some formidable men delighted him and, leading him through countries that he had never seen, brought him to a vast field, strewn with the most beautiful flowers and extremely pleasant. There were all kinds of plants there, replete with some unusual and amazing fruits, both especially beautiful to look at and especially pleasant to the taste. The leaves of the trees, moved by the gentlest wind, made noise and, swaying, released an inexplicable fragrance. There were seats made of gold and precious stones, shining with abundant light. There were bright beds, decorated with wonderful bedspreads and splendor that surpassed every word. The purest waters flowed there, delighting the very eyes. After this, the Monk Joasaph was led into the heavenly city, the heavenly Jerusalem, and saw its beauty and glory. Intoxicated with heavenly consolation, the Reverend did not want to return to earth; but the men who led him said that staying in these bright places was achieved through much labor and sweat. They took him out of there and showed him terrible places of eternal torment; after this he immediately came to his senses 73 . Two stories are worthy of special note, about the monk Paul and about the monk Euphrosynus, preserved for us by Church Tradition. These monks were seen in paradise, the first by many of the most reverent brethren of his monastery, and the second by his abbot Blasius, having fallen into a sacred frenzy or subtle sleep, more correctly, into self-forgetfulness - a state in which those who see visions usually find themselves, which is also clear from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 12:7-11). In both cases, paradise is described as a vast helicopter city, filled with indescribable beauty and fragrance. The Monk Paul endowed his brethren, in accordance with the desire of each, with flowers and other plants of the holy paradise; At the end of the vision, the brethren, having come to their senses, each had in their hands what they had taken from paradise 74. The Monk Euphrosynus gave Hegumen Blasius three fragrant apples. The abbot divided the apples for the brethren: those who ate them were filled with spiritual joy, and the sick who ate them were healed of their ailments 75 . It was not in the above-mentioned two events alone that the subtle substance of paradise, by the wave of God, was condensed and made tactile to our bodily senses. When the holy martyr Dorothea was led from the praetor to the place of execution, so that, at the command of the tormentor hegemon, he would cut off her head for confessing our Lord Jesus Christ, a certain scientist named Theophilus, an adviser to the hegemon, exclaimed to her in mockery: “Listen, bride of Christ! Send me apples and roses from paradise, from your Bridegroom.” Saint Dorothea said: “I will truly fulfill this.” Arriving at the place of execution, she begged the executioner to allow her to pray a little to her God. When she finished the prayer, the Angel of the Lord appeared to her in the form of a youth of extraordinary beauty; he brought her three beautiful apples and three red roses in a clean handkerchief. The saint said to the Angel: “I ask you: take them to Theophilus and tell him: here is what you asked for.” Having said this, she bowed her head to the sword and was beheaded. Meanwhile, Theophilus, mocking the saint’s promise, told his friends and peers about it. “Now,” he said, “when they took Dorothea to execution, who called herself Christ’s bride and boasted that she would ascend to His paradise, I asked her to send me apples and roses from there. And she promised me that she would certainly fulfill this!” Passing this on to his friends, Theophilus laughed immensely, when suddenly an Angel appeared to him with three apples and three flowers, saying to him: “The holy virgin Dorothea sends you this, as she promised, from the paradise of her Bridegroom.” Theophilus, seeing apples and flowers and taking them in his hands, exclaimed in a loud voice: “The true God is Christ, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” His friends said to him: "Theophilus! You are either crazy or laughing." Theophilus answered them: “I am not crazy and I am not laughing, but sound reason requires me to believe that Jesus Christ is the true God.” They asked him: “Why did you change so suddenly?” Theophilus answered: “Tell me, what month is it now?” They said: “February.” Theophilus: “Now it’s winter. All of Cappadocia is covered with snow and ice, and there is not a single tree or plant that is decorated with its leaves; Where, do you think, do these flowers and apples with their twigs and leaves come from?” As he spoke, he showed them apples and roses. Seeing them, touching them, amazed at their special fragrance, they said in surprise: “We have not seen such fruits and flowers in ordinary times.” Theophilus turned from a persecutor into a preacher of the Christian faith. It was immediately given to the hegemon to know about him, who subjected Theophilus first to seductions and admonitions, and then to torment, and Theophilus sealed his confession of Christ with his blood 76 . An example of the condensation of the heavenly substance took place at the Dormition of the Mother of God. A few days before this holy dormition, Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Most Holy Virgin with a shining date branch from paradise 77 and announced to Her a blessed resettlement in the heavenly abodes. At the burial of the Virgin, the branch of paradise was carried by the holy Apostle John before the tomb of the Mother of God 78. These are the concepts, these, so to speak, are the hints delivered by Divine Revelation to humanity, wandering and suffering on earth, about the land of peace and eternal bliss prepared for it from the foundation of the world 79 . Because of our sinfulness, because of our darkening, because of our fall, we know and contemplate only the smallest particle of God’s miracles: with the most ardent prayers from a contrite and humble heart and by living according to the Gospel commandments, we beseech our Lord that He will show us His glory, which His elect will and will always see, which no servant of sin will ever see. Introduction to Paradise and the Perfection of the Primordial Having created the body of man on earth and from the earth, having breathed into it a living soul, a soul animated by the Holy Spirit, the Almighty Creator will take man above the earth, into paradise; “The Lord God took the man he created,” says Scripture, “and brought him into the paradise of sweetness” (Gen. 2:15). What a chain of great blessings, of which the following is always greater than the preceding! But even in paradise, Adam was still given prosperity: he was given the opportunity to cultivate paradise and keep it (Gen. 2:15). It is difficult in our state of fall to understand clearly what the cultivation and maintenance of paradise consisted of; but we should not understand these words in a carnal sense, as if about cultivating and maintaining a garden to decorate it and cleanse it from shortcomings. Paradise was planted by the hand of God; there are no shortcomings in it: the presence and fragrance of God’s grace abounds in it; it brings its inhabitants into constant spiritual pleasure, leads to the contemplation of the greatness and goodness of the Creator, depicted in the splendor of paradise, as in a vast and pure mirror. Abundantly and eloquently speaks about God and preaches God's paradise of sweetness. The main work of heaven consisted in the attention of this sermon, in the study of God; studying the grace of creatures was a secondary activity. No matter how perfect Adam was, he was perfect in relation to the limited nature of man: the study of the all-perfect and infinite God was for him, by natural necessity, an activity worthy of all his attention. This work was a field of endless success! This activity is associated with the highest spiritual pleasure! This doing is a priceless gift, worthy of an infinitely perfect and infinitely good God! The pure mind of man, spread out over the immense Divinity, exhausts all its natural power of movement and stands in a sacred frenzy before the incomprehensible Divinity, beyond and above all reflection, like the Seraphim, satisfying the abundance of pleasure with abundant praise and insatiably sated with the vision of the Invisible, closing reverently and wisely the eyes before the object that has exceeded vision 80 . The commandment about maintaining paradise becomes clear to us when we realize that a fallen angel, who had not yet fulfilled the measure of his sins 81, was able to enter paradise, that a person was capable of open conversation with spirits, that he was not established in a state of shrine, as the Angels of Light were established in him. Although he did not know sin, he could obtain this knowledge, which was unbearable and disastrous for him. In the middle of paradise was the tree of life; by eating its fruit the immortality of the human body was maintained. There was another tree in the middle of paradise, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord, having led the primordial ones into paradise, commanded Adam: “Take food from every tree that is in paradise; but from the tree that you understand good and evil, you will not take food from it: but if you take one day from it, you will die” (Genesis 2:16-17). This commandment explains a lot. It is obvious that the fruits of the trees of paradise, as we saw above, are much more subtle and stronger than the fruits of the earth, affecting not only the body, but the mind and soul. One tree was the tree of life, and the other tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This knowledge was preserved, postponed, perhaps, for those who had perfected themselves by making and preserving paradise, but for the newly created it was premature and deadly. We borrow this judgment from the experimental teaching of the great monks. They instruct novice ascetics to immediately reject every evil thought, as soon as it appears to the mind, because the mind of the novice is still weak and inexperienced, has not yet destroyed friendship with sin and, having entered into a conversation with it, is certainly carried away and overthrown by it. On the contrary, the Fathers instruct successful ascetics not to immediately reject an evil thought, but to first consider, torture, expose and then reject it: in this way, action is given special experience in the invisible struggle with the spirits of evil, their cunning, their intrigues, the power of faith, humility and prayer are studied 82. There is a deadly knowledge of evil that a person can develop in himself: it is deadly because then the natural goodness of a person is poisoned by accepted evil, like fine food by poison, and itself turns into evil. There is also the most soul-beneficial knowledge of evil, bestowed by the Holy Spirit on His chosen vessels, in which a pure and strong mind examines everything, even the most subtle convolutions of sin, exposes them without mixing with sin, and protects itself and others from evil. Thus, led by the Holy Spirit, the holy Apostle Peter said to Simon the Magus: “In gall... sorrow and the covenant of unrighteousness, I see you exist” (Acts 8:23). While our forefathers were enjoying themselves in paradise, the fallen prince of the heavenly powers with a numerous host of dark angels, having already been cast out of heaven, wandered in the heavenly realms. According to the inscrutable fate of God, he was allowed entry into heaven, as a not yet completely desperate villain. Satan used this goodness of God, which attracted the lost to the consciousness of sin and to repent of it, to commit a new crime, to incurably seal himself in enmity towards God. The devil, having entered paradise, filled paradise with blasphemy intertwined with lies, and marked his presence in paradise with the destruction of primordial people, as he had previously marked his presence in heaven with the destruction of countless angels. He approached his wife as a weaker creature, and, pretending to be ignorant of the commandment given by God, proposed a crafty question: “What did God say: Do not eat from every tree of paradise?” (Gen. 3:1) He represents the all-good God as not good enough, and the holy and beneficial commandment of God as cruel and heavy! Seeing that his wife entered into a conversation with him with some gullibility and, in refutation, expressed to him the exact words of the commandment: “From the fruit... of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God says, “Thou shalt not eat from it, thou shalt not touch it, lest ye die” (Gen. 3:3) - the villain begins to directly challenge and reject the justice of God’s Commandments. It’s scary to repeat his impudent and blasphemous words! “You will not die by death,” he said, “for God knows that if you take away a day from him, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like a god, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:4-5). Despite the obvious poison of the serpent's words - this is what Scripture calls the fallen angel - the wife stopped at them; Having forgotten both the commandment and the threat of God, she began to examine the tree under the guidance of her own mind, which had bowed under the influence of the devil’s lies and deception. The fruit of the tree seemed like good food to her, and the knowledge of good and evil seemed like a curious knowledge. She ate from the tree and persuaded her husband to eat. It’s amazing how easily the forefathers fell! Was it not predetermined by their internal disposition? Did they not abandon the contemplation of the Creator in paradise, did they not indulge in the contemplation of creation and their own grace? It is beautiful to contemplate oneself and the creature, but in God and from God; with the removal of God it is disastrous, leading to exaltation and conceit. Scripture leads to such a reasoning when it tells that the wife, having listened to the words of the devil, “saw... as a good tree for food, and as it was pleasing to the eye to see and to eat, and to eat: and she took of the fruit thereof, and gave it to her husband... and ate the poison” (Gen. 3:6). It is obvious that the forefathers, having disobeyed God and bowed to obedience to the devil, made themselves alien to God, made themselves slaves of the devil. The death promised to them for breaking the commandment immediately overwhelmed them: the Holy Spirit, who dwelt in them, departed from them. They were left to their own nature, infected with sinful poison. The devil imparted this poison to human nature from his corrupted nature, filled with sin and death. The first sinful sensation of the forefathers was a feeling of shame, in which there was an involuntary and sorrowful consciousness within of living sin, which replaced the former inhabitant in them, the Holy Spirit. They realized that they were naked, and immediately made themselves aprons from fig leaves to cover the unseemly ouds of the body, in which they did not see any ugliness before the fall, just as babies, alien to sinful lust, do not see it now. “The soul of Adam died,” says Saint Gregory Palamas, “having been separated from God by disobedience: for he lived in body after that (after his fall) until nine hundred and thirty years. But death, which befalls the soul due to disobedience, not only makes the soul obscene and brings a curse on a person, but also the body itself, subjecting it to many infirmities, many ailments and corruption, finally puts it to death." 83. "Adam,” says Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria, “while alive, was also dead: he died from the hour in which he ate (from the forbidden tree)” 84. Omnipresent is natural to God. He was also present in paradise at the time of the sin of the forefathers, but he discovered this presence by walking in paradise at noon, when the forefathers had already committed the crime. Probably, around noon they tasted the forbidden fruit: because at that hour the God-man stretched out His hands on the tree of the Cross, atonement by nailing his hands to the tree for the bold stretching out of the hands of the forefathers to the fruit of the forbidden tree 85. The forefathers were honored by freedom; with freedom, the Spirit of divine wisdom was given to them as a leader: justice demanded that freedom be allowed to express itself according to its will. She expressed herself as suicide. As soon as the forefathers inflicted an ulcer on themselves, the merciful Lord appeared to them to heal the ulcer; Adam and Eve “heard the voice of the Lord God walking into paradise at noon” (Gen. 3:8). Having hidden themselves from each other with fig tree leaves, the forefathers tried to hide from God in the thicket of the trees of paradise: so they were suddenly darkened! The Lord called Adam with the words: “Adam, where are you?” (Gen. 3, 9) According to the explanation of the holy fathers 86, these words are words of the greatest mercy and condolences. They mean: "What a calamity you have fallen into! What a deep and miserable fall you have suffered." “Adam, where are you?” The darkened sinner does not understand the voice calling him to the consciousness of sin and to repentance of it. He tries to justify himself, and stipulates with justification: “I heard a voice,” he says, “You were going to heaven, and you were afraid because I was naked, and you hid yourself” (Gen. 3:10). Convicted, he again does not confess, does not repent, and boldly says to God: “Woman, even as you gave with me, you gave to me from the tree, and it died” (Gen. 3:12). These words, according to the remark of a certain holy father, have the following meaning: “The trouble that befell me was brought to me by You: wife, you have given it to me!” 87. From the bitter Adam the Lord passes to his wife and with mercy says to her: “What have you done?” (Gen. 3:13) But the wife does not repent, does not ask for mercy, and tries to justify herself by blaming the serpent. Deeply damaged by the knowledge of evil, which penetrated like lightning into the mind, heart, soul, body, not confessing their sin, the forefathers proudly and boldly justifying themselves were subjected to the judgment and punishment of God. The judgment of God fell, firstly, on the serpent, as the instigator and head of the crime; then he punishes the wife as the first transgressor of the commandment and the culprit of her husband’s death; on the sixth day of the week - Friday, since the week begins on Sunday. In ancient times, the clocks were counted from sunrise, not from midnight, so the sixth hour was the time before noon. Around noon, on Friday, the Lord nailed to the Cross the daring sin of Adam, committed on the sixth day from the creation of the world, i.e. on the same day of the week and at the same time of day. Finally, he strikes the husband as having rejected obedience to God in order to obey his wife. The serpent-devil is finally rejected 88: he is completely left to his malice; the grace of God refused to touch him with any good thought worthy of heaven. “You will walk on your belly,” God told him, “and you will carry away the earth all the days of your life” (Gen. 3:14). Enmity has been established between the devil and the woman, between the seed of the devil and the seed of the woman, that is, on the one hand, between the devil and his seed - the angels carried away by him to destruction, between the devil and his seed - sin; on the other hand, between the woman and the seed of the woman, that is, the God-man, Who in humanity is exclusively the Seed of the woman, and the people who believe in Him, clothed in the whole armor of God. When this enmity and warfare was established, it was announced that the Seed of the woman - the God-man - would erase the head of the serpent; When this enmity and warfare was established, the followers of the God-man were commanded to guard the head of the serpent, i.e. to recognize and reject all the undertakings of the devil in their very original thought 89; the devil was allowed, as having acquired the right through the voluntary subjugation of men to him, to slander the seed of his wife during his earthly wanderings, to guard his heel. And the devil watches over this heel of every righteous man in Christ, from righteous Abel to the righteous man of the most recent times; He did not stop, darkened by unbridled malice and insolence, from slandering the God-man. The wife is responsible for many illnesses and mainly illnesses of childbirth; she is enslaved to her husband; Adam is entrusted with the work of obtaining food - the earth is cursed for his sake. The entire earthly life is designated as the field for these sufferings, and their end is physical death. Upon pronouncing the sentence, Adam and Eve were expelled and cast down from paradise to earth (Gen. 3:22–23). But the essential execution of fallen man consisted in spiritual death, which struck him immediately upon breaking the commandment. Then man lost the Holy Spirit who dwelt in him, which constituted, as it were, the soul of the entire human being, 91 and was left to his own nature, infected with sin and entering into communion with the nature of demons. From submission to death and sin, the component parts of man became disunited and began to act against each other: the body resists the soul; the soul is in a struggle with itself; her forces bicker; the person is in complete disorder. The power of desire has painfully turned into a feeling of insatiable lusts; the strength of courage and energy turned into various types of anger, from frenzied rage to refined memory of malice; The power of literature, having become alienated from God, has lost the ability to control willpower and energy and direct them correctly. This is not enough: the soul itself is enslaved to sin, makes constant sacrifices to it through deceit, hypocrisy, lies, and conceit; it fights and bickers within itself, with itself, disturbing the whole being of a person with various incorrect and unbridled thoughts, arousing the most painful sensations, vainly denounced by the consciousness of the spirit or conscience, devoid of both strength and truth. The image and likeness of God in man, after his fall, changed. The similarity, which consisted in the complete alienation of evil from the qualities of man, was destroyed by the knowledge of evil and its communication to these qualities; when the likeness was destroyed, the image was distorted and became obscene, but was not completely destroyed. “Yes, we know,” says Saint Demetrius of Rostov, “that the image of God exists in the soul of an unfaithful person, but the likeness is only in a virtuous Christian: and when a Christian sins mortally, then the likeness is only deprived of God, and not the image: and even if he is condemned to eternal torment, the image of God is the same in him forever, the likeness is already cannot exist." And the Church sings: “I am the image of Your ineffable glory, even though I bear the wounds of sins, but bring it to the likeness of ancient goodness” 92 . Man's Submission to the Devil The terrible fruit of the fall was the enslavement of man to the devil and inevitable confusion with him. Saint Macarius the Great speaks about this woeful enslavement in the following way: “The kingdom of darkness, that is, this evil prince, having captivated man from time immemorial, thus surrounded and clothed the soul with the power of darkness, like what kind of person, according to him: let them make him a king and clothe him in royal clothes, and let him wear royal robes from his head even to his feet. by sin, this evil ruler desecrated all of her and captivated all of her into his kingdom, so that neither her thoughts, nor her mind, nor her flesh, and finally, not a single part of her, left her free from his power; but she covered all of her in a mantle of darkness... This evil enemy defiled and disfigured the whole person, soul and body, and clothed man in the old man, defiled, unclean, contrary to God, not obeying the law of God, that is, he has clothed him in sin itself, so that man does not see what he wants, but sees evil, hears evil, has feet that are inclined to do evil, hands that commit iniquity, and a heart that thinks evil... Sin and the soul mixed with each other, however, both of them had their own nature with them... Just as during a gloomy and dark night, when a stormy wind breathes, all the plants waver, are restless and come into great movement: so man, having been subjected to the dark power of the night - the devil, and spending his life in this night and darkness, wavers, is troubled and agitated by the fierce wind of sin, which is all his it pierces the nature, soul, mind and thoughts, and all its bodily members also move, and there is not a single mental or physical member free from sin that dwells within us." 93. After the fall and until the very redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ, "the enemy controlled man with violence and torment,” says the Venerable Abba Dorotheos, “so that those who did not want to sin involuntarily sinned, as the Apostle says on our behalf: “I do not...if I want good, I do it, but if I do not want evil, I do it” (Rom. 7:19) 94. The devil acts on us, implanting his thoughts, seducing with dreams, 95 arousing sinful sensations with thoughts and dreams, agitating and heating the blood, absorbing with these waves and burning with this flame all the common sense of a person and all the strength of his will. The actions of all passions are connected with the movement of various blood; Where there is movement of blood, there is certainly the action of passion, there is certainly the action of demons. Such an action is incomprehensible for a person darkened by the fall, who remains in his fall: evil thoughts and dreams act so subtly and cunningly in the soul that they seem to her to be born within herself, and not at all the action of an evil spirit alien to her, at the same time both acting and wishing to remain unnoticed 96 . What was the essential sin of the primordial? In appearance it consisted of eating from a forbidden tree. It receives both greater severity and greater significance when we define it as a violation of the Creator’s commandment to creation, by the creature’s opposition to the will of the Creator. It acquires even greater significance when we recognize in it man’s attempt to become equal to God. And it is precisely this attempt that God points out with words filled with ineffable compassion, uttered by Him during the expulsion of the forefathers from paradise: “Behold, Adam was one of Us, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:22). “Adam of old lied (deceived),” proclaims the Holy Church, “and God, desiring to be, did not exist (and desiring to be God, did not become Him - editor’s note)” 97. The devil communicated his sin to the deceived man. But the sin of the devil was his own creation; he conceived in himself to become equal with God (Isa. 14, 14), processed this thought, strove to bring it to fruition, communicated it to a numerous host of other spirits, persuaded them to agree with himself, and finally, clearly rebelled against God; Man's sin was an infatuation that befell him unintentionally. Man's sin was prepared not by design, but by incorrect and insufficient work and maintenance of paradise. No less than that, through his sin, man became an accomplice of the devil and his captive. As someone who has fallen by passion, man, along with the sentence of execution, is promised redemption and a Redeemer. The Lord, having expelled man to earth from paradise, instilled in him “the sweetness of paradise” (Genesis 3:24), so that he, constantly turning his gaze to paradise and simultaneously feeding on the hope of returning to paradise, would remain in constant weeping of repentance. The infusion of “straight paradise sweetness” shows that Adam was given a living memory of paradise, and the earth itself, with its beauties, preserved to some extent even after its curse, resembled paradise. The earth is designated as a place of repentance for the forefathers and for all the human race that came from them. The earthly life of every person is the time given to him for repentance. All humanity on earth must be immersed in repentance, in inconsolable sobbing. It must wander on it, not clinging with its heart to any objects with which this hotel is furnished, but constantly thinking about its heavenly fatherland and striving with all its might to return to it. Labor and suffering, the indispensable companions of repentance and the parents of humility that gives rise to repentance, must dominate the earth, by the very definition of God. A person must constantly remember that the Lord has appointed him by the sweat of his brow to eat not only his material, but also his spiritual bread; a person must constantly remember that he is on earth in temporary exile, that he is the earth, that he must return to the earth from which he was created, everything on earth constantly reminds him of this. He is in constant, varied suffering, in the struggle with his own malice, in the struggle with the malice of his neighbors, in the struggle with the elements, in the struggle with the earth, which is cursed for his sake and obeys him only by shedding bloody sweat. His brothers, kidnapped one after another by inexorable death, constantly remind him of this. From the earth he is allowed to use only what is most necessary, necessary for our earthly wandering, and not at all superfluous, rejecting thought from eternity. All the righteous of the Old Testament Church who wandered on earth, starting from Adam, spent their earthly life in accordance with the purpose given to it by God. They lived on earth as in a land of exile, as in a land of mourning and repentance, feeding on the hope of promised deliverance, looking at eternity with the eye of faith. “They went,” the Apostle says about them, “in clothing and in goat skins, in deprivation, in sorrow, in embitterment 98: the whole world is not worthy of them, wandering in the deserts and in the mountains and in dens and in the abysses of the earth. And all these obediences were by faith” (Heb. 11, 37-39). “By faith these all died, not having received the promises, but having seen from afar, and kissed, and confessed, that they were strangers and strangers on the earth” (Heb. 11:13). These words of the apostle can be applied to few people; few of them spent their earthly life in accordance with the purpose given to it by God. The fall of man damaged him so deeply that he, having rejected the life of tears on earth, chose on it a life of pleasures and material prosperity, as if triumphing and celebrating his very fall. Some of the children of Adam have already begun to lean towards this life of carnal pleasure and prosperity, which kills life for God, paying little attention to the story of paradise and the spiritual state of man, finding in the country of exile complete food and satisfaction in their bestial and brutal passions. Adam's grandchildren strived even more for the development of material life on earth, forgetting about eternity. Finally, all his offspring rushed here, with the exception of a few chosen men, considering the legend of paradise to be a fable, an invention of superstitious imagination. In vain death reaped people from the face of the earth: they continued to live and act as if eternal on it. Maintaining bodily strength by eating the required amount of simple food turned into delicacy and satiation with exquisite dishes. Quenching thirst turned to enjoying various drinks and drinking. Covering nakedness with leather vestments was transformed into decorating oneself with rich clothes and utensils. Modest dwellings for shelter and protection from the elements and animals that rebelled against man began to be replaced by huge and magnificent chambers. Luxury appeared with its countless demands, which turned into an inexorable law among the society of fallen people. The legal intercourse of the sexes for the propagation of the human race has changed into insatiable fornication, counteracting the reproduction of humans. This is not enough: people, inflamed by unbridled desire, completely devoid of correct aspiration, invented unnatural sins. The power of spiritual energy began to overcome the insatiable wishes and demands of a sin-loving person: quarrels, insults, murders, robbery, robbery, war, conquest appeared. Man’s verbal power is entirely used to bring him earthly benefits and advantages; it is used to promote sin: lies, deceptions, deceit, and hypocrisy have appeared. Thus, immediately after the fall of man, a world hostile to God from the very beginning began to form on earth, and with the passage of time to receive greater and greater development. Peace is the life of people on earth solely for the earth, solely with the goal of satisfying their sinful desires, with the goal of carnal pleasure, with the goal of material prosperity, with a goal completely opposite to that high and all-good goal with which man was placed by God on earth. "Peace is the general name for all passions. Peace is carnal life and carnal wisdom. Where the movement and action of the passions ceased, there the world died." This is the wisdom of the great mentor of monasticism, Saint Isaac of Syria 99 . The Holy Spirit commands hatred of this world, renunciation of this world to His disciples when He says: “Love not the world, neither those in the world: if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him: for everything in the world, carnal lust and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from this world. And the world passes away, and its lust, but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15-17). “The whole world lies in evil” (1 John 5:19). “The people of this world are enmity with God, for whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4). When the Holy Scripture says that “such... God love the world, for He also gave His only begotten Son to eat, that whoever believes in him (in Him) shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16): then we must understand by the word “peace” all people, not excluding sinners, just as the Apostle John the Theologian says: “For this reason the love of God has been revealed in us, even as His Son God sent the only begotten ambassador into the world, that we may live by Him” (1 John 4:9). Again: and the entire human society, in connection with their sinful life, in connection with their carnal pleasures, with their material prosperity, with their pandemonium, is called “the world.” This world is hostile to God and His servants. “If the world hates you,” the God-man said to His disciples, “know that it hated Me before it hated you: if you were from the world, the world would love its own; just as you are not from the world, but I chose you out of the world, for this reason the world hates you” (John 15:18-19). This world has remained and continues to be alien to both God the Creator and God the Redeemer; He recognizes the persecution and murder of God's servants as serving the truth (John 16:2). The head and chief of this world, hostile to God, is a fallen angel; Other fallen angels and people carried away by him assist him and serve in this crazy and daring battle. The earth itself and its creatures, previously subordinate to Adam, after the fall of Adam, along with him, submitted to Satan. Satan himself testified to his power over the world in this way: daring to approach the Son of God to tempt him, he took Him to a high mountain and, showing all the kingdoms of the universe and their glory, said: “I will give you all this power and their glory: as it was given to me, and if I want, I will give it” (Luke 4:6). Satan calls the power over the world not actually his own, but devoted to himself. Exactly: she is devoted to him. "The enemy, who deceived Adam," says Saint Macarius the Great, "and thus assumed dominion over him, deprived him of all power and declared him the prince of this age. First, God made man the prince of this age and the lord of everything visible... When he indulged in the enemy's flattery, he at the same time betrayed his superiors to the seducer. Sowing for the sake of guilt, the wise men and sorcerers, through the action of an opposing force, by the permission of God, some wonderful thing is created, possessing poisonous animals, and entering fire and water without harm." 100. For this reason, the Holy Scripture calls the fallen angel the ruler of the world, the prince of this age (John 12:31; Eph. 2:2, 6:11–12). Satan was not satisfied with the fact that he subjugated man and the earth under his power, that he held him captive, arousing various passions in him and shackling him with them, that by serving sin he brought him into serving himself. The thought that overwhelmed the angel in heaven did not leave him in heaven, where, as on the threshold of hell, he was cast out of heaven: the thought of becoming equal to God. He brought it to fruition by introducing idolatry on earth. The human race, gradually multiplying on earth, at the same time more and more moved from satisfying needs to satisfying whims and sinful desires. True knowledge of God and self-knowledge are incompatible with such a life! Humans, having drowned in earthly cares and pleasures, having become exclusively flesh, have lost the very concept of the true God. But the feeling of worshiping God is a feeling inseparable from the human heart as innate and natural to it: it is not destroyed by the fall - it is devoid of correctness. Driven by this unconscious feeling, people rendered divine worship to the inventor and parent of sin - the fallen angel and his host of demons. Man deified the sin that killed him in all its forms, deified the representatives of sin - demons. He recognized the satisfaction of all passions as divine pleasures. And fornication, and drunkenness, and theft, and murder are given honor. Each passion was represented by its own image or idol. The idol was a symbol of a demon, completely alien to life, completely dead to spiritual sensations. Public, private or home worship was performed before such idols; Animals, and often human sacrifices, were slain and sacrificed before idols. But outward service to idols was, in essence, service to demons, as the Divine Apostle Paul teaches us (1 Cor. 10:20). Idol churches and the idols themselves were the favorite dwellings of demons. From these dwellings they issued voices and prophecies to deceive unfortunate humanity. And man himself, having ceased to be the church of the Living God, became the church and abode of Satan (Luke 11:24-26). Idolatry has taken over all people and the whole earth. A few chosen people have preserved the true knowledge of God and worship. Subsequently, God chose and set apart the people of Israel to serve Himself, giving them a written law. But the disease of idolatry acted so strongly in fallen humanity that the chosen people, often abandoning the worship of the one true God, strove to worship idols. Man, deprived by his fall of the Divine Light - the Holy Spirit, had to be content with his own, meager light - reason. But this natural light led very few people to the knowledge of the true God: he strived most to provide all kinds of conveniences for earthly life, invented various sciences and arts that certainly contributed and are contributing to the multiplication and development of these material comforts, but at the same time they also contribute to the strongest development of sinful life, to the sealing and confirmation of the fall by decorating the fall with various ghosts of prosperity and triumph. Human sciences, being the fruit of the fall, satisfying man, presenting to him God's grace and God himself as unnecessary, blaspheming, rejecting, humiliating the Holy Spirit, became the most powerful tool and means of sin and the devil to maintain and strengthen the fall. The light of men united with the light of demons and formed human learning (wisdom), hostile to God, corrupting man with devil-like pride (1 Cor. 3:17-18). Overcome by the disease of learning, the sage of this world subordinates everything to his mind and serves as an idol for himself, fulfilling Satan’s proposal: “You will be like gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). Learning left to itself is self-delusion, it is demonic deception, it is knowledge filled with lies and placing the scientist in a false attitude towards himself and towards everything. Learning is an abomination and madness before God, it is demonic possession. She proclaims her blindness to be the most satisfactory knowledge and vision, and thus makes blindness incurable, and the fall it preserves is the inalienable property of the unfortunate scribe and Pharisee (John 9:41). “The wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God: for it does not repent of the law of God, for it can do less. Wisdom... of the flesh is death” (Rom. 8:6–7). The Holy Spirit commands the rejection of earthly wisdom for those who want to approach God and become partakers of spiritual wisdom (1 Cor. 3:18). The Apostle Paul notes that few of the scientists accepted the Christian faith (1 Cor. 1, 26); on the contrary, for these imaginary and pompous sages, spiritual wisdom, which is abundantly and completely contained in Christ, seemed like madness (1 Cor. 1:23). Philosophers and artists were the greatest champions of idolatry and enemies of true knowledge of God. After the establishment of the Christian faith in the world, learning gave birth to countless heresies and with them tried to overthrow the holy faith. The greatest crime - the murder of the God-man - was committed by scientists in the name of their wisdom and in the name of their law (John 11:49-50). In our time, learning returns pagans who accepted Christianity to paganism and, rejecting Christianity, reintroduces idolatry and service to Satan, changing forms for the most convenient deception of mankind. A rare, very rare scribe learns the Kingdom of Heaven and brings out the new teaching of the Spirit before the society of his fellow men, clothing this teaching in the old rags of human learning so that it can be more conveniently accepted by those who love the old rather than the new (Matthew 13:52, Luke 5:39). After the fall of the first man and his rejection by God, and in him the entire human race, all people, having ended their earthly journey with the death of their bodies, descended in souls into the underworld of the prisons of hell. Hell is in the bowels of the earth 101. There burns “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angel” (Matthew 25:41), which, therefore, by their fall preceded the creation of the material world. There is pitch darkness, there is tartarus, there is gnashing of teeth, there is a never-ending worm, there is crying without consolation, incessant and in vain. There are various torments according to the variety of sins; there are different degrees of torment corresponding to different degrees of sinfulness. Spiritual death, an essential death that struck the human race in its ancestors, expressing its power over the body of the earthly wanderer during his earthly wandering through illnesses and other countless sufferings, at the end of his earthly wandering, expresses this power with the most terrible phenomenon: the separation of the soul from the body. After the separation of the soul from the body, the power of death over man receives full development (here we are talking about the times preceding the Redeemer): the body, decaying and stinking, is buried in the bowels of the earth, and the soul of every person, both the wicked and the righteous of the Old Testament, descends into hell. The souls of the wicked were cast into eternal fire, as if they finally belonged to eternal death; the souls of the righteous descended into hell, into its less deep and terrible dungeons, where they remained, languishing with life in hell and at the same time comforted by the hope of redemption. All the circumstances of earthly life prove to a person that he is an exile on earth for a terrible crime; but death proves this most of all. She shows neither respect nor regret for anything high and important human. It amazes youth, beauty, genius, power, and wealth. There is nothing a person can do to avert inexorable death, which serves for the human race as an experimental proof of its fall, its sin before God, its execution. She testifies before people that man is a creature and a slave who has rebelled against his Creator and Lord, that the most famous and most important deeds of men for the earth mean nothing for eternity, that the lofty human thing is “an abomination to God” (Luke 16:15). Death is an execution. By striking every person, it proves that every person is a criminal; striking all people without exception, it proves that humanity is being punished for a crime common to all humanity. Death reveres only piety, and the prayer of a righteous man can sometimes stop the ax of death and postpone its hour (Is. 38:5) 102. When the human race spent many millennia in cruel enslavement to a fallen angel, then the Redeemer promised by God appeared on earth. Before we begin to describe this greatest and most wonderful event, let us take a look at the state of the unfortunate world at the time the Lord descended to earth and became man for the renewal and salvation of mankind. The world was immersed throughout its entire space in idolatry. People, hating each other, envying each other, watered the entire surface of the earth with their blood in fierce battles, in which numerous peoples were exterminated and disappeared, reaped by the sword and deprived of their nationality through slavery and sale in the markets of the universe like cattle or soulless goods. The misfortunes and destruction of mankind are recognized as the greatest glory for mankind, and the conquerors, stained with the blood of their brethren, were declared their gods during their lifetime. Other villains, distinguished by vile vices, were given divine honor after their death. Satisfaction of the most shameful passions was considered the highest pleasure. Some of the most rejected people entered into open communication with Satan, having clothed themselves with his power, and contributed to the strengthening of his dominion over the earth and humanity 103. This dominance has reached full development. The chosen people of Israel also bowed under this dominion. Extremely diminished in number and fallen in civil terms, this people fell under the rule of idolatrous peoples. His inner, essential power, which consisted in communication with God through knowledge and fulfillment of His will, was exhausted. Life according to the commandments of God, which forms in a person the purity of mind and heart, which is overshadowed by Divine Grace, enlightening a person with true spiritual reason and Theology, was replaced for the most part by school study of the Law, combined with neglect of living a godly life, which the scribes and Pharisees - the so-called Jewish scholars of that time - tried to replace with pretense and hypocrisy. These scientists, darkened by satanic pride, filled with contempt and hatred for all other classes of the people, slaves of passions, incapable of faith due to their unlimited and frenzied attachment to earthly glory and earthly advantages, capable of all kinds of crimes due to this attachment, the perpetrators of these crimes, seized power over their religious teaching, rejected the commandments of God from it, introduced into it their own absurd the legends, themselves striving in their blindness for destruction, drew the people led by them to it 104 (John 7:49). Few, very few people remained faithful to God through their very lives and from such a life dependent and shining true knowledge of God. Their holy names are in the Holy Gospel 105 (Luke 2:14). From the letters of Saint Ignatius. It is very good when a person constantly sees and confesses himself as a sinner. From such self-view, the human spirit constantly remains in humility and God-loving sadness. But it is necessary that such self-conception be dissolved by prudence and not go beyond due measure. In the latter case, it can be harmful and can put a person in complete bewilderment regarding his residence. Our nature is damaged by sin. For this reason, the heart of every person naturally produces a large amount of tares. And therefore, whoever sees the tares arising in himself should not be surprised at this, as if it were something extraordinary, and should not become bewildered and cowardly. This is how it should be! The tares of the heart do their work: they grow and grow; being weeded out, they appear again. And we must do our part: weed and weed out the tares. This position instills humility in a person. God's mercy descends upon humility. The all-powerful and all-good God is steadily looking at us. That is why He allows us a situation that leads us to humility in order to bestow His mercy on us. There is a time for everything: there is a time for sowing, another time for harvesting, for milking, for turning into flour, for baking; finally, to eat bread. The soul of every person who has given himself up to serving God without any evil, earthly purpose for the purpose of pleasing God and his salvation is in the hand of God. No one and nothing can snatch such a soul from the hand of God. God grants such a soul a narrow path during its earthly journey; it is impossible to come to God on the broad path. With faith, surrender yourself to the Will of God, rejecting not laborious care for yourself, but dreamy concerns. When such concerns come, it is much better to turn to God in prayer for yourself, rather than delve into writings and paintings of various plans, which are always unrealistic. May God's blessing rest upon you. February 1, 1862 Unworthy E.I. Thus, for example, the substance from which the earth is composed is accessible to our senses. But the crust of the earth has been explored only to the smallest depth: further research exceeds human means, and what is accessible in itself becomes inaccessible due to the impossibility of research. Venerable Macarius the Great, conversation 49, 4. View explanation of these words of the Gospel by Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria, also in the Word about the various states of human nature in relation to good and evil. Ascetic. op. vol. II, ed. 1865 Corrupt – seduce, corrupt; ruin, crush, damage (hereinafter interlinear, editor's note). Venerable Mark the Ascetic. On the spiritual law, ch. 27. Ch. 224. Those who think that they will be justified by their deeds. Sanct. Chrysost., pag. 667. Sermo de Anna. St. John Chrysostom. Creations, vol. 4, p. 820. S. Chr. Volume I, pag. 915, contra iudeoi sermo VI. St. John Chrysostom. Creations, vol. 1, p. 718. S. Chrysost. Tom XI, pag. 14. St. John Chrysostom. Creations, vol. 11, p. 50. Obviously, this participation can only be heartfelt: and such participation is enough to take away concentrated, undistracted prayer from the heart. In order to acquire undistracted prayer, one must, by faith, cast all one’s cares on God. God rests in man when man remains in devotion and submission to the will of God, or, what is the same, in the teaching of the Gospel. The Memory of God or the Teaching consists of unceasing prayer. Look at this in the 2nd part of Ascetic Experiences. The addition of this word serves as a hint that many, alien to grace, attribute it to themselves, while others recognize the demonic delusion that has crept into them as grace. Word 21st. Saint Isaac, in agreement with the other Fathers (Homily 1, Homily 84), teaches that Christ is planted in our hearts by the sacrament of holy Baptism, like a seed in the ground. This gift is perfect by itself: but we either develop it or suppress it, judging by the way we spend our lives. For this reason, the gift shines in all its grace only in those who have cultivated themselves with the Gospel commandments and to the extent of this cultivation. See St. Mark the Ascetic's Sermon on Baptism, Xanthopoulos chapters 4, 5 and 7; also the Word about the three relations of human nature to good and evil. Ascetic experiences, part 2. That is, the truths of carnal wisdom or the old man, rejected by God. God is pleased only with the truth of the Gospel. “The day of the Lord will come, like a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass by with a noise, and the elements that are burned will be destroyed, and the earth and even the deeds on it will be burned.”_ The universe is described in chapters 1 and 2 of the book of Genesis. The action of feelings in holy men, renewed by the Holy Spirit, is much more extensive than in people who are in the area of ​​​​fall. Even some mechanical means, such as spotting scopes, telescopes, microscopes and others, extend the action of the senses and make visible what is invisible in our ordinary state. The thoughts of this article are borrowed from the Notes on the Book of Genesis by His Grace Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow. An exact exposition of the Orthodox faith, book 2, chapter 12, about man. spiritual, rational, immaterial. Book two, chapter 12, is about man. According to the explanation of Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria. This is the name of the first person. However, in the Hebrew language, to which this word belongs, it is a common noun, and “Adam” means “Man” in general. “The Word was everything to him.” Plintha - bricks (Ex. 1.14). St. Isaac of Syria and other saints. the fathers call the state of man after the fall supernatural. This word accurately expresses the essence of the matter. Word 4. Based on the translation by Paisius Nyametsky. An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 3, Chapter 1. Simple – here: not complex, i.e. not divided into parts. Ibid., book 2, chapter 12. “Our soul is simple, without any essence and goodness, having been created from the goodness of its Master,” and so on. The Word of St. Hesychius, chapter 43. Philokalia, part 2. An accurate exposition of the Orthodox Faith by St. John of Damascus. Collatio VII, caput XIII. It would not be amiss to mention here that people who have lost arms and legs fully feel the presence of these members in the body and the ability to act with them. Such practical knowledge gives a clear hint about the essence of the soul, according to how the holy fathers depict it. Angels, whose being is homogeneous with the being of the human soul, appeared to the saints of God dressed in white or light clothes (Matthew 28:3; Luke 24:4; John 20:12; Acts 1:10). Saint Andrew, the holy fool for Christ's sake, being caught up into heaven, saw himself in clothes woven from lightning. And so on. In the Moscow edition of the conversations of St. Macarius the Great in 1820, a note is attached to the 9th chapter of the IV conversation, which says that some of the ancient church teachers, such as: Origen, Tertullian, St. Cassian, St. Macarius of Egypt attributed the subtlest bodies to angels and souls, that John of Damascus in his Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Book 2, Chapter 3), interpreting this opinion, says that they called them corporeal in relation only to God, that other teachers of the Church, such as: Ignatius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom considered them “incorporeal and beings simple." We considered it necessary to supplement this note with the following: St. John of Damascus, both in the third chapter of the 2nd book and in the entire Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, did not make a single reference to either the writings of St. Macarius the Great or the writings of St. Cassian the Roman, and he refers most to St. Gregory the Theologian, then to the saints: Dionysius the Areopagite, Athanasius the Great, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa and others. Not at all in the form of an interpretation, but as a direct tradition of the Orthodox Church, Damascene sets out the doctrine of angels in the mentioned book and chapter. “Incorporeal and immaterial,” he says, “an angel is called in comparison with us. For everything in comparison with God, the only incomparable one, turns out to be crude and material. The Divinity alone, in the strict (precise) sense, is immaterial and incorporeal.” Where is the interpretation of the opinion of the Monks Macarius and Cassian? The goal of the holy writer is obvious here: it is to protect the reader from the harmful thought of recognizing angels and souls as spirits on an equal basis with the Spirit-God, from the harmful thought of placing the Creator and His creatures in the same category of beings. If you want to see an interpretation here, then here is an interpretation of the sense in which Saints Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil the Great and others called angels and souls incorporeal and immaterial according to modern concepts, without making such a clear reservation as Damascus made, but always completely distinguishing the essence of the Creator from the essence of creatures, which is clear from all their writings. The concepts of the ancients about spirit and matter, about principles, about simple and complex - the concepts that humanity held until modern times, changed at the end of the past and the beginning of the present centuries with the emergence of a new science - chemistry. Humanity previously recognized, guided by a superficial glance, four material principles (elements): earth, water, air and fire. Of these principles, air and fire were called immaterial, and air was often called spirit: because one gross substance was called substance or matter. Chemistry has changed these concepts. Water and air, being decomposed into their component parts, descended from the level of principles to the level of complex substances; the concept that the earth is the beginning, as completely indeterminate and obviously absurd, was rejected; flame, which was actually called fire, is recognized as a phenomenon when caloric is separated from some substances, which is separated from other substances without a flame. The concept of matter has expanded and become more correct. All gases, all vapors, caloric and light are consciously recognized as matter. Chemistry, in combination with mathematics, has undeniably proven that principles, beings and simple, incorporeal substances do not exist among creatures. All creatures are more or less material, more or less complex. Not a single creature has a single infinite property: all properties of creatures are finite, i.e. limited. Based on this axiom, we affirm that created spirits are limited by place, and therefore necessarily have an appearance (form), have their own degree of subtlety, and are by no means infinitely subtle, and therefore their own degree of materiality. Spirit is one God, as having infinite subtlety, as exceeding all space. God is infinitely subtler than all the subtlest created beings, and therefore by His being He infinitely differentiates from the being of the subtlest creatures: for between the infinite and the greatest number the difference is infinite; This is the irrefutable conclusion of mathematics. For this reason, the beginning in the exact sense and the simple being - the guilt (here: cause. Ed.) of all other beings, visible and invisible - is one God. It is obvious that Saint Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great and others spoke about matter and spirits in accordance with their contemporary concepts; the grace of the Holy Spirit gave them a correct concept of God. Moved by this grace, Saint John of Damascus uttered the immutable truth that “in comparison with God, the only incomparable one, everything turns out to be gross and material.” He said this ten centuries before humanity came to this knowledge through science, we say boldly - according to the Providence of God, for the most convenient knowledge of God. The compiler of the above note tries in vain to find discrepancies in the readings of the holy fathers: we find in them the same teaching, expressed more clearly in some, and not so obviously in others. Strange phenomenon! There have been so many Ecumenical and Local Councils, so many holy writers mention Macarius the Great and St. Cassian, and no one raised a voice against their teaching about the limitations of created spirits; suddenly an accusatory voice is heard in 1820, criticizing spirit-bearing men in heteroglossia, intensifying to present the created spirits as identical with God. What would such a phenomenon mean? We cannot explain it by anything other than the influence of the papists, who, among their other monstrous teachings, place both the Creator-Spirit and creature-spirits in the same category, blasphemously exposing the holy fathers, who are recognized by the Universal Church as vessels of the Holy Spirit, as infected by the philosophy of Plato, testifying to themselves that the knowledge of the soul was revealed to them by the Holy Spirit. See note. 8 and 9 to the Word about death. Philokalia, part 2. St. Hesychius, ch. 1, St. Philotheus of Sinai, ch. 16. [References throughout are given to the Church Slavonic Philokalia.] This teaching is found in very many Holy Fathers. In some Russian translations the power of firmness is called irritability; but irritability, like bitterness and cowardice, are painful states of this strength or character. An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 3, Ch. 18 Hieroschemamonk Seraphim of Sarov. The bishop's prayer during the Cherubic Song. It is obvious that in atmospheric observations the human observer serves as the center of observation, and the center of observation of all mankind is the earth. The observation area of ​​all mankind has the shape of a sphere. The spaces, the closer to the center, the more they are constrained and diminished, and the more they move away from it, the more they expand and increase. An accurate exposition of the Orthodox faith, book. IV, ch. XII. Determining the place on earth for the earthly paradise puts the defenders of this opinion in such a difficulty that they are forced to resort to another false idea, namely, that the earthly paradise was destroyed by the flood, Distionnaire Theologique par Bergier, Paradis. Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, book. II, ch. VI. Works by Rev. Gregory of Sinai according to the manuscript of the Moldavian Neametsky Monastery. See note. 12 to the Word about death. Interpretation of chapter 23, verse 43 of the Gospel of Luke. Manuscript of the Nyamet Monastery, ch. 10. Vita 3anctorum Barlaam Eremitae et losaphat Indiae Redis, caput XXX. Partologia tomus LXXIII. Prologue, December 7th day. Prologue, September 11th day, and Fatherland, letter E. For this reason, Saint Archangel Gabriel is depicted with a palm branch in his hand. In the stories given here we see that the plants of paradise, transferred to earth, passed, at the behest of God, from a subtle state to a coarser state in order to become capable of acting on our feelings. Given the meager concepts that we have about the substance of the upper world, we affirm with certainty that the substance of this world of freedom, incorruption and bliss must be governed by laws other than those governing the substance of the earthly world, which serves as a prison and exile for transgressors of the Commandments of God. We see evidence of this in manifestations from the heavenly world to our vale of tears. Thus, the body of the God-man, which after His resurrection already belonged to the heavenly world, was made both visible and invisible by the will of the God-man, sometimes it appeared with flesh and bones, it was tangible, it took food, sometimes it passed through the hardest earthly substances, like spirit. The bodies of the greatest saints became like the body of the Lord in this life, and after the resurrection they will be like Him in everything (1 John 3:2; 1 Cor. 15:39-46). The substance of the upper world must be in accordance with the substance in which its inhabitants are clothed, just as the substance of the lower world is in relation to the substance of its inhabitants. However, in the lower world, many bodies, without changing in their natural properties, that is, without chemically decomposing into their component parts, can exist in a more subtle and coarser form. For example, water, sulfur, all metals can be in solid form, liquid, or vapor. We have carbon in the form of gas and in the form of stone (diamond). The latest gigantic discoveries in the country of matter lead to the belief that human knowledge about matter is quite insignificant. With this confidence, one listens with confidence to the story of Scripture and the Fathers about the nature of paradise. Philokalia, part IV, Callista Katafigiota (absent in the Russian Philokalia - editor's note) 3, 5, 6th chapters. The Monk Theoliptus of Philadelphia speaks in his Word about the hidden work: “The memory of God is the vision of God, drawing the sight and desire of the mind to Himself, and illuminating it with light from Himself. Turning the mind to God, never stopping with all the image-creating thoughts, seeing the unseen, and surpassing ignorance unapproachable for the sake of this glory, it enlightens one’s vision. And not apprehending the incomprehensibility of the visible, he cognizes the truth for the sake of what is inherent, and the One Mighty above being, and feeding his zeal with the wealth of goodness flowing from there, and knowing his quickness, he is honored with unceasing and blissful peace.” Also see the 15th and 16th Words of St. Isaac Sirskago. Venerable Cassian the Roman Collatio VIII, capiti IX-XI. Memorable tales. About Abba Joseph of Panethos, ch. 3. St. Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, letter to Xenia the nun. Interpretation of the Gospel of Luke, ch. 20. See the Lenten troparion of the 6th hour: “And on the sixth day and hour on the Cross, the daring sin of Adam was nailed into paradise, and tear up the handwriting of our sins, O Christ our God, and save us.” (Editor's note) The 1st teaching of the Venerable Abba Dorotheus. Cassiani. Collatio VIII, caput X. Cassiani. De institutis renuntiantium, caput XXXVII. To intrigue, slander, annoy, seduce. (Editor's note) Saint Macarius the Great says that in perfect Christians the Lord is, as it were, their soul. Word 7th, ch. 12. See the funeral service sequence (Editor's note). Saint Hesychius's Sermon on Temperance, Ch. 46. ​​Philokalia, part II. Venerable Macarius the Great. Sermon VII, ch. 31. Akathist to the Mother of God, stichera on the Lord, I cried. Bitterness - those suffering oppression, oppression, disasters, insults, attacks (Editor's note) Look at the life of Basil the Great, who did not die contrary to the prediction of the doctor, who was so convinced of the accuracy of his prediction that he positively attributed its failure to the power of Christ, believed in Him and accepted holy Baptism. Before this, no convictions of the wise and holy Basil could break the Jewish doctor to accept Christianity. Chetyi Menaion January 1st. (Ex. 7) et cetera, (Acts 8–9) et cetera. The description of the scribes and Pharisees is borrowed from the own words of our Lord Jesus Christ and from the stories of the Gospel. The Lord pronounced His formidable definition on them, calling them an evil and adulterous generation (Matthew 12:39), hypocrites, painted coffins, beautiful in appearance, but inside full of hypocrisy and lawlessness, just as the coffins inside are full of dead bones and all uncleanness (Matthew 23:13, 23, 27-29). He recognized them as children of the devil, and the devil as their father (John 8:44). He recognized them as blind, blinded by their false knowledge, leading other blind men, blind in their ignorance; He declared that both blind men and blind men are drawn into the abyss of destruction (Matthew 15:14). He recognized their illness as incurable, because they recognized their blindness as the most satisfactory vision and knowledge (John 9:41). He commanded his disciples to guard against the leaven of the Pharisees, i.e. from their teaching, which is completely based on hypocrisy, completely imbued with lies and hypocrisy, having its origin in the father of lies (Matthew 16:6,12; Luke 12:1; John 8:44). The Lord denounced the Pharisees for the fact that they, feigning long prayers before the eyes of people, devoured the houses of widows and committed and were ready to commit the most terrible iniquities and crimes (Matthew 23, 14, 34; John 8, 40). The love of money was the disease of the Pharisees (Luke 16:14). The search for human glory was the illness of the Pharisees (John 5:44). They were incapable of faith because of their addiction to earthly advantages (John 5:44; Luke 16:13-14). They appropriated to themselves the key of understanding and closed the kingdom of heaven to men: they themselves did not enter it and did not allow others to enter it (Luke 11:52; Matt. 23:13). Their terrible pride is heard, like the voice of Satan himself, in their conversation with the healed man born blind (John 9). About the people of their own tribe, who did not have their learning, they expressed themselves this way: “This people, who do not know the law, are cursed.” Such were the righteous Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of Saint John the Baptist, Saint Simeon the God-Receiver, Saint Anna the Prophetess, daughter of Phanuel (Luke 1-2). Now we move on to the most gratifying sight. Let us prepare ourselves, let us cleanse ourselves with tears of repentance and, having distracted our minds and hearts from all earthly concerns, let us join the hosts of holy Angels, in order to indulge with them in the sacred contemplation of the incarnation of God the Word, in order to sing with them in sacred surprise and joy: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” You might be interested in: