Глава III.

John 3:1–2. And the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach therein, as thou hast preached before, what I say unto thee. LXX: And the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying: Arise and go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach therein, as you preached before the things that I said to you. The prophet is not told: why didn’t you do what you were commanded? but for him it is enough only to be taught through a storm and being swallowed up by a whale, so that those who did not heed the Lord’s command would understand Him during their deliverance through Him. It would also be unnecessary for a sinned slave to blame what he did after the disasters he experienced, because this kind of admonition serves not so much as a means of correction, but as a reproach. After the resurrection, our Lord is sent a second time to Nineveh, so that the one who previously seemed to run away, saying: “Father..., if it is possible, let this cup pass by from Me” (Matt. 26:39), and did not want to give the children’s bread to the dogs (Matt. 15:26), now, after they said: “Crucify, crucify Him; ... not the imams of the king, only of Caesar” (John. 19:15), voluntarily goes to Nineveh to preach after the resurrection what He was commanded to preach before His suffering. However, what He is commanded, what He obeys, what He does not desire, what He is again forced to desire, and what He fulfills the will of the Father for the second time, relates to human nature and to the image of the servant, to which these words apply. John 3:3–4. And Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord; Nineveh was a great city of God, three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter the city along the journey of one day. LXX: And Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, as the Lord had spoken to him; Nineveh was a great city of God, for what seemed like three days’ journey. And Jonah began to enter the city as if on one day's journey. Jonah immediately did what he was commanded. Nineveh, to which the prophet went, was a large city and so vast that it could hardly be walked around in three days’ journey. But he, remembering the command and the previous storm, hastily completed a three-day journey in the course of one day, although some simply explain this in such a way that he preached only in the third part of the city, and the words of his sermon immediately reached the rest of the inhabitants. About our Lord in the proper sense it is said that He rose from the dead and preached the word of God when He sent the apostles to baptize those who were in Nineveh in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is, in the way of three days. This sacrament of human salvation also constitutes the path of one day, that is, it is accomplished through the confession of one God, with the preaching of Jonah not so much to the apostles as through the apostles. For He himself says: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). No one can doubt that Nineveh is a great city of God, because the world and everything came into being through Him, and without Him nothing happened (John 1:3). It should also be noted that he did not say “three days and nights,” or “one day and night,” but in general, “days” and “days,” to show that there is nothing dark in the mystery of the Trinity and in the confession of one God. John 3:4. And he cried out and said: Forty more days, and Nineveh will be destroyed. LXX: And he preached and said: Three more days, and Nineveh will be destroyed. The number three, which appears in the translation of LXX, corresponds to repentance, and I am not a little surprised at why it is translated this way, when in the Hebrew language there is nothing in common between these words 12 neither in letters, nor in syllables, nor in sounds; because three is called salos, and forty is called arbaim 13. Moreover, the prophet, sent on such a long journey from Judea to Assyria, demanded repentance worthy of his preaching, so that old and purulent wounds could be healed through the long-term application of a plaster. Further, the number forty applies to sinners, fasting, prayer, sackcloth, tears and prolonged prayer. Therefore, Moses fasted for forty days on Mount Sinai (Ex. 34), and Elijah, when he fled from Jezebel, after the announcement of famine to the land of Israel and with the wrath of God threatening it from above, he fasted, as it is written (1 Kings 19), for forty days. Also, the Lord himself, the true Jonah, sent to preach to the world, fasted for forty days and, leaving us the legacy of fasting, through this number prepares our souls to partake of His body. As for the expression “he proclaimed,” then through this the Gospel words are fulfilled: “standing” and proclaiming in the church, “if anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37). For all the words of the Savior, as constituting a sermon on great subjects, are called proclamation (clamor). John 3:5. And the men of Nineveh believed in God, and declared a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least. LXX was translated in a similar way. Nineveh believed, but Israel persisted in unbelief. The uncircumcised believed, but the circumcised remain unbelievers. And first the men of Nineveh, who had reached the age of Christ, believed, and declared a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least. Both food and clothing are consistent with repentance, so that, having offended God through luxury and splendor, they please Him by condemning what they previously offended Him with. Sackcloth and fasting constitute the weapons of repentance, these are the helpers of sinners; first fasting and then sackcloth; first that which is hidden, and after that that which is manifest; the first is always done for God, and the second sometimes for people, and if one of the two objects had to be eliminated, then I would rather choose fasting without sackcloth than sackcloth without fasting. Repentance begins at an older age and reaches a younger age; because no one is without sin, “even if he lived on earth one day, and count” the years of his life (Job 14:5). For “even if... the stars are unclean in the sight of God, how much more are worms and pus” (Job 25:5-6) and those who are guilty of the sin committed by Adam. The order of thoughts is also beautiful: God gives a command to the prophet; the prophet preaches to the city; men believe first, and when they declare a fast, all ages put on sackcloth. Men do not announce sackcloth, but only fasting; but those who are inspired to repent naturally combine sackcloth with fasting, so that with an empty stomach and clothes characteristic of sadness, they can pray to God more earnestly. John 3:6–9. And the word reached... the king of Nineveh, and he rose from his throne, and took off his robe, and put on sackcloth, and sat down on ashes. And he proclaimed and spoke in Nineveh in the presence of the king and his nobles, saying: Let men and cattle, oxen and sheep eat nothing, neither graze nor drink water, and let men and cattle cover themselves with sackcloth and cry mightily to the Lord, and let everyone turn from his evil way and from the iniquity of his hands. Who knows, maybe... God will turn to us and forgive us, and stop the fury of His anger, and we will not perish. LXX: And the word came to the king of Nineveh, and he rose from his throne, and took off his robe, and put on sackcloth, and sat on ashes, and it was proclaimed in Nineveh by the king and all his nobles, saying: Let men and cattle, oxen and sheep eat nothing, neither graze, nor drink water; and they put on sackcloth, man and beast, and cried mightily to the Lord, and each one returned from his evil way and from the iniquity of his hands, saying, Who knows, perhaps God will turn to answer our prayers, and will turn away the fury of His wrath, and we will not perish. I know that many under the king of Nineveh (who was the last to hear the sermon, and came down from his throne, and took off his former attire and, dressed in sackcloth, sat on ashes, and, not content with his own conversion, also preaches repentance to his other co-rulers, saying: “let men and cattle, oxen and sheep” languish with hunger, let them put on sackcloth and, having condemned the former vices, will completely surrender to repentance) means the devil, who at the end of the world will leave his arrogance, repent and return to his previous state (because no rational creation created by God should perish). In support of this opinion, he also cites the example from the book of Daniel that Nebuchadnezzar, after seven years of repentance, again received royal power (Dan. 4). But since Holy Scripture does not say this and since through this the fear of God is completely destroyed in people who are easily inclined to vices, thinking that even the devil, the author of evil and the source of all sins, can be saved through repentance; then we must remove this opinion from our thoughts. We must also know that sinners, according to the Gospel, are sent “into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angel” (Matt. 25:41), and that it is said about them: “their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched” (Isa. 66:24). We know that God is merciful and, being sinners ourselves, we cannot find pleasure in exaggerating His severity; but we also read: “The Lord is merciful and righteous, and our God has mercy” (Psalm 114:4). God's justice is united with mercy, and with them He proceeds to judgment; He has mercy without ceasing to be just, and He judges with justice without ceasing to be merciful. “Mercy and truth have been greeted, justice and peace have been embraced” (Psalm 84:11). Also, if all rational creatures are equal, whether they rise of their own free will through virtues or sink low through vices, if, after a long period and countless centuries, everything returns to its former state, and if the dignity of all militants is the same; then what will be the difference between a virgin and a public woman? What difference will there be between the Mother of the Lord and (to say the least criminally) victims of public lust? Will not Gabriel and the devil be one and the same? Aren't the apostles AND the demons one and the same? Are not prophets and false prophets the same thing? Aren't martyrs and persecutors one and the same? Imagine anything, double the number of years and times and define endless centuries for torment, but if the end of all is the same, then everything that has passed has no meaning, because we are striving not for what we once were, but for what we will always be. I am also not unaware of the fact that people usually object to this and on what they base their hopes for salvation together with the devil. But now is not the time to write in detail against the perverse teaching and the wiles of the devil (σύμφαγμα) Those who teach secretly and publicly deny. It is enough for us to express our opinion regarding the evidence under consideration and, according to the nature of the interpretations, to briefly explain who the king of Nineveh was to whom the word of God last reached. The importance of secular eloquence and secular wisdom among people is witnessed by Demosthenes, Tullius, Plato, Xenophon, Theophrastus, Aristotle and other orators and philosophers, who are considered like kings of people, and their rules are accepted not as the rules of mortals, but as the sayings of the gods. Therefore Plato says: “states will be happy if philosophers are kings or if kings are philosophers.” But how difficult it is for this kind of people to believe in God, regarding this I will omit examples from daily life and pass over in silence what the ancient history of the pagans reports - for us the testimony of the apostle is sufficient, who in the letter to the Corinthians writes, saying: “You see your calling, brethren, that you are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; But God has chosen the troubled world, that it may confound the wise, and God has chosen the weak of the world, that it may confound the strong, and God has chosen the weak of the world, that it may confound the lowly world” (1 Cor. 1:26-28) and so on. Therefore, he also says: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and destroy the understanding of those who understand” (1 Cor. 1:19), and: “Be careful that no one else deceives you with philosophy and vain flattery” (Col. 2:8). From this it is clear that the kings of the world are the last to hear the preaching of Christ and, abandoning the brilliance of eloquence and the beauty and grace of speech, completely abandon themselves to simplicity and artlessness, and, clothed like the common people, sit on the ashes and destroy what they previously proclaimed. We can have an example in the blessed Cyprien, who was formerly a defender of idolatry, and achieved such fame for eloquence that he even taught oratory in Carthage; but he finally heard the word of Jonah and, turning to repentance, reached such a degree of virtue that he publicly preached Christ and bowed his neck to the sword for Him. This is how we understand that the king of Nineveh came down from his throne and exchanged purple for sackcloth, incense for dirt, cleanliness for uncleanness - for uncleanness not of thoughts, but of verbal expression. That’s why Jeremiah says about Babylon: “the golden cup Babylon,... soldering the whole earth” (Jeremiah 51:7). Who hasn’t been intoxicated by secular eloquence? Whose souls did it not dazzle with the harmony of its speech and the brilliance of its presentation? It is with difficulty that strong, noble and rich people, and with much greater difficulty, eloquent people, believe in God, because their thoughts are blinded by wealth, power and luxury and, being surrounded by vices, they cannot see the dignity and simplicity of the Holy Scripture and judge it not by the height of their thoughts, but by the low way of verbal expression. But when those who previously taught evil turn to repentance and teach good, then we will see that the people of Nineveh are converted as a result of one sermon and that what is written in Isaiah is fulfilled: “if ... a language is born” at once (Is. 66:8). Also, understand people and cattle covered in sackcloth and crying out to the Lord in the same sense that both the prudent and the foolish, the wise and the simple, bring repentance as a result of Jonah’s preaching, in accordance with what is said elsewhere: “Save men and beasts, O Lord” (Psalm. 35:7), We can also understand livestock covered in sackcloth differently, mainly on the basis of the following evidence, which says: “the sun and the moon will be covered with sackcloth” (Ezek. 32:7), and in another place: “I will cover the sky with sackcloth” (Is. 50:3), that is, in the sense of sad clothing, mourning and lamentation, which is metaphorical ( μεταφορχῶς) is called sackcloth. In the words: “who knows, maybe God will turn and forgive”, doubt and uncertainty are expressed for this purpose, so that people, doubting their salvation, would repent more diligently and more incline God to mercy. John 3:10. And God saw their deeds, that they turned from their evil way, and God regretted the evil that He had said He would do to them, but did not do. LXX: And God saw their deeds, that they turned from their evil ways, and God repented of the evil which He had said He would do to them, but did not do. In this and in another sense, God either at that time threatens the city of Assyria or daily the peoples of the whole world so that they will repent, and if they convert, then He will also cancel His determination and change as a result of the conversion of the people. This Jeremiah and Ezekiel express more clearly when they say that (God will not fulfill either His promises of good deeds if the good turn to vices, nor His threats of sending evils to the wicked if they turn to salvation. Thus, even now God saw their deeds, that they turned from their evil way: He did not hear their words, in which Israel usually made promises: “We will do everything that the Lord says” (Ex. 24:3), but he saw the deeds, and since He desires the sinner’s repentance more than death (Ezek. 18), he willingly changed his decision when he saw the change in their deeds; or, rather, God remained with His decision, wanting to have mercy on them from the very beginning, because no one who wants to punish threatens what he will do. Evil should be understood, as we said above 14, in the sense of punishments and disasters, and not in the sense that God can commit any evil. Between the words: three and forty. The number three (vm. 40) was included in the translation lists of LXX, as the blessed one believes. Theodoret, Theophylact and many others, due to copyist errors. Some lists also include the number 40 or 43. See Script. sacrae curs. compl. tom. XX Paris. 1841, col. 840–841. 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