б) О Боге – Творце мира

By him (the Son of God) all things were created, both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible; for thrones, for dominions, for beginnings, for powers; everything was created by Him and about Him. Col. 1:16. In the words of the Creed: I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible - we recognize and confess that God created the world, visible and invisible, - that He holds everything created in His power and controls everything, or in short: we confess God as the Creator and Provider of the world. So, let's talk - first about God as the Creator of the world, and then about God as the Provider of the world. When it is said, brethren, that God created the World; then it is clear through this that: a) it was created by God, worshiped in the Holy Trinity, i.e. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, in the very Creed, God the Father is called the Creator, about the Son of God it is said that through Him all things became - through Him all things came into existence - and the Holy Spirit is called the Life-Giving One, b) created with one word or command: To that speech: and came into being; He commanded: and was created 47; c) created, or in other words: brought him from complete non-existence into being; d) he created out of his own goodness, but not at all out of any need: because the all-satisfied and all-blessed God does not need anyone or anything; e) that from the time of creation time began, or the flow, the succession of things one after another, and before the creation of the world there was no time; Until then there was only eternity, always constant, without beginning or end, or better to say, there was only the eternal God in the Holy Trinity. God first of all created the spiritual world - the mental and verbal powers of heaven, or the ranks of Angels; then - the world we see, and finally a person who in his soul belongs to the spiritual world, and in his body to the material world; that's why it's called a small world. First of all, therefore, we will talk, brethren, about the creation of Angels, and we will say precisely that they really exist and were created before the visible world: about their nature, number and degrees. Are there Angels? There are people who have the misfortune of rejecting the invisible world, the whole world of spirits, contrary to the clear testimony of the Holy Spirit. Scriptures and testimonies of St. men who themselves on earth were likened to the heavenly powers in their holiness of life and love for God and were in fellowship with them. Who should you trust more? As in any other matter, so especially in this matter, of course, to the Holy Scriptures and the Saints of God. That Angels exist is beyond all doubt. Let’s delve into why some people say that there are no Angels. Because they do not see evidence of their existence; but they simply don’t want to believe: they want to see, touch, and experience everything; meanwhile they do not see or touch them. These are people who are guided even in faith by their lower nature - feelings. But in this case, the very blindness of such people in some way proves that Angels actually exist. Thus, a blind man does not see the sun, moon and stars that adorn the sky and illuminate the earth; but this lack of vision only proves that he is blind. The luminaries shine regardless of whether he sees them or not. Likewise, the existence of Angels does not depend, of course, on whether we see them with the eye of faith, or - since we do not want to rise above the dust from which we are created and do not see anything further than the earth - therefore we ourselves do not notice traces of the existence of not only bright spirits, but also, perhaps, much more. Some people have so darkened their spiritual eyes that they do not even believe in the spiritual Sun, all-enlightening and life-giving. But this, brethren, is a serious illness of the soul, spiritual blindness. Let us ask holy and pious people about the Angels: and they will prove to us, clear as day, the existence of the spiritual world. However, whoever wants to be convinced of the invisible world of spirits from the visible will not be left without assurance from this side either: all that is needed is attention. Starting from a person to a blade of grass, everything testifies to the invisible. What thinks and feels in us is invisible. And in general, everything that we call the life of visible creatures, animals and plants is precisely invisible: because the visible withers, dries, decays, and collapses when the invisible leaves it. If the invisible, the spiritual constitutes the life of everything even on earth, then will we think that there is no special, vast world of the invisible, purely spiritual? Priest Scripture decisively assures us, brothers, of the existence of a special world of spirits. Anyone who has read or listened to the books of the Old and New Testaments can have a true and clear understanding of Angels as servants of the King of Heaven. Let's give a few examples. For example: Angels, together with the Lord, visit Abraham 48; Angels rescue Lot from dying Sodom 49; Patriarch Jacob in reality meets on the way with regiments of Angels and in a dream sees them ascending and descending to earth 50; The Archangel of the Lord's power appears to Joshua and commands the miraculous conquest of Jericho 51; Isaiah sees the Seraphim surrounding the throne of the Lord, and from one of them he receives fiery cleansing 52; Daniel the Prophet sees thousands of thousands serving the Ancient of Days and darkness of things coming to Him 53. An angel announces the seedless conception of the Savior 54; a whole army of Angels sings the birth of the Savior 55; etc. So the existence of Angels is certain. When were the Angels created? They were created before the visible world: there is an indication of this in the book of Job. It says that when the stars were created, His Angels were already praising God, which means they were already there before the creation of the world. When the stars were created, says the Lord, My angels and I praised Me with a great voice. The Creator of Angels is the Son of God, through whom all things were created. St. Apostle Paul testifies to this. “By Him, that is, by the Son of God,” he says, “everything was created, even in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, whether dominions, whether principalities, whether powers, that is, all the ranks of Angels, - all things were created by Him and about Him (through Him)” 57. As for the nature of Angels: they, as we said partly above, are spirits, purely incorporeal, greater in strength and power than us. So, for example one Angel in one night once beat one hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrian troops 58; equally, they are more perfect in mind and will than we are: because they constantly walk in the light of the face of God. If Angels are represented on icons as winged men, then this, brethren, is because they appeared as men on earth to people, so that people would not be afraid of them, seeing in them their nature, their appearance; in fact, they do not have flesh, and, therefore, no bodily members: no head, no tongue, no wings, no arms, no legs, nothing corporeal; which is why they are called spirits everywhere in Holy Scripture - just as the Lord God is called Spirit, although He is a Spirit, more perfect than any created spirit. If Holy Scripture speaks of the language of Angels, of their glorification of the Lord, then this is said in a human way, so that we can understand to some extent the Angelic glorification. In fact, they glorify God not with their voice, not with their tongue, like we do, but in a spiritual, intelligent way. St. The Church speaks of their glorification as follows: “With disembodied lips and intelligent lips, the angelic ranks bring incessant singing to Your unapproachable Divinity, Lord” 59 . For now, enough about Angels. Let us glorify and thank the Lord, who created the whole world, including us, solely by His goodness, and let us learn never to forget ourselves in life, remembering that we are called to life from complete insignificance, and have nothing in ourselves or around us that is ours, but everything is God’s. Sometimes people dare to reject this or that truth revealed in Holy Scripture, this or that rule of Christian faith and life. Oh! If only they remembered that they themselves were so recently called out of insignificance and so not far from this insignificance. For example, they say: “I exist, I live; and Angels do not exist.” But let us count the years of our lives and ask ourselves: what were we before others began to count the days, months and years, and then we ourselves - the years of our lives? We were nothing, or better: we did not exist. What will we be after, when our body is separated from our soul? The body will turn into earth, that is, it will again be nothing for the senses, and the soul will be in the invisible place of the spirits of people who have departed from this life. What does our earthly life mean? For several years we were not there and in a few years we will not be again. This is a fleeting shadow of life. There, in heaven, our life will be. No, it is more convenient to agree that we do not exist on earth, or walk on it like a ghost (Ps. 39:7), than to agree that Angels do not exist. In our very life, from our sins, we decay spiritually 60 and physically: can corruption be called life? Meanwhile, Angels, as pure spirits, by their nature are incorruptible and immortal. It is precisely about them, after the Lord God, that it should be said that they live. Yes, they live without any doubt and silently praise their Creator, whom we do not know how to properly praise. And they and we have the same purpose – to glorify the Creator. Let us learn from them to bring constant glory and gratitude to the Creator of the world for His infinite goodness to His creatures, for bringing them to life and bliss. Amen. Thousands of thousands serve Him and we stand before Him. Dan.7:10. In our previous conversation, speaking about the Angels of God, we did not say everything that we proposed to say about them; and precisely, they did not say how many there are and what order there is between them: because intelligent Forces must certainly have order. Now this is exactly what we will talk about, brothers. And so, how many Angels of God, or all the powers of heaven? The question is not unimportant for us: because every believer upon baptism enters into the community of Angels 61; and love and reverence for them prompts us to find out, although approximately, their number. Already from our previous conversation, we know, brethren, that Holy Scripture mentions the multitude of heavenly armies, counts them as thousands of thousands and so on. So eg. one Prophet saw in his vision that when the Betxy day, i.e. The Lord of hosts sat on His throne: then a thousand thousand served Him, and ten thousand stood before Him. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, speaking about the number of Angels and citing this passage from the book of the Prophet Daniel, notes that “about thousands of thousands and tens of tens of Angels, and not more, it is said not because this was the exact number of them, but because the Prophet could not pronounce a larger number” 62, i.e. our human numbers are not sufficient to bring all the heavenly powers under them. This means, brothers, there are countless angels. And this should be so according to our very reason. On earth, which constitutes the most insignificant part of the entire visible creation of God, we count so many homogeneous, especially heterogeneous creatures that we are almost lost in their number, not to mention how many more we do not know. Shouldn’t there be incomparably more incorporeal Powers, for which, according to Holy Scripture, the whole heaven serves as their place of residence, although the Angels are not limited to a place as we are? “The land we inhabit,” says St. Cyril of Jerusalem, “is like a certain point located in the middle of the sky; therefore, the sky surrounding it has as much a greater number of inhabitants as it has a greater space” 63 . Further: looking at a cloudless sky on an autumn or winter evening, we see an extraordinary number of stars - so that people who have been looking at the sky for thousands of years have previously been unable to count them due to their multitude and distance. If in the visible, material world, the omnipotent Creator showed His creative power, His greatness so infinitely, in such an immense number of heavenly bodies: then didn’t He show Himself more infinitely in the world of light spirits, didn’t He create a greater number of creatures similar to Himself - so that they would glorify His perfections, enjoy His contemplation and be blissful? The greatness of God is more striking, more obvious in the spiritual world: isn’t it there, isn’t it in the world of spirits, in their countless hosts, that the Lord Almighty, as a source of goodness, shines with eternal love? It was characteristic of the infinite, all-good Creator to reveal Himself precisely in the countless multitude of intelligent creatures. And the best of people wish, when possible, that as many as possible be blessed by them. Did the All-Good God not want this, and therefore did not do it, since His desire is at the same time a deed? But the many things the Lord has are not the same as the many things we have. Our numbers mean nothing to Him. To us, thousands and millions already seem to be very large numbers: but our Creator does not have thousands and millions: with Him one is like a thousand and a thousand is like one, a million is like one and one is like a million, that is, both many and little are equally insignificant for Him. Our “without number” means a lot. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of Angels, considers all the Angels to be His ninety-nine sheep, and the entire human race to be one, only one sheep. How many Angels there must be! This is how the Holy Fathers understand 64 the Savior’s parable about a man who has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. You see, brethren, what the Lord has in his own, Divine account; because our human, limited account is not befitting Him when it comes to the number of His creatures. Yes, the Lord has an infinite number of creatures, beyond our numbers. There are infinitely many of them on earth, and even more in heaven. And so there are countless Angels. But with multitude there must be order. With the Wise Creator we see order everywhere: and in the sky - between the heavenly bodies, which in their turn rise and set, moving in a constant order and never leading each other astray, although they have been moving across the sky for thousands of years; – and on earth, both in inanimate nature and in animate nature; order and subordination are noticeable especially among some animals, not to mention people, for whom order and subordination to each other are contemporary with the beginning of the human race 65 . Moreover, there must be order, subordination between the Heavenly Powers. If people have orders, much more so do the celestials - and the earthly, human order is only the weakest imitation of the heavenly, angelic order. So, brethren, the Angels have their own rank: there are intelligent Thrones in heaven, on which God rests intelligently and through which He establishes His righteous judgments 66; - there are Dominions, Principalities and Powers, just like with us - on earth, in well-ordered states there are Kings on whom God pours out his grace, and through whom he rules the peoples 67 - there are Dominions, Principalities and Powers. St. Apostle Paul speaks about the ranks of Angels like this: “Those, i.e. By the Son of God all things were created, both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. What exactly is invisible that was created in heaven? “If there are thrones,” he continues, “if there is dominion, if there is a beginning, if there is power: all things were created by Him and about Him 68.” And so the Angels are divided by rank. How many ranks of angels are there? The Holy Church teaches that Angels are divided into nine faces or orders, and these nine into three orders. In the first rank are those who are closest to God, namely: Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim; in the second: Power, Dominion and Strength; in the third: Angels, Archangels, Principalities. All these ranks are found in Holy Scripture and there are no more of them. St. Dionysius the Areopagite, a disciple of St. Apostle Paul, says that St. Apostle Paul himself divided the ranks of Angels this way. “All the powers (ranks) of heaven,” he says, “Holy Scripture called nine separate names, and our Divine Holy Mentor (meaning Apostle Paul) divided them into three triple degrees 69.” However, the doctrine of heavenly rank is generally mysterious and incomprehensible to our minds while we are on earth and see the objects of the spiritual world only like a mirror in fortune telling. It is enough for us to know only that there are countless Angels, incomparably more than the entire human race, and that they are divided according to degrees - into lower and higher, closer to God and less close. In honor and glory of the All-Holy Spirit, the life-giving Lord, whose descent on St. Now we celebrate the Apostles; we add that the source of life and perfection for all the angelic ranks is He, the All-Holy Spirit, together with the Father and the Son, just as by the Holy Spirit every human soul is alive and exalted in purity, illuminated by the sacred and mysterious Trinity unity 70 . What rule for our lives will we derive from the teaching about the number of Angels and their division into degrees? There are countless angels and they are all bright, intelligent, kind, strong spirits, but among them there are those higher and lower in their strengths and perfections; - and for their common good they subordinate themselves to each other in the most perfect way, the lower ones to the higher ones, these ones to the higher ones, these ones to the higher ones, etc.: each of the saints. Angelov knows his place and his rank. This is how it should be, brothers, between us. People also differ in their strengths and abilities. In order for them all to be happy, mutual subordination is absolutely necessary: ​​in society there must be higher and lower, even rich and poor, strong and weak: because if all people were equal, no one would serve each other: everyone, in the present corrupted state of man, would be overcome by pride and people could even go so far as to begin to exterminate each other. You can also glean from here both knowledge and rules for piety. We often hear in church that the Church calls the Mother of God the most honorable Cherub and the most glorious, without comparison, the Seraphim. Let us imagine, brothers, the greatness of the Mother of God. The world of spirits, we said earlier, is countless in the proper sense of the word, and they constitute a real, well-ordered, brightest world, gradually approaching God. The angelic ranks closest to God are the Cherubim and Seraphim, the purest spirits, lightning-like, flaming with eternal love for God, shining with the light of God’s mind and pouring out wisdom to others 71 . In them God especially rests with his grace, as the Psalmist says: (God) ascended upon the Cherubim and let 72; or: sit on the Cherubim and appear 73. But the Mother of God is more honest than the Cherubim: more glorious than the Seraphim themselves, moreover, without any comparison; because She not only carried in Her most pure hands the One who carries the whole world with His one word, 74 but also in her womb, she is the true Mother of God the Word. Let us understand, brothers, as much as we can, the greatness of the Mother of God, and we will honor Her according to her heritage, as the Lady of Angels and men 75. Let us not forget to honor the Angels with proper worship, as the friends of God, as the most perfect, rational creatures of God, in whom God primarily rests with His grace. Amen. I will ascend to heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven, I will be like the Most High. Isa.14:13,14. (Words of the Lucifer). Until now, brothers, we have seen all light and grace in heaven. The Lord God, worshiped in the Trinity, is the all-enlightening and all-life-giving Light. Angels of God are the second lights according to God 76, full of grace and living by grace 77. Now we will see that some lights became darkness and in the kingdom of the all-good, but just God, sin, or resistance to the will of God, appeared for the first time. You can guess, brothers, that we want to talk about evil spirits. Yes, and part of the sky, or part of the inhabitants of the sky, was once darkened - and once darkened forever, for endless centuries of ages - with pride and resistance to God. In heaven, among the Angels of God, there was one great, luminous spirit - from its luminosity called the morning star - a spirit, one of the closest to God. I wish I could live and blissfully bliss the bright spirit - with such goodness, with such Divine generosity, adorned with all sorts of perfections - in the light of the Face of God. But no: he wanted to be an independent light, he wanted to be God himself; He said: I will ascend to heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven; I will be like the Most High 78. And the Lord cast down the proud, stubborn spirit, which had darkened itself with unrepentant opposition to its Creator, from the bright sky: because what communication is there between light and darkness 79? Since the Lucifer was the leader of some subordinate spirits, he drew them along with him, revolting them too against the Lord of all creation. There are fewer inhabitants in heaven, although by no means fewer: because all the Angels are countless. “Are there really evil, fallen spirits,” some people ask and ask? That there are evil spirits is beyond all doubt. During the earthly life of Jesus Christ, they confessed Him through the mouths of demon-possessed people as the Son of God; testified, as if involuntarily, that they were condemned by Him to eternal torment 80; with their characteristic anger, truly hellish, they tormented people possessed by demons - and with the same anger they came out of them at the command of the Savior, in view of a large people. Once, at the word of the Savior, leaving two demon-possessed people in order to enter the pigs grazing nearby, they most obviously proved their shameful existence by the fact that the herd of pigs into which they entered, driven and tormented by their force, rushed into the sea and drowned 81. Holy Scripture directly calls them either evil spirits 82, then unclean spirits 83, then spirits of malice 84, demons or demons 85, and between them distinguishes one main one, or leader, whom he calls the devil 86, Satan 87, the prince of peace 88, the prince of the powers of the air 89, the prince of demons 90. But besides Holy Scripture, experience also assures us of the existence of evil spirits. People who observed themselves, the state of their spiritual life, noticed that their soul, previously quiet and calm, like a majestic river flowing smoothly in its banks, was suddenly outraged by some hostile, evil force - and began to be vaguely agitated by the pressure of unclean thoughts and passionate desires; they saw that inside them sometimes someone with force rushes towards the most fundamental, saving convictions of the mind, towards the most holy feelings; shakes faith at its very foundation, darkening and disturbing the mind and reason, so that in this darkness and confusion it is more convenient to steal the treasure of faith; imposes various nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts when a person is disposed to have holy and sublime thoughts; and it does this with such force that a person must sometimes defend in sweat and tears the most holy and life-giving truths of the faith, his reverence for persons exalted and glorified in heaven and on earth and for objects holy and worthy of all reverence. In general, this evil force tries to present to man everything that is good and holy in the form of a dark and unclean thing, hiding everything that is bright and beautiful in darkness. Read the various prayers compiled by the Church for different occasions, the verses of the canons 91, or the lives of the saints: and you will see there that the saints of God in their earthly lives were in constant struggle with some kind of spiritual, hostile force that attacked them early and late and tormented them with painful struggles. How to explain this phenomenon in our soul? What kind of force is this, so freely creeping through the body into the soul and alternately leaving us alone, then rushing at us again, which comes from unknown where and where it goes? This is not only the depravity of our nature, it is not only that other law in our lives, opposing the law of our mind, about which the Holy Apostle speaks 92. No: here the action of an extraneous evil force is noticeable, which counteracts the good force that is growing in us. This is precisely the action of the spirits of evil in high places. St. The apostle was so decisively confident in the reality of this internal struggle with evil spirits that, as an experienced spiritual mentor, he asked newly converted Christians to put on spiritual armor in order to be able to resist the wiles of the devil. “For our battle is against flesh and blood,” he says, i.e. not with our nature only corrupted by sin, but to the beginning and to the power and to the ruler of the darkness of this age, to the spiritual wickedness in high places 93 . The existence of evil spirits explains a lot in the fate and life of mankind: the fall of man, his corruption, atheism, polytheism and other vile vices. The very mystery of our redemption by the Son of God is based on the existence of evil spirits, because He came to destroy the works of the devil 94. As for the nature of evil spirits: first of all, as spirits, they are incorporeal and therefore freely penetrate the soul of every person, by God's permission, instilling in him bad thoughts and wishes and in every possible way playing tricks on him 95 . Like evil spirits, they are extremely evil; It’s hard for us to even imagine how evil they are. Only in part, from their deeds in people and animals, can one conclude that they are angry. Thus, one demoniac, whom Jesus Christ healed, was often led by the demon to fire, so that he would burn, and to water, so that he would drown in it 96 . Another demon possessed had his tongue tied so that he could not say anything with his tongue. When the Lord cast out the demon, the dumb man immediately began to speak 97. Another two demoniacs lived in coffins, in which the demons probably wanted to bury them alive, and they were so fierce and terrible that no one dared to walk the road where they were. From these two demon-possessed people, the Lord commanded the demons to come out and enter, as they asked, into the pigs. When they entered the pigs, they immediately drove them into the sea and drowned them 98 . The Lord, by the way, allowed them to enter the swine herd in order to show people the anger of demons 99 . You can also see demonic anger in people full of wickedness and depravity, uttering blasphemies against St. faith and piety, and church regulations, laughing at sacred persons and objects: because demons do not tolerate everything sacred. Demons especially thirst for the destruction of the human soul and “the devil, like a lion, walks roaring, looking for someone to devour” 100. Despite their extreme anger, evil spirits are very smart for evil - because in the beginning they received from God a mind that is higher than human and because they live for a very long time, never dying and are increasingly inventing means to put into action their malice, which is their life. In addition, they are very strong, as is proven by the examples of those possessed by demons, who sometimes could not be bound by anything; and if they tied them up in moments of calm, they even broke the iron chains. But their power is more clearly visible over people who are wicked and possessed of passions, who are careless about their salvation, whom for negligence the Lord betrays into the power of the devil: hellish power with such power draws them to destruction that a person becomes a perfect slave of demons, doing everything that they suggest. This is the example of Jude 101. The fall of evil spirits is so great and cruel, their evil deeds in the kingdom of God are so destructive that they themselves can never repent and therefore they will face undoubted, endless torment in hell along with unrepentant sinners. St. Scripture repeatedly says that the Lord God is watching over them for the judgment of the great day of His second and glorious coming, after which they will be tormented forever and ever. There are so many fallen spirits that it constitutes a whole kingdom, according to the Savior: even if Satan were divided within himself, what would his kingdom be like 103? The majority of the Holy Fathers of the Church adhered to the idea that with Satan an innumerable number of spirits subordinate to him fell from heaven, without saying how many exactly 104. Brethren! Evil spirits were good at the beginning and only later became evil through opposition to the will of God; which is why they are condemned, for their stubborn pride, to eternal torment. This danger - to be subjected to eternal torment along with evil spirits, can easily threaten us: and people are daring opponents of the will of God, when, for example, they stubbornly do not want to recognize what the Word of God and the Holy Church commands to recognize, or with the intention of going against any commandment of God, putting their thoughts and rules above the Word of God or the statutes of the Church. The Lord God finally rejects such people from His presence, just as He rejected the proud star with the spirits subordinate to him. And so let us fear pride, lest we become proud and fall into the judgment of the devil, 105 that is, lest we be subjected to the same condemnation as the devil. Unclean spirits instill in us false thoughts and evil desires, trying to distract our mind and heart from holy objects. Let us resist them in every possible way, not allowing bad thoughts and desires to take root in us. Demons are very evil - and their very life consists of doing evil. On the contrary, brethren, as the chosen ones of God, let us put on the wombs of generosity, kindness, humility, meekness and long-suffering 106 - and let us understand each other in encouraging love and good deeds, always remembering that evil will receive its due reward at the terrible judgment of Christ, just as no good will be left without due reward, and thanking God the Father... Who deliver us from power dark ones and transfer the Son of Your love into the kingdom 107. Amen. This is what the Lord God says:...I created the earth and man on it, I established the heavens with My hand, I gave commandments to all the stars. Isa.45:11,12. The time has come, brothers, for us to talk about the creation of the visible world, which we look at every day, and which out of habit we value so little. Yes, we have looked at everything in the world of God, just like at home - at our household items. Meanwhile, this world is a wonderful creation of God: the infinite wisdom and ever-present power of the Creator is visible everywhere in it; everything in it is so beautiful, majestic and so beneficial for living creatures that St. The fathers, who found special pleasure in looking at him, could not find enough words to praise the wisdom, goodness and omnipotence of the Creator - to describe the splendor and beauty of the world. And indeed, brethren, from examining the world, the omnipotence, goodness and wisdom of God are clearly visible to everyone - learned and unlearned: “from the majesty and beauty of creatures, their creator is known comparatively” 108 - says Holy Scripture. But why do we need to know: how, where and why the world came into being? In order to recognize its origin with everything that is in it from the all-good Creator, and the intention with which He created everything, to reverence the Creator, to know the value of things and to gratefully use everything that we have and what surrounds us, so that having learned what the entire visible world is with all its accessories, with all its time, how transitory it is, not to become too attached to this fleeting life and its benefits, but from the visible, of the changing, transitory world to ascend to the invisible, unchanging and eternal Kingdom of Heaven, for which we are appointed here to prepare. Let us begin, with God’s help, our conversations about the creation of the world. You see, brothers, that everything in the world is in constant motion: every day of God the sun appears in the east in the morning, and in the west in the evening; the month goes on as usual; both the sun and the month, obviously, alternately appear either underground or above it; they shine first for us, sometimes for those below us; stars are also visible at one time in one place and at another time in another place. And these round, large bodies, by the mania of the Almighty Creator, walk around harmoniously, regularly, unchangeably. This movement of large round balls, brothers, serves as the basis for measuring time; This movement is, further, true proof that the world is not eternal, but received a beginning once. Thus, looking at the movement of the hour hand or the movement of the wheels in a watch, everyone concludes that the watch was made and put into operation by a watchmaker. The same should be said when looking at the movement of the world, i.e., that it received a beginning from the Creator, and along with the beginning, movement. And when the world has a beginning, it will certainly have an end. The Almighty Creator wanted the movement of these great balls, called planets (and our earth is also a ball) to contribute to the life of the world. So, brothers, the very movement of the heavenly bodies and our earth leads us to the idea of ​​their beginning. Everything was not always as it is now, but there was a time when there was nothing: neither heaven, nor earth, no visible creature. How did it all become? The Holy Prophet and Seer of God, Moses, revealed to us how everything came to be, and where all this multitude and variety of creatures came from. “In the beginning,” he says, “God created heaven and earth,” 109 - and then he tells how He created everything in heaven and on earth. And the Lord God Himself, through the mouth of the Prophet Isaiah, says: “I created the earth and man on it; I have established the sky with My hand; I command all the stars" 110. Let us listen to the life stories of Moses. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. When - at the beginning? Then, that is, when His goodness was pleased to give the beginning to the visible world. Create. This means: he did not create only from a ready-made substance, as, for example, a sculptor, mason or carpenter produces various good and useful things from a ready-made substance, but he created everything from nothing, brought it from complete non-existence into existence. Let us marvel, brethren, at our wonderful, almighty God, who made everything with His innumerable power and brought everything from non-existence into existence with the abundance of His mercy 111 - and let us fall to the dust before Him with a feeling of perfect humility and devotion to His will. Create heaven and earth. God first created the substance of the universe, and then began to gradually organize it. This substance was in the beginning not defined and not harmonious: everything was here together: earth, and water, and air, and fire; nothing was divided, nothing had the types and forms that we see now. “The earth,” it goes on, “is not made invisible.” Invisible because, as St. Basil the Great says, the earth was immersed in the depths, and due to the water spilling on its surface, it could not be visible; It was called unbuilt because it did not yet have the device that was made in the following days 112. Why was the earth in the beginning ugly and unstructured, that is, why didn’t the Creator suddenly create it perfect? St. Chrysostom answers this like this: “The earth is a common meal, and a homeland, and a nurse, and a mother; the universal city and tomb: our bodies come from it, and our residence and dwelling on it, and after death we return again to it. So, so that the inevitability of using the earth does not force you to marvel at it beyond its dignity, and the multitude of blessings from the earth does not attract you to wickedness, God first shows it to you ugly and not comfortable, so that when you see its imperfection, you will marvel at the One who created it and put all this power into it; so that you may glorify Him who has arranged so many things for our convenience 113.” Further St. The writer of everyday life continues: “and darkness was on the top of the abyss,” that is, above the water that covered the entire earth, there was impenetrable darkness, darkness. And the Spirit of God was floating on top of the water. The Holy Spirit, the life-giving Lord, worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son, the third Person of the Holy Life-Giving Trinity, hovered over this abyss and poured warmth and life into it, warmed and revived the watery nature. Thus, the world seems to be born out of water through the action of the Holy Spirit. Similar things happen at our birth, brothers. In the sacrament of Holy Baptism, which is a spiritual birth, we are also born by water and the Spirit, as the Savior says: “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” 114. It is unknown whether the land remained unsettled for a long time or not; How long was darkness over the waters; Only the Lord God first of all created the nature of material light in order to destroy through it the previously existing disorder and disorder, and so that the work of His hands would benefit from the beneficial effects of light. “And God said: Let there be light: and there was light.” The Creator said that there should be light: and there was light. So omnipotent is the Word of the Creator. Since the Lord God is infinite being, it is incomparably easier for Him to bring everything from non-existence into existence than for us to make something from a ready-made thing; and the world could not have come into existence any other way than from non-existence, from nothing: because there was no other existence except God; and if it were: then God would not be God. And so light was created out of nothing by God’s command. A wonderful creation, this light! Without it, the thing exists, and as if it does not exist, but the light reveals it. So, before there was light, the earth was there, but it was as if it did not exist: because no eye would have seen it, even if there had been one. And now it often happens on a dark autumn night, in unlit places, that everything seems to disappear: the sky, the earth, the water, the forests, the houses, and every object - and we see not only the beauty of the world, but absolutely nothing. It is not for nothing that the world itself is called light. Exactly, it can be called light: what kind of world would it be without light? All animals and plants themselves are designed in such a way that they cannot live without light; and besides, light gives everything such a good, attractive appearance, and without light it’s as if there is no world. Let us learn, brothers, to appreciate this gift of God - light, and also this light of our eyes - sight, without which we cannot see anything even in the light. But let us not be too attached to material light and the sense of vision; There are people who won’t believe what they don’t see: “If I don’t see,” they say, “I have no faith.” Look: the earth existed in the beginning, but it was not visible because of darkness everywhere. Likewise, we do not see the spiritual world, but it exists. Light and eyes are given to us only for this visible world, and not for that invisible one; for that world a different eye is needed: the eyes of the heart are enlightened 115, or a pure heart: “blessed are the pure in heart,” it is said, “for they will see God” 116. And we don’t see the human soul, but it actually exists. In a person, it gives life and beauty to the body, especially expression to the face; in him she is the main reason for everything he does; and after the soul leaves the body, all that remains is one ugly corpse, the dust of the earth. Having created light, the Lord God Himself testified that light is a good thing. “And God saw the light as good.” And indeed, good. The whole world feels how good the light is. But besides material light, there is, brethren, also spiritual light. This light and source of light is the Lord God, who lives in the unapproachable light 117. Angels are also called second lights after God, as we said about this in the previous conversation. We value material light because we find it very necessary and useful for ourselves. But if we value sensual light, then we will recognize and appreciate intelligent light. That light, as you yourself see, is impermanent: it appears and disappears and serves almost only for the body, which itself is impermanent, not eternal: but this light is eternal and therefore God gave us to see the sensory light in order to grant us intelligent light at the time that He Himself determined 118; and the bliss and beauty of this intelligent light are such that now we cannot even comprehend it in its entirety: sins, passions and worldly cares prevent us from vividly feeling this light in our souls in real life; the clothing of the body also hides it from the soul. There was spiritual light in the world; but alas, people did not accept it: “The light came into the world and men loved darkness rather than light; for their deeds were evil” 119. In order to be worthy of being participants in the spiritual light, obviously, you need to put aside dark deeds, that is, sins. “And God divided between the light and between you. And God calls light day and darkness night.” Although God created light, he did not completely destroy the darkness that existed before the creation of light - because the continuity of light would be harmful to creatures, but only made a division between them, appointed an order, a sequence for both. But why then could there be day and night when there was no sun yet? “Then,” says St. Basil the Great, - day occurred and night followed not according to the solar movement, but because the primeval light, to the extent determined by God, either expanded or contracted again 120. “And there was evening, and there was morning, one day,” - not only the first, but also one, that is, the only one. It is so named in order to show its importance and superiority over other days: because it is the head of time, the beginning of days, contemporary with the world, as St. Basil the Great says 121. This time we will conclude the conversation with the first day of creation: it is enough if we keep this in mind. Let us remember that the whole world was created by God out of nothing, solely by His goodness, and, remembering this, revere Him and gratefully glorify Him. Amen. Who measured the sky in a span and a handful of water and the whole earth? Who set the mountains in measure and the hills in weight?... Look at the height of your eyes and see who created all this? Isa.40:12,13,26. Now we will talk, brothers, about the second and third days of creation. What did the world become on the second day of its life, or what was created on the second day? The earth's core was still in the water and was not visible; but the light was already illuminating the unsettled, ugly substance of the world during the day. On the second day, the world begins to more and more, according to God's word, come into order out of disorder. God creates this visible vault of heaven, called firmly in Holy Scripture - because the heavenly bodies seem to be fixed on it - and by the command of the Creator, the roughest parts of the water-like world substance tend to the earth and, connecting with it, open its outline, partly ascending upward, that is, to other opaque bodies located in the heavenly space, for which the firmament was also supposed to open 122. “And God said,” says the Holy Writer of Genesis: “let there be a firmament in the midst of water, and let there be a parting in the midst of water and water: and so it was. And God created the firmament: and God separated between the waters that were under the firmament, and between the waters that were above the firmament. And God called the firmament the sky: and God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the second day.” This is what the great Moses says about creation on the second day. What did he want to say with the words: “God created the firmament, and God separated between the water that was under the firmament, and between the water that was above the firmament”? The fact that on the second day God created the air space surrounding the earth and all the endless starry space with huge, at that time still dark, celestial spheres, separated from each other by the greatest distances 123. On the same day, due to the presence of the Spirit of God over the waters, which poured warmth and life into them, the unformed and unstructured earth began to show signs of life and the original structure: from the warmth, the water began to evaporate and rise up to the sky, clouds appeared and began to float through the air on this day. From this day on, the globe began to make cycles. But there was still so much water on the earth that evaporation could not carry it up enough to open the earth’s core: it was still immersed in water. Thanks to the almighty Creator, who with his almighty word created the air, pouring out such a thin, transparent, life-giving liquid, necessary for every animate creature and for all plants. Yes, brothers, without air neither we nor animals could exist for even a few minutes: it is just as – and even more – necessary as food or drink: we breathe it every minute. Fresh air, when moving, is, in addition, an excellent medicine in cases of simple illnesses, at hand for everyone: it refreshes and strengthens our body. But air can also be a conductor of death sent by God for our sins: pestilences have their place and path in the air; without diluting the air, people sometimes also die of starvation, or at least often suffer hunger; That is why the Holy Church daily prays to the Lord, among other things, for the goodness of the air. In the air, brethren, you see and hear various phenomena, and, among other things, thunder and lightning. What kind of menacing spectacle do clouds often present when, having thickened, they seem to spew out thunder and lightning? The sight of the sky, covered with black clouds and shaking the earth with thunder strikes and illuminating with terribly sparkling lightning, at all times produced such fear in people that they - in paganism - placed a special god over these phenomena and called him the Thunderer and Perun. We, thank God, probably know that everything in the world is under the control of the Lord God alone and no outsider controls His kingdom. Some Christians thought and still think that this is Elijah the Prophet thundering. But, brethren, this is not done by anyone else, but by the Lord God, who gave His laws to nature once and for all. This is very easy to figure out. Just as, for example, earthquakes or eruptions of fire-breathing mountains happen without any extraneous person, so thunderous and fire-breathing clouds happen on their own, without an extraneous person, according to the same laws of the Creator who created the universe. Brothers! When we see clouds, we can remember the time when the Lord, in the darkness of His holy angels, will come again to our dark earth for the terrible judgment of the human race; He will come on the clouds, as the Seer says: “Behold, he is coming from the clouds and every eye will see him” 124; and at this time the righteous will be caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air 125. “And there was evening, and there was morning, the second day” 126. It is already the evening of the second day of peace, and the earth is still not visible. On the third day of the world, the Lord formed special containers on the earth for waters and opened the face of the earth in certain places. On the same day, mountains emerged from the earth and were erected on it - because it was necessary to make vast and deep hollows for water; and in order to form them, obviously, it was necessary to move the earth and place these mountain masses 127. The bodies of water are called seas, and the land is called earth. “And God spoke,” continues the Holy One. Writer of everyday life, let the waters that are under the heaven be gathered together into one, and let the dry land appear: and it came to pass: and the waters that are under the heaven were gathered together into their own congregation, and the dry land appeared. And God called the dry land, and the meeting of the waters was called the sea: and God saw it as good.” 128 So, that’s when dry land appeared: already on the third day. There are still no living creatures in the air or in the water, but on this day the land will produce amazing plants: from the rough earth, from the sand, from the clay, from the silt, the most delicate, beautiful and varied types of herbs, flowers and other cereals will emerge, as well as all kinds of trees. But why is it - compared to the waters - there is so little land on earth, while there are so many creatures living on land? Two-thirds water and only one-third land? Here, brothers, marvel at the wisdom of the Creator. Oceans and seas, serving as a home for a myriad of water creatures, at the same time serve as backup reservoirs for watering or irrigating the earth. You know how plants love water, how much they absorb it with their roots and carry it along the entire trunk and through all the branches and leaves; - that without water they cannot eat; You also know what an innumerable variety of plants, large and small. Imagine now, brothers, how much water is needed for every grass, flower, bush and tree - and where could it be obtained in such huge quantities if there were no oceans and seas, lakes and rivers? Thanks to these water reservoirs, the earth with its countless families of plants does not know a shortage of water: from the oceans, seas and other reservoirs of water, many evaporations rise daily; These vapors in the form of clouds flow around the earth in the upper layers of the air and rain on it, or fall in the form of dew and thus bring drink to every grass, flower and tree that themselves cannot go for a drink. We are not talking about the countless number of different animate creatures on earth and in the water - from humans to the smallest insects, invisible to the naked eye - how much water they need: each wants to drink and eat; and the food itself is always more or less dissolved in liquid. Everything that lives certainly needs water. With all this, remember how much fire is hidden in the interior of the earth: and after this, no one will say that there is a disproportionate amount of water on the earth: there is as much of it as is needed for the well-being of all earthly creatures. The Creator created everything by number, measure and weight. Brethren! Although water is a soulless thing, it, obeying the word of the Lord, does what we sometimes do not do. You see that, according to the laws of the Creator, it rises upward from various water reservoirs in the form of vapor, then descends as rain or dew onto plants that themselves cannot change places and brings them a life-giving drink, or at least makes the air moist. So we too will always serve our poor and weak brethren, giving them the word of consolation in distress, like a cool drink, or alms, such as anyone can. “And God said: let the earth sprout the old grass, sowing seed according to its kind and likeness, and a fruitful tree, creating its fruit, and its seed in it according to its kind on the earth: and so it was” 129. It's still day three. When the water warmed up and warmed the earth, and from this evaporation began to rise - and when, according to the word of the Lord, the water that covered the earth went into the containers indicated to it and thus dry land appeared with mountains, hills and valleys: on the earth, also according to the word of the Lord, suddenly an endless variety of herbs with seeds in each appears, containing in itself in the smallest form a multitude of the same herbs or cereals that carry them stem; also appears - together with barren trees, which contain only their seeds, and every tree that is fruitful by itself, without an outside teacher, producing beautiful and tasty fruits - also with a seed, depending on the type of tree - so that each type of tree had to reproduce itself and not mix with other trees, or be distorted in any way. This, brothers, is the beginning of our varied plant food, which supports our life and serves for our pleasure. When we eat it, we will remember that it is the work of the goodness and omnipotence of God; Let us know its value and measure, and let us not forget to always thank the Creator for it. And paying attention on the one hand to the beauty of flowers, on the other hand to the low value and neglect of them, let us remember the words of the Savior, with which He teaches us to hope in God’s providence: “If the hay of the village exists today and is swept into the oven in the morning, God clothes it like this: is it not much more than you, O you of little faith” 130? And let's not worry too much about clothes, especially smart ones. You can also learn humility at the sight of the beauty and tenderness of flowers and their rapid withering, at the sight of the beauty and harmony of trees and their fall under a man’s ax or from the pressure of the wind. The flowers are good and tender, but there is nothing to be proud of them: they are not our own, but God’s, and, moreover, they soon fade; The trees are beautiful and slender: but they have nothing to boast about: God planted them, and watered them, and made them grow. In the same way, beautiful people and majestic men, like wild flowers and slender trees, cannot boast of anything: God’s creation is their body: they have nothing of their own in it; God raised him and gave him food and drink for his nourishment; there is nothing to say about the soul: it is also all of God. Moreover, both flowers and trees fall equally, although some live less, while others live more. So people, no matter what they are, will all fall under the ax of death. But let's return to creation. The Lord God, we heard, said that the earth should bring forth plants: and it brought forth all plants according to their kind. Wonderful is Your omnipotence, O Lord! As You said at the beginning, so to this day every grain, every tree and tree obeys You: with the onset of spring, as soon as there is a sufficient amount of warmth for the development of plants: Your soulless creature begins wonderful work in the modest unknown of the bowels of the earth, also on the stems and branches of trees, without noise, without knocking, correctly, smoothly. Here they come into the light of God: not a single grass, not a single leaf, not a single tree will go astray, will not forget the pattern (shape) given to it - and look: where does it come from: the grass on the ground or the leaf on the tree unfolds, becomes wider and wider, larger and larger, and finally the bare earth is covered with a beautiful, multi-colored carpet that attracts both the eye and the sense of smell, and the trees dress up in leafy, thick clothing and cover their members. So everything is done picturesquely, elegantly on our land from these plants! And all this comes as if from nothing, according to one word of the Lord, spoken once and forever. And we, brethren, do not we arise into being from the same non-existence? What are we in the beginning - in the loins of our fathers 131? Isn’t it obvious through this that the Creator lets us know that in the beginning He brought everything from non-existence into being? Brothers, let us look at the plants and learn. How obvious and tangible is our Lord, our Almighty Father, in these plants! Every grass, every leaf, every flower seems to whisper to us: “The Lord is here.” Consider, brothers, the wise structure of plants and recognize God in them: almost all of you have plants at all times: both in winter and in summer. But it’s time to end the conversation; sorry for its length; after all, it is difficult not to talk a lot about the wise deeds of the Creator. Amen. The sun sings to you; the moon praises; The stars are present to you. (Prayer of water sanctification) The subject of this conversation, brethren, will be the creation of the heavenly bodies, which followed on the fourth day of creation, and how they fulfill their purpose in relation to the earth, as well as their size and distance from the earth. Let us listen to how the Holy Genesis writer Moses speaks about the creation of the luminaries in his book of the Genesis of heaven and earth. This is how he talks about it: “And God said: let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, to illuminate the earth between day and night: and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years. And let them be enlightened in the firmament of heaven, as they shine on the earth: and so it was. And God created two great lights: the great light at the beginning of the day, and the lesser light at the beginning of the night, and the stars. And God set it in the firmament of heaven, as if it were to shine on the earth, and to rule day and night, and to separate between the light and between you: and God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day" 132. So, the sun, moon and stars were created 1) to illuminate the earth; 2) so that they produce days and nights and seasons on earth and so that, thus, people can conduct their earthly time calculations using them and 3) so that they add signs or signs to recognize: buckets or bad weather, winds and storms, locations on earth or at sea. This is the purpose of the luminaries for the earth: no other purpose has been revealed to us. And how wonderfully and invariably this purpose is fulfilled! And God created two great lights: the great light at the beginning of the day and the lesser light at the beginning of the night. What a brilliant luminary is the sun! What a wealth of light there is from it and how wonderfully it shines on the earth! Several thousand believe in all directions, it illuminates so brightly at once that you can distinguish every grain of sand, every grass on the earth: the whole earth seems to be flooded by a sea of ​​light. But since light is a substance, then judge, brothers, how great the luminary must be, emitting so much light from itself onto the earth. Obviously, it (the luminary) is very large and incomparably larger than the earth, because if it were equal or smaller than the earth, then the light on the whole earth would be incomparably scarcer. But now take into account the generosity of illumination and the space of this illumination, equal to the entire earthly hemisphere, and also the extent to which the light of a candle becomes weaker and weaker when we, for example, gradually move a book away from it: and then judge how great the sun must be, which shines equally brightly - so that the enormous distance, showing it in a small circle, seems to mean nothing to the earth. From this it is easy for anyone to conclude that it is extremely large. It is known that the sun is several hundred thousand times larger than the earth. If it appears to be such a small circle, then, as we said, this is because of the amazing height at which it burns above the earth. It is 144 million miles away from the earth 133. Scientists have found this out. What do our earthly distances mean in comparison with this distance? What kind of Creator must be, by whose will such luminaries move across the sky and at such a distance? Obviously He must be omnipresent and omnipotent; for Him, every space, every size is insignificant. But in us, brothers, there is a likeness of the omnipresent Divinity: and for our thoughts there are no such distances as there are for the body or for the feelings; and human thought can fly across immeasurable distances in an instant; and the more a person tries to live virtuously and holyly, the freer his thoughts are, the more he renounces the close bonds of the earth; but on the contrary, a vicious, passionate man, both in thought and with his whole being, seems to be chained to the earth: on earth are all his hopes and all his happiness. The sun is very bright, brothers, so much so that we have not seen anything brighter than it, and it sees the whole earth at once. But the eyes of the Lord are darker than the brightest sun, 134 and see at once the entire universe, everything hidden and secret in people: there is no place where one could hide from them. In general, the sun, moon and stars are beautiful; but their Creator is even more beautiful. “If there is a beautiful sky,” says one of our domestic Saints, “and in the sky there is a visible sun, a month and stars: oh, how most beautiful is He who created these beautiful things” 135!” Why, brothers, does the sun set behind the earth and leave it in darkness, and then rise again above the earth? Why this dawn, morning and evening, and these golden clouds at dawn? And this happens according to the omnipotent word or according to the laws of the Creator, who created the earth round, like a ball, and commanded it to revolve around itself and around the sun. Previously we said simply, without proof, that the earth is a sphere; and now the rising and setting of the sun, the dawn of morning and evening, and the golden clouds at dawn will prove to us that our earth is, in fact, a huge ball, like the celestial balls. You often see, brethren, that the Lord Almighty on icons is mostly depicted with a ball, on top of which there is a cross. This ball means the globe of the earth and is called a power because in ancient times Roman kings had the custom of holding it in their hand on special occasions 136 . Our Lord Jesus Christ holds the globe of the earth in his hand, as the king of heaven and earth, as the Almighty. We say this in order to show you that our earth is round, like a ball. But how is the spherical shape of the earth proven by phenomena during the rising and setting of the sun? As follows: if the earth were not spherical, but flat; then the sun would now have disappeared underground, or come out from under it, and would have immediately left us either in the complete shadow of the earth, or illuminated us with full light. Now, since the earth is round, we use the remnants of light from the sun even when it illuminates the sloping side of the earth, when the sun, so to speak, is under the mountain and produces dawn for us, like the glow of a huge fire. This dawn occurs because the rays of the setting or rising sun, illuminating the sloping side of the earth, at the same time illuminate the air located near the earth and, like water, surrounding it, and thus make the light of dawn. Watching the dawn, we see from the gradual decrease in light - from the way it gradually turns from light pink to paler and paler - that the earth is truly round, and the sun seems to glide, step by step, evenly, in a circle. And it is known that this phenomenon occurs from the wheel-like rotation of the earth, from its roundness. Looking at the clouds, at the sunset, we see the same thing; There are often several rows of them: one above, others below. Look: the sun has set, and we no longer see it; only the tops of buildings still receive its last rays; Meanwhile, the lower clouds are still crimson and the upper ones too; but the lower ones have gone out, like hot iron removed from the fire, but the upper clouds are still golden; For them, the sun has not yet set: it’s already twilight here, but up there, it’s full light. But finally, these lofty, golden clouds also became dark, that is, they also became in the shadow of the earth; the sun sank low underground. How obvious from this that the earth is spherical! But why am I trying to prove to you that the earth is a sphere? In order to present to you in the most amazing form the omnipotence of God. The earth is a ball. But why did God make it spherical? So that it turns around itself and around the sun. So, the earth revolves in the air - in huge spaces, and, according to the church song, hangs on nothing. What force must hold her in the air with nothing! What force should carry it around the sun like a light ball? How insignificant our land is to the Lord God! How true and true are the words of the Lord: “Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool” 137, only a footstool! This is what happens to the earth and this is how it is structured. But according to the same laws, the heavenly bodies were created: and they are all also hung on nothing, or on nothing. How great are Thy works, O Lord! He created all things with wisdom 138. But what surprises us most is this luminous luminary. You have illuminated one lamp, O God, for the whole earth and its light is sufficient for everyone; no one has the need to demand that it be moved closer to themselves so that the light is brighter: everywhere and for everyone it shines equally brightly: king and subject, rich and poor, strong and weak, righteous and sinful. Not only does it shine: it also warms and gives life to everyone and everything; the gift is given to everyone equally: no one is offended. In the sun, brothers, one can see the likeness of the one and all-good Lord and the one Church. The sun shines the same for the whole earth: and the spiritual Sun - the Lord God - is also one for the whole world - in all parts of the world; one Gospel of the Lord in the whole world; one and the Church of the Lord, or one fold of the verbal sheep of the Lord; one Chief Shepherd Jesus Christ. Further, the sun is the likeness of the all-good God, who shines his sun on evil and good people. A wondrous spectacle of God's goodness! What doesn't the other one of us do sometimes? What sins, what evil deeds are there between people, committed both openly and secretly? Sometimes people live in complete oblivion of God. But the Heavenly Father commands His sun to shine equally on everyone: His sun will never forget to rise above us in due time. We are often still sleeping, and it (the sun), like a bridegroom from his palace, has long appeared on our horizon and pours its dazzling rays with all its generosity, delighting every animate creature, illuminating and enlivening everything. Let us, brothers, imitate the Heavenly Father, each according to our own strength, shining with a different light of our good deeds and warming with our participation the hearts of those in need of participation. When the sun disappears behind the earth, for the most part, immediately another luminary appears in its place - a smaller one and shines on the earth the whole night. What an exact order in the shifts! What concern for our dark land! So that it does not become very dark when the sun moves away from us to another hemisphere, the moon immediately after sunset takes on the position of luminary, although not with the same light as the sun. Its light, as scientists have discovered, is 100,000 times weaker than a cloudy day, and in comparison with the light of a sunny day, the clearest moonlit night is 300,000 times darker 139. It also illuminates a lot of space at once - more than one thousand; and therefore we must also conclude that it is both great and very far from us; however, it is much smaller not only than the sun, but also the earth and is only 300,000 miles away from the earth. When there is a moon, we usually see in the sky an innumerable number of stars, some of which are larger and others smaller. Many of you, brothers, do not know the secret of the starry sky, and there is no particular need for everyone to know it: and that is where all the infinite power of the Creator is revealed. And on earth - of all God's creatures - His omnipotence is visible: but the earth is only one grain of sand in comparison with the infinity of the sky. All the stars, each individually, are larger than our earth, and most of them, perhaps, are larger than the sun itself, and not millions of miles separate our earth from them, but whole billions - such numbers that are rarely used anywhere in our country. These stars are beautiful; their light is quiet and pleasant. On our land they do not know a better way to display the glorious deeds of a person who has rendered many services to the fatherland, except for the radiance of a star, made in likeness and hung on the chest of such a person. All these round balls of ugly matter appeared, brothers, according to one word of the Lord, on the second day 140. Only then were they dark; and on this day light was given to them and they became bright. We mean this both about the stars, and about the moon, and about the sun. “In the beginning, God created,” says St. Gregory the Theologian, “not this sunlight, but not contained in the body and in the sun, and then given to the sun to illuminate the entire universe” 141. From this we can conclude that the body of the sun existed before light was given to it; just like the body of the moon and stars. Looking at the starry world, you involuntarily think: what an abyss of God’s omnipotence and wisdom! What does our earth mean in comparison with heaven? What are we, people? Who doesn't say from St. Psalmist David: “For I will see the heavens, the work of Your hands, the moon and the stars, You founded them: who is man, that You remember him, or the son of man, that You visit him” 142? Holy Scripture has not revealed to us any other purpose of the heavenly bodies than their purpose for the earth. This purpose, as we indicated earlier, is 1) to illuminate the earth - and we all see that they accurately fulfill this purpose, especially the sun and moon; 2) so that people keep track of time by them: let them be, it is said, in times, and in days, and in years. Let us now say in more detail about this other purpose. The seasons here refer to the seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. And so the days and nights and seasons on earth come from the heavenly bodies, namely, from the sun and the moon. Days and nights come from the wheel-like rotation of the earth around itself. When the side of the earth on which we live turns downward, and the one below us turns upward: then we have night below, and day above; and when we again rise up, and those who are below us – down; Then it is day for us, and night for them. The seasons are like this: when the earth is in such a position towards the sun that it casts its rays on it directly, as rain falls from the clouds, or although not very indirectly, then it is very warm on the earth, that is, it is summer; as the slope increases in the incidence of the sun's rays, the earth becomes colder and colder: autumn comes; At this time, due to the uneven cooling of the earth, water and the surrounding air, a lot of perspiration rises into the air from the seas, lakes, rivers and swamps: that is why there are almost continuous, heavy rains in the fall. Finally, the rays of the sun, deviating more and more from the earth, seem to glide only along the earth, barely touching it: that is why severe frosts set in, the days become short and the nights become long. At this time, for the inhabitants of the other earth's hemisphere, the days gradually increase, and the nights shorten and the heat reaches its highest degree. After this, the sun again begins to rise above our hemisphere more and more; its rays will begin to fall towards us more and more directly: melting will begin, spring will come. All these changes occur when the earth revolves around the sun, and this rotation takes place throughout the year. Thus, it is both dark and cold when the sun illuminates us little; and on the contrary, it is light and warm when the rays of the sun directly fall on the ground. The same thing, brothers, happens with the soul of a Christian. When the source of spiritual light and life-giving warmth, Jesus Christ and the Life-giving Spirit, move away from it, then there is spiritual darkness and coldness in it; and when they approach her and act on her with their grace, then suddenly light and warmth settle in her and she tastes wonderful peace and heavenly joy. There is also a third purpose of the luminaries: so that they are signs or signs of different states and changes in the air, as well as the position of travelers on earth. Thus, sailors usually notice stormy weather or silence by the known color of the rising or setting sun; and by the stars they often reveal their position in the sea, and even on a dry path, people walking in a deep, dense forest recognize by the sun and stars which side they are in and where they need to go out. But, beyond our expectations, our conversation lasted too long and it’s time to put an end to it. So, having given glory to God, wondrous in His works, let us put an end to our conversation here. Amen. Is it by your cunning that the hawk spreads the krill motionless in vain to the south? Is it by your command that the eagle rises? Job 39:26,27. In the first four days from the beginning of the world, according to God’s word, the sky with luminaries and the earth, surrounded by air, with dry land and various plants on it, also with receptacles of water, appeared. But there was no living creature in the air, on land, or in water. Already on the fifth day, God populates the waters with fish and various water reptiles, and the air with birds. This is how the Holy Genesis writer Moses tells about the creation on the fifth day. “And God said: let the waters take away the souls of the living creatures and the birds that fly on the earth in the firmament of heaven: and so it was. And God created the great whales, and every living creature that moves along the waters, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind: and God saw that it was good. And I bless God, saying: grow and multiply, and fill the waters that are in the seas and let the birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day.” From the same water God created fish and birds by His mighty word. “The nature of water is one,” says St. Cyril of Jerusalem, “but from it fish and birds are born, and just as they swim in the waters, so do they fly in the air” 143. Yes, brothers, the Creator makes anything from the same substance. So, for example, “the same water from which fish and birds are born, in the vines,” says the same St. Cyril, “becomes wine that gladdens the heart of a person: in olives - oil that anoints a person’s face, also turns into bread, strengthening the heart of a person, and into all kinds of fruits” 144. Thus, everything in the world is interconnected in the most intimate way, although at first glance this may not seem so. However, this is not so surprising: fish and birds - both of them - are at least living, moving creatures; water, oil and wine, no matter how different they are, are the same liquid. But here’s what’s surprising: between plants and animals, which seem to have the least in common with each other, there is the closest relationship, namely: between plants there are animal-plants, that is, animals that are similar in structure to plants; are propagated in the same way as plants, by grafting and planting offspring, and produce children just as a tree produces its branches 145 . Another may doubt that this is an animal; but the feeling and voluntary movement of such a strange creature will assure him that it is definitely an animal. Doesn't this close affinity of all earthly creatures teach us, rational creatures, anything? Teaches close, friendly unity with each other. We see that everything in the world is connected by inextricable bonds: plants with animals, both of them with each other: will we humiliate ourselves before irrational nature, be separated from each other through pride, hatred and other passions? Let us show that we are rational, God-like beings; Let us unite with each other through pure love, which for us is a union of perfection; Let us not destroy the order of the Creator, who bound all creatures by affinity for their well-being. “And God created the great whales and every living creature that moves along the waters, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind: and God saw that it was good.” St. Moses, of the creatures living in the water, named only the whale by name, as the largest sea animal, as the king of all things in the waters. This whale, a resident worthy of the abyss of the ocean, is 15 fathoms long. And what does he eat? According to the wise institution of the Creator, he does not feed on great fish: otherwise, how much devastation would the whales make in the sea: - no, he feeds only on worms and sea insects, which enter his mouth with a long stream of water 146 . What can we say about other fish breeds? Holy Scripture says that the waters carried away the souls of creeping animals according to their kind. There are countless numbers of these genera of fish and various aquatic animals: no one has yet counted them, and it is not possible to count them due to the inaccessibility of the water depth. It is only known that there are countless species of fish and sea reptiles and that they reproduce in huge numbers. Some fish lay several hundred thousand eggs, and others several millions, from which fish are born 147; This is truly the word of the Creator: grow and multiply and fill the waters! Yes, there are infinitely many fish in the waters; and with countless fish multiplying, it is natural that they die in countless numbers. What did the Creator do, what places, what cemeteries did he set aside for so many dead fish? Dormant fish serve as food and, as it were, a reserve granary for water creatures of another kind. In the sea, for example, there is, among other things, a worm that looks like an eel, which God ordered to find and devour dead sea fish. At the bottom of the sea, millions of such worms constantly reptile, devour every rotting body and thus protect the water and air from rotting the table of many fish, and consequently from diseases that could arise from this in people and animals, and in the fish themselves 148. Thanks to such a wise order of the Creator, the sea and all waters boil with healthy and cheerful creatures. Yes, contentment with life is visible everywhere among God’s creatures. If here, in the waters, you would find something similar to war, to persecution; if you saw that some fish destroy others, devouring them: then this does not mean that there, in the depths of the waters, there is unrest, that there are many unhappy inhabitants there: no, all this tends towards order, harmony and prosperity of the watery kingdom; all this shows the amazing wisdom of the Creator. Since ancient times, God has shown people a means - to catch fish for food. The waters daily deliver the greatest abundance of food both to the huts of the poor and to the tables of the rich. Our Savior himself ate fish during his earthly life, as can be seen from the fact that St. The apostles carried fish and bread between their small travel supplies. One day, with his creative wave, He attracted such a multitude of fish into the net of the Apostle Peter, deliberately thrown into the sea, that the Apostles wondered how the nets were preserved: so obedient was the creature to the mania of the Creator! Our Lord Jesus Christ showed Himself so majestically everywhere as the Creator! Let us, brethren, be grateful to the Lord for the fact that without any merit on our part He nourishes and contents us with all sorts of good things. There is a great variety of water creatures visible with the eyes - and it cannot even be compared with the number of such creatures, which, due to their smallness, cannot be visible with a simple eye: with a magnifying glass you can see such a multitude of living creatures in one drop of water that the viewer can forget himself and think, is not a special world of creatures located before his eyes? Who, seeing all this multitude of large and insignificant creatures, does not ascend in thought to the infinite Mind, to the infinite Wisdom, which alone called from insignificance to life an infinite number of the most diverse creatures and gave everyone the wisest structure, life and the sweetest feeling of being? “How great are Thy works, O Lord, that with wisdom Thou hast created all things: the earth is filled with Thy creation” 149! And (God create) every bird according to its kind. Together with fish, God created all breeds of domestic birds, birds of prey, songbirds and others. There are so many of these feathered creatures! Quite a few of them are still recognized and described, but new, unknown ones are still being discovered. Who will describe their beauty, their morals, customs, the abilities they received from the common Creator of all? Some of them also bring material benefits to humans, such as: poultry; some sing in his home, while others amuse him with sounds that imitate the sounds of human language. But an incomparably large part of them lives in freedom in the vast world of God, joyfully soaring in height, knowing only one Lord above them - God, not submitting to the vanity and pride of man. Yes, man, with all your greatness, with all your pride, you must admit with humility that many unreasonable creatures are completely independent of you in any respect, that over them there is one Master - God: He gave them different abilities, put in them different rights and customs; He gave birth to them; He feeds and raises them. In fact, was it your cunning, for example, that the hawk spread the krill motionless in vain to the south? Does the eagle 150 ascend at your command? “Yes,” you will say, “this is not the work of my art: these are not my subjects,” that you and they have the same Creator. Birds, in order to obtain food for themselves and for their protection, are gifted with the most acute vision and therefore, as a rule, easily find food for themselves and discover danger. Our Lord Jesus Christ, pointing out to people the care of the Heavenly Father in delivering food to every bird, teaches us not to worry too much about food. “Behold the birds of the air,” He says, “for they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, but your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you the better ones to eat them 151?” Just as among the sea reptiles there are those who destroy dead and rotting bodies in the sea, so among the birds there are those who destroy dead bodies on earth, such as eagles, kites, crows and other birds of prey. The Savior himself mentioned in the Gospel - in a parable - about this property of predatory eagles: “where the body is,” he says, “there the eagles will gather” 152. Such wise foresight everywhere, such wise circulation of life! In the world, nothing is wasted: everything lives or serves as a reserve for life. Fish and birds, as we have seen, are created from the same water, and just as these are born from testicles, so these are born from a watery egg. But there are even greater similarities between them. No matter how fast the flight of birds is, the swimming of many fish is not inferior to it in speed. Moreover, both of them float in liquids, although they are not of the same density. The wings of birds are the same as the swimming feathers of fish; and instead of feathers, which birds are equipped with, like warm clothing, fish use scales. There are aquatic birds, and there are also fish that are partly aerial or flying. The swimming feathers of fish can bend and unbend, just like the wings of birds; swimming and flying occur in exactly the same way, only in two different liquids: we can say that a fish flies in water, just as a bird swims in the air, which for it is the same as a large ocean, just as the sea for a fish is a kind of air. Birds that live in hot places have very beautiful feathers and fish in the seas - in the same places, they are decorated with brilliant flowers, namely: they are covered with gold, silver, azure, ruby ​​and emerald scales, and when the rays of the sun shine, they sparkle in the waters like precious stones. There are fish that move in huge herds from one sea to another; there are also birds that fly from one side to the other. From such a striking similarity between heterogeneous creatures, we conclude, brothers, that there is one supreme Being who created everything, but not two or more, as some have vainly said. From the diverse beauty noticeable in creatures, which, despite all the diversity, is something united and common to all of them, we conclude that there is one highest Beauty, from which all beauty in the world comes. The whole world is one beauty: because one Supreme Sage created it. People will also be one beautiful flock, when God will be in everyone in the next century. Having created fish and birds according to their kind, the Lord God Himself testified that they were good, and then blessed them to grow and multiply: “And I bless God, saying: grow and multiply and fill the waters of the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” It is remarkable that the Lord God blessed these living creatures for the first time, as he later blessed the first people. Here one can see the fatherly care and love of the Lord God for His living creatures. Having blessed them, he said to them: “Grow and multiply and fill the waters of the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” This means that the Creator at the beginning created only the beginnings of fish and birds - their generations - and left their reproduction to them themselves, under His protection, just like the reproduction of the human race. And to this day, all genera of fish and birds, having multiplied to infinity, retain exactly the appearance, customs and customs of their genera, without in the least mixing with others. Every fish and bird and every reptile, as they were several thousand years ago, remain so today, with the properties that they received from the Creator in the beginning. Ancient and new descriptions of fish and birds are the same. So, brothers, everything divine is durable and permanent! So firm and unchangeable are the laws of the Creator! But just as the laws of the Creator given to creation are unchangeable, so the Lord’s definition of the Holy Church is unchangeable, that even the gates of hell, or all the power of hell, will not overcome it, and it will stand firmly until the end of time. “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it,” 153 said the Savior. These are the words of the same Creator, who, as it were, said about the world in the beginning: “I will create My world, I will give laws to it, and no power will ever shake it.” Let the mortal race rejoice, because it will always be possible for us to find salvation in the Holy Church until the end of the world, and let it glorify the Creator of every creature. Amen. My essence is the beast of the oak forest, the cattle in the mountains and the ox. Ps.49:10. Have you noticed, brethren, with what gradualness the Lord God created this world visible to us? Let us repeat in a few words what was said before about creation. First, He created the liquid, watery and unformed substance of the world out of nothing, and then from this substance He produced and built in six days the whole world with all the creatures in it. On the first day he produced light: “for to the great Light (i.e., God), says St. Gregory the Theologian, - it was fitting to begin the universe with the creation of light, with which He destroys the darkness and the disorder and disorder that existed until then; in the second - the firmament with all the multitude of huge balls, then still dark, separated from each other by an immeasurable distance - the air space surrounding the earth; on the third, he separated the water that covered the entire earth from the earth, commanding it to go into deliberately formed containers or depressions in the ground, and on the same day he commanded the earth to grow all kinds of fruitful and fruitless trees, all earthly fruits, all grains and flowers; in the fourth, he gave light and warmth to the sun to illuminate and warm the earth with its creatures, and also light to the stars; in the fifth, he commanded the water to produce fish and birds. All this was said in the previous four conversations. Now we will talk about the sixth and last day of creation, in which the animals of the earth and man, the crown of creation, were created, and precisely this time we will talk about the creation of the animals of the earth, about their division into domestic and wild, and about the benefits brought by both. “And God said,” says St. Moses, “let the earth bring forth every living creature according to its kind, four-footed creatures, and the creeping things and beasts of the earth according to its kind: and so it was. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kind, and the cattle according to their kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth according to their kind: and God saw that it was good.” “And God spoke.” We have already seen, brethren, several times, in previous conversations, how omnipotent the word of God is: He spoke, and it became; commanded, and the creature appeared. “That speech,” says the Holy Psalmist, “and it happened; He commanded it, and 154 was created. Now we will see once again the power of the word of the Lord. “And God said: Let the earth destroy the living soul.” These words do not mean, brethren, that the earth itself had living souls, which God ordered it to produce or give birth to, but that God gave the earth the power to produce living creatures from itself, that is, animals were created by the omnipotent word of God, as, for example. From the staff of Moses God created a serpent, or as He, in the words of St. John the Baptist, stones you can raise up for the children of Abraham. And so every living creature comes from God or from God’s word with its entire being, and equally lives by the word of God, which supports all kinds of creatures in existence: food, drink, breathing and movement are already secondary reasons for the life of earthly creatures. Without God, without God's word, without God's will there is and cannot be any life, not only on earth, but also in heaven. His word brought forth all life, and by His word all life is supported: He alone bears all things by the word of His power, 155 that is, by His mighty word. “Let the earth destroy the living soul.” This means that the soul of animals comes from the earth and is something earthly, albeit very subtle: and therefore, after the death of the animal, it returns to the earth again. Only the human soul is immortal: because only in man - of all earthly creatures - is there reason, freedom and the desire for God, for the immortal. This means that we should take care of her most of all and enrich her with good, saving deeds; about the body, as about the garment of the soul, built for us by the Lord God from the earth and necessary for us in its present form only until then, while we are on earth, we should not take too much care: because, just as decayed clothing, burnt out from use and over time disintegrates and turns to dust, so our body - also perishable clothing, will necessarily disintegrate and turn to dust; and from rank, from beauty, from bodily strength, only land will remain. “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind, the four-footed creature, the creeping thing and the beast of the earth according to its kind: and so it shall be.” Four-legged animals of St. The writer of everyday life Moses called here, one might think, domestic or tame animals, and beasts - wild, forest animals. But has there always been a division of animals into domestic or tame, and wild or beasts; weren't they all tame at first, although most of them were created to be forest dwellers? Man is the king of the earth; he was appointed the owner of all the creatures of the earth: and all things possessed must be submissive and submissive to the owner. As if in the beginning all animals were submissive to man and all were tame; and since man sinned and disobeyed God, the animals also left their obedience to man and ceased to be tame; Moreover, they became terrible for him. “As sin entered (into people),” says St. Chrysostom, “then honor (dominion over animals) was taken away from them; and just as among good servants, they are terrible for their comrades, and bad ones are afraid of their co-servants: so it happened with a person. As long as he had boldness towards God, so long was he afraid of the beasts; and when he sinned, he began to fear the last of his fellow servants, that is, the beasts 156.” “But,” the saint continues, “God did not completely take away from man for his sin the honor of dominion over animals, nor did he deprive him of all power over them; no: he left not under the power of man only those animals that do not serve him so much in everyday use; and those animals that are necessary, useful and provide us with many benefits in life - God left these animals under our control. He left the horses so that they would drag the plow, cut the ground, so that they would help us in our labors when transporting heavy loads; shared with us, when necessary, the labors and dangers of war; also - out of necessity or for our pleasure, they transported us from place to place; left herds of cattle and sheep to please our table, so that we would have enough stock to prepare clothes. He also left behind other breeds of animals that provide us with considerable benefit in life. He condemned us for our sin to constant sweat and labor, but also commanded some dumb people to participate with us in labor, in order to obtain food and other needs for us, and sometimes he gives it to us without difficulty, allowing us to eat the meat of animals. How much we should be grateful to the Creator for this! We are accustomed to everything in the world and think little: to whom, to what Benefactor do we owe these gifts. The horse bears our burdens all its life; Our tables are often laden with dishes made from animal flesh; The whole human body from head to toe is dressed in clothing made of leather or animal hair: but are there many words, or even secret feelings of gratitude among those who use all this? Very little. But even wild animals, despite the fact that they do not obey man, are useful to him: firstly, because they tangibly give him confidence in the power of the Lord and do not allow him to forget himself in pride and conceit. Just as thunder and lightning make us shudder and involuntarily recognize our insignificance before the almighty Creator, who speaks menacingly and majestically to us with the voice of visible nature: in the same way, wild animals, especially terrible in their ferocity, make us tremble and make us think about their Creator, who made them terrible for us, about the lost greatness of man and about his real insignificance. In fact, who would dream highly of himself at the sight of a fierce beast, living in the forests with complete independence, sparkling with fiery eyes and at a moment ready to destroy the majestic king of the earth? Both by his position and his appearance, he seems to say to a person: I do not belong to you, but to the terrible God; He gave me life; He feeds me, not you; You will not force me to serve you, like a horse or an ox. In fact, would you, for example, want a unicorn to work, or to sleep in your manger? tie him with a strap and pull his yoke over the reins 157? No: many wild beasts do not live for you at all, man, so that you know that you now have very little, that with your sins you are limited to the extreme, that only righteousness can return you power over the beasts, like the Holy Prophet Daniel over the lions, like many Saints over the same lions and other wild beasts. In addition, wild animals are also useful in that they provide people with clothing with their skins, and sometimes food - with their flesh, and also - this is already in the general order of nature - by devouring the corpses of other forest animals, which otherwise would contaminate the air with their rotting; prevent the excessive reproduction of some weaker, but harmful animals to humans, by eating them. As for poisonous reptiles, snakes, scorpions and the like: they are also useful to man in that they also remind him of his fall, guilt and death and make him tremble before Almighty God. But why should we absolutely demand benefits from every kind of animal and reptile? God created them not for our benefit only, but also in order to show His wisdom and goodness in them. In fact, what wisdom of God is visible in the structure, form, morals and customs of different breeds of animals? For an attentive and thinking person, animals serve as living preachers of the wisdom of God. But look at the life of each animal - at their morals, customs, at their weapons of defense - and you will see how happy they all are with their lives, glorify the goodness of God and say: “The Lord is good to everyone and His bounty is in all His deeds” 158. If you absolutely want benefit from them, then you will find it in almost every animal: the most apparently insignificant creature brings us benefit. “From an ant,” says St. Chrysostom, “you can learn hard work; the bee has a love for cleanliness, for work and for others: she works every day and works not so much for herself as for us. And it is common for a Christian to seek benefit not for himself, but for others. As a bee flies around all the meadows to prepare food for another: so do you, man: if you have accumulated money, use part of it, as you please, on the poor; If you have anything other than an excess, be of use to those in need with your excess. And don’t we see that the bee is respected more than other animals not because it works, but especially because it works for others? After all, the spider works and fusses and stretches thin fabrics along the walls, above any female art, but he is not respected because his work is completely useless for us: such are those who work and fuss only for themselves 159.” In general, one can learn quite a lot from the dumb; one in them can be imitated, and the other can be removed. For example: an ox and a donkey love their master, just as the Prophet says: “The ox and the donkey know their master’s manger” 160; We will not be worse than these dumb ones - we will not turn away from our Lord, the Creator. “A dog,” we will further say with St. Chrysostom, “although it is faithful, it is shameless: let both qualities be a lesson for us: let us learn loyalty to ourselves, and let us eliminate shamelessness. The fox is cunning and treacherous: let us not imitate this vice. But, like a bee, flying through the meadows, does not take everything with it, but choosing what is useful, leaves the rest, so we will do the same: having examined the dumb breed, we will take for ourselves what is useful in them, and what good qualities they have from nature, we will improve them in ourselves with free will. This is why we are honored by God, that He has given us the opportunity - natural among the dumb - to do good according to our free will, in order to receive a reward for it. And so, having taken from the dumb all the best, we will use it: man is the king of the dumb, and kings have in abundance whatever the best of their subjects has: whether gold, silver, precious stones, or magnificent clothes” 161. “And God sees that it is good.” After the creation of each day, the Lord God Himself testifies that His creation is completely in accordance with His goals and intentions, that everything is perfect and beautiful. And no mortal with a sound mind can say that there is anything not good or in order in the creation of the all-wise Creator; on the contrary, everyone will say that everything is harmonious and beautiful beyond words and reason. But it’s time to put an end to both this conversation and conversations about the creation of the world. In the next conversation, let’s conclude by talking about the crown of all creation – man. We only touched lightly on God’s creation and did not say or explain very much that needed to be said and explained; but still they said at least something; and this something can be of great benefit to those who are attentive and thoughtful. Let us not forget most of all - one thing, that the visible world will end precisely because it is elemental, complex; only the invisible world, as simple, uncomplicated, is eternal and will never end. Therefore, we must primarily think about the invisible, look, according to the word of the Apostle, not to the visible, but to the invisible, and strive for the invisible: the visible is temporary, but the invisible is eternal 162 . Amen. From the beginning of creation, I created husband and wife, I am God. Mark 10:6. Brethren! Do you remember that God created what creatures first? Since some probably do not remember, I will remind you that first of all the Creator brought into being spiritual creatures akin to himself by nature, invisible to our eyes, not subject to our senses, Angels, or the world of Angels, and then - visible, material creation, i.e. all the bright spheres of heaven, our earth with the waters, air and all the creatures living on it. Such diversity, such a multitude of the Lord's creatures! “Since the first creatures were pleasing to God,” says St. Gregory the Theologian, “He invents another world - a material one; and this is the harmonious composition of heaven, earth and what is between them - amazing for the beautiful qualities of each thing and even more worthy of surprise for the harmony and harmony of the whole, in which one thing to another and everything to everything is in excellent proportion, serving to the completeness of a single world. And by this God showed that he is able to create not only a natural nature, but also a nature completely alien to himself. Akin to the Divine are natures that are intelligent and comprehended by one mind (i.e. Angels), are completely alien to creatures that are subject to feelings (birds, fish, reptiles, animals), and of these latter, even further removed from the Divine nature are creatures that are completely inanimate and motionless” (plants, stones, earth, water, air, fire) 163. And so there was a time when the Son of God created a world that did not exist before. He said: and everything that pleased Him was accomplished in six days. “But when all this - earth, sky and sea - made up the world,” says St. Gregory the Theologian, “a spectator of wisdom, the mother of all, and a reverent king of the earth became needed, that is, a person became needed. Then the Son of God said: the vast sky is already inhabited by pure and ever-living servants, immaculate minds, good Angels and hymns, incessantly singing My glory. But the earth is decorated only by irrational animals. Therefore, it pleases me to create such a kind of creatures, which would contain both - a kind of creatures, intermediate between mortals and immortals, a rational person who would rejoice in My deeds, would be a wise secret of heaven, a great ruler of the earth, a new Angel from dust, a hymn of My power and My mind. So the Son of God spoke, and - creates a living being, in which both are brought into unity, that is, the invisible and visible nature, creates, I say, man; and from the already created substance, taking a body, and putting life from Himself (which in the word of God is known under the name of the soul and image of God), he creates, as it were, some kind of second world, - in a small way; places on earth another Angel, a worshiper composed of different natures, a spectator of the visible creation, the secret of the intuited creation, a king over what is on earth, subordinate to the heavenly kingdom - earthly and heavenly, temporary and immortal, visible and intuited.” Hitherto St. Gregory the Theologian 164. But let us listen to the Divinely inspired Moses himself about this. When the earth was already adorned with all kinds of unreasonable creatures, then, says Moses, God spoke: “Let us make man in our image and likeness: and let him have the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, the beasts and livestock, and all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And God created man in the image of God, created him: husband and wife created him. And God bless them, saying: grow and multiply and fill the earth and rule over it and have possession of the fish of the sea and the beasts and the birds of the air and all the livestock and all the earth and every creeping thing that moves on the earth” 165. So man was created in the image and likeness of God - created in order to own earthly creatures, to be a spectator of the works of God, to sing praises to God, to repay him the debt of love and gratitude for bringing him and all earthly creatures from non-existence into being and in all this to find bliss for himself here - and at the end of earthly life to enter into the inheritance of the future life, into communion with God. “And God said: Let us create man in our image and likeness.” To whom is this, brethren, the Lord God speaks before the creation of man; with whom does he consult; Who are these Persons equal to the Creator, in whose image He wants to create man? These are the two Persons of the Holy Trinity: the Son of God and the Holy Spirit. It is God the Father who speaks to Them 166. So, brothers, man was created in the image of the Most Holy Trinity. That is why the Holy Fathers find in man, as it were, some imprint of the trinity of Divine Persons: mind, word and breath 167. And it’s not for nothing, brothers, that we love the triple number so much that we do many things in life up to three times. The number three is held in special reverence and use by all peoples, even non-Christian ones. By this they honor, without knowing it, the Holy Trinity; Through this, the human soul secretly recognizes God in the Trinity as its Creator. “And may he have power over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and the wild animals, and the livestock, and all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” This, by the way, brethren, is the image of God in man: just as God reigns over all creation - over heaven and earth and over all living creatures that inhabit heaven and earth: so man is appointed by God as the king of the earth or, as it were, as the vicegerent of the King of heaven. This is the first feature of the image of God, although it is now greatly distorted in us. In the previous conversation, we saw that man lost a lot of power over animals after sinning, that many animals and reptiles are now even terrible for him. With all this, however, there is still some remnant of power that man has over animals; at least now, as the Holy Apostle James says, “all the nature of beasts and birds, creeping things and fish is tamed and will be tamed by human nature” 168 . And this is done by the power of the human mind and will, which also constitute the features of the image of God in man; because the Lord God also has a mind, only infinite, and a will, only all-holy and all-perfect - so that the human mind and human will are, as it were, a shade of the Divine mind, the Divine will. However, in the current state of man, his mind and will are corrupted, darkened by sin and passions, which is why the enlightenment of the mind and the formation of the will, directing it towards good, is usually called education, that is, the restoration of the image of God in man, although educators and teachers rarely succeed in completely directing the will towards good if it is completely corrupted at its very beginning, or in very early youth. Further: man, for example, loves the truth: and God also loves the truth 169 and commands earthly judges to judge a just court 170; your heart is inclined to rational, conscious love: God is Love itself 171: He loves all his creatures, and our love, for example, for parents, for friends, and parents for us, is only a small resemblance to the love that the Lord God has for us. Earthly parents often forget their children, but God will never forget us, his children by grace: “even if the woman forgets these,” He says, “but I will not forget you, behold, your walls have been written in My hands, and you are always before Me” 172. Your thought flies immeasurable distances in an instant: this is also the image of the Divine, which is omnipresent. In general, what is good and morally good in you is similar to what is in God. That is why the Lord God demands from man that he be completely like Him, like an image of the Original. For example, Christ the Savior says: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect” 173 . That is why no person, even a savage, can be without God; That is why man strives for God. Let us, brethren, strive worldwide to preserve the image of God in ourselves: in it to hide the guarantee of our bliss on earth and in heaven. What is the likeness of God? The likeness of God or likeness to the Lord God consists in having a pure, bright, God-enlightened mind, such as the Prophets, Apostles and all the saints had; the will that chooses truth and goodness; the heart is pure, sincere, kind, simple. That is why the Holy Fathers, who tried and are trying more than anyone else to acquire such a mind, such a will and such a heart, were and are called reverend fathers, that is, fathers reverend to God. And blessed, brethren, are reverend people, no matter who they are: monastics or those living in the world: they will see God face to face: we will be like Him (i.e., God), says St. Evangelist John, “for we will see Him as He is” 174; “Blessed are those who are pure in heart, for they will see God,” 175 says the Savior Himself. And since it is our common duty to become like the Lord, let us all take care, brethren, each according to our strength, to succeed in becoming like the Lord. “And God created man, in the image of God created him: husband and wife created he them.” As the Lord advised in His tripartite council to create man, so He created him, that is, in the image of God, and he created not only a husband, but also a wife, because this is the general law of birth and reproduction of earthly creatures - through the male and female sexes; and man, although in soul he belongs to heaven, but in body he belongs to earth, and therefore he had to, in many other ways as well as in this, submit to the general earthly law. Husband and wife, it is said, create them. He created the man like this: he took dust from the earth and breathed into the face of the human composition the breath of life, that is, as St. Gregory the Theologian says, he gave him His Divine life, or sent into him the spirit, which is a stream of the invisible Divinity 176. “And I become a man living in my soul.” From the earth and from the breath of the Divine, man became, by God's omnipotence. And the Lord created the first wife like this: he cast a frenzy on Adam, and succeeded, that is, he fell asleep, and took one from his ribs and filled it with flesh instead of him, that is, he filled the place of the taken rib, which remained empty, with the same flesh of Adam. “And the Lord God made a rib, taking it from Adam, for a wife, and brought it to Adam.” From a rib taken from Adam during sleep, God created the first wife - so that the human race would be all, as it were, one body, and so that people could more easily take care of and love each other. Having created a wife, God brought her to the awakened Adam. Adam knew that she was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh; He called her wife because she was taken from her husband and predicted that at all times husband and wife would be one flesh, so that a man would leave his father and mother for his wife, out of affection for her, no matter how strong and natural the love of children for their parents. This is how the first people were created. Now let’s pay attention to our body and soul and see what they inspire us with their origin, their structure; what should we do, how should we deal with them. The human body is created from earth. Here, brethren, is the truth that pacifies our pride: our body is from the land that we trample underfoot. In fact, from what does the body of a nascent baby in the womb nourish, develop and grow? From the blood and juices of mothers. Where did the blood and juices come from? From the food taken by the mother, and the food comes from the earth. And so you see, brothers, that our body is formed from the earth. If people remembered this more often, how much would they reduce their pride, how many whims, invented for the decoration and pleasure of the body, would they abandon! Then, naturally, many would reason like this: I am earth and ashes 177: why should I care for my body so much, worry too much about it, for its nutrition, clothing, when it will again turn into earth, when it will pay for all the work and care about it with one ugly decay and destruction? In general, an attentive person, when considering the nature of his body, its structure, its purpose, its needs, easily comes to a humble opinion of himself. Our body is only a temporary, earthly house of our soul, created by the action of Divine omnipotence. Most people do not know this own home, its structure, the location of its parts, although a person lives in it on earth for several decades: our body feeds, grows, lives, but we don’t know how this all happens; we would not know when we need to eat and drink if hunger and thirst did not make us aware of this; we would not know how to strengthen our exhausted strength if nature itself had not shown us the means for this in a dream. In body, man is a very limited, weak creature, and all of him is not his own, but God’s. But despite the fact that our flesh is weak and created from the earth, and the infinite wisdom of the Creator is manifested in it, we should not completely neglect our body: it is a beautiful, living instrument of our soul and the heir to the Kingdom of Heaven: together with our soul, our body will one day participate in eternal bliss. “If you want to know what is the wisdom of the One who created us,” says St. John Chrysostom, “think about what is made from clay: what else is there besides brick or tile? And yet the great artist God, from this substance - from which only bricks and tiles are made - could create an eye so beautiful that all who look at it are amazed and give it such power that it extends its gaze to such a great height of the air, and with the help of a small pupil embraces such great bodies: mountains, and forests, and hills, and seas, and the sky. And what about the pupil and the power of vision? If you consider only the eyelashes of the eye - this, apparently, is the most insignificant of all members - and in them you will see the great wisdom of the Creator of God. Just as the awns on ears of corn, protruding forward like spears, drive away birds and do not allow them to land on the fruit and break the still very weak stem: so in front of the eyes - the hairs of the eyelashes protrude like awns and spears, reflect dust, litter and everything that disturbs the outside from the eyes, and protect the eyelids from damage. You will see no less wisdom in the eyebrows. Who would not be amazed at their plight? They do not stick out too much in front, so as not to obscure the eyes, and are not recessed into what is more appropriate; but jutting out from above like a roofing canopy on a house, I take on the sweat flowing from my head and do not allow it to harm my eyes.” Hitherto St. Chrysostom 178. And we will add to this from ourselves that the sense of sight is protected in the most careful way for us because it is the noblest and most active sense: through sight we most of all know the glory of God: “For I will see,” says the Psalmist, “the heavens, the works of your hands, the moon and the stars, even you founded them all: what is man, for you remember him” 179? Hearing takes second place after it. And through it we learn the glory of God, as well as who we are, why we were born and live, what will happen to us after death, etc. This happens especially when in church we listen with attention to the reading and singing or preaching of the word of God. Through hearing we receive a lot of other different information. Speaking about sight and hearing, it is natural, brethren, to come to the conclusion that He who created hearing and sight certainly sees and hears everything Himself. In fact, “does not the planting ear hear, or the creating eye not see” 180? ABOUT! He certainly hears and sees everything, even what we think and feel or will only think and feel in the future. Let us be careful in our thoughts, words and deeds. Much more could be said about the wise structure of other parts of the body: the brain and its coverings, the structure of the heart, etc., but it’s time to say a few words about the soul. What can we say about her? If God showed so much wisdom in the body, then, of course, incomparably more in the soul, which was created in the image of God. Let's pay attention to the human mind. What did he not do in the world with his mind? He penetrated partly into the stellar world; he noticed and partly applied the laws of nature to his advantage: he invented thousands of different arts; created various sciences; In general, with his mind he does many great things. But, unfortunately, the strength and work of the mind of carnal people tends more towards increasing the comforts and pleasures of temporary life, and not towards facilitating man’s ascent to heavenly, eternal life: the carnal, sinful will has inclined the whole mind to the earth, while a Christian must philosophize most of all about heavenly things. A person, for example, flies in a hot air balloon and soars on it with his body higher than anything on earth; or walks on the water with a steam ship and with the enormous power of steam digs through the wet element; or the same force of steam makes incredible, living and bulky weights roll along the railway; also - in a few moments or minutes he conveys his desires or thoughts to people remote over long distances, or has finally found the opportunity to extract from the earth, with small means, the largest possible amount of fruit. All these discoveries do honor to the human mind, and almost all are very useful. But it would be incomparably more honor for man if, with all these inventions, he groveled less on the earth - in evil; if, with the enlightenment of the mind, he remained less in the darkness of destructive self-thinking and passions, which are more rampant now than ever before, and soared to heaven, his true fatherland, contriving the means of salvation. You fly, man, in a hot air balloon, but only for the short-term pleasure of the spectators, and not for their significant benefit. The pillars who rose on the pillars for feats of virtue, or the true monks who labored and labored on the mountains and anywhere else, were far more honorable than you: rising from the ground in body, they rose in spirit - as much for their spiritual benefit as for the benefit of humanity, which sometimes flocked from everywhere for instruction to the saints of God; and you either do not rise in spirit at all, or you rise only in body, and only when you fly. In the liquid element you make a quick path for yourself, or on land - on a machine driven by steam - you fly like an arrow: honor to you, or better yet - glory to the Lord, who enlightens human minds - to make many useful discoveries in nature, rich in secrets, and through them to make our difficult life more convenient. But, man, where is your speed of ascent to heaven, to your true fatherland? You are fast on the earthly path; but how slow and often motionless in the heavenly! No matter how fast your earthly path is, you will not be carried along it further than earthly abodes, further than the earth; and you have a very necessary path to the heavenly abodes and to endless life! You have found a means, through a long wire and a lightning-like current of known strength in nature, despite the great spaces of the earth, to transmit your thoughts to others in a few minutes; and it does you credit. But how high would your honor be if you, with similar or incomparably greater speed, more often raised your mind and heart to God and did not become strongly attached to the earth; if you soared more often with your mind in the eternity that awaits you; if you, with the speed characteristic of the mind, were transported in spirit - then to eternal torment, then - to unimaginable bliss that has no end! And you rarely remember this. You make every effort to nourish your body, to decorate it with clothes, and always do more for it in this regard than you should; Why is it that you care too little or even not at all about feeding the soul with the incorruptible food of the Word of God, the Life-giving Mysteries and prayer, and decorating the soul with the clothing of good deeds? In all this, only the earthly mind is visible; and a Christian most of all must philosophize on things above. Let us remember more often, brethren, that we, by our nature, as St. Gregory the Theologian says, are earthly and heavenly, temporary and immortal; that here on earth we are only preparing ourselves and after death we will be transferred to another world. Therefore, we will not prefer the perishable, temporary, to the imperishable, eternal. Amen. Conversation fourteen - On the blissful state and the fall of the first people You were in the sweetness of God's paradise. In a previous conversation, we said, among other things, brothers, that the first people were created in the image and likeness of the Lord God. And since the Lord God possesses the highest, infinite bliss - because He possesses to infinity everything that is needed for bliss - then the first people themselves, created in the image and likeness of the all-satisfied and all-blessed God, were at first just as satisfied with everything and blissful, or completely happy. Yes, they had something to be satisfied and happy. Their mind was bright and easily knew everything around them: the Lord God Himself was the light of their mind, and the very first, most life-giving knowledge for them was the knowledge of the Lord God. Their heart was full of love for God and for each other and blessed with this love; objects of worldly vanity, for example: wealth, fame, unnecessary worldly conveniences, whims, amusements, which in no way satisfy the immortal human spirit and greatly occupy the people of today's world, then did not have the slightest place in their pure hearts; peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, unchanging, constant, dwelt in the hearts of our forefathers, and with peace and joy - the Lord God Himself. Their will was holy; she sought to cleave to the Lord God: she wanted to do only what was pleasing to him. Like innocent children, the first people lived by God, were comforted by God, breathed by God: both the beginning and the end of their thoughts and desires and deeds was the Lord God. In addition, the reason for their bliss was the most beautiful world, only created by the omnipotent word of God. And in this world - a work of the wisdom and goodness of God - what was missing for spiritual and physical pleasures? For the first people, the Lord God Himself deliberately prepared a most beautiful paradise, or garden, which was worthy of the ruler of the earth, and, among many beautiful and fruitful trees, planted a tree of life in paradise, the fruits of which had the amazing property of preventing illness and death so that a person would always be healthy and strong from eating these fruits and would never die in body. Finally, the whole earth was given over to the power of the first people with all the creatures on it. From only one tree out of all the trees in paradise, the Lord, under threat of death, forbade people to eat fruits, and he did this only to test their will, gifted with freedom, their devotion and obedience to God. This tree was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: Bring food from every tree that is in paradise; But from the tree, even if you know what is good and what is evil, you will not cut it down; but if you cut it down one day, you will surely die” (Gen. 2:16,17). It seems that the first people should have considered themselves happy that for all the gifts of God, offered to them with such love and generosity, they could offer to their Creator and Benefactor at least one obedience, which is better than sacrifice 181, and thereby earn new and greater mercies of God. But neither gratitude to the Creator nor the fear of death kept the first people in obedience to the Chief of their lives: they showed distrust of God, faithful and true in His words, and turned out to be very trusting of the creature that had fallen away from God through pride and disobedience, that is, the devil, the father of lies. The devil, being cast out of heaven for opposing God, together with the lower spirits outraged by him (see demon.7), looked with envy at the bliss of the first people, who were less than less than the Angels. Knowing that people were created free by the Lord, that it was possible for them to incline toward evil, just as it was possible for fallen spirits to turn from good to evil, that for this it would be better to skillfully entangle and darken their minds and consciences, and captivate their hearts with a false idea of ​​an incomparably higher bliss than what they were in, he decided to destroy them. And so an evil and crafty spirit made a mortal net for our first parents, prepared so skillfully that they, through inattention, did not notice it until they got stuck in it. This is what the course of temptation was and how the fall itself took place. The devil entered the serpent, a cunning animal, and with his tongue he began his speech in paradise with Eve, who did not personally hear from the Lord the prohibition to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but heard only from her husband. And the serpent spoke to the woman, says the Holy writer Moses: “What did God say: Do not eat from every tree of paradise?” Notice, brethren: with his first words, the Devil tries to instill in Eve distrust of God, as if he were not true in his words, and to gain trust in himself; represents God as an ill-wisher, and himself as some kind of well-wisher, ready to serve. Brethren! Always be on guard of your thoughts and your heart: The devil even now begins to tempt every person who tries to live piously, pleasing to God, and especially at a time when a person is engaged in a pious deed 182, boldly slanderes people about God and tries in every possible way to steal faith in Him from their hearts 183. Even our Lord Jesus Christ, after baptism, was led by spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, according to his humanity; here is proof that the devil's temptation falls on all people who are zealous for the fulfillment of God's commandments (Matthew 3:15). Beware the primordial murderer; Call more often for help on the Lord Jesus Christ, who defeated the Devil and gave us strong weapons against him: His Name, terrible for demons, and the life-giving cross. “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can stand against the wiles of the devil” 184. How can one recognize the intrigues of a murderer over a person? “By its fruit you will know it.” He, like a thief, comes to a person only to steal, kill and destroy 185, i.e. you will recognize the presence of the tempter with you by the loss of your spiritual treasures: spiritual peace, living, heartfelt faith in God, hope in Him and love for Him, by the spirit of blasphemy, murmuring, impatience, by the spirit of pride, envy, hatred, and other passions, by some involuntary doubt about the immutable truths of faith, destroying the soul, and so on. Let us pay attention to further words in Moses’ narrative about the fall of our first parents. To the words of the devil: “What did God say, do not eat from every tree of paradise,” in which one can see a strong desire to slander God, Eve answered: “We will eat from every tree of paradise; But from the fruit of the tree, which is in the middle of paradise, God said, “Thou shalt not eat of it; thou shalt not touch it, lest ye die.” Eve, refuting the first lie of the enemy, seems to say this: “You are telling a lie that God did not command us to eat fruit from all the trees of paradise: no, we will eat from every tree of paradise, but the Lord God only said that we should not eat or even touch the fruit of only that tree that stands in the middle of paradise, so that we do not die.” “And the serpent said to the woman: - the devil continues the insidious conversation with the wife and is still trying to instill in her distrust of God: - you will not die by death: for God knows that if you take away the day from him, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like a god, knowing good and evil.” The slanderer, the father of all lies, launches a daring slander against God Himself, slandering Him who is the Truth. The Lord clearly said: “You will die,” but the Devil says: “You will not die”; Moreover, in order to destroy the fear of death, which warned the first people against breaking the commandment, he promises them, instead of death, life and Divine omniscience: “You will not die by death,” he says, “for God knows that if you take away the day from him, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like a god, knowing good and evil.” What about Eve? She listened to the conversation of the evil tempter, who skillfully laid a net for her pride, instead of immediately turning her ears away from his false words; she stared at the forbidden fruit: “and the wife can see how the tree is good for food and how it pleases her eyes to see”; she does not think about the commandment of God, but thinks about her pleasure: she deliberately looks at what she should not look at - and thereby irritates the sense of taste; finally dreams of Divine knowledge: “it is red to understand.” So what? “Is it really only good, desirable and red forbidden wood? Blinded pride saw nothing more. Eve bowed down to the side of the tempter: and she took of the fruit thereof, and ate it: and gave it to her husband with her: and ate it.” The temptation is over: “The gold is darker; change the good silver” 186; The bright image of God in people has become darkened. Spiritual death, first of all, took possession of them and darkened the light of their minds in them, deprived them of purity of heart and with it peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, and cut off the best aspirations of their souls like wings. “And the eyes of both were opened and they understood, as if the Nazis were besha, and they sewed together fig leaves and made girdles for themselves.” The eyes of the first people were opened, but not like those of gods, but like those of sinful, mortal, unfortunate creatures, they were opened in order to see their great misfortune, their mental and physical nakedness. Previously, when Adam and Eve were pure and innocent, the holiness of God covered them as if with clothing, and better than any clothing: and they did not know any nakedness, living in divine purity. When they separated from God through sin, they fell from His Divine communion: then, naturally, they felt their nakedness, i.e. a painful feeling of being deprived of the clothing that is close to them - holiness, the source of which is God. We, brethren, do not have this clothing of purity, holiness and good deeds: we too are naked, although we do not all understand that we are naked; covering our bodies with soft, elegant and expensive clothes, many of us take pride in them and dream that they are dressed properly, but they, like all of us, are naked: our souls are naked before the eyes of the Lord, although the body is decently covered. “Naked are you” 187, says the Lord, that is, naked spiritually. Let us take care, brothers, about the clothing of good deeds. If we do not acquire them, total and eternal darkness awaits us (Matthew 22:11–13). The Lord was not slow to expose the guilty. “And at noon Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord God walking into paradise: and Adam and the wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God in the midst of the tree of paradise. And the Lord God called Adam and said to him: Adam, where are you? where are you? where did you fall? And he said to him: Adam said: I heard the voice of you walking into paradise, and you were afraid because you were naked, and you hid yourself.” The Lord, calling the guilty man to repentance, said that the reason for his nakedness was eating from the forbidden fruit. But Adam did not admit his guilt, but laid the blame on his wife and even on God: “the woman,” he says, “he gave to me, and gave to me from the tree, and the poison”; and the wife, in turn, responds to the serpent: “The serpent deceived me and was poisoned.” This is the disastrous consequence of sin: sin makes a person proud, prone to lies, and stubborn. This happened to the first people; this has always been the case; it still exists now. Both adults and children are often ashamed to admit to the sin they have committed and refer either to human weakness, or to various circumstances, or to other people; you often see nothing but pride and stubbornness in the guilty person; You often meet such sinners (and we are all sinners) in whom neither humility nor awareness of their guilt before God is noticeable. God save everyone from these satanic tares. Brethren! We are all sinners without a doubt, and if we say that we are not imams of sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us 188. In moments of temptation or after falling into sin, there is only one salvation for us: humility, recognition of our guilt before God and heartfelt contrition for our sins. A proud sinner is disgusting in the eyes of God, and he does not deserve God’s mercy; on the contrary, he is pleased with the humble and God gives him the grace of justification. The Lord resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble 189. Since God is just, and the sin committed was the work of the free will of a person who turned out to be inattentive, ungrateful and distrustful before his Creator, and, moreover, since it was very easy not to break the commandment due to its ease of fulfillment: then God determined a worthy punishment for the first parents, and through them, for all people. To Eve, who was the first to be deceived, He predicted great sorrows and sighs, illness at the birth of children and submission to her husband; The Lord pronounced a curse on the earth for Adam for his sin and predicted excessive work, sorrows and sorrows, with which their daily bread would henceforth be combined, until they themselves returned through death to the earth from which they were created. And since they were now no longer worthy to eat the fruits of the tree of life, and they would only perpetuate their unhappy life and together their evil: then the Lord expelled the first people from the paradise of sweetness to cultivate the land, and to paradise he placed the Cherubim and a flaming weapon turned to guard the path to the tree of life. And so labor and sorrow, illness and death became the lot of humanity, according to the definition of the Almighty. And this definition, as we all know, is strictly observed. However, the Lord was not completely angry with us: out of His unconditional mercy, He left the sorrowful hearts of our forefathers with hope in the Deliverer, who was to save them and the human race from sin, curse and death. This Deliverer is the Son of God. Since He had to be born of a Virgin without a husband from the Holy Spirit, that is why He was called the Seed of the woman. This time our conversation lasted beyond measure. So, let us hasten, offering you a moral lesson from what has been said, to put an end to it. The first people fell into sin through the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and pride. Hence the following rule for our life: do not at all indulge the sin-loving flesh, since it is a dangerous, domestic enemy of ours, and - crucify it with passions and lusts 190, do not look with lust at what is forbidden by the commandments of God, even if it was pleasing to see with our eyes, that is, we liked it. Let us remember the words of the Savior: “if the eye of your right hand causes you to fall, take it away and turn away from yourself: if you do, one of you will perish from your blows, and not your whole body will be cast into fiery hell” 191, i.e., decide not to look at what tempts, or: “everyone who looks at a woman will lust after her.” her, already committing adultery with her in her heart” 192. Let us love humility with all our hearts: it is the foundation of all virtue, and the Lord God looks upon it with favor, as the Most Holy Virgin teaches us: “The Lord,” says She, “looketh upon the humility of His servant,” 193 and with all our souls we hate all pride, like the fiend of the proud Satan: it destroys all virtue and makes a person infected with it, contrary to God and to people. With all our hearts, let us believe in God and His holy word, as well as in the Church, the guardian of the truth, and let us be afraid to believe, under fear of death, everything that others say against God and the Church. Amen. Conversation fifteen – About original sin Good does not live in me, that is, in my flesh. Rom.7:18. In a previous church conversation, we said, brethren, that the first people were at first innocent before the Creator and their Lord, and therefore blessed. The Lord God, the source of all life, the light of every mind, peace and joy for every pure heart, was always with them; had a home in their hearts; loved them and gave them indescribable peace and joy - and if the first people had remained forever in their innocence and in their bliss, then all people hitherto would also have been innocent and blissful. But Adam and Eve, as we have seen, did not preserve their innocence, did not fulfill the obedience imposed on them by the Creator, and, having dreamed of being greater than they were, turned out to be proud, self-loving and unfaithful and - transgressed God's commandment. And just as through disobedience, pride and distrust of God, they distanced themselves from Him, so He also withdrew from them. And what kind of life is it without God, when all life - whether in heaven or on earth - comes from God, and without God there is no life? That is why, brethren, the first people, as soon as they sinned, felt disorder, confusion, sorrow and oppression in their souls: because according to the law of God's truth, sorrow and oppression are upon every soul of a person who does evil 194; they suddenly noticed that their soul was darkened; their thoughts and desires were indignant; imagination and memory began to fade. Instead of the former joys and peace of mind, they now had to endure the most painful labors and all kinds of troubles; Finally, they were threatened with painful old age, and after it - death. But what’s most terrible is that the devil, who takes comfort in man’s suffering, has gained power over them. The very elements, i.e. air, fire, etc., after sin became hostile to them: from that time on, they began to feel the harmful effects of cold, heat, winds and bad weather. The animals became ferocious and began to look at people as their enemies, whereas before, when people were innocent, the animals feared man as their king. Everything that happened after sin with the first people had to certainly happen - as indeed it did and now happens - and with all the people who multiplied from them: because all people were in Adam, like fruit in a seed; and as the seed is, so is the fruit, or as is the tree, so is the fruit; as is the root of the tree, so are the branches. “An evil tree cannot produce good fruits” 195. Among other consequences of sin, the offspring of the fallen ancestors suffered various diseases, which became more varied and severe over time; further: people soon forgot that they were brothers and stopped loving each other; Moreover, they began to attack each other, be proud, hate, envy, deceive, torture and kill each other. This is how people became after the first sin. The sinful state of our nature, with which and in which we are born, is called original sin, and all its bad consequences for people are consequences of original sin. When, brethren, you notice in yourself a weakness of mind, feel evil in your heart, or experience heart sorrows, bodily illnesses and various misfortunes: then humble yourself before the judgment of God’s truth and blame yourself for everything or the sin that has caused all the troubles in the world and with all the strength of your soul, hate this greatest evil. The consequences of original sin are worthy of tears, especially because human flesh prevailed over the soul, which should not have been the case; the best became subordinate to the worst; the flesh began to incline the soul to all sin, and the soul - the Divine breath - instead of dominating the flesh, it itself began to live in accordance with the sinful desires of the flesh. True, there remained in the soul the knowledge of God, the desire for Him, the desire to unite with Him: but all this was weak; Moreover, the flesh tried to drown out and put it to sleep as quickly as possible: that’s why all people extremely quickly became corrupted - so much so that it was necessary to wash them off the face of the earth with flood waters. God spoke about the antediluvian people: “My Spirit shall not abide in these men forever, for they are flesh” 196 . But the evil of the flesh or carnal people was not destroyed by the flood, but only weakened, and therefore it spread quickly after the flood. In order to subordinate the sinful flesh to the soul, so that the soul does not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, a person must work hard: throughout his entire life he must endure the inevitable struggle between flesh and spirit. When a Christian tries to change his life for a better one, then he will immediately notice that the flesh desires the spirit, and the spirit desires the flesh, 197 that the flesh wants to subjugate the spirit, and the spirit the flesh; the flesh wants to be proud and magnified, but the spirit, on the contrary, wants to humble itself; the flesh wants to be angry, angry, quarrel, take revenge in deed or word, but the spirit does not want this; on the contrary, he wants to forgive everything with meekness; the flesh wants to wallow in such matters that it is shameful to even talk about: but the spirit eliminates them and wants only chastity; the flesh wants to dissemble, flatter, lie, deceive, deceive and be a hypocrite, but the spirit hates this and wants to speak only the truth and act simply, without any cunning and hypocrisy; the flesh wants to hate a person, but the spirit wants to love every person; the flesh wants to live in idleness, to be lazy, but the spirit does not tolerate this; on the contrary, he seeks exercise in blessed labors; the flesh seeks carnivals and feasts, but the spirit is disgusted by them and wants either to live moderately or to fast; the flesh wants to seek honor, glory, and wealth in this world: but the spirit despises all this and strives only for eternal blessings 198; the flesh runs away from prayer or conversation with God, but the spirit only wants to live by prayer; the flesh tries to destroy faith in everything heavenly and live only on earthly things; and the spirit places all its pleasure in the contemplation of the heavenly and invisible. Such is the struggle of flesh and spirit, such is the contradiction in ourselves: one in us wants one thing, and the other wants another. And this struggle occurs in us as a result of original sin. Everyone, even great saints, noticed in themselves this strange struggle between flesh and spirit. So St. Apostle Paul says about himself: “I know that what is good does not live in me, that is, in my flesh: for I am diligent to do what I want, but I do not find it to do good. I do not want to do good, but I do not want to do evil. If I don’t want to, I do this; it is no longer I who do this, but sin that lives within me” 199). St. Gregory the Theologian speaks about this strange contradiction in himself: “I endure the incessant anxiety of warfare between those who are mutually and deeply at war with my soul: I am the image of God and am drawn into sinfulness; the worst in me unfairly opposes the best; or I run away from sins and resist them, but not without difficulty, after many struggles and with only heavenly help. For there are two, as if there were two minds in me: one is good, and it follows everything that is beautiful; and the other is the worst, and he follows the bad; one mind goes to the light and is ready to submit to Christ; and the other mind - flesh and blood - is drawn into darkness, and agrees to surrender into captivity to the devil; or one enjoys earthly things, seeks what is useful for himself not in the permanent, but in the transitory, loves feasts, quarrels, burdensome satiety, the shame of dark deeds and deceptions, follows the broad path and, covered with an impenetrable haze of unreason, amuses himself with his own destruction; and the other admires the heavenly and hoped-for as real; in God alone he places the hope of life; but here, subject to various accidents, he regards everything as worthless smoke; loves poverty, work, and good cares and follows the narrow path of life” 200. Why did we say all this about original sin and its consequences in us? Why did we indicate this infection in people; Why did they bring to light this long-standing disease of the human race, which burdens and oppresses it, but which people did not have and do not have their own means to heal? In order to show that for people, in their sinful depravity and in their distance from God, Divine help was necessary, as it is now necessary; they needed, as they do now, a Divine Savior, without whom they would have perished in their sins irrevocably, forever. The All-Good God promised this Savior to the first people, soon after their sin, and gradually prepared the human race to receive Him, as we will see later, through prototypes and prophecies, and finally actually sent Him into the world. By faith in this Divine Savior, people were saved long before His coming, just as they were and are being saved after His coming. This Savior of the whole world, the Son of God, the God-man Jesus Christ fulfilled all obedience to God for us, being obedient even to the point of death, the death of the cross 201 and, having given people saving rules, He set an example for our lives in His life and gave us all the Divine powers, including life and piety 202 so that with His grace we can overcome our passions and bad habits and inclinations. With His most pure blood, shed for us and now offered on the altars of Christian churches, He renewed and is renewing our nature, corrupted by sin, so that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” 203 that is, a true Christian becomes a completely new person, holy, pleasing to God. We, brothers, are called Christians; but here is what the Apostle says about true Christians: “They who are Christ’s have crucified their flesh with passions and lusts.” Do we crucify our flesh with passions and lusts? Are we not satisfying her in everything? Oh! We are satisfied in everything: we live carelessly, not using or using very little of the benefits that are so readily offered to us daily for our salvation in the Word of God and in the Sacraments of Faith. Brethren! Eternal salvation is desirable and priceless; and eternal destruction is terrible. But it is impossible to be saved without arming yourself against carnal lusts, being Christians in name only, and not in deeds. So, having called for help the Lord Jesus Christ, our Helper, our Almighty Savior, let us resist sin, let us not please the flesh in lust 204, and begin to walk in newness of life 205. Amen. Service 8 November Free strength in lit. poem. Ch. 2. Tame the sea of passions, raging with a choking storm, Lord Christ. Ogl. Pouch. XV, p.332 in Rus. lane Eg. St. Cyrus Jer. in ΧV Ogl. Pouch. page 352, etc. Days God. Right C, Part II, pp. 3, ps.9:5. Oh heaven. Jer. Ch. 6, p. 2 Days God. Pr. Ts. Ch. 2, p. 3 Kan. Eng. Storage Verse, ch. 2. Verse, and Can. Free verse 1 Kan. Free Canto 5, p.5 St. Athan. Vel. in the word about virginity. Eg. see channel Eng. Storage clause 3, article 4 Catech.Rev. Phil.ch.1, p.32 Explained Sunday and celebration Ev. page 75 2 Peter 3; Jude 1:6, Matthew 25 ch. St. John Ladies. exact izl. Ave. Vera Prince. 2, ch. 4 Demon. 19, p.387, volume 11 Demon. Zlat. Req. they say wife born at 40 days Notes on the book of Genesis pages 18 and 19 Katih. Demon. Prot. I. Yakhontova Bes. 6, about the fifth day. creativity God. St. I. Dame. book 2 ch. 9, about the waters St. Dim. Height. op. Part II, 618 pp. The first to introduce this was the Roman Emperor Augustus (Isid. lib. 17 in Gretzero – de Sancta Cruce – citatus). Only under him and the following Emperors before Constantine the Great there was no cross on the empire: it was erected on it by Constantine Equal to the Apostles (Niceph. lib. 7 cap. 49 in praef. sua historiae). When the Emperor was depicted on coins or anything else, then under the ball in Roman language they often signed: “ruler of the earth,” or more precisely, “ruler of the globe” (rector orbis). Gretz Katih. Demon. Prot. I. Yakhontova, on Friday. day of Creation. Creation Holy Father year 2, book. 3, 143 pp. Kir. Jer. ogl. instructive IX, p. 158. The book is called "Spectator of God's works in the universe" The book is called "The Majesty of God in all the kingdoms of nature" See Book: Great. God in the king nature Bss. Zlat. by chance lower king v.11 TV Holy Father year 2, book 4, pp. 156 and 157 Creation Holy Father year 2, book 4 Demon. Zl. by chance lower king stat. 10 Various prayers, canon verses and chants are full of evidence of this. Quiet. Crow. about due Christ. Art.58 Creation St. Gr. God. book 4, pp. 305 and 306 in Russian. lane You might be interested in: