Глава первая Христос – это Новая Песня, Слово Истины

The Theban Amphion and Arion from Methymna were both knowledgeable in the art of music (both, however, belong to myth, and a song about them is still sung in pagan round dances): Arion, who lured fish with music, Amphion, who surrounded Thebes with walls. Another artist, a Thracian (this is from another myth), tamed animals with song alone and even replanted trees - oaks - with music. I think I’ll tell you another myth about a singer similar to these - about the Locrian Eunom and the Delphic cicada. At Delphi, a Greek festival was held in memory of the dead serpent, whose funeral oration was sung by Eunom. I can’t say whether this song was a hymn or a lament for the snake. A competition was held, and Eunom played the cithara in the heat of the hour, when the cicadas sang under the leaves, warmed by the sun on the mountains. They sang not to the dead Pythian serpent, but to the all-wise God, a song free from rules, better than the melodies of Eunom. The string of the Locrian breaks, the cicada flies onto the neck and begins to sing on the instrument, as if on a branch. And the singer, having tuned in, replaced the missing string with the song of a cicada. So, it is not the song of Eunom that evokes the cicada, as the myth wants, which erected a copper statue of Eunom in Delphi along with his lyre and assistant. She flew off and sang on her own, but to the pagans it seems that she imitated music. § II. Ancient myths and a new song How did you believe empty myths, believing that living beings are enchanted by music? The clear face of truth, given over to the power of unbelief, is apparently the only thing that seems fake to you. Kiferon and Helikon, the mountains of the Odrysians and Thracians - places of false initiations - thanks to the mysteries, were deified and glorified. I cannot bear so much misfortune represented in tragedies, even though it is a myth; among you, descriptions of misfortunes have become stage works, and their performers have become a pleasant sight. But both the dramas and the poets obsessed with Lenaeus, who, together with the satyrs themselves, the frenzied processions and the rest of the swarm of demons, are rampaging in intoxication and maddened by Bacchic dedication, we will lock up, crowned with ivy, on the dilapidated Helikon and Cithaeron. Let us bring from above, from heaven, the truth, a clear mind and a holy prophetic host to the holy mountain of God. And let the truth, like a distant shining light, illuminate all those circling in the darkness and save people from wandering, extending to them the highest right hand for salvation - knowledge. Let them, raising their heads and looking upward, leave Helikon and Cithaeron, let them live in Zion: “for from Zion the law will come, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Is. 2:3) - the heavenly Logos, the legitimate participant in the competition, crowned in the theater of the entire universe. After all, my Eunom sings not in the Terpandrian mode, not in the Capion mode, and not in the Phrygian, Lydian or Dorian, but in the eternal mode of new consonances, which is the same as God; sings a new song, Levitical, one that takes away sadness and gives both peace and oblivion, a sweet and true cure for sorrow, mixed with song. It seems to me that that Thracian, Orpheus, and the Theban, and the Methymian, certain men, were not men at all, but deceivers. Ruining the lives of the gullible under the cover of music, in skillful charlatanism, raging at their destruction, committing outrages, deifying sorrow, they were the first to lead people to idols. On stones and boards, i.e. on statues and images, they erected a citadel of crude superstition and harnessed the truly wonderful freedom of the celestial citizens into extreme slavery with chants and spells. But this is not my Singer, who came to crush at once the painful slavery of the tyrannically ruling demons. He again called us into heaven, thrown to earth, directing us under the soft and humane yoke of piety. § IV. The saving power of a new song The only one who ever existed, He tamed the most difficult animals to train - people: frivolous like birds, deceitful like reptiles, angry like lions, greedy for pleasure like pigs, robbers like wolves. Stones and wood have no feelings, but a person immersed in ignorance is more insensitive than stones. Let us be witnesses to the words of the prophet, consonant with the truth, full of compassion for people exhausted by ignorance and recklessness: “For from these stones God is able to raise up children for Abraham” (Luke 3:8), Who, taking pity on the great ignorance and hard-heartedness of those who were petrified to understand the truth, raised from these stones - the pagans who believed in stones - a seed receptive to virtue piety. On the other hand, He once called the hypocrites who exude poison and lies, who plot the machinations of justice, the brood of vipers. But if any of these people voluntarily repents, following His word, then he will become a man of God. Others He allegorically calls wolves in sheep's clothing, hinting at predators in human form. And all these very wild animals, and these stones, this heavenly song transformed into people obedient to it. “We, too, were once foolish, disobedient, lost, serving various pleasures and desires, living in evil and envy, hated, hating one another,” as the apostolic scripture says, “when the kindness and love for mankind of our Savior, God, was revealed, He saved us not because of the just deeds we had done, but according to His mercy” ( Titus 3:3–5). Look how powerful a new song is! She created people from stones and animals. The dead, not involved in true life, came to life upon hearing it. § V. Logos and harmony of the world And she arranged everything else harmoniously and the discord of the elements led to harmony, so that the whole universe became consonance with her. She gave freedom to the sea, but prevented it from covering the earth; she made the earth, previously mobile, solid and set it as a boundary for the sea, weakened the onslaught of fire with air, as if mixing the Dorian mode with the Lydian, and tamed the harsh cold of the air with an admixture of fire, harmoniously combining such different voices. Indeed, pure song, the support of everything and the harmony of everything, spreading from the center to the edges and from the edges to the center, tuned all this not according to the Thracian mode, like Jubal, but according to the paternal will of God, for which David was jealous. The Word of God, which came from David, but was before David, despising soulless instruments, the lyre and the harp, and having tuned this universe and the small universe - man, his soul and body, in accordance with the Holy Spirit, plays to God on a polyphonic instrument and turns to this instrument, man, saying: “You are the lyre, the flute and my church.” A person is called a kithara because of the harmony, a pipe - because of the breath, a church - because of the word, so that one plays, the other sounds, and the church contains the Lord. Indeed, David, the king and harpist, whom we mentioned a little higher, encouraged the truth and turned away from idols, completely unwilling to sing of the demons whom he persecuted with true music. Playing and singing, David healed Saul, who was tormented by them. The Lord made a beautiful living musical instrument, a man, in His image. Of course, He Himself is an instrument of God, a panharmonium, well-tuned, holy: infinite Wisdom, heavenly Logos. §VI. Apparent novelty of truth What does this instrument, the Word of God, the Lord, the new Song, want? To open the eyes of the blind and open the ears of the deaf, to guide the lame or lost to justice, to show God to foolish people, to put an end to destruction, to conquer death and to reconcile disobedient sons to the Father. The humane-loving musical instrument of God: the Lord pities, educates, exhorts, instructs, saves, protects and, as payment for teaching, promises us the Kingdom of Heaven in abundance, receiving only from us - our salvation. Vice feeds on the death of people, but truth, like a bee, without spoiling anything existing with its touch, rejoices only in the salvation of people. So, you have the promise, you know about God’s love for mankind, partake of grace! Do not consider the saving song of which I speak to be new in the same sense as a utensil or a dwelling: for it was “before the morning star” (Ps. 109:3), and “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). However, error is ancient, but the truth seems new. Let the prophetic goats point to the Phrygians as the most ancient people, let the poets describe them as pre-lunar to the Arcadians, let the Egyptians see in a dream that their land was the first to give birth to gods and people, but none of them existed before this universe. Before the creation of the cosmos, there were us, first born in God Himself due to the fact that we were destined to arise. We are a rational creation of God the Word, thanks to whom we are ancient, for “in the beginning was the Word.” But because the Word has been around for a long time, It was and remains the divine beginning of everything. Because It has now taken on a name sanctified in ancient times and worthy of power - Christ, I have called It the New Song. § VII. Eternal Logos – Master, Teacher and Protector The Word, Christ, is the reason both for the fact that we were of old (It was in God), and for the fact that we exist happily. Now this Logos Himself has appeared to people, at the same time God and Man, the cause of all our blessings, taught by Who a good life, we are directed towards the eternal. Indeed, according to the word of the divine apostle, “the saving grace of God appeared to all people, educating us so that, renouncing ungodliness and worldly desires, they would live wisely, justly and godly in this age, awaiting the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:11-12). This is a new song, the manifestation of the Word now shining among us, who was in the beginning and existing before the beginning. The pre-existent Savior appeared recently, He who is in Being appeared, for “The Word was with God” (John 1:1), Teacher; the Word appeared, by whom all things were created. And He who gave life in the beginning, at creation, as a Master, taught to live righteously, coming as a Teacher, in order to later grant eternal life as God. It was not the first time that he showed pity for us for our errors, but he was sorry from the beginning. Now, having appeared, he saved those who had already died. Even now, the evil reptile beast, seducing, enslaves and oppresses people, punishing them, as it seems to me, in a barbaric way: the barbarians, they say, tie captives to dead bodies until they rot with them. So, this evil tyrant and serpent tied those whom he was able to master from birth to stones and logs - to statues and idols - with the unfortunate bonds of superstition and, so to speak, carrying them out alive, buried them together with the idols until both of them decayed. For this reason (for one liar in ancient times seduced Eve and now leads to the death of other people) there is one helper and protector for us - the Lord, who spoke from ancient times through the prophets, but now clearly calls for salvation. § VIII. Various paths of life-saving healing Let us flee, obeying the apostolic instructions, from “the prince who rules over the air, over the spirit, who is now working in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2), let us flee to the Lord the Savior, who now and always encourages salvation: with wonders and signs in Egypt, in the desert - through a thorn bush and through the cloud accompanying the Jews by the grace of love for mankind like a servant, He forced the hard-hearted of this people with fear, but He turned those who had ears to the Word through the wise Moses, the truth-loving Isaiah and through the entire prophetic host, appealing more to reason. with poultices, some he cuts with iron, others he burns, sometimes he even saws off limbs, if in some way it is possible to heal a person, even if the Savior uses different intonations and different methods to deliver a person. Threatening, instructs; scolding, corrects; mourning, regrets; playing on the strings, calls. He speaks through a thorn bush (those people needed signs and wonders) and frightens them with a pillar of fire - a sign of both grace and fear: if you obey - light, if not - fire. Because flesh is more valuable than a pillar or a thorn bush, the prophets subsequently began to speak. The Lord Himself speaks through the mouth of Isaiah, Elijah and other prophets. However, if you do not believe the prophets, consider both men and fire a myth, the Lord Himself will tell you, Who, “being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God: He made Himself of no reputation” (Phil. 2:6–7), a compassionate God seeking to save man. And the Word itself clearly speaks to you, shaming your unbelief. The Word of God, I say, became Man, so that you too could learn from Man how a man can become God. § IX. John the Baptist and the fruitful desert Isn’t it strange, friends, that God always directs us to virtue, but we shy away from help and delay salvation? Doesn't John call for salvation and isn't he himself just a word of exhortation? Let's ask him himself: Who are you? Where? He will say that he is not Elijah, he will deny that he is Christ, and he will admit that he is the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Who is John anyway? In short, the exhorting voice of the Word crying in the wilderness. What are you calling for, O voice? Tell us too. – Make straight the paths of the Lord! As John is the forerunner, so the voice is the forerunner of the Word; a calling voice, preparing in advance for salvation, a voice inviting to the heavenly inheritance. Thanks to this voice, the barren woman and the desert are no longer barren. This fruiting was predicted by the voice of an angel; He too was a foreshadower of the Lord, preaching the gospel to the barren woman, as John did to the desert. Thanks to this Word, the barren is happy in children, and the desert bears fruit. Both voices - the angel and John - foreshadowing the Lord, hint, in my opinion, at a hidden salvation, since after the appearance of the Word we received the fruit of parental happiness - eternal life. Bringing both voices into one, Scripture explains everything: Let the one who has not given birth hear, let the one who has not suffered from childbirth raise her voice, for she who is abandoned has more children than she who has a husband. An angel preached the gospel to us; John exhorted us to become a farmer and find a husband. For they are both in one person: the husband of the barren woman and the cultivator of the desert, who filled both the barren and the desert with divine power. After all, the Jewish wife had many children when she was noble, however, having previously had many children, she became childless from unbelief. The barren woman finds a husband, and the desert finds a farmer. Then one becomes the mother of believers, the other the mother of fruits, both thanks to the Word. For unbelievers, the barren remains still barren, and the desert remains a desert. § X. Christ and the Gate to Heaven Thus, the herald of the Word, John, called to be prepared for the coming of God, Christ, and the silence of Zechariah, which lasted until the birth of the child foreshadowing Christ, was a sign that the Light of truth, the Logos, having become the Good News, put an end to the mystical silence of prophetic allegory. But you, if you really want to see God, become a participant in godly purifications: without laurel leaves and without ribbons decorated with wool and purple, clothed in justice and crowned with abstinence, zealously follow Christ. For He says in one place: “I am the door” (John 10:9). Those who want to know God must find it so that the universal gates to heaven will open for us. For the gates of the Word, opened by the key of faith, are endowed with reason. “No one has known God except the Son, and him to whom the Son will reveal it” (Luke 10:22). I know well that he who opens doors hitherto closed will later open the interior and show what could not have been previously known by anyone except those who entered with the help of Christ, Who alone makes it possible to see God.