Слово 39. Послание к брату Григорию, об изречении: «Господи, прибежище был еси нам»

Mister and brother Gregory! May the Lord save you for all your affection towards me and for your spiritual love. I heard from the side that our sovereign, the ruler of Tver, was embarrassed at me, the poor one, about the expression: Lord, you were a refuge for us (Ps. 89:2), and he said, accusing me in vain, that de Maximus is wise with such a translation of the scripture that we no longer have refuge with God. Deliver me, Lord, from such blasphemy; and whoever teaches this, let him be anathema forever, amen. This expression: You were, does not separate us from God’s providence and refuge, as the Bishop interprets, but on the contrary, it affirms and firmly shows God’s providence for us, clearly saying that not only now You serve us as a refuge, Lord, but from the beginning of the human race You have been our refuge. This is explained to us by the words: to generation and generation, which means always, that is, from the beginning and now You are our refuge, and until the end of the age you will be with us and we with You, as the false promise says: Behold, I am with you until the end of your life, and so on. So, without reason, our good sovereign is embarrassed against me regarding the said expression. Be the will of God and him. And the difference between these expressions is this: when these words refer to the first person, that is, when, thanking the Creator for His mercy towards us, we speak to Him himself, then, of necessity, we have to say this: Lord, you have been our refuge throughout generation and generation, which means always. And when they are spoken in the second person, that is, when boasting before others, we say His good deeds to us, then we say: “The Lord has become our refuge,” as in another place it is said: The Lord is my strength and my song, and the Lord has been my salvation. And that the expression “has been” is not used instead of “always” in Scripture, as the Lord Sovereign interprets this expression, listen to this with the attention of the Evangelist, who says: By Him all things came into being, and without Him nothing came into being (John 1:3). Consider: after all, everything came into being once, and there are not always new heavens and earth, and the rest of creation. For the sake of the Lord, do not be embarrassed against me for no reason. The lord took pity on me and reassured me with all kinds of contentment for many years: he would have pitied me to the end and saved it for God’s sake, so that he too would receive full reward for this from the Lord. Please, without fear, tell the saint, O Gregory, this announcement and low worship from me. I am always in spiritual love for His Eminence and cannot forget my prayerful attitude towards him for many years. I'm not that crazy and ungrateful. I would have written a more extensive explanation regarding the above-mentioned expression, but I was afraid that the well-known prophetic word would not be said about me: O my poisonous bread, magnify my stumbling (Ps. 40:10). You might be interested in: