Слово 11

Chapter 31. About how these two prophets of God, killed by the Antichrist, will rise Rev. 11:11–12. “And after three days the living spirit will enter into him from God, and they will both stand on their feet, and great fear will fall on those who see them. And they will hear a great voice from heaven saying to them, “Behold, go up, and go up into heaven upon the clouds.” Those killed for the same number of days as the years of their prophecy will rise again and ascend to heaven on the chariot of the Lady - on a cloud, becoming fear and horror for those who see them. Rev. 11:12–13. “And I saw that they were defeated. And at that hour the coward became great, and a tenth of the city fell, and seven thousand names of men perished as cowards.” And on this day there will be a great earthquake. Perhaps this will be sensual, but in the spiritual sense, by an earthquake we mean the transformation of what is being shaken into a solid and durable state. The fall of the tenth part of the city is the fall of wickedness, unconvinced by their rapture, while some will be saved. For the seven thousand who perished seem to mean those who are attached to the seventh time of this life and do not expect the resurrection in the eighth, who must be killed in Gehenna by the second death, i.e. suffer eternal torment. Or maybe there will be seven thousand Jews who believed the Antichrist. Rev. 11:13–14. “And the rest were fearful, and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second grief has departed, the third grief is coming soon.” And give glory to God. By punishing the infidels and glorifying the witnesses of Christ, those worthy of salvation will glorify God. After the second disaster comes the third through the seventh trumpet. Chapter 32. About the seventh trumpet and about the saints praising God for the future judgment Rev. 11:15–18. “And the seventh angel sounded, and a great voice sounded in heaven, saying: This is the kingdom of peace, our Lord, and his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever. And the twenty and four elders sat on their thrones before God, falling on their faces and bowing to God, saying: We praise you, O Lord God Almighty, who is here, and who is, and who is to come, because you have received your great power and reigned. And the pagans were angry.” And here he says that the holy Angels and those who live angelically send thanks to God, because what kingdom from the beginning he possessed as God, did not refuse to accept us for the sake of man, but on the unfaithful nations, irritated by this, as a new and strange teaching, he was long-suffering and finally punished. Therefore he says: Rev.11:18. “And Your wrath has come, and the time has come for the dead to receive judgment and to give reward to Your servant the prophet and to the saints and to those who fear Your name, small and great, and to corrupt the stinking earth.” Time for the dead, i.e. the time of the resurrection of the dead, in which everyone will be given their due reward. By prophets and saints and those who fear God we can understand three orders of people; bearing fruit in a hundred, in sixty and in thirty, and the Apostles will undoubtedly receive first place and sit on twelve thrones. Small and great, we think, are called the lesser saints and those more superior to them; or small - despicable sinners, and great - righteous. Chapter 33. About the persecution of the Church of the past and from the Antichrist Rev.11:19. “And the church of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant appeared in His church: and there was a blaze, and a voice, and thunder, and a coward, and great hail.” The opening of heaven and the appearance of the ark indicates the revelation of the blessings prepared for the saints, which, according to the Apostle, are all hidden in Christ, in whom lives every fulfillment of the Divine body (Col. 2:3-9), will be revealed when strange voices, and lightning, and thunder, and hail are sent against the lawless and wicked, and the punishment of Gehenna is sent to them, with earthquake, which means a change in the present. Rev.12:1. “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman was clothed with the sun, and the moon was under her feet, and on her head was a crown of twelve stars.” By the woman clothed with the sun, some completely understood the Most Holy Theotokos, who suffered, as is said below, before Her Divine birth was known. The great Methodius accepts it as the Holy Church, considering that what is said about Him does not correspond to the birth of the Lord, because our Lord had already been born long before this. It’s good to remember the very words of Blessed Methodius. In the so-called triumph of the virgins, on behalf of the virgin Prokla, he says this: “the woman clothed in the sun is the Church. What clothing is to us, so is light to it; What gold and precious shining stones are to us, so are stars to her, and, moreover, the best and brightest stars. She ascended to the moon. I consider the moon allegorically to be a bath for those who are cleansed from corruption, since the moist nature depends on the moon. She hurts and suffers, regenerating the spiritual into the spiritual and forming them in the likeness and image of Christ.” And he also says: “Christ Himself should not be understood as being born; for in ancient times, before the Apocalypse of John, the mystery of the incarnation of God the Word was fulfilled, but John speaks of the present and the future.” And then again: “Of necessity, it must be recognized that the Church that is sick and gives birth to the redeemed is the Church, as the Spirit says in Isaiah: before the womb of hers is sick, she will give birth, and will escape and give birth to the male sex (Is. 66:7). Who did you run away from!? Of course, from the dragon to give birth to a people, a spiritual Zion of the male race, and further: “so that Christ is spiritually born in everyone. And therefore the Church is wrapped in swaddling clothes and sick until the born Christ is imagined in us, so that everyone becomes Christ through participation in Christ.” Thus, the Church is clothed in the Sun of righteousness - Christ. And the lawful light of the night luminary - the moon, and worldly life, changing like the moon, is underfoot. And on her head is placed the crown of Apostolic dogmas and virtues. He says that since the moist being depends on the moon, the moon signifies baptism, allegorically called the sea, a sacrament that is salutary for those who receive it and disastrous for demons. Rev.12:2. “And those who are in the womb cry out in pain, and those who are in pain give birth.” We say that the Church pains for each of those reborn by water and the Spirit, until Christ is imagined in them, as the Divine Apostle said. Because miscarriages are those who fall away from the true light of Christ, and for unbelief they suffer the death that accompanies life. Rev.12:3. “And another sign appeared in heaven, and this great black serpent had seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads was a seven crown.” We think that by heaven here we mean the air, the black serpent, as created to be mocked by the Angels of God, as it is written in Job (Job 40:14). He is Chermen because of the love of murder and the joy of blood, or because of the fire-like nature of the Angelic being, if he fell from among the Angels. The seven heads are the seven wicked powers of him, opposite to spiritual actions, or the seven spirits about which Christ said in the Gospels that they dwell in a person who has a heart marked and not occupied with good thoughts and deeds, or the seven wickedness about which Solomon says that they are in the heart of the enemy, who through hypocrisy with a loud voice pleads with those who are convinced by him (Prov. 26:25). The ten horns show either sins contrary to the ten commandments of the law, or divisions of the kingdom, which for him, as one who is consoled by unrest, provide decoration. There are seven crowns on its heads, because those who conquer the devil’s actions from there are adorned with crowns of victory, from where they gain victory through labor and effort. Blessed Methodius speaks about this literally like this: the great dark serpent, seven-headed, who carried away a third of the stars, who stood plotting to devour the child suffering from the pangs of birth, is the devil. And then: but he does not get what he wants and is deceived in the spoils, when the reborn admire the mountain on high. And a little later: the third part of the stars are those who sinned among the Holy Trinity regarding one (Person). The desert in which it feeds is the Church free from evil and removed from damage. Thousands, multiplied a hundred times, contain a complete and perfect number. And then he speaks about his crowns: she, having fought against the devil before and having killed seven heads, receives seven crowns of virtues. Rev.12:4. “And his trunk tore away a third of the stars of heaven, and I laid them in the ground.” This, we think, signifies two events: either before his fall from heaven, the last movement of envy (the first was exaltation), which carried away the angels who retreated with him to earth, or after the crushing of his head, the movement of his tail, distracting from the heavenly wisdom of the unestablished, who are called stars by enlightenment from deception. So Daniel prophesied about Antiochus, who would be the image of the coming of the Antichrist. “And the serpent stood before the woman who wanted to give birth, and when she gave birth, he would bear her child.” And the serpent stood before the woman. For the apostate always takes arms against the Church, wanting to make those who are revived from time to time his food; Moreover, through the Church he initiates persecution against Christ Himself, its head, who appropriates to Himself what belongs to the faithful. That’s why he says: Saul, Saul, that you persecute Me (Acts 9:4). Rev.12:5. “And give birth to a son who is a man, who shall have all his tongues fall with a rod of iron.” And give birth to a son, a man. The Church, through those who are baptized, continually gives birth to Christ as portrayed in them, even before the fulfillment of spiritual age, according to the Apostle (Eph. 4:13). The masculine son, loving the Church, not feminine in relation to passions, through him and especially with the iron-strong hands of the mighty Romans, Christ God shepherds the peoples. He will also shepherd after the resurrection of the dead, setting up judges, strong in faith as iron, over brittle and weak vessels - the pagans, who, due to unbelief, did not contain spiritual and new wine. “And her child was caught up to God and to his throne.” The saints are now caught up from here when they are tempted, so as not to be taken away by oppressions greater than their strength, and they will one day be caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and will be with God and His throne, i.e. by the highest angelic powers. Rev.12:6. “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place for her, and there she might eat for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.” And the wife ran into the desert. When the devil active in the Antichrist arms himself through him against the Church, then the chosen and the highest in it, despising civil unrest and worldly pleasures, will flee from the cities, according to the Divine Methodius, into a desert barren for all evil, fruitful for all virtue, and there they will avoid the attacks of warring demons and crafty people. It is also possible in the sensual desert to save those who, for the sake of the slander of the apostate and false Christ, will flee to the mountains, dens and abysses of the earth, as before the martyrs. Three and a half years, designated one thousand two hundred and sixty days, is the time during which apostasy will reign. May the great Hero of God deliver us from him, not allowing us to be tempted more than we can, may he grant us a firm thought that does not weaken in the face of opposing attacks, so that, having legitimately struggled against the principles and powers of darkness, we may be crowned with the crown of righteousness and receive the branches of victory, since to Him, through the weak, triumphant over the princes of the air, victory and power, together with the Father and Life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.