Слово на Вознесение Господа нашего Иисуса Христа. Святого Афанасия, архиепископа Александрийского 72

On the bright day of the Resurrection, the human race was given the guarantee of victory over death, and the present celebration, elevating the earth-born to heaven, changes the very earthly abode of man and opens for him free access from here to the heavenly: for it is not proper for human nature, after the victory over death, to remain in the abodes of death. It is clear that from now on I am above the tormenting power of the devil, when the Firstfruits of my race (Christ) is exalted and exalted by the royal seat in heaven. Now the power of the devil has fallen: the enemy is running out of weapons (Ps. 9:7). Devil! here there is no longer paradise, there is no tree that would entice me into error with its beauty, so that you would deceive me a second time and, having abolished in me the fear of breaking the law, you would again restore the dominion of death. From now on, I no longer hear the ancient sentence: you are earth, and you will go to earth (Genesis 3:19), but, on the contrary, I hear the following: “even though you are earth, you will ascend to heaven by the goodness of Him who raises you to it!” So, I leave you the place of sin, I cede the land on which I was born and raised, and, free from your insidious seductions, I soar to my homeland - heaven! It was once enough for you to have the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so that, having deceived your ancestor with it, you would throw him out of paradise, but now, even if you exhausted your entire quiver, your arrows will turn on you. Where are your ancient feats now, the spirit of evil? Where, O evil serpent, is your deception: if you take away the day from him, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like a god, seeing good and evil (Gen. 3:5)? Against your will and desire, you became a predictor of my bliss, because those promises that you used to deceive actually came true for me: the fictitious gospel turned into obvious truth for me. Oh, what wondrous and supernatural miracles! For those for whom the entrance to paradise was barred, for those the heavens are now opened. The One who recently stood at the judgment seat of Pilate now occupies the throne of the Judge in heaven. He Whom the Jews mocked, praised by the host of angels, will now sit on the cherubim at the right hand of the Father. He, whose head was crowned by the Jews with thorns, is seen to be surrounded by the crown of the Divine. Oh, how immutable are the words of the prophetic psalm of David: the Lord said to My Lord: Sit at My right hand, until I will make Your enemies Your footstool (Ps. 109:1)! Now this prophecy of David has become a real event, and what David previously wanted to see in songs, he now sees in reality. Now the sky will take up the One about whom the Psalmist foretold: Christ ascends into heaven. Although the sky, even at the very birth (of Christ), through the help of a star, bowed its head towards the One who was being born, as if hastening to prematurely accept Him who was hiding in the cave; but the times of the Divine economy had to be preserved to certain limits. It is marvelous how the dishonor of our race has been changed into glory, and the wrath of God against us into the greatest favor! God created us with His own hands, gave us an abundance of pleasures, subjugated the earth, enslaved the air, provided the riches of the sea, forced all the dumb to obey us. Meanwhile, some enemy comes, slanders God in envy and forces him to believe his deception: the one deceived by him goes over to his side, clearly enters into a conspiracy against God, raises his hand against the commandments of God. God appears and denounces ungodly aspirations: our forefathers, who thought wickedly about the Divine, fearing the noise, run away from the sight of God and hide under a tree. Therefore, God, having deprived a person of his dignity, expels him from paradise, telling him something like this: “I did not create you with My hands for this purpose, transforming dust into your nature... But you raised the hand that you received from Me to My commandment, and became an accomplice of the devil, having conspired with him against your Creator. Having lost your dignity, leave your glorious abode: you are earth, and you will go to earth. Let your nature become again what it was before; brought down by death to the earth, know that she is your mother”... These are the fruits of the devil’s temptation! Such a misfortune has happened to our nature! However, the Creator did not suffer His work to be completely crushed: He showed mercy to the beseeching and grieving nature and had mercy on His image, which sinned in creation. What is He (the Creator) doing? - In order to raise from nature a protector for nature, He forms another Adam, takes dust from the Virgin and, forming an embryo from it, imprints His truest image on it; having woven a covering in the womb, as if in a royal palace, He clothes Him in His image, to cover the nakedness of the image... For He (the Creator) revealed Him as the conqueror of temptation, supreme over sin, immortal even after death, liberating from the graves (while He Himself was in the grave) - and, having crowned Him with immortality, He now ascended to heaven, making the firstfruits of our nature common to all creation decoration. “So, the Creator, perhaps someone will say, when the crime has just been committed, overwhelmed with anger, he abhors His image, and, hating the evil intention, condemns nature, and now, when enough time has passed, when His anger has subsided, He ceases to be indignant and has mercy on the sinner”? - No, for anger was not the cause of God’s previous actions, and the present ones do not occur from a change in disposition; The Lord, with His supreme gaze, controls the course of events. Seeing that human nature is falling, exhausted under the burden of condemnation to death - that the coffin is ready - the successor of human suffering, and that death is daily intensifying - seeing this, God weakens the power of His threat, immediately gives the human race hope for immortality, and, having delighted Enoch from among people, showed that mortal nature reaches the limits of immortality, and the course of death sometimes stops. Thus, the transfiguration of the righteous (Gen. 5:24) was the stopping of death. This event, which happened amidst crying, taught nature to calm down with the hope of the best. But so that after a long time the memory of this miracle is not destroyed, traces of hope are not erased, cowardice does not increase, and death does not seem more terrible to people, God repeats the miracle, doubles the gift, and Elijah appears, called the conqueror of death. Raising his voice to the clouds, he forbade the heavens to rain (1 Kings 17:1) and, having bound creation with a word, became the ruler of the elements. Then a great miracle presented itself: the sky is in awe of man: so that the weakness of this man does not weaken the feeling of victory over death, God first introduces him to all creation - and then he, having mounted a fiery chariot, leaves death behind in his amazing flight and procession. Thus, the power of grace changed the law of nature: Elijah was taken up into heaven (2 Kings 2:11); and Scripture announced this miracle, transmitting it with its voice to all ages. Now, beloved, pay attention to the accuracy of this sacred expression (so that, omitting this expression without attention, you do not consider the slave to be equal in honor to the Master). Elijah does not ascend to heaven and does not dwell in heavenly countries, having passed through the firmament, but listen to what He who lifts him up says: the Lord will always take Elijah into heaven (2 Kings 2:1). For the Prophet it was enough of an honor to become a type: heaven does not accept a servant before the Master, since no one ascends into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven (John 3:13). The Creator of men reserved heaven for the Firstfruits of men. So, God consoled the people, giving them favorable hope through the example of Enoch and Elijah, for whom (while they were people) He spread a convenient path through the air. However, God did not only base people’s faith in the supernatural on this; but it also prepares them for the knowledge of this miracle through daily contemplation of it. God commands the writer of life Moses to imitate the Creator through the construction of the tabernacle. The visible exterior of the tabernacle is an imitation of the earthly, and its interior, hidden by the veil, is adapted to the invisible: since some structure of the sky is left invisible to people. Having ordered the imitation of heaven and earth in the prototypes, and on the other hand, wanting to leave the Holy of Holies inaccessible for people, God only opens the entrance to the secret for the high priest, making this entrance a prototype of the ascension to heaven - so that the Jews, seeing in the prototype that the sky is open, and only the bishop dares to enter into the inaccessible, would become accustomed to this spectacle and did not resist miracles. The teacher of the universe, the Apostle Paul, reminding the Jews of this, appeals to them in his epistle: In the first tabernacle I will take out the priestess who enters the service, performing the services: in the second, in one summer, there is only one bishop, not without shelter, who brings for himself and about human ignorance... Christ has come, the bishop of the good things to come, a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made by hands, that is, not sowing the creature, neither the blood of the goat nor the blood of the calf. but with His blood, one entered into the holy; and a few more after: Christ did not appear in the holy place made with hands, contrary to the true image, but in heaven itself, now let the face of God appear for us (Heb. 9:6, 7, 11, 12, 24). Thus, God knew how to shame the infidels with prototypes and confirm miracles with miracles! So Christ ascended into heaven and by the very event fulfilled the foreshadowing. The resurrection of the Savior was to be followed by His ascension, and the Conqueror of hell was to be received by heaven. But so that the speed of events would not deprive them of the impression, Christ wanted miracles over a certain period of time, through contemplation, to take root in the minds of the apostles, and so that through the constant vision of their eyes, faith would be implanted in their souls. For this reason, He deigned to appear to the apostles for some time after the resurrection, shared a meal with them, allowed His body to be touched, allowing both the sense of sight and the sense of touch to express the truth, and all this with the goal that the future heralds of these miracles would acquire undoubted and unshakable confidence in what they had to preach. When, after a long-term treatment with them, through this very thing, every shadow of doubt was removed as to whether they allegedly saw one ghost, and when, on the other hand, everything that was needed due to the impending separation was taught to them, then before their eyes the Lord ascended into heaven, and they were witnesses of this, and saw how a cloud, in the likeness of a certain chariot, took Him from their sight, and how the angels greeted the Lord with victorious songs, and they said to them: “What are you standing for?” can you see the sky? What are you standing for? Go, proclaim to the world His present departure as a pledge of His future coming. This Jesus, who ascended from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him going into heaven (Acts 1:11). Hearing these words, blessed Paul raises his voice like a trumpet and says: our life is in heaven, from here we wait for our Lord Jesus Christ and the Savior (Phil. 3:20), and in another place: we will be caught up on the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord (1 Thess. 4:17). Therefore, looking now at the Sovereign ascension of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, as a guarantee of a similar ascension of ours, we will cry out to Him with tenderness and gratitude: for Thy works are magnified, O Lord: with wisdom thou hast done all things (Ps. 103:24)! To you be glory and power with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen 73. See Opera Athanas. Magn. Parisiis. 1698 ann. (here the word of St. Athanasius is classified as spuria). Rukop. Moscow Synod. Bible 1445 (5–V), l.l. 262–264; Wed Bibliot. Patr. Concionator., vol. IV, p.p. 388–390; Christ. Read 1831, XLII part, pp. 127–138; Sunday Read XVIII (1854–55), pp. 51–52. You might be interested in: