Word to Basileus Constantine

“The Homily to Basileus Constantine” was delivered by Eusebius of Caesarea on July 25, 335 on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the emperor’s reign and consists of 18 chapters, which can be divided into 2 parts. The 1st part (chap. 1-10) is actually a word of praise. Part 2 (chap. 11-18) - speech on the consecration of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, delivered in the presence of the sovereign. In the 1st part, Eusebius likens Emperor Constantine to God the Word: “He, that is, the ruler of the whole world is the Word of God, passing over everything, through everything and in everything visible and invisible. From Him and through Him, the friend of God himself, our basileus, borrows the image of the supreme reign, and rules everything on earth that is subordinate to his helm, imitating the All-Good One.” In subsequent chapters, the idea of ​​the emperor being chosen by God continues to develop. He is likened to the sun and endowed with all virtues. Eusebius emphasizes the role of Emperor Constantine as a preacher of the Christian faith. The second part of the essay is of an apologetic nature. Eusebius addresses the pagans and argues for monotheism. He proves the existence of the Word of God, the necessity of His coming in human form, explains the meaning of suffering, the atoning sacrifice and resurrection of the Savior. He sees the fruits of Christ's feat in the advent of the blessed era of the Christian kingdom. The construction of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher is the symbol and crown of the emperor's historical mission. *The title of the work in Latin is De laudibus Constantini. Chapter I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII Prologue of praise to Konstantin I do not speak with myths and the euphony of words seductive to the ear, as if I wanted to enchant someone with the singing of the sirens, I do not offer a magical drink of pleasure to its lovers in a golden cup decorated with beautiful flowers and inscriptions, but, obeying the sages, I advise you to avoid highways and evade them. I urge you not to crowd into the crowd of rabble. I begin before you a new song in praise of the basileus. Thousands of people are hastily walking along the same path as me, but I shun the path trodden by people, I will follow the unbeaten road, which is not allowed to be entered with unwashed feet. Civil writers, greedily filling their speeches with children's toys of art, writers who love a pleasant and popular muse, let them enchant the mortal ear with mortal rantings, and bring their opinions as a gift of pleasure, and the guardians of universal wisdom have achieved knowledge about things divine and human, recognizing it as good to choose the best, preferring the God-loving virtues and everything human. the godly deeds of his basileus, while minor perfections are left to be sung by minor people. For, since in the act of the basileus there is wisdom regarding things both divine and human, and the divine relate to God, and the human to people who are outside the sacred fence 3 let the one who is capable describe his wisdom in relation to people, it is very respected, of course, amazing, it is also useful in everyday life, because in the basileus everything is beautiful, although lower than wisdom in relation to things divine, and those who entered inside the sacred church are inviolable and its inaccessible depths, having closed the doors to unclean ears, may they tell the secret anointing of the basileus to some mystics of anointing 4; Let us wash our ears in the streams of piety, and on the light wings of the spirit those who soar into the conceivable world may soar around the All-Tsar and silently be initiated into the divine mysteries. Meanwhile, written broadcasts, pronounced not by divination or frenzy, under the inspiration of divine light, may they be teachers of initiation for us, may they tell us about the kingdom itself, and about the Supreme King, and about the divine guard that surrounds the All-Tsar, and about our royal image and about the corrupter of the image, and about the followers of the army of both. With the help of these broadcasts, performing the divine sacraments, we will proceed to the divine triumph, as follows. Now is the triumph of the great King, and we, the sons of the basileus, inspired by the instructions of the sacred words, rejoice. The head of our holiday is the great King. I call the Great King the One who is truly great. May the basileus present here not be offended, but may he unite his own doxology with our theology. I mean the King above all, the highest, the most heavenly (υπερουρανιον), the greatest - that King, whose throne is the vault of heaven, and whose footstool is the earth, and about whom no one can worthily think; because the light shining around Him with the inexpressible radiance of its rays forbids anyone to contemplate His deity. Around this King the heavenly armies move and He is served by supermundane (υπερκοσμιον) forces, recognizing Him as their Master, Lord and King. Around Him shine countless regiments of angels, cathedrals of archangels, hosts of holy spirits, drawing from Him, as from the greatest sources of light, a dazzling radiance. This great King is glorified with loud and godly hymns by all the lights and incorporeal lights of the divine and mental generations who have received the land under heaven as their inheritance. And this country is surrounded by an azure curtain of the vast sky, by which the beings outside the royal palaces are separated from the beings within them. Around the heavenly curtain, as if in the royal vestibule, torchbearers flow - the sun, the moon and other heavenly bodies, paying honor to the King and at the same time, at his wave and word, illuminating with unquenchable light the creatures who have received the dark land outside the sky as their inheritance. Having adopted the custom of glorifying this great King of ours, Christ, our conqueror basileus himself, I think, recognizes this custom as very good, for he knows that the author of his reign over us is He alone. Having received the Father’s instruction, the God-loving Caesars also know that He is the source of all good things. Taught by the great Savior and Teacher, He is honored by military detachments, countless residents of villages and cities, and leaders of national assemblies (αρχοντες εκκλησιαζοντες). In a word, the entire human race, various regions, tribes and languages, in particular those born with different opinions, generally adhere to the same confession, and with an innate sense, an independent and self-conscious mind, call on the same God. But what, doesn’t the whole mass of the earth recognize Him as Lord, showing the plants and animals born from it that it obeys the beck of the All-Good? He is represented as the culprit of miracles in the reservoirs of rivers full of water, and in the streams of eternal springs continually gushing out from immeasurable abysses, in Him enclosed in the inaccessible depths of the abyss of the sea, and in the arched waves rising to the heights when, obeying the wave of God’s law, they approach the shores and strike the earth with fear. Those who cannot see Him with their own eyes are told about Him by the beneficial flowing streams of earthly rains, and the sounds of thunder, and the lights of lightning, and the diversified direction of the winds, and the aerial navigation of clouds. The all-bright sun, which goes through many centuries, recognizes Him alone as its Lord, and, obeying His beck, never dares to step out of its limits. The giver of various lights is also preached by the beautiful sky, shining with hosts of stars that flow harmoniously and in harmony, each time making their usual turns. By His wave and word, all the heavenly bodies form a single harmony, flowing along the greatest paths for many centuries, as if they were competing to run in the air spaces. The varied wisdom of indescribably great power is glorified by the evenly consistent movement of days and nights, the change of annual times, the number and order of all phenomena. He is also given due and fitting praise by the invisible forces flying in the open space of the air. This great King is sung by the whole world, He is honored by the heavens above and by powers higher than the firmament. It is with ineffable hymns that the hosts of angels magnify him and, like their parent, the spirits—the sons of the conceivable light—glorify him. Finally, the first and only one begs Him for the salvation of all, Himself, in everything, before everything and after everything, His only begotten Word, the great Bishop of the great God, older than all times and all ages, reverently serving the glory of the Father, having the primacy of power over the universe and glory equal to the glory of the Father’s reign, because He is the very light that flows around the Father and through His means separates the beginningless and unborn idea from the essence of things born. This light, flowing from the endless and beginningless Divinity, goes outside of Him and, both the country above heaven and everything inside the sky, illuminates with rays of wisdom that surpass the radiance of the sun. He, that is, the ruler of the whole world, is the Word of God, passing on everything, through everything and in everything visible and invisible. From Him and through Him, the friend of God himself, our basileus, borrows the image of the supreme reign, and rules everything on earth that is subordinate to his helm, imitating the All-Good. The Only Begotten Word of God reigns continuously with His Father from beginningless ages into innumerable and endless ages, and His friend, who has received from above the wisdom of kingship and is strengthened by the name of the same name as God, reigns through long periods of years. The Savior of all prepares all heaven, the world and the highest kingdom favorable for His Father, and His friend leads the inhabitants of the earth subject to Him to the only begotten and saving Word, and through this makes them ready for the same kingdom. The Savior common to all, wielding invisible and divine power, like a good shepherd, removes from his sheep, like wild animals, hostile forces that, rushing around the earth’s atmosphere, abducted human souls (ψυχη); and His friend, adorned from above with armor against enemies, knows how to curb the obvious opponents of the truth through war. The Savior of all, like the Word that appeared before the creation of the world (κοσμουμενος), entrusts the rational and saving seed to the creatures subject to Himself, and through this makes them rational creatures and betrayers of the kingdom of the Father, and His friend, as if the interpreter of God - the Word, calls the entire human race to the knowledge of the All-Good, appealing to the hearing of all and loudly proclaiming to the inhabitants of the earth the laws of piety and truth. The Savior of all who pass from here to there opens the heavenly gates of the Father's kingdom, and the zealot of the All-Good, having cleansed his earthly kingdom from all impurity of godless error, calls hosts of saints and pious men to the royal palace and takes care of the salvation of everyone on the ship of life he controls. One of the former owners of the Roman kingdom, honored by the King of all three decades of power, he does not devote this celebration to earthly spirits, ghosts, demons seducing the people, deceptions and inventions of the atheists, as the ancients usually did, but, aware of the benefits received, gives thanks to the One who honored him with them. He does not desecrate the royal palaces, following the example of the ancients, with blood and libations, incense, fire and sacrificial burnt offerings of animals, to appease earthly demons, but makes a beloved and favorable sacrifice, that is, he devotes his soul and his devoted mind to God to the All-Tsar himself, for this is the only kind of sacrifice that is pleasing to Him, the only kind of sacrifice alien to fire and blood, made with the pure thoughts of the soul, a sacrifice, Our basileus learned to honor Him. The affirmation of piety through the acceptance of true dogmas into the soul, the reverent preaching of God with a solemn word, the imitation of the love of the All-Good One through royal deeds, all-perfect devotion and offering oneself to Him in the sense of a great gift, as the firstfruits of the world entrusted to oneself - this is the greatest sacrifice that, first of all, our basileus makes! He, like a good shepherd, does not place the famous hecatombs 5 of the firstborn lambs on the altar, but he leads the verbal sheep he shepherds to the knowledge of God and piety of the soul. Cheerfully looking at such a sacrifice and lovingly accepting this gift, He praises the performer of the sacred rites (ιερειω) of this honorable and decent sacrifice, and according to the reverent honoring of himself, multiplying his benefits, rewards him with long periods of reign. He also allows him to celebrate various festivals with great types of monarchy, each time making one of his sons a participant in the royal throne, and, as it were, a flowering and strong plant, assigning times for development. He declared the first, the one of the same name, 6 to be involved in the royal lot, after the first ten-year period of reign, the second in time 7 - after the second, and the third 8 - on the third, the current ten-year holiday. Now the fourth period has already arrived and the length of time increases. By spreading the reign through the abundant communication of the family and the appointment of the Caesars, He leads to the fulfillment of the prophecies of the divine prophets, who long ago and very long ago cried out: “And they will receive the kingdom of the Holy Most High” (Dan. 7:17). Thus, giving the God-loving basileus an increase in times and children, God, the All-Tsar, himself makes his rule over the peoples of the earth strong and youthful, as if it were only now arising. Having glorified in him the conqueror of all enemies and adversaries, and having shown all the inhabitants of the earth an example of true piety, He himself arranges his current triumph. As for the basileus, with the radiant radiance of the Caesars, like the sun casting rays far from itself, he illuminates those subjects who live in the most distant countries. One fruit worthy of himself, he sent to us, the inhabitants of the east, another son - to another kind of people, another again to another, kindling them, like torches or lamps, with light flowing from himself. Thus, harnessing the four most courageous Caesars to one yoke of the royal four-horse chariot, 9 and leveling them with the reins of divine consent and unanimity, he himself drives them from the height of his throne and, circling the sunlit earth, he himself is present everywhere and inspects everything. Moreover, adorned with the image of the reign of heaven and strengthened by the imitation of monarchical power, he looks at the mountain and rules the earth according to the primitive idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe heavenly, for the All-King of earthly creatures bestowed this one idea on human nature. The law of royal law is precisely that which subordinates everyone to a single dominion. Monarchy is superior to all forms of government; plurality (πολυαρχια), composed of members of equal dignity, is rather anarchy and rebellion. Therefore, there is one God (not two, not three, no more, for polytheism is also atheism), one King, one His Word and one royal law, expressed not in words and letters, not in writing and on tables, destroyed by the length of time, but the living and hypostatic Word of God, prescribing the will of the Father to all who are submissive to Him and follow Him. He is surrounded by heavenly armies, He is served by darkness of Angels, countless hosts of supermundane regiments and spirits invisible in the sky, who are subordinate to the order of the whole World. All of them, like a certain leader of the great King, are led by the royal Word. And it is this Word that the loudest theologians mystically call the Archangel and the great Bishop, the Prophet of the Father, the Angel of the great council, the reflection of the fatherly radiance, the only begotten Son, and other countless names. It is this living Word, this law, wisdom and the fullness of every good that His Parent gave to all the sons of His kingdom as the greatest and best gift. And penetrating everything, passing everywhere and extending the grace of its Father to everyone, It imparted the likeness of royal power even to the rational inhabitants of the earth. That is, divine powers adorned the human soul created in His image. From here, as a divine outflow, other virtues are possible for her, for one wisdom is one God. He alone is good in essence, alone powerful in strength, He is also the parent of truth, the Father of Word and wisdom, the source of light and life, the dispenser of truths and virtues, the leader of kingship itself, of all authority and power. But how were people supposed to know this? Who announced this to the ears of mortals? How did the carnal language manage to pronounce that which is alien to the flesh and corporeality? Who has seen the Invisible King and contemplated these powers in him? After all, the elements akin to it, and things composed only of them, are comprehended by the bodily sense, but by contemplation of the kingdom, in all respects, through the bodily eyes of the invisible, probably no one has boasted, and mortal nature is not able to understand the beauty of wisdom. Who, with their bodily senses, looked into the face of the truth? Where did man get the concept of legal government and royal power? Where does he, made up of flesh and blood, get the idea of ​​autocratic power? Who expressed to earth-born ideas invisible and amorphous, an essence incorporeal and not outlined in an image? There was one interpreter of this, the Word of God passing everywhere, the Father of the rational and thinking essence in people - one united with the Divinity of the Father and watering his own generation with the Father's outflow. Hence all people, Hellenes and barbarians, have natural and independent thoughts, hence the concept of intelligence (λογον) and wisdom (σοφιας), hence the seeds of prudence and truth, hence the knowledge of the arts; hence the knowledge of virtue, the beloved name of wisdom and the honorable love of philosophical education, hence the knowledge of all that is good and beautiful, hence the idea of ​​God himself and a life worthy of piety, hence man has the power to reign and has irresistible dominion over all earthly things. All this is precisely a consequence of the fact that the Word, the father of verbal (λογιχωνο) creations, imprinted in the human soul the features of the image and likeness of God and made it a royal animal, instilling in it one of the earthly creatures the ability to reign and obey the royal authority, and at the same time, carefully clarify in advance for itself the promised hope of the kingdom of heaven, to which it is destined. Then the Father of his children did not hesitate to enter into an interview with mortals. Feeding his seeds and renewing gifts from above, He preached to everyone about the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven, called and exhorted everyone to be ready to march on the mountain, and prepared clothing worthy of the title. With the indescribable power of his preaching, He filled everything that was daily illuminated by the sun and, in the likeness of heaven, to which He urged the entire human race to rush, feeding people with good hope, He depicted the earthly kingdom. The friend of God also shares in this hope, adorned with virtues innate from God and accepting His suggestions into the soul. From this all-encompassing reason he is reasonable, from this wisdom he is wise, from the participation in this good of blessings, from communication with this truth he is righteous, according to the idea of ​​​​this moderation he is moderate, from the acceptance of this highest power he is courageous. And it is known that a true basileus, in all fairness, should be called the one who formed his soul with royal virtues, according to the model of the highest kingdom - on the contrary, who alienated them, rejecting the All-Tsar, did not recognize the heavenly Father of souls and did not pay due respect to the basileus, but accepted ugliness and shame into the soul, replaced royal meekness with the irritability of a wild beast, a generous disposition the incurable poison of malice, prudence with madness, intelligence and wisdom with the most hated stupidity, from which, like from bitter moisture, harmful plants grow: dissolute life, covetousness of murder, fight against God, wickedness - whoever gives himself up to all this, even if he sometimes rises to tyrannical power, cannot be called a basileus. And how can he bear the heavenly image of royalty when he has imprinted numerous images of demons in his soul? What kind of boss and ruler is he over everyone, when he has attracted countless cruel despots to himself, when he is a slave of shameful passion, a slave of depraved misogyny, a slave of unjustly collected money, a slave of irritability and anger, a slave of fear and horrors, a slave of murderous demons, a slave of murderous spirits? So, according to the testimony of the truth, let one basileus be proclaimed among us, the Friend of the All-Tsar God, because he alone is free, or better said, the only true master: he is above money and stronger than passion for wives; he generates even natural pleasures, and curbs irritability and anger without being curbed by them, he is a true autocrat, bearing a name corresponding to his deeds, a real winner, having won victory over the passions that war against the human race, he is imprinted on the original idea (αρχιετυπον) of the great King, and in his mind, as in a mirror, he reflects the flowing from it rays of virtues. Perfected by them, he is temperate, kind, just, courageous, pious, God-loving and, in truth, one basileus - a philosopher 10 who knows himself 11 and has studied the external, or better to say, the sources of all good that flow from heaven 12. He displays the honorable name of the monarch's power with elegant vestments - veils, and he alone wears a decent royal scarlet robe with dignity. This is the kind of basileus who calls on the heavenly Father night and day, appeals to Him in his prayers, and extends his desires to the highest kingdom, for knowing that the real blessings of mortals, destructible, flowing like a river, and disappearing, are unworthy of the All-King God, he desires the incorruptible and incorporeal kingdom of God, and prays to receive it. With the height of his thoughts, raising his mind above the firmament, he feels in himself an inexpressible thirst for the light there, for he sees that, in comparison with it, all the gifts of real life are no different from darkness - he sees that managing people, that is, their mortal and impermanent life, is a small and short-term care, care a little better than ruling over goats, sheep, or cows, or even more difficult and restless than over animals. As for the exclamations of the people and the greetings of flattery, they bring more boredom than pleasure to his strong character and truly educated soul. And looking at his subordinate doryphori, at the darkness of the troops, at the servile and obedient crowds of hoplites and horse tagmas, he is not amazed or puffed up by this power, but pays attention to himself and sees in himself a nature common to all. The gold-woven clothes embroidered with different colors, the royal scarlet robe and the diadem 13 even arouse a smile in him when he notices that the crowd is amazed by this, and looks at such decoration with childish innocence and reverently looks at the external splendor. He himself, knowing God, does not at all harbor such feelings in himself, but, instead of clothing, he clothes his soul with truly royal decorations: temperance and truth, piety and other virtues. Moreover, he considers the treasures coveted by many, that is, gold, silver and all kinds of amazing stones, to be really stones, a useless and unnecessary substance. In general, what they are by nature is how he looks at them, that is, as things incapable of eliminating evils. In fact, do they help ward off illness and avoid death? He knows this completely, and therefore, looking at how those presented for decent decoration use them, he does not lose his impartiality, but laughs, seeing their childish surprise at this. Moreover, he abstains from intoxicating or intoxicating drinks and refined condiments typical of gluttons, leaving this to others and not to himself, for he knows that such drinks and condiments are very harmful, that they darken the spiritual mind. Having studied divine objects and thinking about great things, the basileus strives for all this as for such blessings that are superior to the blessings of present life. He calls on the heavenly Father, desires His kingdom, does everything out of a sense of piety and, like a teacher, teaching his subjects good, teaches them the knowledge of God of the great King. God, as a preliminary guarantee for rewards, grants him a thirty-year end, prepared by prosperous periods of time, and after three decades have already passed, allows him to give all people nationwide, or better yet, worldwide (κοσμικας) festivals. But while the inhabitants of the earth, adorned with the flowers of the knowledge of God, rejoice, it is not at all strange to think that, carried away by the laws of nature, the earth and the hosts of heavenly inhabitants rejoice, and the King of all, like a good Father, looks with joy at the pious rejoicing of his good children, and even more so adorns with long-term honors the chief and creator of blessings, so that for his reign he recognizes three ten-year periods as insufficient, but makes it even longer and gives him the longest age. The whole age does not grow old and does not end, the minds of mortals usually do not see its beginning, nor its boundaries (ουτε περιγραφη), and do not comprehend the most important thing. He does not allow those who wish to define their so-called present, nor even the future, and past time, because there is no past, because it has already passed, there is no future, because it has not yet come, and the so-called present leaves along with thought and sound, rather words, therefore, it cannot be represented as the present. We, of necessity, either only expect the future, or consider the past, while the present runs on like a mortal thought. So, the whole century does not submit to the mind of mortals and rejects serving them, however, it does not refuse to confess its King and Lord, but, adorned with the gifts received from him, carries him on its backbone. And He, controlling it from above and holding it - not with a golden chain, as the poets say, but as if with some kind of reins, bonds of ineffable wisdom, with all harmony, arranges in it the months and seasons, air changes and summers, the correct change of days and nights, and limits it to various limits and measures. The age is straight by nature and strives towards infinity, it received the name of the age - αιων, as if from something that always exists and is similar in parts to itself, or better to say, it is not divided into parts and does not have them, but only increases in its length in a straight line. God Himself split it into sections and, as if a straight line stretched out into longitude, dividing it with points, created in it many parts, determined a single being and a monad like by numbers, and in the amorphous gave birth to diverse differences: for first He created in it, as if the container of every essence, amorphous matter 14; then, by the power of duality, from what does not have a form (αειδος) forming a form (ειδος), produced in matter (υλης) the quality 15, then, through the number ternary, dividing it into three, from matter and form (ειδος) 16 created a body (σωμα), having latitude, longitude and depths 17, and finally, taking two principles twice, he came up with a quartet of elements - earth (γην), water (υδωρ), air (αερα), fire (πυρ), as the eternal causes of movement in the universe 18. Then, the quaternary gave birth to the decade (δεχα), for one, two, three, four make up the number ten 19. The triad, grafted onto the decade, produced the nature of the month, and the month made a circle around the sun with twelve revolutions. Hence the circular movements of the years and the changes of the annual times, for the rest and enjoyment of creatures proceeding their way of life, the amorphous and formless age was diversified, as it were, with multi-colored paints. Just as for those who, in the hope of receiving a reward, strive in competitions, the distances of which are determined by certain measures, and because others run far, their road is divided into parts and segments, so that someone, extending his expectation to infinity, will not be exhausted by jealousy: so the King who binds everything does with the whole age, He leads it, tempering it with the bonds of wisdom, and gives it such a direction as he recognizes as best. The age formerly devoid of structure (ασχεματιστον), having decorated it with pleasant shades and beautiful flowers, He, through the sun, commanded the white day to shine; and stretching out a black shadow and scattering the brilliant lamps of stars over it, like golden shoots, he created night. Kindling the bright rays of the Day, the varied fire of the moon and the luminous groups of stars, He crowned the whole sky, like a great robe, with all possible beauties of painting; and stretching the air from height to depth and with its power cooling the whole world in latitude and longitude, he indicated in it the kingdom of the formation of birds, and opened it to those flying in the air, like a great sea for swimming. Having established the earth in the middle, like a center, He surrounded it with the ocean, and the sea roars around the earth, adorned with the green of its clothing. Having indicated in it a refuge, a nurse and the mother of all animals and having watered it with rain and spring streams, He commanded that all kinds of plants and beautiful flowers should grow on it for the abundant enjoyment of life. Then, having created on earth in His image the most excellent animal and most beloved to God himself, gifted with intelligence and knowledge, reborn by word and wisdom, having created rational man, He gave him the power to rule over all the other creatures that move on the earth and the creatures that feed on it, for the most beloved of all earthly animals was man for Him, to whom He, as a father, gave birth and service. dumb; for his sake he made the sea comfortable for swimming, and crowned the earth with various plants; He also gave him cognitive abilities to study various sciences, he conquered creatures that reptile in the depths, and birds flying in the air, he also revealed to him celestial sights - the flow of the sun, the turns of the moon, the rotation of moving and stationary stars; He alone on earth was ordered to know the heavenly Father and glorify the great King of the whole century with hymns. In addition to all this, the Creator of the world (κοσμοηοιος) girded the unchangeable age with four seasons: he ended the winter time in the spring, and defined spring, as the beginning of annual changes, with evenly standing scales, then, crowning the entire age with the abundance of spring, he transferred it to the heat of summer, after which, as if exhausted by labor, he restored it to the autumn time, and, finally, Having washed it, like a royal horse, with the wet streams of winter rains, smoothed it with streams falling from above, and fattened it with downpours, it again leaves it on the eve of spring. Having bound the entire circle of the year with such bonds of wisdom, the great King subordinated his age to the helm of the most excellent Ruler - his only begotten Word, and to Him, as the common Savior of all, he entrusted the reins of everything. Having accepted this inheritance from the good Father, and having brought into a single harmony everything that contains the space inside and outside the sky, He began his eternal flow towards his direct goal. Righteously observing the benefits of His rational creatures on earth, and prescribing the limits of existence to those who lead mortal life, He allowed all people in the present century to see in advance the beginning of a better, future, for He taught that the divine and blessed life is truly higher than the present century, and that the most excellent blessings are prepared for zealous ascetics in it, that those who have lived temperately and piously from here will move on from here and move to a better place, and those bound here by sins will occupy a decent country for themselves. Then, as the manager of all kinds of rewards for ascetics, having proclaimed various crowns (στεφανος) to the winners, He crowns them with various gifts for their virtues. The good basileus, adorned with piety, is prepared, he says, with even greater rewards for his exploits, and he allows him to celebrate the first fruits even here - he allows him to celebrate a holiday made up of the perfect numbers 20, from the monad tripled and multiplied by ten. Of these numbers, the first is that the triad is a generation of the monad, and the monad is the mother of numbers, older than all months, annual times, years and all periods of time. In general, the monad (μοναδα), which received its name from constancy (μενειν), can rightly be called the beginning, foundation and element of any set, precisely because when each set, through the subtraction and addition of numbers, either decreases or increases, one monad retains constancy and immutability, for it is separated from every set and from the numbers born from it. It bears within itself the image of an indivisible and separated essence, by the power and participation of which the nature of all being is produced, for the monad gives existence to every number, since every multitude is obtained through the copulation and application of monads. Without the monad it is impossible to imagine the essence of numbers, while it itself can exist without set, since it itself is incomparably higher and superior to any number, for it creates and establishes everything, without increasing from anything else 21. The triad is also akin to it: it is also uncut and indivisible, it is the first quantity, consisting of even and odd numbers, for the even - two, having attached the monad to itself, produced the first odd nature of the triad. The triad pointed to justice, because it led to the concept of equality, because in it the beginning, middle and end are equal. All this is the image of the mystical, all-holy and royal Triad, Which, having a nature without beginning (ανορχον) and unborn (αγενητου), carries within itself the seeds, foundations and causes of the essence of everything that is born; so that the power of the Trinity is rightly considered the beginning of all being. Finally, the decade contains the limit of all numbers: it stops everything that reaches itself, and is rightly called a complete and perfect number, because it embraces all ideas (ιδεας) and measures of all numbers, causes, agreements and harmonies. Monads that increase through addition are actually limited to ten. Having a mother and an outlined border in a decade, they make their circular run in it, passing the second circle, the third, the fourth and so on - up to ten, out of ten decades they produce hundreds and then return to the previous point of destruction. From here, starting their movement again and completing it ten times, that is, having walked around their path ten times a hundred, on the way back in the same circles, through returning from themselves to themselves, they run enormous distances. Thus, a tenth of ten is a monad, and ten monads make one decade. A decade is the limit of monads, there is their circle, their edge, the circle of infinity of numbers, the edge is the end of monads. The Trinity, in conjunction with the decade, having completed the period of ten circles three times, gives birth to the most natural number - thirty, for what is in the monads a triad, then in the decades is thirty: it is the constant limit: the second, after the sun, great luminary, for the period of the moon, from its first approach to the sun to the second, makes up the circle of the month, after which, having again received the beginning of birth, it is illuminated with a new light and manifests new days, decorated with thirty monads 22 - she is glorified by three decades and shines with ten triads. The power of the victorious basileus, awarded the same thing by the Giver of all blessings, is now receiving new gifts of government. Having just celebrated her thirtieth birthday, she has now reached the proper dimensions of time, and is already enjoying the hopes of future blessings in the kingdom of heaven. There, around the All-Tsar flows not just one sun, but whole legions of countless lights, and each of them is more excellent than the light of the sun, because they are all illuminated and sparkle with the radiance of rays emanating from the eternal source. There the life of the soul flows in the imperishable beauty of the virtues, there it does not know any boredom, there is the enjoyment of healthy and all-holy pleasures, there is time without time, it lasts, but does not end, but goes to infinity, is not measured in days, months, circles of years and periods of annual times, but becomes one life that extends infinitely. And this life is not illuminated by the sun, illuminated not by many stars and not by the radiance of the moon: its luminary is God the Word, the only begotten Son of the All-Tsar. Therefore, mystical theology calls Him the Sun of Truth, the light above all lights and minds. And we believe that He illuminates the blessed powers with the rays of truth and the light of wisdom and, justifying His promises by deed itself, He accepts souls raised by piety, instead of the heavenly sphere, into His own depths. However, the eye of mortals does not see, and the ear does not hear, and the mind clothed with flesh does not know what is prepared for people adorned with piety, what is prepared for you, most pious basileus, for you, to whom alone from eternity God himself, the All-Tsar, entrusted to cleanse the lives of people, to whom he also showed his saving banner, so that, having defeated death with it, he would erect it as a trophy over his enemies. This victorious trophy 23, the fear of demons, having opposed errors to idols, you won victory over all wicked opponents and barbarians, even over barbarians of a different kind, that is, demons. Since two natures are united in us: soul and body, and one of them is visible to everyone, and the other is invisible, then they are opposed by two hostile families, one fights secretly, and the other openly; Enemies attack bodies with bodies, and the soul, naked of corporeality, is besieged by incorporeal means. Visible barbarians, wandering savages, no different from animals, raid the societies of meek people and, like bloodthirsty wolves emerging from the desert into populated areas, devastate villages, enslave cities and kill as many as they can, and invisible enemies, murderous demons, are crueler than all barbarians; they fly in the air and, through polytheistic evil, subjugate the entire mortal race under their power, so that they do not recognize the true God as God, but wander in their diverse and godless blindness, having taken from somewhere gods that do not exist anywhere and in any way, they impute the true existence and the one into nothing, as if He did not exist. Hence, they consider the birth of bodies to be God, but they call their destruction and decomposition other, opposite to Him. The first, as if the leader of birth, is honored by them with the orgies of Aphrodite, and the second, as if abundant in wealth and having power over the mortal race, is called Ganymede - death, for the people of that time, not knowing any other life except that which is obtained through birth, proclaimed this birth itself and the cause of it to be God, and likewise, not hoping to exist after death, they declared this very death the conqueror of everything and the great God. Moreover, being destroyed by death, they did not think that they would be subjected to retribution, and, committing deeds worthy of thousands of deaths, they lived a life alien to life. Not having God in mind and not expecting God's judgment, not maintaining in themselves the remembrance of the essence of their soul, but turning to one, terrible patron - to death, and considering the resulting destruction of bodies and the decomposition of everything to be their own nature, they called death the great God and the rich man (πλουσιον), or, which is the same, Ganymede. However, death was not their only deity, even before it they revered everything that was conducive to a passionate life, it was God who recognized the pleasure of the flesh, God food, God its growth, God the fruits of trees, God drunken feasting, God bodily lust, God the pleasure of bodily species. Hence the sacraments of Demeter 24 and Proserpina (φερεφαττης), in which the abduction and return of Kore 25 committed by Adonis 26, hence the initiations 27 of Dionysus 28 and the victory of drunkenness, as the highest deity 29, over Hercules 30 hence the fornicating orgies of Eros 31 and Aphrodite 32, hence Zeus himself is filled with frantic love for women and Ganymede 33, hence the seductive tales of mythology about the voluptuousness and lust of the gods. With so many arrows of ungodly error, the terrible barbarians and enemies of the All-Tsar wounded the inhabitants of the earth and enslaved their entire race, so that everywhere on earth they erected monuments to atheism and in all its corners they built churches and churches of false theology. And the persons who were revered by the rulers of that time became so slaves of error that they tried to please their gods through the murder of fellow tribesmen and relatives, sharpened swords against the defenders of the truth, raised irreconcilable war and wicked hands not against foreign and foreign enemies, but against household members and friends, against brothers, relatives and lovers who decided to honor God and worship Him with goodness. life, abstinence and works of true piety. Breathing such fury, they sacrificed to their demons people devoted to the All-Tsar, while these noble martyrs of true piety, accustomed to preferring a glorious death for the truth to life itself, valued such great tyranny at nothing and, like the warriors of God, protected by the power of patience, turned into laughter all types of death: fire, iron and nailing, wild beasts and the depths of the sea, the taking of limbs and cauterization, perforation of eyes and cutting off limbs of the body, also hunger, mining and bonds. All this, out of love and desire for the King, seemed to them more pleasant than any good and any pleasure. No less than the husbands showed in this case the firmness and youthful souls of their wives. Some of them, having accomplished the same feats as their men, received the same rewards for their valor, others, drawn to the corruption of their bodies, rather gave up their souls to death than their bodies to corruption, and thousands of others, not being able to even hear the threat of fornication uttered by the people’s rulers, with determination submitted to all kinds of wheeling and listened to every death sentence. Thus, in the fight against the polytheistic army, the champions of the great King, strong in faith, labored, and the enemies of God and opponents of the salvation of men, worse than any unbridled barbarian, meanwhile looked with joy at the shedding of human blood, when their servants, preparing this disastrous and wicked feast for the destruction of our entire race, brought them cups filled with the blood of unrighteous murder. Such were the circumstances, and what should the King of sufferers, God, do? Is it really possible to ignore the salvation of our loved ones and despise our neighbors who are in such straits? But a helmsman is never called wise if he abandons his ship, along with its people, to the abyss, and does nothing to save the seafarers, and a military commander would not be thrifty if he surrendered his neighbors to his enemies with impunity, and the good shepherd of his flock will not be calm when his sheep gets lost, but, leaving everyone enjoying their well-being in a safe place, decides to endure whatever It was, in order to save the lost one, at least he had to fight with wild animals. But the great King did not have to take care of a dumb animal. He cared for all his army and for those who fought for Him. Accepting their exploits and struggle for piety, He brought some to Himself, awarded them victorious rewards, and included them in the angelic hosts in heaven, while He kept others on earth as seeds transmitting to posterity the life of piety, and at the same time as eyewitnesses of the judgment of the wicked and narrators of everything that happened. When he stretched out his right hand to take revenge on the enemies, he destroyed them all with one wave, however, he first sent heavenly scourges to them and thereby forced them, reluctantly, with their own lips, to sing a repentant song about their sins, and restored those who were lying down, those who had once been humiliated, and raised up those who were rejected by all. This is what the great King of heaven did for the earth, when in the person of his servant he prepared an invincible champion, and the king of the earth, out of excess of piety, joyfully bears such a name. Having raised him up alone against many, God revealed in him the conqueror of all kinds of enemies. The enemies were countless, they, like demons, had many friends, or, better to say, they were, as they are, nothing, and the basileus was one to one, this is the image of the one All-Tsar. Those, having a godless soul, bloodthirstyly killed pious men, and he, imitating his Savior and knowing only how to save, saved and taught piety to the atheists themselves. Thus, as a true winner, he defeated both kinds of barbarians: he tamed the violent crowds of people with reasonable ideas, taught them to submit and obey the best, and transferred them from a lawless and brutal life to a reasonable and legal one, and he exposed the frantic and enraged nature of the invisible demons, as previously prompted by the All-Good, by his very deeds. For the common Savior of all invisibly defeated invisible enemies, and he, as an assistant to the great King, pursued the vanquished, exposed the long-dead and lost, and generously divided the spoils among the armies of the victor. Having learned that many, like foolish children, are cowardly afraid of the monsters of error poured from gold and silver, Constantine considered it necessary to destroy them, like stumbling blocks thrown under the feet of people walking in darkness, and through this make the royal path easy and smooth for everyone. Having come to this idea, he decided that to implement it, neither hoplites nor a large army were needed, and was content with the service of one or two loyal individuals, whom he sent with one wave to all the provinces. These authorized servants of piety appeared among numerous popular assemblies, and made gatherings in all cities and villages devoted to the old error. Commanding the priests themselves, with loud laughter and shame, to bring their gods out of the dark gorges into the light, they removed everything external from them and revealed to the eyes of everyone the difference between the honey that has a form and the formless, hidden under the painted images, then separating the substances, apparently suitable, and testing them with smelting and fire, everything useful and necessary was put in a safe place and stored, and the remaining useless, in the memory of shame was returned to the wicked. At the same time, the wondrous basileus did something else. When the dead idols of the precious substance were thus laid out, he proceeded to the idols cast of copper, and these also prisoners, the gods of old tales, were taken away entangled in hair ropes. After this, the great basileus seemed to light a certain bright-burning torch and with his royal eye looked to see if there were any remnants of error hidden somewhere. Just as a clear-sighted, heavenly eagle sees the most distant earthly objects from above, so he, living in the royal dwelling of his beautiful city, saw from afar a certain fatal net for catching souls, hiding in the Phoenician country. These were a grove and a church - not in the middle of the city, not in the squares and streets, where many of them were set up to decorate cities, both were located in a deserted place, far from crossroads and highways, on one of the heights of Lebanon, and were dedicated to the shameless goddess Aphrodite. There was a school of villainy for all the dissolute, who eagerly corrupted their bodies, there some effeminate people, men - not men, having renounced their honorable sex, appeased the demon with female passion, and women in that church, as in an illegal and apostate place, had unnatural intercourse, secretly united in marriage and committed unspeakably shameful and disgusting deeds. There were no observers over the actions taking place there, because not a single honest person dared to witness the miracle, however, they could not hide from the great basileus. Having learned about them by the power of his own royal insight, he considered that very church unworthy of sunlight and ordered it to be destroyed to the ground with all the things that were in it. So, at the behest of the basileus, all the inventions of debauchery were immediately destroyed, and the delusions of the military detachment began to cleanse that place, and the people, hitherto depraved, were taught abstinence by the formidable will of the basileus. By this means, making the deceptions of evil obvious to everyone, the basileus through this very thing preached his Savior to everyone. And no one patronized or helped those captured - neither the demon, nor God, nor the prophet, nor the fortuneteller, for the souls of people were no longer lost in the deep darkness, but, illuminated by the rays of unfalse piety, they condemned the ignorance of their ancestors and regretted their blindness, while they considered themselves blessed, as having been delivered from a terrible error. Thus, by the benevolence of the great God and the assistance of the basileus, in a short time the entire race of enemies and adversaries, visible and invisible, disappeared, and the desired peace, caring for the education of youth, reigned in all the dwellings of man. There were no more wars, because there were no enemies left, there were no battles in villages and cities, which happened before when idolatry flourished, people no longer shed blood, as happened during the times of polytheistic madness. Now is the time to compare the new with the old and delve into the change from worse to better, time to discuss and understand with what care in ancient times they decorated the entrances of houses, churches, groves, and altars in every city. Their churches were crowned with numerous offerings, and the gods in these churches enjoyed great honor among the tyrants of that time, and regional and village residents expressed respect for domestic customs by placing statues in villages and in every place, even in houses, storerooms and palaces. The fruit of such their piety was not the mutual peace now visible with their eyes, but the completely opposite of that: the wars, battles and disturbances from which they suffered throughout their entire lives filled their countries with blood and internecine murders. Meanwhile, the gods they revered, who with great shamelessness promised the rulers of that time to prophesy, prophesy and foreknow the future, were unable to foresee their own destruction, or predict about themselves. This could already be the most solid basis for exposing deception. In fact, none of these oracles, amazing in ancient times for their predictions, predicted either the most glorious coming of the common Savior, or a new sermon of the knowledge of God taught by Him. Even Pythias himself, or any other of the main demons, did not foresee his own desolation, did not predict his Conqueror, did not foresee his Destroyer. What oracle or soothsayer foretold that the veneration of the gods, with the coming of some New One, would fade away in the lives of people, and that all people would be taught the knowledge of the All-Tsar and faith in Him? Who foresaw this holy and godly kingdom, this glorious conqueror of ours, these trophies erected by Him over the demons everywhere on earth, and this destruction of idols? Which hero has ever imagined this melting of soulless statues by fire and their transformation from useless to useful things? And when their idols were melted and crushed into small pieces with ridicule, which of the gods remembered them? Where were their defenders that they could not take revenge for their sacred monuments destroyed by people? Where were those who formerly started wars, if only they saw that their opponents were enjoying the most perfect peace? Where were those who relied on them as gods, And puffed up their spirit with vain confidence, who, having exalted their error and, without declaration, raised a war opposing the truth, like evil ones, died evil? Where is this crowd of god-fighting titans? Where is the whistle of the dragons, who, lashing out their tongues, emitted a godless cry against the All-Tsar? Having entered into war with the All-Tsar, they relied on the multitude of their gods and, in the form of soulless statues, carrying before them images of the dead, they came out against Him with great military force. Constantine, putting on the armor of piety, opposed the crowd of opponents with a saving and life-giving banner, as a kind of intimidation threatening evil, and at the same time won victory over enemies and demons. Then, from a grateful heart, offering a prayer of gratitude to the Hero of the victory, he announced this victorious banner to all people with a loud word and monuments. Having hoisted this great trophy over all enemies in the middle of the royal city, he ordered that this saving and life-giving banner be recognized as a deterrent to the Roman power and, in general, to the entire kingdom. He taught all people to recognize him as such, and especially warriors, who, more than others, should have placed their hope not in spears, not in weapons, and not in physical strength, but should have known the God of all, as the Giver of all blessings and victory itself. For his armies, the basileus again (paradoxically!) became a teacher of prayer: he issued for them pious prayers, in accordance with the divine rules, so that, stretching out their hands to the sky, and lifting their mental gaze even higher to the heavenly King, they in their prayers would appeal to Him as the Giver of victory, Savior, Guardian and Helper; truly the Lord's, truly the first, resurrection and saving day, the day of the same name as light and life, immortality and all good. Moreover, having become a teacher of good for himself and glorifying the Savior in his royal palaces, he either fulfilled the divine statutes with prayers, or edified his soul by listening to the sacred scriptures. His servants and servants, as well as the guards of his entire household, were men dedicated to God, people adorned with purity of life and virtue, the very doryphors, faithful bodyguards (συματοψυλακες), armed with morals of benevolence, who saw in the basileus a teacher of pious life. Meanwhile, the basileus honored the victorious banner, for he actually experienced its divinity. In truth, with it he conquered the crowds of the enemy army, with it he put to flight the forces of invisible demons, with him he crushed the arrogance of the god-fighters, with him he silenced the tongues of the slanderers and the wicked, with them he subjugated barbarian tribes, with them he exposed the insignificance of pagan deception, with them, at the end of all good things, as if paying a debt, the basileus erected victorious trophies everywhere on earth, and commanded everyone to with a rich and royal hand to build temples, places of meeting and sacred houses of prayer. After this, majestic works of royal generosity immediately appeared in dioceses and cities, and in a short time they shone everywhere, and were denouncers of godless tyranny, for recently, the souls were prompted by the madness to oppose God, and, raging like dogs, the tyrants poured out their rage on soulless buildings, if they could no longer pour it out on God himself. Destroying from top to bottom and digging up houses of worship from the very foundations, they presented them with the spectacle of a city captured by enemies 34 . Such was the point of their malice! But, as if threatening God, they soon suffered vengeance for their madness, for, after a short period of time, they were exterminated by one desire of a storm sent down from God, so that among people there remained neither their clan, nor tribe, nor a trace of memory: all of them, despite their large number, were struck by heavenly scourges, and died in a very short time. This was the end of their ungodly rage! Meanwhile, Constantine, protected by the saving trophy, alone, however, not alone, but with the help and assistance of the one King, created churches more excellent than those that had recently been destroyed, created the second much more magnificent than the first, and with various churches of God he delighted both the city of the same name 35 and the metropolis of Bithynia 36, ​​which he honored with a majestic and beautiful church. He decorated the main cities and others with similar churches, but from all the regions he chose mainly two places in the east: one in Palestine, from where, like a source, the life-giving stream of faith poured out everywhere; the other is in the main city of the eastern metropolis, adorning the name of Antiochus 37 . In this latter, as the head of all the dioceses located here, he dedicated to God, in terms of its enormity and beauty, an extraordinary and unique building of its kind. From the outside, he surrounded the entire church with a long fence, and inside he raised the basilica to an amazing height, and gave it the appearance of an octagon; in addition, he surrounded it with numerous buildings and porches and crowned it with all kinds of decorations. These buildings were made (in Antioch), and others - in Palestine among the royal city of the Jews 38. Here, at the site of saving suffering, he richly and generously decorated the magnificent house of prayer and the holy church created in the name of the banner of the Savior. Here he showered the Holy Sepulcher worthy of eternal memory and the trophies of the great Savior over death with decorations that surpass all expression. Taking three places here, famous for three mysterious caves, he exalted them with rich buildings. With this he honorably honored the cave of the first epiphany, with this he expressed his favor to the memory of the last ascension on the mountain, and above the middle one he glorified the victorious end of all the deeds of the Savior. The basileus decorated all these places, preaching everywhere a saving sign, and as a reward for such piety, it multiplies his entire house and throne, and strengthens the throne of the kingdom for many years, and passes on the fruits of the basileus’ virtues to his pious children, his entire family, and his most distant descendants. The greatest proof of the Omnipotence revered by the basileus was even the fact that, distributing equally the gifts of justice, he gave what was due to both sides. The destroyers of houses of worship were followed on their heels by execution for their wickedness, they were left without a family, without a home, without shelter and immediately perished: and whoever honored his Lord with all kinds of piety, erecting basilicas in His honor, preaching Him to his subjects with widespread offerings, he truly found in Him the Savior and Guardian of his royal house and family. Thus the works of God were glorified by the divine power of the saving banner! A theologian initiated into the sacraments could speak much more about this banner, for it is truly saving. It’s strange to say, and even stranger to imagine how it, having just appeared on earth, eclipsed everything that had been decrees about the gods for centuries, consigned error to darkness and oblivion, and, illuminating human souls with rational light, revealed to everyone the one true God, so that now everyone who turned to the better spits on the faces of dead idols, tramples the lawless statutes of demons and ridicules the ancient ones passed down from their ancestors deception. Having established schools everywhere for listening to the sacred scriptures, 39 people are now edified as if by saving spiders, so that they no longer fear the creatures contemplated by their bodily eyes and, raising their gaze to the sun, moon and stars, do not stop before them in amazement, but confess the Being that is higher than them, incorporeal and invisible, the Creator of all things, and to Him alone pay homage. This great and wondrous banner brought so many benefits to people! The evil that existed before, through its power, no longer exists, and the previously non-existent good now shines with all the rays of piety. Now words, instructions and convictions for an honest and pious life are preached for the ears of all peoples, and the preacher is the basileus himself. The greatest miracle is that such a great basileus, as if the interpreter of the will of the All-Tsar God, loudly calls out to the whole world and invites all those he flocks to the knowledge of Existence. Nowadays, among the royal palaces, one can no longer hear the talkativeness of godless people, as happened before; priests and worshipers of God, adorned with piety, gather there and glorify God with royal hymns. Now one God, the All-King himself, is preached to everyone, and the good word of the Gospel, announcing to the sons of the earth about a merciful and loving heavenly Father, unites the entire human race with the King of all creatures. Now the choirs glorify Him with various songs of victory, and the entire mortal race is in one harmony with the hosts of angels in heaven. Now rational souls, clothed with bodies as if some kind of musical instruments, are lifting up appropriate hymns to Him and pleasing Him with God-loving theology. Now the inhabitants of the west see His teachings at the same hours as the inhabitants of the east, 41 and those who inhabit the north sing the same songs with the inhabitants of the midday. Now they all lead a pious life according to the same rules and laws, they all glorify the one God of all, confess the only begotten Savior as the Author of all good things, and recognize the only corrector on earth - the basileus and his God-loving children. This basileus, like a wise helmsman, sitting on a height and holding the helm in his hands, faithfully rules the ship and, with the assistance of a favorable wind, leads all his subjects to a safe and desired pier. And God, the great King, extending his right hand to him from above, makes him the conqueror of all enemies and adversaries, and strengthens the power of his reign over many years. He will show him as a participant in even higher blessings and will in fact fulfill his promises on him, which the present time does not allow us to talk about: we must wait for his relocation there. It is impossible to comprehend the divine with mortal eyes and physical hearing. Now in this word, in this essay about the All-Tsar, we will offer you, great winner, Constantine, the secrets of the hidden teaching. We will not dedicate you, who are wise by God Himself, to them, we will not reveal unspeakable things to you, to whom, even before our word, God himself revealed and revealed the sacred secrets, not through people or through man, but through the common Savior himself and through the image of God that shone many times before you. No, we will try to bring ignorant people to the light, and indicate the grounds and reasons for the righteous deeds of your piety to those who do not know them, for the exploits of your virtue, performed daily throughout the Oikumene inhabited by people, for the sake of serving the King - the God of all and honoring Him, are sung by the lips of all mortals, and the trophies of your gratitude to the Guardian and Savior, dedicated to Him by you in our phylum, I mean Palestine and that city from which, as from a source, the saving word poured out on all people, 42 these trophies of victory over death, erected in the form of houses of prayer and churches, these majestic and most beautiful royal realizations of royal thought, located near the immortal sepulcher of the Lord, do not reveal to everyone the reason for their origin. People, illuminated by the power of the divine Spirit, understand and recognize it, and for such a thought, for such an aspiration, which was of course not born without divine inspiration, they are rightly surprised at you and are pleased with you, but those ignorant of divine things, out of the blindness of their souls, condemn and loudly ridicule this matter, believing that it is not proper and not typical for such a great basileus to take care of coffins and monuments over dead bodies. Wouldn't it be better, they say, to preserve the customs of our fathers (φυλλοττειν), and to propitiate the gods and heroes revered in every region, and not to despise them, and not to run away from them for the sake of such misfortunes? For, according to a sense of impartiality, either one must equally idolize both, or, if the former, as servants of human passions, must be rejected, the latter must be brought under the same sentence. So, perhaps, some of them say, frowning their eyebrows, imagining themselves wiser than others and wanting to show their arrogance. But the philanthropic Word of the All-Good Father, granting forgiveness to these ignorant people, and everywhere among the peoples of the Oikumene: in countries and villages, in villages, deserts and every city, establishing schools, constantly invites all the lost to be edified by divine instructions and, as a philanthropic Savior and doctor of souls, commands the Greeks and barbarians, the sages and fools, poor and rich, slaves and masters, superiors and subordinates, the wicked, the unrighteous, the ignorant, the shameless, the slanderers, go and hasten to the divine hospital. Loudly proclaiming to everyone the oblivion of past evils, It cried out: “Come to Me, you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28); and again: “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:13), and added the reason, saying: “they do not require the health of a doctor, but the sick; I do not want the sinner to die, but to return to him” (Ezek. 18:32). Therefore, only those who have studied the divine instructions and learned the reason for the above-mentioned solicitude, only he will realize that our basileus was influenced by some suggestion higher than human, will be amazed at the piety of his character, and will be convinced that such zeal for the trophy of the Savior’s immortality was born in him not without God, but in truth through the inspiration of the All-Good, Whom, serving, he is a good doer of good. I have no doubt that you, great Sovereign, are truly pleased and pleased to hear in my present speech a discussion about the foundations and causes of your God-loving deeds. Wanting to be, as it were, an interpreter of your thoughts and a messenger of your God-pleasing soul, I want to teach my listeners everything that should be learned by each of them who wants to know the foundations of the power of our Savior God, according to which He, having pre-existed from time immemorial and providing for everything, finally came down to us from heaven, according to which He took on human nature and decided to die. After this, I also want to set forth the reasons for immortal life and the resurrection from the dead, and not only the reasons, but also mental proofs, clear arguments for people who need them. Now is the time to start talking about this. Those who transferred the honor belonging to the Creator and Almighty - the God of all things - to His creations, to the sun, moon and other parts of the world, also to the original elements: earth and water, air and fire, and honored them with the name characteristic of the Creator and Creator, namely, they called gods that which never existed at all, that would not have had a name if it had not been produced by the creative Word of God, they seem to be no different from people, who, losing sight of the artist of beautiful works in the royal palaces, are amazed only at the vaults and walls, the painted and multi-colored paintings on them, the golden figures and stone sculptures, and by this they call things the wisdom of the artist, while the reason for the surprise should not be attributed to the visible objects, but to their artist alone and, recognizing the numerous works of wisdom, consider wise only the one who was the cause that gave such properties to many things. Yes, these people are no different from children who are surprised by the musical instrument itself - the seven-string lyre, and not by the inventor of its design and the connoisseur of this wisdom, who do not pay attention to the person who distinguished himself in battle with courage, but decorate the spear and shield with victory marks, which, along with the great basileus, the culprit of the great and royal city, honor 43 squares, markets, buildings, soulless places of public meetings and gymnasium 44, whereas one should be amazed not at the stones, but at the artist of these wise works and the legislator. So they too, looking at everything with bodily eyes, should look for the reasons for this not in the sun, not in the moon, or in any other celestial body, but recognize wisdom as the fault of all things and, remembering their Creator and Maker, place respect and reverence for Him above all else. Contemplating these very things, one must wholeheartedly offer praise and worship to the All-Tsar. The Word of God, which is no longer contemplated by bodily eyes, but is understood by one bright and pure mind. If in a wise or learned man, no one has ever attributed wisdom to his body, for example, to his eyes, head, hands, feet or other parts, and even less to his outer vestments, household utensils, or the vessels necessary [even] for a philosopher, but every sane person is amazed at the hidden and invisible mind in him, then, looking at the wonderful creatures of the whole world, as at bodies created from one matter, how much more should we marvel at the invisible and incorporeal Word - the Creator and Decorator of everything, that only begotten Son of God, Whom the Creator of all things, existing beyond and above all essence, having begotten from Himself, made the Lord and Ruler of the universe. Since the constantly changing essence of the bodies and natures of newly created rational creatures, due to their immeasurable distance from the All-Good, it was impossible to approach the Almighty God, because He is an unborn being, located above and beyond everything, ineffable, inaccessible, incomprehensible, living, as the Scripture says, in an unapproachable light, they were created from nothing and are very far away, are immeasurably removed from unborn nature, then the All-Good God of all rightly posits, as it were, a certain middle 45, the divine and omnipotent power of his only begotten Word. This power converses with the Father in the most perfect and closest way and, abiding in Him, enjoys His innermost secrets, nevertheless, however, it meekly condescends and in some way adapts itself to those who are distant from the height of the divine: otherwise it would be both indecent and unholy for a Being beyond and above all to mingle with corruptible matter and the body. Therefore, God's Word, having partaken of all this and taken the reins of the whole world, leads it with its incorporeal and divine power, and governs it wisely, as soon as it recognizes it as the best. The proof of this doctrine is clear. Namely: let the parts of the world, which we usually call the first elements, that is, earth, water, fire and air, and which consist of irrational nature, as we see with our own eyes, let these parts of the world exist either by themselves, or at their basis they all have one substance, which among experts in this matter is called a receptacle (ουσια), matter, the nourisher of everything. But since this substance is without form, without appearance, without soul and without mind, then where, tell me, does the harmony that exists in it come from? Where does the division of elements come from? Where does the confluence of opposites come from? Who commanded the heavy element earth to communicate with a wet creature 46? Who ordained that the waters, which by nature fall to the ground, should return back and, through the clouds, float through the air? Who tamed the power of fire and hid it in a tree, dissolving it with opposite natures 47? Who mixed cold air with calorific power and changed their internecine enmity to friendship? Who subordinated the mortal race to the law of succession and extended its life into the longevity of immortal life? Who, having created the husband and formed the wife, brought both into harmony, and for all living people invented one beginning - birth? Who made this moist and seed-containing (σπερματυην) nature, from a corruptible and insensible stream, capable of giving birth to an animal? Who is creating all this and countless others, things that surpass all astonishment and astonishment, to this day? Who, by some hidden and invisible force, brings about their birth daily and hourly? The reason for all this is rightly the miracle-working Word of God, for indeed, the omnipotent Word of God, reaching out through everything, ethereally spreading mountain to height, down to depth, and, as if with a vast embrace, embracing both the longitude and breadth of the universe, has gathered and bound the whole together. Thus, having transformed the unreasonable, amorphous and formless essence of bodies into a musical instrument for itself, and combining it into consonant tones, It began to play it with the power of wisdom and reason (εργαστεριω) 48. According to unspoken laws, controlling the sun, moon and other heavenly bodies, It leads them to the good of the whole. The same Word of God, descending to earth, produced various kinds (γενη) of animals and the varied beauty of plants, the same Word of God, penetrating into the depths of the sea, invented the nature of those who swim, and here again created infinitely many and innumerable species of various animals. It, doing its work in the workshop of nature, gives animal forms to what is carried in the womb. It raises the fluid and heavy nature of the moist essence to a height and changes it to sweet, brings it down to the earth little by little, and at certain times pours it out in abundance 49 . In the same way, It, like an excellent farmer, guides this moist nature through the fields and, having dissolved the dry with it, adapts it to everything and delivers in it varied food, sometimes to beautiful flowers, in different ways: sometimes with a pleasant smell, sometimes with a variety of fruits, sometimes with taste. But how can I dare to enumerate the powers of the Word of God, and dare to do the impossible, when His works are beyond all mortal thought? Some called this Word the essence of everything, others - the soul, others - fate, and those who claimed that It is God - Existing beyond all sorts, I don’t know, somehow confused beings that were far from akin to each other: the Ruler of the Universe himself (πανηνεμονα), the unborn and highest Power, brought down to earth and merged with the mortal nature of the body, calling Him the middle between rational animals and unreasonable, mortal and immortal. That's what they thought. But the divine teaching says that the supreme good is above any concept, therefore It is inexpressible, unpronounceable and not called by name, it is beyond the realm of not only words, but also thoughts. It is not limited to a place, or a body, or the sky, or the air, or any part of the whole, but is hidden everywhere and outside of everything - in the indescribable depth of knowledge. Divine Scripture teaches us to recognize Him as the one true God, detached from all bodily essence and alien to all service. Therefore, tradition says that everything came from Him, however, not through Him, 50 that He, as a King, dwelling among ineffable, hidden, inaccessible palaces, and living in a completely inaccessible light, legislates and commands with a single force of will. By His will there is everything that exists, and without His will nothing happens, and He wants all that is good, for, in its essence, there is true good. The same one through whom everything was created - God the Word comes from above, from the all-good Father, as if from an eternal and boundless source and, like a river, pouring out in ineffable words, contains in Himself the fullness of power for the common salvation of all. Let's take an example from ourselves. In us there is an invisible and unseen mind (νους), which none of the people has known what it is like in its being. It is like a King who, being in his mysterious palaces, alone determines what should be done. From him, as from the very depths of the father, in an ineffable way and indescribable power comes the only-begotten word, and this word is the first messenger of the father’s thoughts for everyone: it manifests and preaches the secret determinations of his will and, bringing his desire to the ears of everyone, carries them out with deeds. Thus, people receive great benefit from the word, but no one has ever seen the hidden and invisible mind, that is, the father of the word. In exactly the same way, but much higher than any similarity and example, from the Fatherly Deity and kingdom comes the most perfect Word of the All-King God, as the only begotten Son of the Father, a Word composed not by the power of pronunciation, receiving a nature not from syllables and speech, and not designated by a sound that shakes the air, but the living and active Word of the highest God, in essence, the self-existent, as it were, power of God and His wisdom. As the good birth of the good Father and the Savior common to all, being present everywhere, It pours out life everywhere and, with its own fullness, with reason, wisdom, light and all the good things, it irrigates not only adjacent and close to itself, but also distant objects on earth, on the sea, or anywhere else. It assigns to all of them the most appropriate boundaries, places, laws, lots, and with royal generosity divides and delivers to everyone everything useful: for some it gives supermundane vaults (υπερκοσμιονουδας) as a home, for others the very sky (ουρανον), for others the region of the ether, for others the air (αερα), and for others the earth (γην); then from there he transfers them to another place, and rewards them with housing on the basis of a proper judgment about the life, morals and actions of each. It takes care of food not only for rational creatures, but also for dumb animals, serving for the benefit of rational creatures, and gives some the pleasure of mortal life, short-lived, and makes others partakers of immortal life. It does all this as the Word of God, being present everywhere and penetrating everything with intelligent power. Looking to its Father, the mountain, It, His will, embraces more, and according to the meaning of the common Savior of all, it governs everything in accordance with it. As if some mediator and leader of the essence born to the Unborn, this mediating Word of God is a kind of indissoluble chain that connects distant objects with each other and does not allow them to fall away from one another. It is the universal Providence, It is the guardian of everything and the corrector of everything, It is the power of God and God's wisdom, It is the only begotten God, the Word born from God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was to God, and God was the Word. All this was, and without him nothing came into being” (John 1:1). This is what the Holy Scripture teaches theologians. God's Word is the common gardener of all (φυεουργος), with whose assistance every creature grows and matures and, constantly watered by It, always receives new freshness and the most magnificent beauty. Having taken the reins of the universe, It eternally walks at the behest of the Father, and in accordance with it controls the great ship of the whole world. Having given birth to such a beautiful Artist, the only begotten Son, as a good fruit, God the Father, who exists above all, bestowed in Him the greatest good on the world, because to the soulless body, to the unreasonable bodily nature, He imparted the soul - His Word, and illuminated and inspired the amorphous, formless, soulless and uneducated essence with His divine power. We must recognize Him and look at Him as a Being, permeating everywhere with matter and the elements of bodies, and life-giving everything, as the light and spiritual birth of the ineffable Light, as a single being, existing from a single Father, but containing many forces. After all, if there are many parts of the world, then it does not follow that there are many powers over it, and if there are many creatures in it, then it is still impossible to recognize the existence of many gods. The children of polytheism, being children at heart, fell into a terrible error, deifying parts of the universe and dividing the one world into many. If, for example, someone took the eyes of one person separately and called them a man, and then the ears - another person, and did the same with the head, neck, chest, shoulders, arms, legs and other members, if in the same way he split up the powers of feelings in his mind and named many people instead of one, then through this he would not be subjected to anything other than the laughter of smart people at his stupidity. Such is the one who makes for himself countless gods from parts of one world, or thinks that this world created and consisting of many parts is God himself: he does not understand that the Divine nature cannot be divided into parts. If it were complex, it would have a need for another being - its compiler, and if it were multi-part, then it would no longer be Divine. And how can it exist, consisting of dissimilar and different parts, worse and better? No, as simple, uncomplicated and uncomplicated, it is above any structure visible in the world. Therefore, the herald* of the truth loudly cries out and speaks almost like this: The Word of God existed before all things, and one was the Savior of all rational creatures, and God is above all: He is the generating principle of the Word, and as the only culprit of all, He should be called the Father in relation to His only begotten Son, He Himself does not recognize any higher cause above Himself, therefore He Himself is one God, and from Him comes the one only begotten Word of God, Savior of all, passing through everything. The sensory world is like a many-stringed lyre. Just as it is composed of unequal strings - high and low, lowered, tense and middle, and all of them are tuned by the art of the musician, so the world, being polysyllabic and composed of many parts: from cold and its opposite heat, from moisture and its opposite dry essence, is united into one harmony and can be called an organ, a great work of the great God. But the Word of God does not consist of parts and is not made up of opposites, It is itself indifferent and uncomplicated, It all-perfectly and wisely excites sounds as a whole, and lifts up His due and worthy song to His Father, the All-King. Just as in one body parts and members are united, many upper and lower entrails, but one invisible soul and one indivisible and disembodied mind spreads throughout them, so here, one world consists of many parts, but one powerful and omnipotent Word of God passes through all of them and, faithfully extending everywhere, becomes in them the cause of the whole. Don't you see the whole world with your own eyes? Just as in it, one sky embraces numerous hosts of stars revolving around itself, and again, one sun leads many others and, with the excess of its light, darkens the radiance of all of them: so here, when there is one Father, then the good Father must also have one good Word. But why are there not many of them, someone will object indignantly, just as why there are not many suns, moons, worlds - and, despite others, he will propose countless questions, trying, like a madman, to overthrow the correct and well-ordered order of nature? Because just as in visible nature, one sun illuminates the entire sensory world, so in spiritual nature, invisible and incomprehensible to us, one omnipotent Word of God enlightens everyone. And in man, one soul and one rational force is at one time the performer of many things: knowledgeable, it teaches agriculture, shipbuilding, navigation, and house-building. In the same way, one human mind and sense can accept numerous knowledge: it can study geometry and astronomy, it can teach the rules of grammar, rhetoric, and medicine, it can be diligent not only in the sciences, but also in crafts. With all this, no one ever thought that there were many souls in one body, and due to the multiplicity of received knowledge, no one was surprised at the many essences in man. If someone took an ugly piece of clay and, softening it with his hands, gave it the image of an animal, that is, according to the rules of sculpture, he would depict a head in one form, arms and legs in another, eyes, cheeks, ears, lips, nostrils, chest and shoulders in another; then although in one body he would have produced many forms, parts and members, no one, however, would have thought that there were as many artists, but everyone would immediately recognize one as the artist of the whole work and would praise him that with one mind, one power of thought, he produced everything. This is how one must reason about the whole world, although it, in itself one, also consists of many parts; however, one should not assume in it many creative powers and name many gods, but under the name of God, one should confess one wise and, and of the highest degree, harmonious, truly God's power and God's wisdom, which with one power and one strength passes everywhere, dwells throughout the whole world, supports and enlivens everything, which in general, to the whole, and in particular, to every body and element, delivers various benefits from itself. So one and the same ray of the sun suddenly, at one time, illuminates the air, illuminates the eyes, warms the touch, fertilizes the earth, multiplies vegetation, determines time, guides the stars, circles the sky, cheers the world, brings the effective power of God to everything, and does all this with one desire of its nature. Such is the nature of fire: it purifies gold, melts lead, dissolves wax, dries clay, burns wood, and does all this with one scorching force. So is the Almighty King, God’s Word: It passes through everything, abides in everything, permeates everything: heavenly and earthly, and controlling both the invisible and the visible, with its mystical powers it shows the paths to the sun itself, the sky and the whole world. Indeed, inherent in everything and passing through everything, It from its own source sheds eternal light on the sun, moon and stars and, representing the sky as the most natural likeness of its greatness, dominates the universe forever. From its own treasury it revives with life and light, wisdom and every virtue, everything good and beautiful, the super-heavenly and supermundane powers of angels and spirits, thinking and rational beings. With one and the same creative art, It never ceases to impart to the elements essence, and to bodies, mixtures, combinations, types, forms, outlines and countless qualities, endlessly diversifying them in animals and plants, in rational and irrational souls, with a single force delivering everything to everyone, and clearly showing that the work of a single creative Word is not a seven-stringed lyre, but a world full of diverse harmony. Now let us show and explain the reason why such a Word of God came down to men. Mad people did not think that It has power in heaven and on earth, that It was born from the highest Godhead, as if from the very source, and therefore is always inherent in the world, and that It shows clear signs of His providence and care for people, they did not think about this, and the venerable name of God was attached to the sun, to the moon, to the sky itself and the stars. And they did not stop here, but having deified earthly nature, earthly fruits and various types of bodily food, they made Demeter, Kore, Dionysus and others like them as idols. And they didn’t stop there yet, but they decided to call the very thoughts of their mind and the word that expresses them gods, and they called their thought Athena 51, and the word Hermes 52, and the forces through which knowledge is acquired were called Mnemosyne 53 and Muses 54. And they did not stop here, but growing more and more in shameful wickedness, they deified even their own passions, from which they had to turn away and which had to be cured by abstinence, and their very desire, the passionate and unbridled illness of the souls, as well as parts and members of the body, attracting to shameful deeds and shameful pleasures, were called Eros, Priapus 55, Aphrodite and other related by these names. And they didn’t stop there yet, but looking only at the birth of bodies and attached only to mortal life, they deified people subject to death and, after their usual death, gave them the names of heroes and gods, in the same assumption that the divine immortal essence wanders around graves and tombs. And they didn’t stop there, but they also assigned the holy name of God to various kinds of dumb animals and the most poisonous reptiles. And they didn’t stop there yet, but dressing oaks, cutting stones, digging metals, copper, iron and other substances from the ground, they made from them statues (τυπος) of wives, images of husbands, forms of animals and reptiles, and began to worship them. Even here they did not stop, but the same name of the gods was applied to the crafty demons, who, hiding in idols and dark gorges, feast on sacrificial libations and incense. And they didn’t stop here, but with some kind of spells of forbidden magic, lawless and incantatory songs and slander, they attracted dark forces flying in the air as assistants, and deified some of these, others of other mortal people. The sons of the Hellenes honored the names of the heroes and gods Dionysus, Hercules, Asclepius, Apollo and some other men 56; the Egyptians named Horus 57, Isis 58, Osiris 59 and others like them, who were also people, as gods. According to the wealth of wisdom, boasting of the invention of geometry, astronomy and arithmetic, these wise men themselves did not know how and could not weigh or calculate the extent of the power of God! differs from mortal and unreasonable nature, and therefore they did not doubt! call all disgusting monsters, all kinds of animals, poisonous, reptiles and wild beasts gods. The Phoenicians called Melkaearos 60, Soros (Ουσωρον) 61 and other mortals, who were once the most dishonest people, gods, the Arabs - some Dusaris (Δουσαριν) 62 and Ovdos (Οβδον 63), the Getae - Zamolxis (Ζαμολξιν) 64, the Cilicians - Mopsios (Μοψον), the Thebans - Amphiara (Αμφιαρεω) 65, in general, some deified those, others others, who did not at all change their mortal nature and were simply people. The Phoenicians, Hellenes and other mortals, sanctified by the rays of the sun, paid divine respect to various parts of the world, and to the elements, and to the fruits growing from the earth. And what is even more surprising is that recognizing their gods as violators of chastity, homosexuals, and wife-stealers, their admirers, nevertheless, filled all cities, towns and villages with churches, statues and altars and, imitating the example of the gods, destroyed their own. souls. Judging by their words, as it happens to hear, the gods and children of the gods are heroes who are good demons, but in reality the opposite turned out, for they decorated the opposite with the opposite, just as if someone, wanting to point out to another the sun and heavenly bodies, did not raise his eyes upward, but stretched out his hands down to the ground, lowered them to the floor, and looked for heavenly powers in the dust and dirt. This is exactly what people are like: due to their madness and the seduction of evil demons, they believe that located above the heavens (επερκεινα ουρανου) and above the world, the spiritual being of God resides somewhere below, in the birth of bodies, in the passions and destruction of mortals. They reached such recklessness that they sacrificed even the sweetest things to the gods - that in a frenzy and frenzy, not sparing nature, they slaughtered even their only begotten and beloved children. Could there be anything crazier than sacrificing people and desecrating all cities, all their houses with the blood of their fellow tribesmen? Meanwhile, don’t the sons of the Hellenes themselves testify to this, and isn’t their entire history filled with monuments of this? Every year the Phoenicians sacrificed their beloved and only-begotten child to Kronos 66, and on the sixth day of the month Metagition 67 they slaughtered people in Rhodes; and in Salamis, in one church of the Argolid Athena and Diomedes 68, some persecuted person ran around the altar three times, and then the priest, piercing his belly with a spear, burned him on a burning fire. Many such murders also occurred in Egypt: in Heliopolis, for example, three human sacrifices were made daily, until, having learned about this cruelty, King Amosis 69 ordered their replacement with the same number of wax images. On the island of Chios, a sacrifice to the Omadian 70 Dionysus consisted of dismembering a person, the same was done in Tenedos 71, and in Lacedaemon 72 a person was also a victim of Ares 73, and in Crete they committed similar murders in honor of Kronos 74, and to Athena, Syrian Laodicea 75 annually sacrificed a maiden, who is now replaced by a doe. In the same way, the Libyans and Carthaginians propitiated their gods with human sacrifices, 76 and the Dumatians in Arabia slaughtered a youth every year and buried him under the altar. Moreover, history testifies that all Hellenes, before setting out on a campaign, sacrificed people 77 , the Thracians and Scythians also did 78 , and the Athenians mention the sacrificed daughters of Leos and Erechtheus 79 . And even now, who doesn’t know that in the great city (i.e. Rome) on the feast of the Latriar Zeus, 80 people are buried? The validity of this was also testified by the most famous philosophers. Diodorus 81, who made an abbreviated description of the libraries, says that the Libyans solemnly sacrificed two hundred of the noblest youths to Kronos, and joined at least three hundred others to this sacrifice. And the writer of Roman history Dionysius 82 narrates that in Italy it was Zeus and Apollo themselves who demanded human sacrifices from the so-called aborigines (αβοριγηνηων), and that those affected by this demand brought the gods part of all the fruits, and if they did not sacrifice people, they were subjected to various disasters, and until then they did not see the end of evil until they doomed themselves to tithing, but by killing and sacrificing the tenth of the people, they were the cause of the desolation of their country. The entire human race has been consumed by so many disasters! However, the evil was not limited to this, he was also subjected to other countless and most severe sufferings, because all the peoples of the Oikumene - Greeks and barbarians, as if excited by demonic power, suffered from a terrible and most cruel disease. People had no mutual communication and intercourse; here and there, having torn apart the common nature of the great body, they dispersed to separate corners of the earth and fought among themselves with the help of laws and political institutions. Moreover, they began to rage one against another with strong robberies, so that they always spent their entire lives in battles and wars, so no one dared to leave home without arming themselves like the enemy; Even farmers, who carried swords in the fields and villages 83, tried more to prepare weapons for themselves than agricultural tools, and considered it a feat of virtue to catch and enslave their neighbors. And this is not enough, in the monuments they compiled about their gods, borrowing the excuse for a shameful and lawless life, they corrupted their bodies and souls with all kinds of intemperance. And this is not enough, having transgressed the rules of nature, they stretched beyond the bounds of unspeakable shame, and committed deeds on themselves that were incredibly shameless: “men inflict punishment on husbands, and the retribution that is fitting for their (wives’) deception is received within themselves” (Rom. 1:27), as the Holy Scripture says. And this is not enough, having distorted the natural concepts of God in themselves, they thought that everything here happens without the providence and care of God, and therefore they attributed the existence and state of the world to blind chance and inevitable fate. And this is not enough, assuming that their souls would be destroyed along with their bodies, they lived a brutal and alien life, and without examining the essence of their souls, they did not expect either justification at the judgment of God, or reward for virtue, or punishment for an unrighteous life. Whole peoples were already enslaved by many different types of evil and atrocity: some had criminal and most lawless intercourse with their mothers, others married their sisters, others corrupted their daughters 84 , some killed foreigners who came to them 85 , they ate human flesh, these, strangling the elders with a rope, ate them 86 , or threw them to the dogs while still alive. I do not have enough time to calculate all the evils of the ancient, human-specific disease. There were countless such and similar evils. Therefore, the humane Word of God, pitying the rational human flock, and in ancient times, through its prophets, and even earlier, through other God-loving men, and later, through later famous persons, called apostates to its service and laid among people the very foundations and principles of reverence for God through laws, various admonitions and all kinds of teaching. But since the mortal race, everywhere deceived and mercilessly tormented not by wolves and wild beasts, but by terrible and ferocious demons, frantic and soul-destroying spirits, had a need no longer for human strength, but for better and superhuman help, then, obeying the will of the all-good Father, the Word of God itself willingly descended to us and appeared among us. This means that the reason for His coming to us was exactly what we said. That is why He came to talk with mortals and did something that was not part of His ordinary activity, for He was incorporeal. It passed through the whole world invisibly, and by its very deed showed its greatness to both heavenly and earthly creatures, and now it replaced its usual way of activity with a new one, now, having decided to save mortals by mortals, it entered into conversations and relations with mortals through a mortal organism. After this, we will express why the disembodied Word of God entered into relations with people, taking on an organic 87 body (οργανω σωματι). How else could a divine, intangible, incorporeal and invisible Being be able to appear to people when, seeking God in existence and on earth, they could not and did not want to see the Parent and Creator of all things except in human form (σχηματος) and form (ειδος)? So, It entered into a conversation with mortals with the help of a mortal organism - a body because it was pleasant to them because like like likes like, says the proverb. To mortal people who are carried away by appearances and seek gods in images and in the form of soulless idols, who imagine that the Divinity resides in matter and body, and call mortals gods, to these people God’s Word showed Himself in this way. It prepared for Itself a bodily organism, as an all-holy church, as a sensual dwelling of rational power, as a pious and all-holy image, surpassing in dignity any inanimate idol: for an idol is a statue made by the hands of artisans from a soulless substance, for example, from copper, or iron, from gold, or ivory, from stones or wood, and as made from matter, it is very natural to be the dwelling of demons, and an image, animated by God and adorned with the power of incorporeal divine wisdom, there is an image that participates in life and rational essence, an image filled with every virtue, an image that serves as the dwelling place of the Word of God, the holy church of the holy God. Dwelling in it, the word of God, through this image akin to mortals, lived with them and was known from them, however, it was not subject to their passions, was not bound by the body, like the soul of a person, and without becoming lower than itself, did not lose its divinity. If the rays of sunlight, filling everything and touching dead and unclean bodies, do not suffer at all from this, then the sterile power of the Word of God, incorporeally touching the body, suffered even less in its essence, the less it suffered damage and became lower than itself. Thus, the Savior common to all, having accepted the human body, bestowed blessings and salvation on everyone, just as a musician shows his wisdom to everyone through the lyre. Hellenic mythology says that Orpheus, striking the strings of a musical instrument with his plectrum, enchanted all kinds of animals with his song and tamed the fury of wild animals. In the Hellenic land they also sing and believe that the soulless lyre inspires meekness in animals, and that, obeying the music, trees change their fruits. But the wisest and most beautiful and harmonious Word of God, healing human souls in various ways, subject to various evils, took into its hands, like a musical instrument, the creation of its wisdom - man, and through it began to jingle its wonderful songs no longer to dumb animals, but to intelligent beings. With these songs, or healings of divine teaching, It healed all savagery in the morals of the Hellenes and barbarians, all the frantic and brutal passions of their souls, and, like an excellent physician, He presented Him to sick souls who were looking for God in fertility and bodies, through a related and decent aid - in man. Then, caring as much for the body as for the soul, It revealed to the bodily eyes some extraordinary and wondrous deeds, divine miracles and powers, and communicated the teaching to the bodily hearing, through the language of the flesh. And He did all this through the person He perceived for those who could know His divinity only in this form. And by this It served the will of His Father, Itself again remaining immaterial, as He had before, without changing its essence, without being deprived of its nature and not constrained by the bonds of the flesh, so that the human vessel He accepted for intercourse with people did not prevent Him from being in other places of the Oikumene, so that, living among people, It at the same time filled everything with Itself, and was with the Father, and, being with the Father, at the same time had care for all heavenly and earthly creatures. Unlike us, nothing prevented him from being present everywhere, nothing prevented him from performing the deeds characteristic of the Divine. Having transferred to the (perceived) man its own from Itself, It took in return nothing from his mortality, and imparting divine power to the mortal, in return received nothing from the union with him. Therefore, It was not defiled when the body was born, and did not suffer from its being when His mortal being was destroyed. After all, the player will probably not suffer anything if his lyre accidentally breaks, or the strings on it break, and we will certainly not say that the wisdom of a sage is punished when his body is punished, or beaten, or his soul is burned, when his body is beaten or burned. But there is even more right to say that the power of the Word suffered no harm from bodily suffering. However, the example of light did not allow us to assert that the rays of the sun are desecrated by falling from heaven to earth and touching dust, dirt and all uncleanness. Nothing prevents us from saying that these objects are illuminated by the radiance of light, but this light does not gather dust and this sun does not get dirty from touching bodies, despite the fact that it is not alien to nature. And the saving and sterile Word of God, being in itself life and in itself spiritual light, is even such that whomever it touches by divine and incorporeal power necessarily lives and abides in rational light, just as the body which it touched becomes holy and enlightened, is immediately freed from all sickness, infirmity and passion, and is rewarded for its deprivation out of its fullness. That is why It spent its entire life on earth in such a way that sometimes it showed the servility of its bodily organism to ours, and sometimes it revealed itself as the Word of God, performing great and wondrous deeds, like God, and making predictions about the future. To many who had not seen the Word of God, It showed Itself by its very deeds, namely by extraordinary phenomena, miracles, signs, wondrous powers and the most divine teaching, which prepared and led souls to the heavenly abode. What remains after this? To show what is the reason for the fact that in everything there is the most important thing, I mean the well-known end of the Savior’s life and the image of His suffering, as a great miracle of the remembrance of Him after death, and having examined this, to confirm everything with evidence through clear evidence. So, for the above reasons, using the mortal organism as an image worthy of God, and like the great King, spending human life with him, as with an interpreter (ερμηνεο), the Savior accomplished everything worthy of divine power. If, after living with people, He had somehow otherwise become invisible and moved away, if, for example, He had secretly hidden His interpreter and tried to escape to save His image from death, and then someday He Himself would have given over mortal decay and destruction to everyone, He would have seemed like a ghost to everyone. Then He would not have done what was right for Him, for being life, God's Word and God's power, He would have given over to corruption and destruction His very interpreter. Then His exploits against the demons would not have ended in victory over death, then they would not have known where He had gone and those who had not seen would not have believed in Him, then by nature He would not have appeared above death, and by His own nature would not have freed a mortal, then rumors about Him would not have spread throughout the entire Oecumene, and His disciples would not have decided to despise death, then He would not have inspired hope in those who heard His teaching receive life from God even after death, and would not have fulfilled his promises - would not have presented events consistent with the predictions of the prophets about Him - and all because he would not have entered into the final struggle, that is, the struggle with death. For all these reasons, which certainly demanded that the mortal organism, having served the Word of God sufficiently, should receive an end worthy of God, it was for these reasons that His death was arranged. There remained one of two things: either to consign everything to decay and destruction, and thus end life more shamefully than any drama, or to appear above death, and with divine power make the mortal immortal. But the first was not in accordance with His promise, it is not in the nature of fire to produce cold, and of light darkness, just as it is not in the nature of life to kill, and for the divine mind to act unreasonably. Indeed, what kind of reason would it be to promise life to others, but leave your own body to decay and destroy your own image, betroth those who cling to yourself to immortality, and destroy the interpreter of your deity by death? So, the second thing was required, that is, to show oneself above death. How should this be done? Is it secret and hidden, or solemnly and in front of everyone? But a feat accomplished secretly, in the dark, would not be recognized by anyone and would not benefit anyone, whereas if performed loudly, for all to hear, its miraculousness brings benefit to everyone. If the body had to triumph over death, and this had to be done not secretly, but before the eyes of people, then (the Savior) did not run away from death, otherwise He would have been considered timid, standing lower than death. Through his struggle with death, as with an enemy, He revealed the mortal to the immortal, because He entered into this struggle for life, immortality and the salvation of all. If someone wanted to prove to us that we do not burn a certain vessel and is above fire, then he would present this miracle in no other way than by throwing the vessel into the fire, and then taking it out of the fire unharmed: in the same way, the all-life-giving Word of God, wanting to prove that the mortal organism He accepted for the salvation of people is above death and is involved in His life and immortality, wished for the benefit to undergo an ordinary fate. Leaving the body for a short time and, in order to reveal its nature, putting the mortal to death, It soon again took it away from death, revealed it as an object of divine power and through Him revealed that the eternal life He preached is above all death. The reason is clear and obvious: since His disciples needed to see with their own eyes the undoubted rebirth of life after death, for It taught them where to raise their hopes and inspired them that these hopes are higher than death, so He allowed them to see this with their own eyes. Those who wished to devote themselves to a pious life had to accept this first, most necessary of all teachings with spiritual vision, especially when they had to preach It throughout the entire Oecumene, and spread the knowledge of God, taught by Him to all peoples, among all people. The Savior's disciples needed to receive the firmest conviction in the afterlife in order to fearlessly and without fear of death enter into the fight against the delusion of the polytheistic pagans. Without learning to despise death, they would not be willing to expose themselves to danger. Therefore, arming them against the power of death, It conveyed to them this teaching not in words and sounds, and not in human words, selecting them according to the laws of probability to show the immortality of the soul, but in fact achieved victory over death. This is the first and most important reason why our Savior entered into battle against death. He showed his disciples that death, terrible for everyone, is nothing, and He presented the life He promised clearly before their eyes, making it the beginning of our hope, our immortality and life with God. Another reason for the resurrection could be the Savior’s intention - to show the divine power that resided in His body. Since before people idolized mortals who were defeated by the death of men, calling them heroes and gods those whom death had overcome, the humane Word of God, by the way, revealed Himself and then showed people a nature higher than death, that nature which, upon its renunciation, leads to another life and allows everyone to see the trophy of immortality over death, which teaches us to confess the one true God in death itself, who has reaped the fruits of victory over it. I can show you a third reason for saving death. The Savior was a sacrifice to the highest King God for the entire human race, a sacrifice made for the entire flock of people, a sacrifice that drove away demonic delusion. In fact, as soon as this one sacrifice, the great fragrance of the most holy body of our Savior, was sacrificed for the human race and offered a soul for the souls of all nations hitherto bound by the wickedness of demonic delusion, the unclean and nasty power of the demons completely collapsed, every earthly and seductive deception was immediately exposed and disappeared. This is how the saving fragrance taken from people, the very physical organism of the Word, became a sacrifice for the whole of humanity. This was the sacrifice doomed to death, about which the Holy Scripture says in one place: “Behold, the Lamb of God, take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29), in another – as follows: “Like a sheep that is led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearers it is silent” (Is. 53:7). It also shows the reason, saying: “this one bears our sins and suffers for us, and we are imputed to him for being in labor and in an ulcer from God and in bitterness. The same plague was for our sins and we were tormented for our iniquities. The punishment of our world is upon Him; by His wound we are healed. All are like sheep that have gone astray; each one has gone astray in his own way. And the Lord gave up his sin for our sakes” (Is. 53:4-6). For these reasons, the human body of the Word of God was slaughtered. But this great Bishop, sacrificed to the Lord and All-Tsar God, was at the same time distinguished from the sacrifice, as the Word of God, as God’s power and God’s Wisdom. He soon called out the mortal from death and presented it to the Father as the firstfruits of our common salvation, erected it for all people, in the form of a victorious trophy over death and demonic hordes, in the form of a force that turns humanity away from ancient human sacrifices. And when this is so, then it is time to move on to evidence, unless the truth of what has been said requires evidence and evidence must be confirmed by obvious deeds. So, listen favorably to my word and accept the evidence. All the ancient peoples on earth lived separately, and the entire human race was divided into anarchies, rulers of the people (εθναρχιας), places of rulership (τοπαρχιας), tyranny and multi-lordship (πολυαρχιας), from this confrontation and wars were not interrupted, without devastation of fields and The enslavement of cities was never avoided. And from here - thousands of objects for history, hence - examples of fornication and kidnapping of women, hence - the disasters of Ilion 88 and the tragedies of the ancients, remembered by all people. And you will not sin if you recognize polytheism as the reason for this. But after the saving organism, the very holy body of Christ, appeared above all the activity of demonic deception and showed itself in words and in deeds to be alien to its disasters, after it ascended as a victorious trophy, averting ancient evil, over the demons, all the works of the demons immediately collapsed: from that time there were no more localities, no plurality of commands, no tyrannies, no democracies, and at the same time they ceased the devastation and enslavement of cities that occurred from them, the siege of villages and regions, from that time on they began to preach one God to everyone, one Roman kingdom blossomed for everyone, and for centuries the insatiable and irreconcilable enmity between people instantly died away. When all people were taught the knowledge of the one God and shown one image of piety - the saving teaching of Christ: when in one kingdom, at the same time under the dominion of one Roman ruler, everything began to enjoy deep peace, then suddenly, as if at the behest of the one God, two branches of good grew up for people: the Roman kingdom and the teaching of piety. In fact, before this, some independently ruled Syria, others reigned over Asia, others over Macedonia, they separated themselves and held Egypt, these did the same with Arabia. Even Palestine was owned by the Jewish generation. In general, in villages, cities and everywhere people, as if in some kind of madness and truly going berserk, were engaged in wars and battles, and killed each other. But two great forces, as if originating from the same source, instantly pacified everything and brought it into commonwealth. These forces were: the Roman kingdom, which has since become monarchical, and the teaching of Christ, and both of them flourished together, at the same time. The power of our Savior crushed the polytheism and polytheism of the demons and preached the one kingdom of God to all people, Greeks and barbarians, even to the last of the earth (Acts 1:8), and the Roman Empire, having first destroyed the causes of the polytheism, hastened to bring all tribes to unity and harmony and took hitherto independent dioceses. Many different peoples have already entered its borders, but it intends, as far as possible, to touch the boundaries of the Ecumene itself, especially since the saving teaching, by divine power, equalizes and calms everything before it. In fact, to people who reflect with love for the truth and do not blame goodness out of envy, this should seem like a great miracle: at the same time, the deception of demons was exposed, and the eternal enmity and struggle of peoples was extinguished, or else, at the same time, one God was preached to everyone, one knowledge of Him, and one kingdom was established over people. The entire human race tuned in to peace and friendliness, everyone began to recognize each other as brothers and understood their own nature. Born, that is, as if from one Father - one God, and from one mother - true piety, everyone began to peacefully respond and accept each other: so from that time the whole Oecumene was no different from one God-thinking family, or related circle, from that time anyone who wanted could completely calmly hit the road and travel wherever they wanted: some could safely move from west to east, others could go from here to there as if they were their own. own fatherland. The ancient prophecies, the broadcasts of the prophets and thousands of other predictions, which now is not the time to give, were fulfilled, but at the same time the following prophecy about the saving Word was fulfilled: “he has power from sea to sea and from rivers to the horses of the universe” (Ps. 82:8); also: “in his days righteousness and abundance of peace will shine” (v. 7), and: “they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and their tongue will not take up the tongue of the sword, nor will they be accustomed to fight for it” (Is. 2:4). This was predicted and foretold for several centuries in the Hebrew language, and it actually appears before us and confirms the evidence of ancient sayings. And if you want more evidence, find it not in words, but in deeds. Open the eyes of your mind and open the doors of thought, reason with great attention in your soul and, as if to study the nature of things, asking someone else, ask yourself: what king or ruler, philosopher or legislator, Hellenic or barbarian prophet ever achieved such power, not to mention after death, even during life, in the flower of his power, that he filled the tongue and ears of all people living on earth with the glory of his name? No one did this; after his victory over death, our Savior alone did this, saying something to his disciples and justifying his word with deeds. “Go, teach all languages ​​in My name” (Matthew 28:19) - He said to them and, predicting that His Gospel should be preached throughout the entire Oecumene as a testimony to all languages, he added deeds to his word; for soon, after a little, the entire Oecumene was filled with His teaching. What will he who blamed us at the beginning of his speech say to this? What will he say when there is the testimony of eyes that is stronger than any word? Who, with an invisible and strong hand, expelled from human society a harmful and destructive kind of demons, who from ancient times, like terrible beasts, tormented human nature and, through idols, performed a lot of magic between people? Who, if not our Savior, having taught wisdom to people who lead a pure and impeccable life, gave them the power to drive out the remnants of evil spirits from people, through invoking His name in holy prayers sent through Him to the God of all? Who, if not our Savior alone, taught his admirers to make bloodless and reasonable sacrifices through prayers and through mystical theology? For this purpose, altars were built throughout the entire Oikumene and churches were erected, in which all peoples, for the glory of the one All-King God, perform the divine service of mental and rational sacrifices. And the sacrifices made in the form of blood, bloody mixture and smoke, and this cruel and frantic murder and sacrifice of people, who extinguished and finally destroyed with hidden and invisible power? Even Hellenic history testifies to this, saying that human sacrifices everywhere on earth ceased not before, but after the divine teaching of our Savior, namely, around the time of Hadrian 89. Hearing such clear evidence convincing us of the strength and power of our Savior after death, who would be so stubborn that he would not agree with the testimony of the truth and would not recognize His divine life? These are the exploits of the living, not the dead; these phenomena open up the spectacle of hidden things. The tribe of God-fighters recently disturbed human life, ruled everything and was powerful, but having left the midst of people, it lies in the ground more ingloriously than rubbish, lifeless, motionless, voiceless, and there is no speech or memory about it. Such is the fate of the dead! And whoever no longer exists is nothing, and can nothing do anything? On the contrary, whoever acts, produces, and has powers greater than those living, how can one be considered non-existent? True, He is invisible to bodily eyes, but the indicator of His existence is not a feeling. With our bodily senses we do not even cognize abstract concepts and scientific theories, and no one has ever seen with our own eyes the human mind, not to mention the power of God. Such objects are usually learned from deeds. And therefore, the invisible power of our Savior must be seen and recognized from the deeds, that is, should the deeds performed by him hitherto be recognized as the deeds of a living person, or should we say that they were produced by a non-existent? But how crazy and incoherent this question is! What does not exist, can one reasonably attribute existence to it, if only everyone agrees that what does not exist and has no power, and does not act, and does not produce, is characteristic of the dead, and the opposite is true of the living. Now is the time to review the contemporary fruits of the Savior’s teachings and look at the living deeds of the living God, for can such deeds be the deeds of a being who is not alive and even one who does not truly live God’s life? What are these things, you ask? Listen. Recently, some fighters against God, with particular zeal and great strength, stretched out their hands to prayer buildings and, digging them to the ground, destroyed the churches of the Savior, fought with all means against the Invisible and threw countless arrows of words at Him. But the Invisible One avenged Himself in an invisible way. By one wave of God, those who had recently lived in luxury and luxury, whom everyone called equal to gods and who, for many years, governed perfectly while maintaining goodwill and peace in relation to the subject of their subsequent persecution, disappeared. As soon as they changed their thoughts, dared to fight against God and, having become defenders and champions of their gods, armed themselves against ours - immediately in one minute of time, by one wave and the power of God with whom they fought, they were all subjected to judgment for their daring, so that they had to yield to the One against whom they rebelled and, turning to flight, confessed His deity, hastened to agree and say the opposite to their former ones. insolence. And our Savior suddenly erected victorious trophies throughout the entire earth, again decorated the Oycumene with holy churches and respected houses of prayer: in cities and villages, in villages and deserts of barbarians, sanctuaries and places of public gatherings were dedicated to the one King, God and Lord of all, from which they were awarded the name after the Lord, that is, they received the name not from people, but from the Lord himself of all and are called the Lord's (Κυριαχαι). So, let anyone who wishes to appear and teach us: who, after so much destruction and devastation, erected sacred buildings from bottom to top? Who, in a much better form, renewed those of them for which there had previously been no hope, and, what is most surprising, renewed not after the death of the God-fighters, but during the life of these same destroyers, so that with their own lips and their own writing they sang a song of repentance for their insolence, and this was done not when they were still living in pleasure (so that no one would think that such a thing happened from their reasonable love of mankind), but when they were struck by the heavenly with whips? Who, after so many storms of persecution and during the very height of disasters, with his divine teaching revealed throughout the entire Oecumene countless zealots of wisdom and servants of God - men, pious communities of wives and hosts of virgins who devoted their entire lives to constant chastity, and taught them, on the path of abstinence, courageously and for many days refusing food and wine, to lead a strict and austere life? Who convinced many husbands and wives, through spiritual reading, to feed the soul with mental food and replace it with the food of the body? Who taught barbarians and fierce people, wives, children, a tribe of slaves and thousands of thousands of peoples to despise death, to believe in the immortality of the soul and in the existence of a just eye 90 overseeing human affairs, to expect God's judgment on the pious and the wicked, and to try to lead a righteous and temperate life. After all, without being disposed to this, it is impossible to impose the yoke of piety on oneself. All this, even to this day, is being accomplished by our Savior alone. But let’s leave this aside, and let us bring the petrified mind to conviction with the following questions: Tell me, you who utter clever words and give birth not from a simple heart, but from a rational and thinking soul, tell me, you who often reflect with yourself, who ever, of all the famous sages from the ages, like our Savior, for thousands of years was recognized and predicted by the ancient God-loving sons of the Jews? They foreknew the place of His birth, and the time of His coming, and the way of life, and miracles, and speeches, and deeds, and they entered all this into the sacred books. Or who, like Him, was so swift in punishing for the insolence committed against Him that, following their wickedness, the entire Jewish people were subject to destruction by an invisible force, their capital was destroyed to the ground, and the church itself, with all its sacred utensils, was razed to the ground? 91 Who, like our Savior, who predicted both about these wicked people and about the invincibility of the Church he created throughout the world, justified this with corresponding events and proved it with deeds? About the church of the wicked He said: “Your house is left empty for you”; and “there shall not be left here one stone upon another, lest it be destroyed” (Matthew 23:38; 24:2) about the Church: “On the rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). How do you think that He took simple and uneducated people - straight from fishing, and made them universal legislators and teachers of the law? And how clear is the proof of his deity, that He promised in words and in fact created them as fishers of men (Matthew 4:19), and gave them so much power and ability that they wrote and distributed books, and their books received such importance that throughout the entire Oecumene they were translated into various dialects, Greek and barbarian, and were zealously studied among all nations, and all the sayings contained in them were recognized as divine? What is it like that He predicted the future and testified in advance to His disciples that they would be led “before kings and rulers” (Matthew 10:18), and would be subjected to torture and extreme torment, not for any crime, but for one confession of the Savior? Is it not beyond any expression that He prepared them to bravely endure all calamities, and so protected them with the weapons of piety that in the fight against opponents their souls are harder than adamant 92? Is it not beyond any miracle that not only these His followers, but also their successors, and later Christians, even to this day, so strengthened the strength of their souls that, without having done anything worthy of death, they gladly endured all executions and all types of torture for their faith in the God of all? Which king has ever retained power after so many centuries? Who, even after death, wages war like this, erects trophies over his enemies, conquers every place, country, city, Hellas and barbarian lands, and pacifies his opponents with the invisible, hidden right hand? And most importantly, will not the mouths of detractors be blocked by the peace that will reign throughout the entire earth by the power of the Savior, and about which, as follows, we said above? As it actually happened that with the spread of the teachings of our Savior and with the creation of His preaching throughout the whole earth, there came unanimity and agreement of all People, the heavens gave hope to God-loving souls: it was predicted from ancient times, and by God’s prophets, that when He sows the seed of His word among the nations, then universal peace will reign. But it would not take me a whole day, sir, if I wanted to bring together all such clear evidence of the divine power of our Savior, borrowing them from events visible to this day, because no one has ever shown to anyone, either from the Greeks or from the barbarians, such a great power of God’s power as our Savior showed us. However, what can we say about people when in the Ecumene there was no such nature even among the gods glorified by all pagans! Otherwise, let anyone who wishes to point it out, let any philosopher appear and say whether he has heard of any of the gods or heroes of all times teaching the pagans such a doctrine about eternal life and the heavenly kingdom as our Savior? He forced the inhabitants of the earth to lead their lives according to the rules of wisdom, convinced them to strive for heaven and look forward to the abode prepared for God-loving souls in heaven. What god or hero - man, ever, walking a path from sunrise to the west - a path scarcely unequal to the path of the sun - illuminated and enlightened the entire Oecumene with the most brilliant rays of his teaching, so that all people perform the same service to the one God? What ever god or hero, having removed all the gods and heroes of the Hellenic and barbarian people, legitimized none of them to be considered gods, and gave binding force to this law, then, being attacked by everyone, one destroyed all the forces of the opponents, defeated these age-old gods and heroes, and from end to end of the Ecumene disposed all nations to call Himself alone the Son of God? Who commanded the simplest inhabitants of the Oikumene, living both on earth and on the seas, to celebrate the Day of the Lord every week and, to celebrate the holiday, to gather together, exhaust their bodies, and revive their souls with divine instructions? What god or hero, being so persecuted as our Savior, raised the spoils of victory over his enemies? After all, from the very beginning to the end they did not stop attacking His teaching and His people, and meanwhile He, invisible, invisibly raised both His associates and His holy churches to the height of glory. But how can we dream that the divine powers of our Savior, which exceed every word, can be contained in words, when, even in our silence, His very deeds speak loudly to everyone who has acquired spiritual hearing? An event truly marvelous, extraordinary and the only one that took place before the eyes of mortals - that the one true Son of God appeared on earth and bestowed so many blessings on people! But everything I have said, sir, may be unnecessary for your hearing, because you yourself have more than once learned through your own experience the divinity of our Savior, and not in words, but in deeds, you preached this truth to everyone. In your free time, if you wanted, you yourself could tell us about the countless epiphanies of your Savior, and how often He visited you in your dreams, not to mention His mystical energies (εναργεις), imprinted on your mind and informing you of generally useful and necessary measures of care for everyone. You would tell us, as it should, about the clear help of God, your protector and guardian during wars, about the machinations of enemies and attackers, about avoiding dangers, about criminal success in difficult cases, about protection in solitude, about resourcefulness in difficult circumstances, about foreknowledge of the future, about caring for the entire kingdom, about considering unknown subjects, about great decisions, about political structure, about commanding troops, about correcting shortcomings, about public regulations, about useful legislation. Without skipping a beat, you would enumerate everything separately that is hidden from us and known only to you and your royal memory, like an ark of mysterious treasures. Having probably taken advantage of all these, so clear, proofs of saving power, you presented before the eyes of all the faithful and unfaithful the house of prayer - a trophy of victory over death, and the holy church of the holy God, as brilliant, magnificent and beautiful monuments of immortal life and the divine kingdom, and as especially decent and fitting offerings of the basileus to the All-Tsar, the Savior and giver of victory. With these gifts you adorned the church and the testimony of immortal life, both in order to declare with them, as if with royal inscriptions, the heavenly Word of God the winner and triumphant of victory, and in order to publicly preach God-loving consent with a clear and unobscured voice, protection and word. Siren (Latin siren, Greek Σειρην) is a mythical creature, a maiden who lived on an island in the western sea, located between the islands of Kirke and Scylla. Sirens attracted passing sailors with their pleasant, enchanting singing and drew them to death on the underwater rocks. In appearance, they were represented as creatures, the upper half of whose body represented a woman, and the lower half a bird. Comparison with a siren is traditional in ancient literature. As Pausanias writes: “Even now, everything outstanding in poetry and speech is usually compared with the Siren” (Description of Hellas, I, XXI, 2.) Greek μυστις – /secret servant/, /secretist/. That is, to Christians, and not catechumens, but baptized and anointed Christians. The catechumens, as is known, were not allowed to be present at the entire liturgy, but only at the permitted part. And Eusebius’s mention of doors directly correlates with the exclamation that has survived to this day, “Doors! Doors!”, informing the gatekeepers at the doors that the further presence of the unbaptized is unacceptable. A hecatomb is a one-time sacrifice of hundreds or more animals. An interesting description of the hecatomb is given by Julius Capitolii (Maximus and Balbinus, XI, 5–6.): “A hecatomb is the name given to such a sacrifice: a hundred turf altars are set up in one place and a hundred pigs and a hundred sheep are slaughtered in front of them. If this sacrifice is performed by the emperor, then one hundred lions, one hundred eagles and other similar animals are killed, one hundred each.” The very message of this author (confirmed by Herodian in the “History of the Imperial Power after Mark”, 8, 6, 8.) speaks of such a sacrifice made by Balbinus, which testifies to the vitality of this archaic rite. That is, his eldest son Konstantin. This refers to Constantius. The fourth Caesar is Flavius ​​of Dalmatia the Elder, half-brother of Constantine. A hidden reference to the famous statement of Plato: “Until philosophers or the so-called current ones reign in the states, kings and rulers will not begin to philosophize nobly and thoroughly and this will not merge into one - state power and philosophy, and until those people - and there are many of them - who are now striving separately either for power or for philosophy are not necessarily removed, until then, my dear Glaucon, the states will not get rid of evils...” (State, V, 473d) The expression “in truth, one” perhaps indicates Eusebius’ opposition of Constantine to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the pagan philosopher emperor. A reminiscence of the famous inscription at the entrance to the Delphic church: “Know thyself,” a statement also attributed to Thales of Miletus, Phemonoe and Chilo. A reminiscence of Plato’s reasoning about the contemplation of the good - the eternal eidos (State, VII, 518a) and the use of the concept of good for the state structure (State, VII, 540a). According to Eutropius (Brief history from the foundation of the city, IX, 26.), Diocletian introduced royal clothes and shoes decorated with precious stones instead of just a purple cloak. Compare: “Therefore, all-accepting matter, in order to fully accommodate species, must be a substrate completely devoid of them, having - for the sake of the perception of species - neither quality nor appearance" (Alkina. Textbook of Platonic Philosophy. VIII, 3). Eusebius means that the created formless necessarily had its own border, dialectically this border is between the formless and the other, the opposite of the formless, that is, formed, as well as the opposite of the qualityless - having qualities. And indeed, the formless differs in some way from its other self - it differs precisely in formlessness as its quality and formlessness as a type of form. Therefore, the created unit - matter requires for its existence in some capacity something other than itself - that is, this division occurs by the force of duality. Wed. Aristotle. Metaphysics, VIII, 1, 1042a., Plato. Timaeus, 50a. Moreover, despite the apparent closeness of this place precisely to Aristotle’s teaching on form and matter, in reality Eusebius here does not go beyond the limits of Platonic philosophy, since in essence the creation of a body from matter and form contradicts the teaching of Aristotle, for whom matter is only potency, and form does not exist without the body. It is curious that here Eusebius, for the sake of rhetorical beauty - a consistent increase in numbers, sacrifices Plato's reasoning about the formation of a volumetric Universe - Plato writes: “At the same time, if the body of the Universe were to become a simple plane without depth, one middle member would be enough to connect it with the outer ones. However, it had to become three-dimensional, and three-dimensional objects are never conjugated through one middle member, but always through two. Therefore, God placed water and air between fire and earth, after which he established the most precise relationships possible between them...” (Plato. Timaeus, 32b). According to Plato, after one and two came three as consisting of one and two, correlating matter and form into something third - actually into the body as a combination of form and matter, given not yet in its extension (volume), but simply as qualitative matter. See previous note. The reasoning about two principles twice is not borrowing from Plato and is a philosophically unfounded reasoning, included to justify the four and introduce the elements thanks to an erroneous reduction to the Timaeus, where Eusebius missed the philosophical detailed derivation of the three and therefore got lost. This refers to the sum of these numbers, which are therefore called simple and perfect by ancient philosophers. Eusebius means that any number can be considered as a collection of units, but a unit cannot be divided into its component parts. There are thirty days in a lunar month. Demeter is the Greek goddess of earth and fertility, the most famous sacraments dedicated to her are the Eleusinian Mysteries and Thesmophoria. Proserpina (Persephone) – goddess of fertility, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, wife of Hades. Adonis is the god for whose possession Aphrodite and Persephone fought; by the decision of Zeus, he spent half the year underground and half on earth. Eusebius is mistaken, or is using an unknown mythological tradition; Persephone was kidnapped not by Adonis, but by her future husband, Hades. According to Apollodorus (Mythological Library, III, 14, 4), on the contrary, Persephone kidnapped Adonis. This refers to the widespread mysteries dedicated to Dionysus as the son of Persephone. In Athens, for example, these mysteries were directly related to the Eleusinian mysteries (see V. Ivanov. Dionysus and Pre-Dyonisianism, IX, 1). Dionysus is the Greek god of winemaking and viticulture, the son of Zeus and Semele. The drunken Hercules, defeated by Dionysus, is the favorite plot of Athenian satyr drama. Hercules is a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene. Eros is the god of love, the son of Ares and Aphrodite. Most likely, Eusebius is not referring to specific festivals, but to the mythological adventures of these gods. Ganymede is a Phrygian shepherd kidnapped by Zeus, whom Zeus makes his cupbearer. The number of women who became the object of Zeus’s desires is very large; Hyginus’ catalog of them (Mythology, 155.) is far from complete and includes eighteen names. The destruction of Christian churches was carried out especially widely during the persecution of Diocletian, most likely Eusebius has this in mind. This refers to Antioch on the Orontes - the metropolis of Syria. This city was founded by Seleucus I in 300 BC and named after his father Antiochus. Jerusalem again received its former name and new meaning under Constantine. Such schools for catechumens were known long before the reign of Constantine - for example, the famous Alexandria School. Eusebius apparently does not mean the emergence of these schools, but their widespread dissemination during the reign of the first Christian emperor. Musical instruments, that is, instruments of the Muses, instruments dedicated to the Muses. According to the concepts of antiquity, a person who owned musical instruments belonged to people of liberal professions, befitting a free person. Therefore, possession of the body as musical instruments indicates freedom from the body. By emphasizing the simultaneity, Eusebius means the establishment at the Council of Nicaea of ​​a uniform time for the celebration of Easter. It is not clear whether Eusebius means Bethlehem or Jerusalem. Apparently, Eusebius has in mind the cult of the goddess of Rome, deliberately taking it too literally. This is also indicated by the fact that he contrasts this cult with the cult of the great king, the founder of a great and royal city, that is, the legendary founder of Rome - Romulus, whose cult was established in Rome immediately after his ascension to heaven. The fact that he means Romulus is clear from the previous antithesis: the lyre and the maker of the lyre. Gymnasium is a room for physical exercise. Saying that God the Father placed his only begotten Son, as it were, in the midst between Himself and the creatures, Eusebius means not that another power belongs to the Son, and another to the Father, but that the Father does everything not Himself, but through the Son, just as the Father does not judge anyone, but all judgment is given to the Son (John 5:22). That is, water (Gen.1:6.). Wed. also: “...and having entered the world and seeing the earth in its center, behind it the water and, thirdly, the air going upward...” (Sextus Empiricus. Against the Scientists, IX, III, 197). That is, if fire burns with the help of wood, then it is somehow contained in it. Opposite natures - that is, water, which is in wood, and earth, which creates any solid body in general. There is an obvious reminiscence of the Pythagorean-Platonic doctrine of harmony as the mathematical basis of the Cosmos and music as an expression of this harmony. Eusebius is referring to the water cycle. The Ancient Fathers, especially before the Council of Nicea, taught that it is characteristic of God the Father to command, and of God the Son to carry out His commands, or to rule the world, that God the Father creates the mysterious and incomprehensible, and God the Son does the manifest and the visible. Therefore, they called God the Son by the names υπηρετης χαν υπουρος, which after the Council of Nicea, when applied to God the Son, are no longer found. Athena is a Greek goddess, daughter of Zeus and Metis, patroness of war, crafts, and science. Hermes is a Greek god, the son of Zeus and Maya. Patron of trade, livestock, wanderers, thieves and rogues, messenger of the gods. Mnemosyne is the goddess of memory, daughter of Uranus and Gaia. Muses - nine Greek goddesses: Erato, Euterpe, Calliope, Clio, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, Urania, daughter of Mnemosyne from Zeus, patroness of the sciences and arts. Hercules, Asclepius and Dionysus in the myths themselves are called people who subsequently received divine dignity. But even there are much more such people generally recognized in Greek mythology who became gods or stars or constellations than Eusebius names. For example, the list given by Hyginus in Mythology includes eighteen names, including, in addition to these three, the famous Pan. With Apollo (as with Zeus) it is more difficult, although there are euhemerisms about him in ancient writers - Porphyry speaks about the death and grave of Apollo (Life of Pythagoras, 16.). Horus is an Egyptian god, the son of Isis and Osiris. Eusebius calls him a man for two reasons - as identified with Apollo and as the son of the mortal Dionysus and Isis (one of the possible origins - see Herodotus. History, II, 144, 156), whom Herodotus talks about as the last god - the ruler of Egypt. Isis is an Egyptian goddess identified with Demeter. Osiris is an Egyptian god identified with Dionysus. Most likely, Eusebius considers them people precisely by identification with the Greek gods, about whom there were similar legends. So, he says nothing about Ammon-Zeus and Ra-Helios, of the same gods whom he calls people revered by the Greeks, two coincide with the Egyptian ones. Melqart (or Milqart) - the king of the city, the descriptive name of Baal of Tire, the dying and resurrecting god, was identified with Hercules, apparently precisely on the basis of mortality, Eusebius considers him a deified person. He was especially revered in Tire and Carthage. From the inscriptions we know Phoenician deities that sound somewhat similar - Sakun and Sad (or Sid), but it is not clear who exactly Eusebius means. Dushara is in ancient Arab mythology the supreme deity of the Nabatean state, a dying and resurrecting god. Most likely, this refers to Abaddon, “destruction,” the personification of death in Jewish mythology. In the Christian tradition it is called Apolion, i.e. “destroyer.” Already Herodotus (History, IV, 94–96) talks about the veneration of Zamolxis by the Getae and that this Zamolxis was a slave of Pythagoras and then, having freed himself, returned to his homeland and preached there about the immortality of the soul. He also talks about the trick with which Zamolxis made his fellow tribesmen believe him. The whole story is completely fabulous, and Herodotus himself doubts its truth. Amphiaraus is a Greek local deity, hero and famous soothsayer, participant in the Calydonian hunt and the campaign of the Seven against Thebes, after the defeat he became immortal by the will of Zeus. Herodotus speaks about the Thebans’ veneration of Amphiaraus (History, VIII, 134.), but not only the Thebans revered him as a god, for example, Pausanias reports about his church in Attica (Description of Hellas. I, 34, 1–5.). The well-known human sacrifices of the Phoenicians were, of course, not associated with the Greek Kronos. These words of Eusebius are based on the myth justifying these sacrifices and given by Philo of Byblos and Porphyry, who speak of the sacrifice of Kronos to his father Uranus of his son Judas at the moment of the catastrophe. Although it is known that the Phoenicians revered and feared the sky god, it appears that they built churches and made sacrifices only to local deities - the patrons of the city. Metagition (Metageitnion), August-September of the Athenian calendar. It is curious that Eusebius does not use the actual Rhodian name for this month - Karneios, but does not use the common name of the month according to the Julian calendar. Diomedes, son of Tydeus and Diopile, hero, participant in the Epigonian Campaign and the Trojan War. Amasis, Egyptian king (569–526 BC). Perhaps it should be read “Omsstisky”. According to Porphyry, “on Chios they sacrificed a young man to Dionysus, tearing him to pieces, and on Tenedos, as Evelpides of Caristia says.” Lacedaemon is the old name of Sparta. Clement of Alexandria and Athenaeus also speak about human sacrifices on Crete (though attributing them to Zeus). A city in Asia Minor, founded by Antiochus II and named after his sister Laodice. This refers to the well-known Phoenician cult of Moloch, the veneration of which was combined with the sacrifice of children. See, for example, the myth of Iphigenia, who had to be sacrificed by Agamemnon before the campaign against Troy, and many other myths clearly related to human sacrifice. From historical times, Herodotus tells how the children of Phanes, one of the Greek mercenaries in Egypt, were sacrificed (by these mercenaries themselves - History, III, 11.), Plutarch reports the sacrifice of three captive Persians before the Battle of Salamis (Themistocles, 13) to Dionysus Omestes. Erechtheus is the legendary king of Athens. His daughters are Procris, Creusa, Chthonia and Oritia. Apollodorus gives a completely different version of their life, marriage and death (Mythological Library. III, XV, 1–4). Compare, for example, with human sacrifice to Zeus of Lycea (Pausanias. Description of Hellas. VIII, 38, 7). Diodorus Siculus (c. 90-21 BC), his work of 40 books was called “The Historical Library”, so Eusebius says that he made an abbreviated description of libraries. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1st century BC), rhetorician and historian, author of “Roman Antiquities” in 20 books. Ξιφηφορειν τους γεωπονους. It is known that at the beginning of the reign of Diocletian, farmers living in Gaul, having made a conspiracy among themselves, took up arms and robbed on the roads. They appropriated the name Bagauds. Orosius, Eutropius and Mamertine testify to this in their words of praise to Maximian. From these words of Eusebius we can conclude that this type of robbery occurred throughout almost the entire Roman Empire. This place cannot at all be attributed only to the customs of the Persians and Egyptians who married their sisters. For example, the philosophy of the Stoics (!), seemingly the most ethically substantiated teaching, recommended incest for the purpose of dispassion, which one who wants to become wise should strive for: “Zeno, having set out the story of Jocasta and Oedipus, says that “it is not scary to live with your mother”; and Chrysippus in the Republic says literally the following: “I approve of the practice, which even now with full right exists among many, when a mother gives birth to children from a son, a father from a daughter, and a half-brother from his own sister"" (Sextus Empiricus. Against the Scientists, XI, 191-192.) In addition to numerous references to this custom among the Thracians and Scythians by Herodotus, cf. with amazing words from Ovid (Metamorphoses, X, 224–228.) about the sacrifices to Zeus Xenius in Amathunta on Crete: “Near their gate stood an altar of Jupiter the Hospitality with Evil. When the stranger sees the stains of Blood on his stone, he thinks: here suckling calves and two-year-old Amathuntian sheep are being killed for God. The traveler himself was a victim.” The custom of killing and eating old people (or simply eating the dead) is also described several times by Herodotus for different tribes. Orudny, weapon (hereinafter referred to as instrumental), Greek. (μαχαιρας) done, caused. Troy or Ilion is a city on the western coast of Asia Minor. By the disasters of Troy, Eusebius means the Trojan War, the ten-year siege and destruction of the city by the Achaeans, described by Homer in the Iliad. Roman Emperor Piai Aelius Hadrian (01/24/76 – 07/10/138), imp. from 08/11/117. Regarding the cessation of human sacrifices, Eusebius is mistaken; Pausanias, who lived much later than Hadrian, speaks of the continuation of these sacrifices, for example, to Zeus of Lycea in Arcadia (“Description of Hellas”, VIII, 38, 7). Literally “worthy of a boss’s eye.” This refers to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70. Adamant (αδαμας) – diamond; α – “not”, δμαω – “I tame”, “I conquer”; “indomitable”, “not susceptible to anyone’s strength”, “stronger and harder than all stones”, this name is given in church literature to those famous for their firmness of faith, one of the nicknames of Origen. You might be interested in: