Life and works of Saint Apostle Paul

Interpretation of the Apostolic Epistles by Saint Theophan the Recluse Second edition, expanded and revised The life of Saul of Tarsus before his conversion to Christ Conversion of Saul 34 (Acts 9:1–19:22, 4:11–26, 12:19). His first sermon about Christ in Damascus, Jerusalem and Antioch (Acts 9:20–31:11, 25:30) Apostolic labors of the Holy Apostle Paul in Antioch 41–42 (Acts 11:19–30) Before you is a book that tells, in the words of St. Theophan the Recluse, “about the height of Christian revelation, or the truth of the Gospel, with an account of how it is established on earth.” It consistently, according to the works of the Holy Apostle Paul, reviews the entire economy of God for the salvation of fallen humanity. Collected together and arranged in chronological order, the life of the holy apostle, his messages, their interpretations, a historical commentary on the life, morals and customs of those places that the apostle visited while preaching the Gospel, an explanation of the reasons for writing the messages and the circumstances surrounding this, allow the reader to fully perceive the path of formation of the Church of Christ on earth and relate it to the present day. The book, compiled by priest N. Rudinsky, is essentially a condensed summary of the works of St. Theophan the Recluse on the interpretation of the apostolic epistles. The detailed content of the interpretation of each message and thematic index allow the reader to quickly find an explanation of the passages of interest from the Apostle. Saint Theophan himself called his interpretations conversational. He structured them like a lengthy conversation with the reader, and more. He followed the Apostle verse by verse, but with clear and precise wording he divided the text into parts, sections, and chapters. The interpretation is largely based on extracts from the works of the holy fathers. Saint Theophan explained the need for this: “The fact that there are many extracts is because according to the law in our Orthodoxy, what is firmly established by the holy fathers.” Showing the inspiration of the apostolic epistles, the saint emphasized in the gospel of St. Paul the profound effect of the grace of God, for example, as follows: “The apostle was taken by the Spirit to contemplate the power, glory, lightness and wonderful effects of the gospel truth and began to expound his contemplations in flowing and inspiring speech, until he poured out everything that the Spirit gave him to utter at that time.” Speaking about his labors in interpreting the Holy Scriptures, Saint Theophan informed his spiritual child: “That it was written like this is the mercy of God. Whoever reads it with attention will gather many thoughts that embrace the real Christian life from different sides and support it. Thanks be to the Lord for allowing me to write like this.” This publication was prepared based on the book “The Life and Works of the Holy Apostle Paul.” A consistent commentary on the Apostolic Epistles, compiled from the works of Bishop Theophan the Recluse (compiled by priest N. Rudinsky, St. Petersburg, 1912). The text has been significantly expanded and partially revised, in accordance with the publication: St. Theophan the Recluse. Interpretation of the Epistles of the Apostle Paul in 8 volumes. M., Publishing House of the Athos St. Panteleimon Monastery, 1890–1895. The publication is supplemented by an index compiled by the fathers of the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery, which contains daily liturgical readings of the messages of the Apostle Paul throughout the year. Using this index, you can easily find both the text of the message and its interpretation in the book. According to the compilers, this will give Orthodox Christians, together with the Church, the opportunity to be daily edified by the depth of the wisdom of the Apostle Paul, which, thanks to the interpretations of St. Theophan the Recluse, is revealed in its entirety and becomes accessible to everyone. The appendix contains maps of the holy apostle's evangelistic journeys. The book is intended for a wide range of readers, and can also be recommended to students of seminaries and theological schools when studying a course on the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament. Dedicated with ardent love to the Orthodox Russian people. Truly immeasurable are the services that were rendered to Christianity by the holy Apostle Paul. This highly selfless figure, not without reason, pointed out that he worked more than the other apostles (1 Cor. 15:10). And his great work is that “from Jerusalem to Illyria, from Illyria to Rome and, perhaps even to Spain, he preached the Gospel, which breathed new life into a decrepit and corrupt world. But an even greater benefit to the spiritual life of mankind were his famous epistles, which represent not only the earliest manifestations of Christian literature, but also the richest treasures of poetry and eloquence, moral wisdom and spiritual consolation. It is to his mind, inflamed by love and illuminated by the Holy Spirit, that we owe the first systematic exposition, in mutual connection and causal combination, of the great truths of that mystery of existence, which, being hidden from eternity, was revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ: that He is the Judge of the living and the dead (in the Epistle to the Thessalonians), that He is the invisible Head and Ruler of the Church (in the Epistle to the Thessalonians) Corinthians), that He is the author of all spiritual freedom from slavery to ritual and the Redeemer of the world from the yoke of sin and death (in the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians), that He is the Savior who raises from the dead, the Life of all life, the Source of all joy and peace (in the Epistle to the Philippians), that He is the fullness of Divine perfections, that He is the one Master, the one Mediator, one Savior, the Head of the Body, which is the Church, and the Source of its life in every member (in the Epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians and Hebrews). “It is to his fearless determination, his clear view, his moral sublimity that we owe the liberation of the Christian religion from the intolerable yoke of legality, the separation of the living body of Christianity from the corpse of abolished Leviticism (Gal. 4:9; Rom. 8:3; Heb. 7:18). He was God's chosen instrument for the universal spread of Christianity. As an apostle to the peoples, he was primarily an apostle of spiritual freedom, enlightenment, and reason. But besides this, he was also the apostle who most clearly showed for the religious conscience of mankind the meaning of faith and at all times, in countless Christians, aroused a feeling of their own helplessness, convincingly and irresistibly pointing at the same time to the greatness and universality of the redemption that the Savior Christ accomplished. And therefore, when the faith of Christ was most darkened in the hearts of people, when its purest flame was in extreme danger of being extinguished - either under the dead ashes of sensuality, or from the chilling currents of skepticism - religious life for the most part came to life again precisely under the influence of his messages, and it is in his teaching that the soul of every Christian can find the path to the highest stage of holy Christian freedom - in unity with Christ,” as F.V. wrote. Farrar. “The epistles of the Holy Apostle Paul,” says Saint Gregory the Theologian, “nourish us spiritually. This is an inexhaustible treasury of truths of faith and Christian life. Saint Paul gives instructions to all slaves and masters, superiors and subordinates, husbands and wives, parents and children, marriage and celibacy, wisdom and ignorance.” “His messages,” according to Saint Chrysostom, “contain the blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven.” The life and evangelistic works of the Holy Apostle Paul can be said to be inseparable from his messages. He himself lived and worked as he taught in his epistles; he himself lived according to the teaching of his epistles. For the edification of others, he often refers in his messages to his example of life, often writing to Christians: “Imitate me as I imitate Christ!” ( 1 Cor. 4:16 ; Phil. 3:17 ). A living example of Christian life is more attractive to follow it than mere bare teaching. On the other hand, the very content of his messages, placed in close connection with his own life and with the circumstances of writing them, is understood and remembered much better and more clearly than if separated from them. That is why we decided to present and interpret the epistles of the holy Apostle Paul here in connection with the very life of the apostle. The Acts of the Apostles outlines three evangelistic journeys of the Apostle Paul to preach the Gospel of Christ in Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece and Rome. And from Rome he made, one might assume, a fourth journey for the same purpose. During these travels, for 20 years, he proclaimed Christ Crucified to the simple-minded pagans of Lycaonia, the flighty fanatics of Galatia, the dreamy mystics of Phrygia, the courageous colonists of Macedonia, the superficial amateurs of Athens, the sensual and self-righteous industrialists of Corinth, the semi-barbarian inhabitants of Dalmatia, the disreputable islanders of Crete, slaves, warriors and the vast mass of the population of Rome. Everywhere he founded and organized churches and appointed guardians - bishops, presbyters and clergy in general. He himself, as an apostle, led them either by oral word and the example of his life, or by epistles, in which he outlined the teaching of Christ about faith, salvation and moral life, and resolved their perplexed questions. For the interpretation of the messages, the main manual was “Interpretations of the Epistles of the Holy Apostle Paul” by Bishop Theophan the Recluse. For the historical part, the work of F.V. Farrar “The Life and Works of the Holy Apostle Paul” (St. Petersburg, 1887) served as a guide. “In the Providence of God it often happened that the destroyer of a known system was brought up in the very bosom of the system that he was intended to shake or destroy. So it was with the Apostle Paul. The victorious enemy of pagan philosophy and pagan idolatry spent his childhood in the pagan environment of the philosophical city. The irreconcilable opponent of Jewish exclusivity was, by his origin, a Jew from the Jews. The man who inflicted a mortal wound on the spirit of Pharisaism was a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, from his very youth he was raised in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel (see Acts 22:3, 24:4), studied the law of his fathers to perfection and lived according to the strictest teaching in the Jewish religion (Acts 26:5). Just as his activities differed in many respects from those of the other apostles, so his upbringing was completely different from theirs. Their early years were spent in the villages of Gennesaret; his childhood was spent in the crowded Jewish quarter of the pagan city. They were unlearned and ignorant, unfamiliar with systematic learning, inexperienced in the methods that were mainly used among the Jews for theological learning. He, as a student of the sages, sat at the feet of the most famous of the rabbis and was chosen as an inquisitorial agent of the Sanhedrin precisely because he surpassed all his contemporaries in his ardent zeal for the traditions of the fathers (cf. Gal. 1:14)" (Farrar. Op. cit. pp. 3-4). The Holy Apostle Paul, before his conversion to Christ and for some time after his conversion, was called Saul or Saul. It was a Jewish name, given to him by his Jewish parents. Although he was “a Jew from the Jews,” he was born in the pagan city of Tarsus in Cilicia. Nothing is known about his parents, except that his father came from the tribe of Benjamin (see Phil. 3:5) and was a Pharisee (see Acts 23:6); that he, unknown how and for what, acquired Roman citizenship and transferred it to Saul (see Acts 23:28) and that he lived in Tarsus of Cilicia. “I am a Judean, a Tarsian, a citizen of the well-known city of Cilicia,” says the holy Apostle Paul about himself (Acts 21:39). Tarsus was the main Cilician city, inhabited by Greeks, famous for its wealth, learned schools on a par with Athens, and low morality. In his youth, Saul learned here to speak and write in Greek, although he thought and reasoned purely in Hebrew. But pagan wisdom and especially morals aroused disgust in his pure soul, which found delight in the law of the Lord and the sacred literature of his people, with dreams of the fate of which his soul was always full (see Rom. 9:1). From a young age, according to the custom of the Jews, he began to study the Bible and its interpretations. In Tarsus, he learned to make tents for travelers and troops (see Acts 18:3). Between the ages of 10 and 15, he was brought by his parents to Jerusalem, where he was carefully instructed in the law of his fathers, at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), a well-known learned rabbi at that time, and became a zealot for God and “an immoderate zealot for the traditions of his fathers” (Gal.1:14). This zeal consisted of strictly observing the letter of the law, according to fatherly tradition, and of pursuing and driving away those who violated it. At the time when the Gospel of Christ, preached by the apostles, was quickly spreading and the disciples who believed in Christ were multiplying, and when seven deacons, including Stephen, were chosen to serve at the tables as trustees of the poor, Saul was still a youth (Acts 6:1-5). But during the disputes about the faith of Christ between the Jews and Stephen between some from Cilicia (Acts 6:9), Saul was probably also present, for he was also present at the stoning of the holy protomartyr (see Acts 7:58). Stephen's accusatory speech, which he said before his death to the Jewish people, that they persecuted and killed the prophets and did not keep the law of God, greatly irritated them. “When they heard this, they tore their hearts and gnashed their teeth at him” (Acts 7:54). “I put many saints in prison, and when they killed them, I gave my voice to it... in all the synagogues I repeatedly tortured them and forced them to blaspheme Jesus and, in excessive rage against them, I persecuted them even in foreign cities” (Acts 26:10-11). This is what the holy Apostle Paul himself says about himself. Conversion of Saul 34 (Acts 9:1–19:22, 4:11–26, 12:19). His first sermon about Christ in Damascus, Jerusalem and Antioch (Acts 9:20–31:11, 25:30) “In those days (after the murder of Stephen) there was a great persecution against the Church in Jerusalem, and all (Christians), except the holy apostles, were scattered to different places in Judea and Samaria” (Acts 8:1). “Saul, breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1) and not finding, apparently, victims in Jerusalem, asked the high priests for letters to Damascus, a populous city, to the leaders of the synagogues, so that they would assist him here in the persecution of Christians. With these letters - and with similar zealots of the fatherly traditions - Saul went to Damascus; but here, under its walls, around noon, a blinding light suddenly shone from the sky, “exceeding the radiance of the sun.” All of Saul’s companions soon rose to their feet, and Saul himself, blinded. with the light of heaven, lay on the ground. Then they all heard a voice from heaven. Saul’s companions heard only the sound of the voice, and Saul also heard his words: “Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 26:14). The Lord answered: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Saul said in awe and horror: “Lord! What will you have me do?” The Lord said to him: “Get up and go into the city; and it will be told to you what you must do” (Acts 9:5-6). Saul stood up, and his companions blindly led him by the hands to Damascus. Here he was blind for three days, did not eat or drink, but prayed and “saw in a vision a man named Ananias come to him and laid his hand on him so that he could receive his sight” (Acts 9:12). Meanwhile, the Lord in a vision commanded Ananias, a disciple of Christ, who lived in Damascus, to find Saul, heal him of blindness and baptize him. At the same time, the Lord told Ananias about Saul that “he is my chosen vessel, to proclaim my name before the nations and kings and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15). Ananias found Saul and, laying his hands on him, said: “Brother Saul! The Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the path you walked, sent me so that you could receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And immediately scales fell away from his eyes, and suddenly he received his sight” (Acts 9:17-18). Then Ananias said to him: “The God of our fathers has chosen you so that you would know His will, see the Righteous One (Jesus Christ) and hear the voice from His mouth, because you will be His witness before all people about what you have seen and heard. So why are you delaying? Arise, be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 22:14–16). And Saul stood up and was baptized (Acts 9:18). After baptism, Saul was accepted into the community of Christ's disciples and “immediately began to preach in the (Jewish) synagogues about Jesus, that He is the Son of God,” proving to the Jews that He is Christ, the expected Messiah (Acts 9:20–22). How long Saul stayed in Damascus is unknown. Saint Paul himself in the Epistle to the Galatians (1:16-17) writes that after his calling “he did not ... consult with flesh and blood” - with people, “and did not go to Jerusalem to the apostles who preceded him” in order to learn from them the teaching of Christ, but “went to Arabia, and again returned to Damascus.” And three years have passed. He was probably preparing away from people for that apostolic service to which he was destined and called by the Lord, in a spiritual conversation with the Lord Jesus Christ. He himself says in the Epistle to the Galatians that he received the gospel, which preaches the gospel to people, “not from man, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:12). Therefore, upon returning to Damascus from Arabia, he strengthened himself more and “confused the Jews, proving that this (Jesus Crucified) is the Christ” (Acts 9:22). The preaching of Saint Paul in Damascus greatly embittered the Jews, and they conspired to kill him. The regional ruler, King Aretas, was also persuaded to do this (see 2 Cor. 11:32). Day and night they guarded him at the gates of the house in which he lived in order to capture and kill him. But Saul's disciples took him at night and lowered him down the wall outside the city in a basket (see Acts 9:25), since the house in which Saul lived was located near the city wall. From Damascus, Saul then went to Jerusalem, mainly to see the Apostle Peter (see Gal. 1:18), as the first of the apostles of Christ, not to learn the Gospel from him, because he himself had the same teacher of the Gospel, but to honor the first apostle (Blessed Jerome). In Jerusalem, Saul tried to pester the disciples of Christ, but “everyone was afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple” (Acts 9:26). Barnabas, who probably heard about his conversion in Damascus, brought him to the apostles and told them how on the road to Damascus Saul “saw the Lord, and what the Lord spoke to him, and how he preached boldly in Damascus in the name of Jesus” (Acts 9:27). Saul found only two apostles in Jerusalem - James, the brother of the Lord, and Peter, with whom he stayed for 15 days (see Gal. 1:18–19). Living in Jerusalem in friendship and love with the Apostle Peter, Saul, burning with zeal for Jesus Christ, boldly preached in the name of the Lord Jesus and competed with the Hellenists (the Jews of the Diaspora who had mastered the Greek, Hellenic language), but with his evidence that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, he so hardened them that “they tried to kill him” (Acts 9:29). Saul pours out the difficult state of his soul to the Lord in prayer. And then one day, when he was praying in the church, he fell into a frenzy (ecstasy, rapture of the spirit), the Lord appeared to him and said: “Hurry up and leave Jerusalem quickly, because here they will not accept your testimony about Me” (Acts 22:17-18). But it seemed incredible to Saul that his testimony could be resisted. It seemed to him that, recognizing his mental strength and comparing his present devotion to Christianity with his former persecution of him, the Jews could not help but listen to such a teacher as he. He also tried, to the best of his ability, to make amends for the disasters and horrors that he had committed in the past. But no matter how deep were his desires in this regard, no matter how ardent were his hopes, the Divine voice briefly and commandingly said to him: “Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles” (Acts 22:17–21). He submitted to the will of God, and the Christian brothers, having learned about the Jewish plot against him, escorted him for safety to the coastal city of Caesarea Strato, from where he went to his hometown of Tarsus (see Acts 9:30). The Apostle Paul himself says that he went from Caesarea to the countries of Syria and Cilicia (see Gal. 1:21) and here he preached the Gospel of Christ and founded churches, which he established on his second journey (Acts 15:41). Apostolic labors of the Holy Apostle Paul in Antioch 41–42 (Acts 11:19–30) While Saul was visiting and preaching the word of God in Cilicia and Tarsus, a religious awakening began in Antioch in Syria, which raised that city to a height almost equal to Jerusalem itself in the early history of Christianity. In the life and work of the Apostle of Languages, Antioch was especially important. Here was the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel among the pagan Hellenes, and from them the first Church of believers, free from the ritual law of the Jews, was formed, whose society received (from whomever it came) a new name - Christians (Acts 11:26). The city of Antioch with its half a million population was considered the queen of the East, the third metropolis of the world, and was the residence of the imperial legate of Syria. It was the Greek capital, enriched and enlarged by Roman generosity. Antioch lies at the junction of the mountains between the Lebanon and Taurus ridges, and is watered by the historical Orontes River. Most of its inhabitants were pagans - Syrians, Greeks, Romans, and there were also quite a few Jews, of course, engaged in trade. But in religious and moral terms it was an almost godless city, extremely immoral, an unprecedented gathering of clowns, charlatans, magicians, sorcerers, sorcerers and trickster priests, a city of horse races, games, dances, processions, holidays, bacchanalia, unbridled luxury, all the excesses of the East, the ugliest superstitions, fantastic orgies (Farrar. Decree pp. 197–200). The first messengers of the Gospel here were Jewish Christians, “scattered from the persecution that followed Stephen.” But they preached the words to no one except the Jews. Other Christians also came here - Cypriots and Cyreneans, probably Hellenists, who “spoke to the Hellenes (pagans), preaching the Lord Jesus.” “And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord” (Acts 11:19–21). When the news reached Jerusalem that the Greek pagans were turning to the Lord Jesus, the apostles sent Barnabas, one of the 70 apostles, who was more experienced and powerful in word and deed, to Antioch as a preacher of the Gospel. As a result of Barnabas’ preaching, the number of believers began to increase greatly, so Barnabas found it necessary to invite Saul from Tarsus to Antioch as his assistant, and both of them gathered in church for a whole year and taught a considerable number of people, and the disciples in Antioch for the first time began to be called Christians (Acts 11:26). Barnabas and Saul preached the Gospel to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, that He was crucified for the sins of people and was resurrected. The pagans also heard the same sermon, believed, were baptized and received the grace of the Holy Spirit. Under her influence, believers from Jews and pagans merged, as it were, into one body of the Church, on equal rights of faith and grace, and began to be called by the same name of Christians - disciples of Christ. But there were probably zealous Jews who grumbled at the pagans having such equal rights with them. This issue had not yet been resolved by the apostles, and therefore made it difficult for the preachers themselves. The beginning of his decision was the following circumstance. Prophets came to Antioch, probably from Jerusalem, “and one of them, named Agabus... proclaimed by the Spirit that there would be a great famine throughout the whole world.” Then the Christians of Antioch (from Jews and pagans) “decided, each according to his means, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea, which they did, sending what they had collected to the elders of Jerusalem through Barnabas and Saul” (Acts 11:28-30). The collected benefit could, of course, have been sent with someone else, especially since Barnabas and Saul, as the main leaders of Christians, were needed in Antioch, but they themselves went to Jerusalem to explain to those there that pagan believers took part in the benefit, along with Jewish Christians, and, most importantly, to clarify the attitude of the former to the Church of Christ. Here they could hear about the conversion of the pagan Cornelius the centurion by the Apostle Peter and about the revelation to Peter that God had cleansed the pagans, who were hitherto considered unclean. And indeed, the Holy Spirit descends on those who believe and are baptized in the same way as on the Jews. So, obviously, there is God’s determination to accept into the Church of Christ both pagans (who believe), as well as Jews. Having fulfilled the assignment entrusted to them, and most importantly, having learned the will of God regarding the pagans, Barnabas and Saul returned to Antioch, taking with them their assistant John-Mark, the son of Barnabas’ sister. The work of preaching among the pagans proceeded with greater confidence. Antioch was in living communication with Cilicia, Cyprus and other neighboring countries. The Antiochian brethren could involuntarily ask a question: could the Kingdom of the Son of God, preached by him, be limited to Judea alone? Will those living outside of Judea not hear the preaching of the Gospel and not be included in this Kingdom? As if in response to these thoughts, the command of the Holy Spirit followed: “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2). The work to which Saul was called was to “proclaim the name of Jesus Christ the Lord before the nations and kings and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15). Therefore, the Christian brothers of Antioch, “having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, sent them away” (Acts 13:3).