Глава 13

1–4. A conversation about the destruction of Jerusalem, the second coming of Christ and the end of the world. – 5–13. Reason for speech. – 14–27. The time before the end. – 28–32. The end times and the coming of the end. – 33–37. Exhortations to stay awake. Mark 13:1. And when He left the church, one of His disciples said to Him: Teacher! look at the stones and the buildings! Mark 13:2. Jesus answered and said to him, Do you see these great buildings? all this will be destroyed, so that not one stone will remain here upon another. Mark 13:3. And when He was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the church, Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew asked Him privately: Mark 13:4. tell us when this will happen, and what is the sign when all this should happen? The Evangelist Mark here depicts events more accurately than Matthew. “One” (and not all) the disciple pointed out to Christ the stones and buildings of the church. The four disciples closest to Christ (not all) asked Christ on the Mount of Olives. The stones from which the second church was built were extremely large: about 25 cubits in length, 12 in width, and 8 in thickness. "Against the Church". From the Mount of Olives the entire church was clearly visible. "Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew". Both at the beginning of Christ’s open activity (Mark 1:16–20), and at its end, the Evangelist Mark brings out these two pairs of brothers. Then they listened to the news that the time was fulfilled and that the Kingdom of God was approaching; now Christ was announcing to them the future fate of this Kingdom. “When will this be”, i.e. when the church is destroyed. “What is the sign when all these things are to be accomplished?” The apostles, no doubt, merged in their vision the destruction of the church with the end of the world and the opening of the glorious Kingdom of God. That's why they say "all this." This means that in the first question we are talking about the time of the end, in the second – about the sign by which this end can be expected. Mark 13:5. Answering them, Jesus began to say: Take heed lest anyone deceive you. The Evangelist cites Christ's speech with abbreviations, but at the same time reports some sayings omitted by Matthew. (Matthew 24). Mark 13:6. for many will come in my name and say that it is I; and they will deceive many. "It's me" . What Christ is saying here is not that some will claim to be the returned Jesus Christ, but that they will call themselves “Christs” or “Messiahs.” Mark 13:7. When you hear about wars and rumors of war, do not be horrified: for this must happen, but this is not the end. Mark 13:8. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be earthquakes in places, and there will be famines and turmoil. This is the beginning of illness. “Confusion” (ταραχαί) – only here. In the Gospel of Matthew: “earthquakes”, i.e. various upheavals in people's life that will lead to confusion (root ταραχή – ταράσσω – “lead to confusion”). Mark 13:9. But take heed to yourselves, for you will be brought before the courts and beaten in the synagogues, and you will be presented before rulers and kings for My sake, as a testimony before them. “But you look after yourself,” i.e. do not lose sight of yourselves, and do not forget your appointment as preachers of the Gospel. “They will betray...” (see Matthew 10:17–18). Mark 13:10. And the Gospel must first be preached to all nations. Explaining how the apostles will find themselves at judgment, Christ says that first, i.e. before the “end” comes, understood as the destruction of Jerusalem (verse 7), His disciples must preach the Gospel to all nations, and for this preaching they will be held accountable (cf. Matt. 24:14). Mark 13:11. When they lead you to betray you, do not worry in advance what to say to you, and do not think about it; but whatever is given to you in that hour, then speak, for it is not you who will speak, but the Holy Spirit. Mark 13:12. Brother will betray brother to death, and father will betray his children; and the children will rise up against their parents and kill them. Mark 13:13. And you will be hated by everyone because of My name; he who endures to the end will be saved. In all likelihood, the Evangelist Mark more correctly than Matthew placed these words of Christ in His eschatological conversation. They have no application to the sending of the disciples to preach, which the Evangelist Matthew speaks about in the 10th chapter; the apostles at that time had not yet been brought to trial by rulers and kings. Mark 13:14. When you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing where it should not be - let the reader understand - then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; It is remarkable that in the Evangelist Mark the word “standing” is a masculine participle and should be more correctly rendered by the word “standing” (ἑστηκότα). There is no agreement here with the noun to which this participle refers (“abomination” - in Greek βδέλυγμα - neuter), and, undoubtedly, the evangelist wanted to say something by this. What then? It may very well be that this “abomination” seemed to him as a person who would appear as an opponent of Christ in the sanctuary, as some kind of anti-god or antichrist (cf. 2 Thess. 2:3 et seq.). He, of course, - this is how the apostles should have understood - will appear in Jerusalem, in the Jerusalem temple, which was the true house of God (John 2:16). Mark 13:15. But if anyone is on the housetop, do not go into the house or enter to take anything from your house; Mark 13:16. and whoever is in the field, do not turn back to take your clothes. Mark 13:17. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who suckle in those days. Mark 13:18. Pray that your flight will not happen in winter. Mark 13:19. For in those days there will be such tribulation as there has not been since the beginning of creation, which God created, even to this day, nor will there ever be. Apparently, here we are talking about the persecution that will fall on believers in Christ, but one can also see here indications of political turmoil, from which Jerusalem Christians will also suffer greatly. Mark 13:20. And if the Lord had not shortened those days, no flesh would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect whom He chose He shortened those days. “No flesh”, therefore, believers in Christ. “But for the sake of the elect,” i.e. these same believers in Christ, the days of tribulation will be ended, in accordance with the eternal decision of God. Mark 13:21. Then, if someone tells you: behold, here is Christ, or, behold, there, do not believe it. Mark 13:22. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and show signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Mark 13:23. You must be careful. Behold, I told you everything in advance. Mark 13:24. But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will darken, and the moon will not give its light, Mark 13:25. and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Mark 13:26. Then they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds with much power and glory. Mark 13:27. And then He will send His angels and gather His elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. Mark 13:28. Take a similar example from a fig tree: when its branches become soft and put out leaves, you know that summer is near. Mark 13:29. So when you see something coming true, know that it is close, at the door. Mark 13:30. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things happen. Mark 13:31. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. Mark 13:32. No one knows about that day or hour, neither the heavenly angels, nor the Son, but only the Father. “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (verse 32; see Matt. 24:36). To the words found in Matthew, the Evangelist Mark adds the expression: “neither the Son.” This expression has long aroused serious controversy among interpreters. It was confusing precisely because it ascribes ignorance to the Son, which, however, cannot be attributed to Him as the Person of the Divine. Saint Ambrose of Milan, not finding a way to reconcile this expression with the lofty concept of the person of the Son of God, believed that this expression was inserted into the text of the Gospel of Mark by the Arians to show the Orthodox that Christ is not God (“On Faith”, book 5, chapter VI). But such an assumption cannot be accepted simply because the Fathers of the Church, who fought against the Arians, would undoubtedly have exposed them for this distortion of the Gospel text. Moreover, in fact, the Evangelist Matthew includes the same thought as in this expression, because he also says that only the Father knows about the time of the last day, therefore, the Son does not know this according to the Gospel of Matthew. Therefore, even if we assume that Saint Ambrose’s assumption is correct, we would still have to stop with bewilderment at Matthew 24:36. Other Fathers of the Church, without resorting to such dangerous assumptions, tried to explain this mysterious expression by the fact that Christ attributed to Himself “ignorance” of His human nature, why the adjective “Human” was added to the word “Son” (St. Gregory the Theologian, Athanasius the Great, Cyril of Alexandria). But we cannot agree with this interpretation because it divides Christ, while both natures in Him - both divine and human - are inseparable in their manifestations. St. Sophronius, St. John of Damascus rebelled against the heretics of the 6th century - the Agnoites, who taught that Christ, as a man, “does not know something.” According to St. Basil the Great (Creations, part 7, p. 159), this expression should be conveyed as follows: “the Son would not have known if the Father had not known, because knowledge was given to Him from the Father.” But here, obviously, the text of the Gospel itself is changed through additions... Some of the newest Western interpreters (our opinion is followed by Mr. Gladkov in his “Explanatory Gospel”, see p. 572, 3rd ed.) understood this expression as evidence that the appointment of the time of the last Judgment is the work of the Father and that such an appointment has not yet taken place... But one cannot agree with such an interpretation, because it contradicts the general Christian teaching, which recognizes that the fate of the world is predetermined by God from eternity, which must be allowed for belief in Divine omniscience. Finally, some interpreters admit that Christ really did not know this day, because, according to the word of the Apostle Paul (Phil. 2:7), he was on earth in the form of a servant and lived as a man, i.e. self-limited Himself in relation to His Divine properties and, in particular, to omniscience. But we cannot agree with such an opinion either, due to the fact that such sayings as: “all things were handed over to Me by My Father” (Matthew 11:27; cf. Luke 10:22; John 6:46, 8:40) do not allow us to attribute to the Son ignorance of the time of His coming and to distinguish the domain of the Father’s knowledge from the domain of the Son’s knowledge... Then, due to the hypostatic unity in Christ of divinity and humanity with the preservation of personality divine, one cannot speak of any limitation of the divine nature of the incarnate Son of God.” This is how S. Savvinsky argues in his dissertation: “Eschatological conversation of Christ the Savior” (Kyiv, 1906, p. 115). Mr. Savvinsky himself, following the opinion of St. John Chrysostom, blessed Jerome, Augustine, Theophylact and others, understands this ignorance by the Son of the day and hour of “parousia” (from gr. ἡ παρουσία - “second coming”) not as “the weakness of ignorance, but as an educational means of a wise teacher.” According to the above-mentioned fathers, the Lord seems to be saying that although He knows, He does not want to reveal this period to the disciples, because it was not useful for them to know about it: the knowledge that there was still a long time before the judgment would make them careless in piety. This idea is more precisely expressed by Lagrange (1911) in his commentary on the Gospel of Mark in the following words: The Son knows, but has no commission from the Father to communicate what he knows, and in this sense “does not know.” The Son does not know, therefore, how the Messiah sent by the Father; it is not part of His authority to reveal to men the time of the end of the world (p. 327). Mark 13:33. Watch, watch, pray, for you do not know when this time will come. An exhortation to watch (see Matthew 24:42). The word “pray” is not read in the best recent publications. “Time” (καιρός) can mean a separate moment, but usually it means a period, an era (cf. Mark 1:15). From this it is clear that the apostles did not receive any indication of any specific sign that could herald the coming of the last day. The destruction of the church could not have been such a sign. Wellhausen even expresses the idea that this passage was inserted into the Gospel already when Christians saw that the destruction of Jerusalem did not lead to the destruction of the world. In this thought, of course, the only true thing is that in general in the Gospel and specifically in the eschatological speech of Christ, these two moments were not connected at all... Mark 13:34. It is as if someone, going on a journey and leaving his home, gave his servants authority and each his own business, and ordered the gatekeeper to watch. Christ offers here a second parable, parallel to the first, about the fig tree (verse 28). Only here there is no symbol, but a direct exhortation to stay awake so as not to be taken by surprise. “As if...” The particle ὡς standing here undoubtedly begins a parable, like ὥσπερ γάρ in Matthew 25:14, and has no correspondence for itself either in the previous or in the subsequent, so that only a subordinate clause is obtained without the main one. However, the main clause is clear - it must be taken from verse 33, and with this additional main clause the following parable is obtained: “I call you to watchfulness, like a man who, having gone away (ἀπόδημος, in Russian translation inaccurately - “going away”), left,” etc. The apostles and all believers are depicted here under the guise of servants who received from their departed master a certain freedom of action (ἐξουσία, in the Russian translation the not entirely appropriate expression is “power”; power - over whom?). They must cheerfully fulfill their purpose which Christ will give them. The gatekeeper, to whom, in fact, the apostles are primarily equated, must be especially vigilant. Of course, this does not mean that they will live to see the second coming: in their person, Christ addresses Christians of all subsequent generations, who must always maintain the expectation of the second coming of Christ to judgment. Mark 13:35. Watch therefore, for you do not know when the owner of the house will come: in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning; The moral lesson is presented here in the very expressions from which the parable itself is composed, so that the whole receives the stamp of allegory. The owner of the house is Christ Himself. Instead of determining the time by the “watches” (as the evangelist Luke does - (Luke 12:38), Mark uses the popular designations of time: evening - from 6 to 9 o'clock, midnight - more precisely, the very night - from 9 to 12, rooster crow - from 12 to 3 o'clock in the morning, and morning - from 3 to 6 o'clock. Thus, these expressions cover the entire night time, which, in fact, there is sleep time, but at this time, apparently, we should expect the return of the owner of the house. Mark 13:36. lest he come suddenly and find you sleeping. Here the purpose of watchfulness is indicated, as previously, in verse 35, the incentive to watch was indicated. You must stay awake, says Christ, so that the master, returning unexpectedly, “does not find you sleeping.” The state of sleep, of course, is taken here in a figurative sense, as moral lull, as complete indifference to the highest questions of the soul. Mark 13:37. But what I say to you, I say to everyone: stay awake. Although the eschatological discourse, as presented by Mark (verses 3-5), was addressed only to the four apostles, it nevertheless had in mind all believers, as this verse clearly states. You might be interested in: