Отдел девятый. Завершение апостольского века

XLVI. Apostolic activity and martyrdom of St. Petra. Conciliar Epistles of St. Petra. Activities of other apostles Simultaneously with ap. Paul suffered martyrdom and the apostle. Peter, who thus ended his apostolic activity also in the capital of that pagan world, the firstborn of which he was once the first to accept into the Church of Christ. But, as we know, he soon had to cede the field of activity among the pagan world to one who was specially called to be the apostle of the pagans, and indeed he soon completely left this great field to the apostle. Paul himself began to preach the Gospel almost exclusively among the Jews of both Palestine and other countries. As one of the chief apostles, he was well known to all the major churches. In Corinth, when local Christians were divided into parties, one put on its banner the name of Peter or Cephas. He founded several churches in various regions of Asia Minor and, to strengthen them in the faith, addressed them with a message, in which, among other things, he named the countries themselves. It was he who addressed the message to “the strangers scattered in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, the chosen ones” (1 Pet. 1:1). This indication partly determines the apostolic career that he went through. But he did not limit himself to these countries, and in his apostolic zeal he even penetrated into Babylon, so that in this country of captivity he could proclaim the truth of the Gospel to his fellow tribesmen. According to Josephus, there were many Jewish settlements in Babylonia, which were famous for their wealth and generous offerings to the church. The latter were so valuable that, according to the same historian, two fortresses were required to guard them, and when these offerings were sent to Jerusalem, they were accompanied by several thousand Jews to protect them from the robber attacks of the Parthians. Sermon by Ap. Peter among the Babylonian Jews was accompanied by blessed success, and in his first letter he conveys to the Asia Minor churches a greeting from the “church in Babylon” (1 Pet. 5:13), which he calls “the chosen one.” From the same message it is clear that his employees at that time were Silouan and Mark, who at one time were also employees of the apostle. Pavel. This circumstance shows what close communication existed between the apostles and how they, acting, so to speak, on opposite ends of the world, were in constant communication through the same colleagues and co-workers in the Gospel field. Already in old age, ap. Peter, as if following the general flow of life, which strove towards Rome as the center, went to the capital of the world. There are only vague legends about his stay there. According to the teachings of the Roman Church, he was supposedly the first bishop of Rome and served as a bishop for twenty-five years. But this teaching is in clear contradiction with the obvious chronological data showing that the apostle arrived in Rome only shortly before his death. The main events during his stay in Rome were, according to later legends, his conversions of Philo and the senator Pudent with his two daughters Praxida and Pudentiana, and his public competition with Simon the Magus. This deceiver, having failed in resurrecting the dead young man (which miracle was performed by the Apostle Peter), finally tried to seduce the people with the assurance that he would ascend to heaven. But through the prayer of Rev. Peter and Paul, he was abandoned by the demons who supported him and fell to the ground, breaking into blood. During Nero's persecution, St. Peter allegedly, at the insistent requests of Christians, wanted to leave Rome. But when he went out of the Cape Gate, he met the Lord carrying his cross and asked Him: “Lord, where are you going?” “I am going to Rome,” said Christ, “to suffer crucifixion again for you.” The Apostle, feeling the full force of this gentle reproach, returned back and was imprisoned in Tullianum. There he converted his jailer to the faith, miraculously producing a spring for his baptism from the stone floor of the prison. Seeing how his wife was being led to execution, he rejoiced at her journey to the “fatherland” and, calling her by name, in a loud voice called her to joyful courage: “Oh, remember the Lord!” He himself was executed on the same day as the apostle. Pavel. They parted on the Ostian road, and ap. Peter was then taken to the top of the Janiculum, where he was crucified, not in the usual position, but at his own request - upside down, because he considered himself unworthy to die in the same way as his Lord. Shortly before his death, he wrote a second conciliar epistle, as a last testament to those to whom he had previously preached. In this letter, among other things, the apostle warns Christians against various false teachers, “who will introduce destructive heresies and, denying the Lord who bought them, will bring upon themselves quick destruction.” In the message, among other things, a reference is made to the messages of St. Paul, with the testament that in them “there are some things difficult to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist (pervert) to their own destruction, just as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Pet. 3:16). This link shows again that the apostles carried out preaching activities with common forces, mutually sharing their messages, in which the theology of the universal Church was developed. If the news about the Supreme Apostle Peter is scant, then it is even scarcer about the other apostles. Having stayed in Jerusalem until the Jerusalem Council, they then, like winged eagles, scattered in all directions preaching the Gospel, and no written monuments have been preserved about their activities, since it was imprinted only on the hearts of those who accepted it. As a result, only vague echoes of them have been preserved in legend. According to legend, St. Andrei chose the shores of the Black Sea, the so-called Scythia, as the field of his apostolic activity. The shores of this sea were dotted with rich Greek colonies, which were in constant relations with the northern peoples, from which raw materials brought from the depths of the country were rafted across the sea to Asia Minor and Greece. The reason why he chose this particular country as the field of his apostolic activity could be that he himself was in close relations with the Greeks, as his very Greek name shows, and therefore could more count on success. According to later legend, he did not limit himself to the shores of the Black Sea, but went deep into the country itself, and there, on the Kyiv mountains, having erected a cross, he uttered his great prophecy that the grace of God would shine on these mountains and a great city would arise. The Apostle Andrew suffered a martyr's death in the city of Patras, in Achaia, being crucified on a special kind of cross (x), which is known as St. Andrew's. St. James, the brother of the Lord, after the death of James Zebedee, was the bishop of the Jerusalem church and was distinguished by such strictness of life that he enjoyed great respect even by the Jews, so that he was allowed entry into the sanctuary, although this right was granted only to priests. He suffered a martyr's death in Jerusalem itself, and the main culprit of his death was the high priest Anna (Ganan) the Younger, the last of the sons of the high priest Anna mentioned in the Gospel. Hatred of Christ and Christians has already led the house of Anna to stain their criminal hands with the blood of Christ and the first martyr St. Stephen, to approval of the murder of James, son of Zebedee, and to efforts to achieve the death of St. ap. Pavel. The same unceasing hostility now drew the younger Ganan, a man of a violent and commanding temperament, into a new crime. He took advantage of an unexpectedly favorable opportunity to put to death the brother of the Lord and thus deal another blow to the Christian Church. Fest, whose justice saved the life of St. Paul and who was one of the most venerable Roman procurators of Judea, died after a short two-year administration. Albinus was appointed his successor, but before his arrival a short interval passed during which Judea was only under the distant supervision of the legate of Syria. Agrippa II was not in Jerusalem. At such a time, a daring and cruel Sadducee, such as this high priest, could easily induce the Sanhedrin to exceed its authority and again arrogate to itself the right to carry out the death penalty, which, strictly speaking, no longer belonged to it. He hoped that the Romans would either not notice this offense or turn a blind eye to it, since they were very tolerant in everything that was done in the interests of any legally permitted religion, and naturally did not want to interfere in a matter that they did not attach political importance to. Inspiring the Sanhedrin with his own courage, Ganan persuaded it to arrest Jacob and other leading Christians and stone them. The charge against them was undoubtedly blasphemy, since in any case Jacob could not be accused of “breaking the law.” If James were as hated as St. ap. Pavel, then perhaps there would be nothing more left to say. But Jacob in Jerusalem, like Ananias in Damascus, was deeply respected by the Jews, no less than by the Christians. He was also “a godly man according to the law, approved of by all the Jews who dwelt there” (Acts 22:12). Not only ordinary converts to Christianity, but also some of the most revered and famous lawyers in the city were also saddened by this insane murder of the pious Nazirite. They decided to protect such citizens from the insolence of the bloodthirsty house and brought a complaint to Agrippa II. This king heard the defense of St. Paul before Festus and was able to take a better look at Christianity than was considered political by his treacherous and unprincipled father. They also complained to the new procurator Albinus, who was now on his way from Alexandria to Jerusalem. The consequence of this was that Albinus wrote a severe reprimand to Gananus for his lawless violence, and Agrippa felt that he could, without endangering his popularity, deprive him of the high priesthood, although he had only held it for three months. - From the ap. There is only one conciliar letter left of James. The motivation for its writing was the external misfortunes of believers, especially Jews, as well as the abuse of the doctrine of justification by faith. Therefore, it sets forth with particular emphasis the importance of good works in justification. In addition, it gives various instructions and, among other things, sets out the teaching about the sacrament of consecration of oil and confession. St. Jude (brother) Jacob preached in various countries of Asia and suffered martyrdom in Phenicia. He owns a short conciliar letter, in which the apostle warns believers against various wicked people who have “crept” (Jude 1:4) into the church and follow in it the path of Cain, causing temptations at love suppers and blaspheming in every possible way. St. ap. Philip preached in Phrygia and Scythia and suffered martyrdom at Hierapolis. St. ap. Bartholomew (Nathanael), according to legend, traveled to India and brought the Gospel of St. Matthew. After preaching in Lycaonia and Armenia, he, according to legend, was either executed by flaying his skin, or crucified head down in Albanople, in Armenia. He is credited with the remarkable saying that “theology is at the same time both great and very small, and the Gospel is wide and great, and also compressed.” St. ap. Matthew, according to legend, preached in Parthia and Ethiopia and in the latter suffered martyrdom through burning. According to one ancient testimony, he ate only grass and led a lifestyle that, in its simplicity and self-denial, approached asceticism. St. ap. Thomas is called the Apostle of India and, according to legend, founded Christian communities in India, which still call themselves by his name. According to another legend, he preached in Parthia. In the fourth century his tomb was shown in Edessa. St. ap. Simon the Zealot preached the Gospel, according to one legend, in Babylon, and according to another, in the British Isles, where he was crucified. St. ap. Matthias, who was chosen by lot to be one of the twelve, was one of the seventy. He preached in Ethiopia and suffered martyrdom in Jerusalem. Our information about the spiritual ancestors of New Testament humanity is limited to this meager information. These lamps of the world have disappeared from our sensual gaze, but we know that they illuminated and enlightened the world. They did not seek earthly glory for themselves, but sought the glory of God and the salvation of mankind, and this activity of theirs was crowned with miraculous success. The Galilean fishermen, having traveled all over the world, made such a wonderful “catch of men”, the like of which has never been presented in the history of the spiritual and religious life of mankind. XLVII. The revolt of the Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem. The significance of this event in church history All twelve apostles, with the exception of one apostle. John, completed their apostolic activity before an event that was of enormous significance for the establishment of the Church in the world, precisely in the sense of the final destruction of the false dreams of the Jews about the earthly messianic kingdom. This event was the destruction of Jerusalem and the church. The Jews could never come to terms with the yoke of the pagan victors imposed on them and constantly treated the Romans with hatred, only waiting for an opportunity to free themselves from them. In this respect they were the most rebellious and rebellious subjects of Rome. All other peoples relatively easily put up with the yoke imposed on them, and even some of them considered this yoke a blessing for themselves, because the strong hand of the conquerors established internal and external peace in place of endless internecine wars that exhausted their moral and physical strength. In religious terms, pagan peoples also easily put up with conquest and soon got used to seeing in the Roman pantheon a common sanctuary for themselves, and in the Roman emperor a common incarnation of a deity. The Jews are a completely different matter. Their entire history separated them from the pagan world by an impassable chasm. As a chosen people, to whom the great religious truth was entrusted for safekeeping, they rightly considered themselves a light, the rays of which were eventually to spread to all other peoples. This moral and religious superiority in the minds of the Jewish people over time took on a more material character, and the Messiah they expected was no longer presented to them only as the savior of mankind, but also a political conqueror, before whom all other nations had to bow. The Jews cherished this dream for centuries, and to their horror - by the time of the coming of the Messiah, as all signs indicated, they became slaves of cruel pagans and entered as an insignificant people within a huge empire, where, apparently, the political freedom of all peoples was to perish. Thus, all their dreams seemed to crumble into dust before a hopeless and gloomy reality. But they could not come to terms with this and considered subordination to the Romans only temporary, expecting that the expected Messiah would finally come and overthrow the hated yoke. When the true Messiah came, but was not recognized by them as not meeting their expectations, this put the Jews in an even sadder and more dismal situation. They saw how entire masses of the people recognized as the Messiah that particular Prophet of Nazareth, whom they not only rejected, but also betrayed to the cruellest tortures and the most shameful execution, and this involuntarily undermined in them the messianic hope that until now had supported their spirit, since the fatal thought involuntarily had to creep into their consciousness, whether they had really crucified the Messiah. If so, then all hope for the future was lost. And so, wavering between these gloomy doubts and half-destroyed hope, the Jews became from year to year more and more dissatisfied, irritated and rebellious. The Romans themselves contributed a lot to this. They treated the Jews with complete contempt and disdain and, considering them the most dirty and evil people, did not even try to instill in them their civil order, as they did with other peoples, but simply held the Jews in their harsh hands and looked at them as a profitable item. All of Judea was handed over to companies of tax collectors, who, through their subordinate tax collectors, extracted the last juices from the people, plunging the masses into unpayable debts and poverty. When appointing the rulers themselves, the Romans did not think about the choice, and usually sent people to Palestine who were hardly suitable for other provinces. Most of the procurators were people without any moral rules; they looked at the country entrusted to their management solely as a profitable item and resorted to all kinds of extortion and lies. The nominal Jewish kings, being completely dependent on the Romans, cared only about maintaining good relations with the latter and for this purpose suppressed all popular movements. The upper classes of the people, especially the Sadducees, who held the high priestly dignity in their hands, were also alien to the people and, exclusively caring for their own interests, found it better to ingloriously grovel before the Roman authorities than to strive for the political independence of the people. Patriotism was still preserved only among the Pharisees, who only dreamed of overthrowing the Roman yoke; but this class was too hypocritical to openly take any measures to alleviate the lot of the people, and if it strove for political independence, it was by no means out of sympathy for the people, but only out of painful ambition, which did not find sufficient satisfaction in the current state of things. And in this way, the Jews with discontent endured the hated yoke for more than half a century. Every year the yoke became heavier, discontent grew, and at the same time the hope for a miraculous deliverance from the Messiah faded. Procurators changed frequently, but each time more and more predatory procurators appeared, who brought the Jewish people to frantic bitterness. Already Felix and Festus, who had to consider the case of Ap. Paul, marked their reign with many cruelties and untruths, but the next procurator Albin was even worse and made his position an ugly source of predation, since he sold everything for money, even impunity to the most dangerous criminals. “There was no such evil, says Josephus, that he would not have done during his reign.” But he was succeeded by Gessius Florus, who even surpassed him in this regard. According to the same Jewish historian, it was like an executioner sent to execute criminals. His predation was so great that entire cities and districts were deserted from his robbery. Not content with this, he wanted to take advantage of the church’s treasures. On behalf of the emperor, he demanded that seventeen talents be given to him from the church treasury. When the Jews refused, he wanted to enter the treasury with armed force. But the Jews could no longer bear this and resisted him by force. A street fight occurred, which forced Flor to abandon his attempt. Meanwhile, irritation reached an unprecedented level. A party formed in the city that decided to break away from the Romans. A meeting was held in the church under the chairmanship of Eleazar, the son of Ananias, and at it it was decided to reject the annual offering of the emperor to the church, which had been made since the time of Julius Caesar. This was a direct sign of rejection of dependence on Rome, a rebellion against Caesar. From here war became inevitable, and that famous Jewish war really began, which is unparalleled in the history of the world in the horrors of cruelty and bloodshed that accompanied it. When the final request to remove the hated Florus was refused by the Jews, a rebellion occurred in Jerusalem and the rebels seized control of the city and the fortified tower of Antonia, beating the Roman garrison located in it. Only one centurion was saved, who bought his life by receiving circumcision. The high priest Ananias, who held the Roman side, hid in a drainpipe, but was found, pulled out and killed. The rebellion spread throughout Palestine and Syria and was accompanied everywhere not only by the beating of the Roman garrisons, but also by bloody battles between the Greeks and Jews, the mortal enmity between whom at that time reached its greatest ferocity. To suppress the rebellion, the ruler of Syria, Cestius Gall, moved to Jerusalem, but he suffered a defeat at Bethhoron, which further raised the spirit of the rebels and inflamed their fanaticism. Then it turned out that the available Roman forces were not enough to suppress the uprising, and the Roman government sent Vespasian, one of its best military leaders, to the site of the uprising, who was given an ample army to take revenge on the Jews for the shame suffered by the Romans. Vespasian directed his first attack on Galilee, which was defended by a hundred thousand army of young men under the command of the famous Jewish historian Josephus. It is clear that it was difficult for the latter, with his hastily recruited and untrained army, to withstand the tested courage of the Romans, and the cities fell one after another, being subjected to terrible destruction by the irritated Romans. The first city to fall was Gadara, and in it, as well as in the surrounding villages, all men, women and children were massacred. For forty-six days I. Flavius ​​defended Iotapata; on the 47th day she was betrayed by treason. 40,000 Jews fell during the siege, 1,200 were captured and the city was burned. In Askalon, 10,000 Jews were beaten. At Japhia, 27,000 of them were killed and the women and children were sold into slavery. On Mount Gerizim, many Samaritans died of thirst, and 11,600 people fell by the sword. In Joppa, 8,400 people were killed and the city itself was burned. But a significant number of fugitives hid in the ruins and lived by robbery and robbery. As the Roman soldiers approached, these Jews fled to the ships, but the next morning a storm broke out over them, and, after a terrible scene of despair, 4,200 of them were drowned and their bodies washed ashore. Tarichea was a heavily fortified city on the shores of Lake Tiberias. The Romans promised mercy to the inhabitants, but despite this, when the city was taken, 2,200 old and young were beaten, 6,000 of the strongest were sent to Nero to work on digging the Isthmus of Corinth, and 30,400 citizens of this and neighboring cities, including those whom Vespasian gave to Agrippa and were sold into slavery. After this terrible extermination, almost the entire district submitted to the winner. Gamala, however, still resisted. It was considered impregnable by its citizens, since it was built on the top of a mountain, accessible only along one road, crossed by a deep ditch. Agrippa besieged it in vain for seven months. Then Vespasian himself began to work on it. Pressed by hunger, from which many died, some of the citizens threw themselves down the steep slope or escaped through drainpipes. Finally, the Romans took this city too. Again there was a terrible beating. Only two women survived; 4,000 people were beaten in defense, and 5,000 threw themselves down the steep slope. Everyone else, even women and children, was cut into pieces or thrown down the cliffs. Mount Tabor, which Josephus had fortified, still held out. The Romans forced some of its defenders out of the city by feigned flight, while the rest were forced to surrender due to lack of water. Thus began that terrible judgment over the Jewish people, about which Christ once predicted, saying that “then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, and will not be” (Matthew 24:21). The death of Nero and the proclamation of Vespasian as emperor suspended this war of extermination for some time; but it began again and with even greater bitterness, when Vespasian entrusted his son Titus with completing the work he had begun to pacify the Jews. Titus marched straight towards Jerusalem and began a regular siege of it. This was in April 70 (74). Titus had an army of eighty thousand, which dug in around the city. In Jerusalem there were only 2,400 trained soldiers, but the city was overflowing with tens of thousands of Easter worshipers and fugitives, who now sought refuge behind its walls and took part in the defense of the walls of their city. The Romans made peace proposals, but the Jewish Zealots did not want to hear anything and rejected them. Miracles of courage were shown on both sides, and if the besiegers surpassed their opponents in military skill, then the besieged made up for their lack of military experience with almost insane fury in battles. But disaster was inevitable. Everything in this siege pointed to God's terrible judgment on the Jewish people. This was not an ordinary historical event, and the Jews themselves recognized this. There were stories in the city about terrible omens of impending death. Five years before the siege, on Easter, a mysterious light shone in the Holy of Holies at midnight, visible for three hours; the huge copper gates of the church, which required twenty people to open, suddenly opened by themselves and could not be closed. On the Feast of Pentecost, the priests heard some mysterious voice in the church, saying: “Let us leave here.” Finally, fiery warriors were visible on the clouds, waging a fierce war that covered the clouds with blood. Four years before the war, when the city was still enjoying peace, a strange man appeared in Jerusalem, named Jesus, the son of Ananias, and on the Feast of Tabernacles he began to shout ominously in the church: “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds of heaven! A voice against Jerusalem and the church, against husbands and wives; a voice against the whole people." The people tried to silence him and subjected him to all kinds of beatings, but he continued to repeat the same thing, adding: “Woe, woe to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” He did not stop making these ominous exclamations until the war itself, and already during the siege he exclaimed: “Woe to me too!” and was killed by a stone thrown from a Roman missile. Meanwhile, the besiegers besieged the city more and more heavily. Jerusalem began to suffer from a shortage of supplies, and many began to flee from it; but Titus began to crucify all such fugitives. The city itself became the site of the most insane battles between rival parties and terrible violence and robberies. The Zealots, led by Eleazar, indulged in open robbery. And the Romans kept moving towards the walls, and their missiles caused terrible havoc in the streets. To all these horrors was added a terrible famine. All supplies made by private residents were plundered by the Zealots, and everyone suffered terrible pangs of hunger. Women and children ran through the streets crying, begging for a piece of bread; young people walked like shadows and fell dead from exhaustion. There were even terrible rumors of mothers killing and devouring their own children. Daily sacrifices in the church stopped due to a lack of sacrificial animals and the absence of priests, most of whom were either beaten in the city itself, at the very altars, or fled from the city and were crucified by the Romans. Finally, the Romans broke through the city wall, burst into the city and took the Antonia Tower by storm. All that remained was to take the church, since all the Jews who had reached the point of a furious frenzy gathered around it and in it. But even this last stronghold of Judaism could not withstand the pressure of the Romans, and amid screams, suicides and the most terrible carnage, the church was taken and turned into ashes. The great altar was filled with the dead. The church courtyards were drowned in blood. Six thousand frightened women and children died screaming in horror among the flaming ruins of the church vestibules. The Romans placed the signs of their legions in the place where the Holy of Holies was. Having captured the upper city, they stopped killing only when they were completely tired of the massacre. According to the testimony of I. Flavius, Titus had a sincere desire to preserve the church, but his command was not fulfilled by his soldiers, carried away by the furious heat of battle. On the other hand, according to the testimony of the Roman historian Sulpicius Severus, Titus had the deliberate goal of eradicating Christianity and Judaism with one blow, thinking that if the Jewish root was uprooted, the Christian branch would die by itself. The tallest and most beautiful young men were left for the triumph of the winners. Of the people, everyone over seventeen years of age was sentenced to hard labor in the Egyptian mines. The others were sent as gifts to various cities to be killed by wild beasts or gladiators, or to be exterminated mutually in provincial amphitheatres. Young people of both sexes were sold into slavery. Even during the days when this distribution was made, 11,000 people died from lack of food; some because their guards did not want to give it to them, and others because they did not want to accept it. Josephus puts the number of prisoners taken during the war at 97,000, and the number of those who died during the siege at 1,100,000. The entire number of deaths during the war is determined by the terrible figure of 1,337,490, and the number of prisoners is 101,700; but even these calculations do not include all the casualties during the many skirmishes and battles, and do not take into account the many who throughout the country died from the scourge of famine and disease. One can quite say that this people were, as it were, doomed to extermination; 2,000 rotting bodies were even found in the underground passages of the city. During the siege, all the trees in the surrounding area were cut down, and from here the whole appearance of the area with its charred and bloody ruins changed so much that anyone who suddenly arrived in it would not be able to know where he was. The city itself was apparently so impregnable with its massive and incomparable fortifications that Titus openly declared that in this victory he clearly saw the hand of God. Thus, the terrible judgment of God was carried out on the Jewish people, who, due to their stiff necks, did not recognize the time of their blessed visit, did not accept the promised Messiah, and thus did not fulfill their great destiny. Like a barren fig tree, he was cut down at the very root and ceased to exist as a national being. This event was extremely important for the Church. It showed even the Judaizers, of whom there were quite a few among Christians, that Judaism had outlived its time, and the Old Testament was decisively terminated by the almighty hand of God. The Church of Christ was to become completely independent of the Jewish church and the Mosaic Law, and all this now happened by itself, under the most instructive circumstances. When in 120 Aelia Capitolina was built on the ruins of Jerusalem and Christians were allowed free access to it, while not a single Jew dared to approach it, the Church of the Judaizers practically ceased to exist. “Until this time,” says Sulpicia Severus, “almost all the Christians in Judea kept the law, while at the same time worshiping Christ as God; but by Divine decree this yoke of the law was to be removed from the freedom of the church.” The Church of Aelia Capitolina was no longer predominantly Jewish, and even formally distanced itself from the Jews. For the first time in 137, she chose Mark as her bishop from among the uncircumcised pagans. This event significantly proved that even in Judea the future fate of the Christian Church was no longer in danger from the Jews. The Church was then finally and forever freed from the bonds of the synagogue and could calmly fulfill Christ’s prediction of the day when true worshipers would worship not on a mountain or in Jerusalem, but would worship in every place - in spirit and in truth. XLVIII. Removal of Christians from Jerusalem before its siege. Ap. John, his life and work The Last Judgment of God, which befell the Jewish people for their unbelief and stiff-neckedness, took place in fulfillment of the clear predictions of Christ. In his farewell conversation, under the sad impression of the final rejection on the part of the chosen people, Christ predicted that he would soon visit the Jewish people again, but this time he would visit as a formidable judge, for righteous retribution against them. This visit had to take place during the lifetime of that very generation that was guilty of rejecting Christ and committing the most terrible crime of deicide. “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened” (Matthew 24:34), and this prediction exactly corresponded to the terrible reality. First, Christ said, “you will hear about wars and rumors of war; nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom” (Matthew 24:6–7). And indeed the whole east at that time was in extreme excitement, Judea was in open rebellion, and troops from Spain, Gaul and Germany on the one hand and from Illyria and Syria on the other rushed to Rome to decide the question of to whom, after the death of Nero, the imperial throne should pass. “There will be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in places” (Matthew 24:7): and Roman historians report that at this very time these terrible disasters struck humanity with particular force. There were extraordinary signs in the sky: a terrible sickle-shaped comet burned over Jerusalem for a whole year before the war, terrifying the inhabitants with its appearance. “Nevertheless this is the beginning of tribulation” (Matthew 24:8). Following them, the days were to come when “the enemies will surround you (Jerusalem) with trenches, and surround you, and press you in from everywhere, and ruin you, and beat your children within you, and not one stone will remain in you upon another, because you did not know the time of your visit” (Luke 19:43–44). “Then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, nor will there be” (Matthew 24:21). But only the Jews were to undergo this terrible judgment. However, “those who knew the time of the visitation” were not subject to it and could avoid it by fleeing from Judea to the mountains. Christ also indicated a sign by which Christians could learn about the approach of disasters in order to seek refuge in advance. “When you see the abomination that makes desolate standing in the holy place, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Matthew 24:15–16). Everyone knew well what was meant by the abomination of desolation. This is precisely the planting of pagan banners by the Romans on the sacred soil of St. cities, and Christians took advantage of this warning. As soon as Titus positioned himself with his army in front of the city and raised his pagan banners, the Christians remembered this warning of Christ and fled to the mountainous city of Pella beyond the Jordan. Jerusalem was doomed to inevitable destruction, because in spiritual and moral terms it was a corpse, and “where the corpse is, there the eagles will gather” (Matthew 24:28) - just as they gathered to tear this corpse to pieces. Pella surrendered to the main focus of the Church of Christ until Emperor Hadrian allowed Christians to return to the restored ashes of the lost city. This terrible judgment of God took place after the death of the apostles, who, as Christ predicted, the majority were handed over to torture and killed; but one of them survived this disaster, precisely the one about whom Christ said: “If I want him to remain until I come” (John 21:22). This is precisely John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 21:7). He was destined to shine longer than all the other apostles in the horizon of the apostolic age, and he left the apostolic field almost with the end of this age. Very little is known about his life after the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven. Having assumed the great responsibility of filial care for the Most Rev. Virgin Mary, he devoted himself entirely to the fulfillment of this high duty, and only occasionally appeared in the field of open apostolic preaching. However, it was he, together with the apostle. Peter at first was the main preacher and herald of the risen Christ, and he was one of the first to give an answer before the Sanhedrin, which brought them to trial for preaching about Christ. During this time ap. John apparently lived in Jerusalem, although perhaps from time to time he left it for other areas of Palestine. With a new explosion of the persecutive jealousy of the Sanhedrin, he was captured with the other apostles and thrown into prison. After a miraculous liberation by an Angel at night, at dawn the next day they were once again captured and brought to the Sanhedrin. This time they were arrested without violence, since the persecutors feared the violent intervention of the people in their favor. However, wounded to the point of madness by the firmness of the apostles, who responded to all sorts of arguments of the high priest, in the person of their representative, Apostle. Peter that they were obliged to refuse obedience to the murderers of their Lord, the Sanhedrin was seriously occupied with the question of whether to put them all to death, and they were only prevented from committing this fatal crime by his wise advice from Gamaliel. They decided, however, to subject the apostles to scourging, and then St. John learned for the first time what it meant to endure shame and bodily torture for his Lord. But this torment did not achieve its intended purpose. The apostles rejoiced that they were deemed worthy to endure shame for the sake of the name of Christ, and preached His Gospel daily in the church. Then, after traveling to Samaria to confirm the converts, St. John almost completely leaves the field of historically known activity. His movements and life can be judged only from some hints in his messages and from the legends that have been preserved about him. From Jerusalem, he apparently followed in the footsteps of the Apostle of Nations - to Rome, and there he experienced a terrible time of persecution of Christians. There is a legend that he himself was tortured and thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, but came out of it even healthier and younger. Although his life was saved for the good of the Church, he was subsequently captured in Rome and sent into exile on the semi-desert island of Patmos, and precisely “for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:9). There he received a great revelation about the future destinies of the Church and the world, which revelation was outlined by him in the “Apocalypse”. Upon release from exile, ap. John settled in Ephesus, and this capital of Asia Minor became the center of his apostolic activity. From Ephesus, the apostle could monitor the life of all the surrounding churches and often traveled to see them personally. Here the apostle observed the growth of the Church of Christ until the end of his life, and under him, with particular clarity, that evil began to develop, against which the other apostles had already warned, namely the evil of false teaching. This evil is more convenient and most likely could have developed in Ephesus, since this city was the center of the intellectual life of all of Asia Minor and Western Asia and was in constant communication with Alexandria, famous for its philosophical schools. There appeared many individuals who, not being satisfied with a simple understanding of Christianity, began to present it from a philosophical point of view, and since the Gospel truth did not fit into any philosophical system, a perversion of the truth was inevitable, reaching the point of heretical error and the complete denial of Christianity, i.e., to anti-Christianity. There were already many such antichrists in Ephesus, but the most prominent of them was Kerinth. He was one of those people who are tossed about like a stormy sea and carried away by every wind of doctrine. So, he mixed and confused various Jewish errors with pagan ideas, and from this mixture he formed his own system, completely heretical in spirit. He taught that the world was created by virtue or power, much lower in comparison with the true Divinity; that Jesus was born not from the Virgin, but from Joseph and Mary, and differs from people only in his extraordinary kindness; that the Divine Christ only temporarily descended on the man Jesus, precisely during baptism, and during suffering He again flew off to His Pleroma, being incapable of suffering, and that in general Jesus was only a teacher, and not a redeemer of humanity. All these views came out of him from the false position that there can be no mutual communication between God and matter and God is so removed from man that he cannot have a direct relationship with him; hence the denial of the incarnation of the Divine was self-evident; and then, since matter was considered the source of evil, the doctrine of oppression of the mother or the body was preached, and this naturally led such heretics either to extreme asceticism, which destroyed the body without properly curbing its passions, or to Antinomian licentiousness, which was also supposed to destroy the body, but in a completely opposite way, through shameful self-gratification. It is clear that such a teaching, both religiously and morally, was a complete denial of true Christianity, namely, it was anti-Christianity. It was these false teachers that the apostle had to fight against. John. He directly exposed them as Antichrists. “Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,” in other words, everyone who asserts, as Cerinthus asserted, that the historical man Jesus was not in the full sense God, is, according to the solemn statement of St. John, Antichrist (1 John 2:22). Contrary to this false teaching, the apostle himself solemnly preached that Jesus is the Christ, that Christ is Jesus, that Jesus is God, that Jesus is not any separate being from the Son of God, but is identical with Him. According to the Gnostics, the Deity “came and descended upon Jesus like a bird through the air.” But ap. John testifies with all his Gospel and epistles, as well as with the Apocalypse, that God became man and dwelt inseparably in our human nature. The habitual Son of God not only filled the whole being of Jesus, who was Himself, but also filled all believers who were born of God, and not of “the will of the flesh.” He fills everything with Divine life and glory. All these truths. John set out in his three epistles, especially in the first, where he at the same time warns believers against the Antichrists, of whom “many” had already appeared (1 John 2:18). In the same letter, the apostle with special force inspires believers to love one another, and “to love not in word or tongue, but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:18). “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). The other two messages of St. John are more brief and written - the second to “the chosen lady” (2 John 1:1) (it is unknown whether it was an individual or the church) and the third to a certain “beloved Gaius” (3 John 1:1). In both of these letters the apostle praises their love for the truth and warns against false teachers and evil-minded people. In Ephesus the ap. John wrote his Gospel, which was supposed to serve as historical confirmation of his entire preaching. It seems to be written on the text from his first letter: “The love of God for us was revealed in this, that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, so that we might receive life through Him” (1 John 4:9). And at the same time, it was directed against those false ideas that penetrated from Alexandria to Ephesus and confused the simple faith of Christians. Since among these speculations there was also the doctrine of the Logos, preached by the Judeo-Alexandrian philosopher Philo, and since this doctrine probably found followers among Christians who were ready to subsume all of Christianity under this fashionable doctrine at that time, with its inevitable distortion, the ap. John began his Gospel with an exposition of the true teaching about that Divine Word, which was not a mere distraction of the mind, as the Alexandrians taught, but “was in the beginning with God and was itself God” (John. 1:1), and this “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father” (John 1:14). About the life of the ap. John in Ephesus, many legends have been preserved that vividly depict this valiant guardian of the church and the last of the apostles. One of these legends tells that one day he wanted to enter one of the large public baths (therms), when suddenly he was informed that Cerinthus was there. Hearing this, the apostle immediately returned back, exclaiming: “Let us flee from here so that the bathhouse does not fall on our heads, for there is Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth.” This story shows to what extent the apostle avoided communication with heretics, and gave believers a clear example of how to avoid those heretics who perverted the fundamental truth of Christianity. Another legend tells an incident that testifies to the fullness of fatherly love with which John burned for his spiritual children. From time to time he undertook apostolic journeys to inspect churches, ordain elders, and generally organize church affairs. In one city he saw a young man of remarkable appearance, handsome in face and, apparently, gifted with excellent abilities. Addressing the newly ordained bishop, John said: “I especially entrust this young man to you, in the presence of the whole church, and take Christ as a witness to this.” The bishop promised to take care of him, and John, before his return to Ephesus, once again repeated to him his entrustment. The bishop took the young man in, raised him carefully and finally baptized him. Imagining that by sealing him with the seal of Christ, he had already completed his work, the bishop relaxed his supervision. The young man became acquainted with other young men of his age and loose morals, and soon began to abuse the freedom given to him early. His companions first lured him to feasts, then took him to rob passers-by at night, and finally dragged him into many crimes. The young man soon got used to the vicious life and became interested in it, especially since he was gifted with a remarkable mind. Falling more and more, he formed a gang of robbers from his comrades, and he himself became an ataman, and surpassed others in violence and cruelty. Some time later, church affairs again brought John to the same city. Having arranged them, the apostle turned to the bishop with a demand for the return of the pledge, that is, the young man. The bishop answered with tears that the young man had died, and “died for God,” the bishop added, “he gave himself up to sin, got lost and became a robber; he left the church and went to the mountains with a gang of murderers.” Hearing these words, the apostle tore his clothes, took a deep breath and, hitting himself on the head, said: “Indeed, I left my brother’s soul with a good guard! Give me a horse and a guide!” In such a position as he was, he left the church, mounted his horse and hastily departed. Upon arrival at the indicated place, he was taken by the advanced guards. Instead of trying to appease the robbers and flee, he exclaimed: “Take me to your boss, that’s why I came.” He was expecting him armed, but when he recognized John, he, stricken with shame, ran away from him. The Apostle, despite his old age, rushed in pursuit of him, shouting: “My son! Why are you running away from your father? I'm old and unarmed! Have pity on me!.. My son, do not be afraid! You can still hope for salvation. I will satisfy Christ for you, I will willingly die for you, as the Lord died for us. I will give my soul for you. Stop and believe me... I am sent from Christ.” Finally, the young man stopped, lowered his head, threw away his weapon and threw himself into the arms of the apostle, hiding his right hand, guilty of so many crimes. He asked for mercy and then, trembling, began to cry bitterly, and his tears were so abundant that they became like a new baptism. The Apostle promised to seek mercy for him from the Lord, immediately prayed with him, kissed him and then, bringing him to the city, again introduced him into the Church of Christ, as a great example of repentance and a living triumph of his apostolic love. Thus, he actually fulfilled Christ’s commandment to find the lost sheep and gave all Christian shepherds an example of truly selfless love for his flock, neglecting even obvious danger to his own life for their salvation. In the last years of his life, ap. John gathered disciples around himself, to whom he taught the truths of the Gospel. Among his disciples and listeners were the later famous men of St. Polycarp, Papias and others. As he grew older, he became so weak that he could not go to church or Christian meetings himself, and his disciples carried him there. But he could no longer teach as before, and limited his conversation at various meetings with the words: “Children! love one another." The students and brothers, tired of hearing the same thing from him, finally said to him: “Teacher! Why do you keep telling us this all the time?” John answered them with the following words, truly worthy of him: “This is the commandment of the Lord, and if you keep it, then it is enough.” He died, having reached almost a hundred years of age, and was buried in Ephesus, where his tomb became a place of pilgrimage for Christians who came to worship the ashes of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 21:20). XLIX. Sacred books of the New Testament. History books, educational books and Apocalypse With the last apostle, the last eyewitness of the works of Christ on earth went down to the grave, that witness who “saw His glory, the glory as the only begotten from the Father” (John 1:14). But with the end of the apostolic age, the Church should not have been deprived of the apostolic word, because otherwise it would have been left without proper guidance in the matter of faith and life, the memory of the deeds and teachings of Christ and the apostles could have become obscured over time, and through this false teaching it could have gained an even greater opportunity to obscure the bright truth of the Gospel with its human inventions. From here the apostles and their first followers soon came to the conviction, instilled in them from above, that the true word of the Gospel preaching should be put into writing and thus preserved for all times. This is how the sacred books of Christians appeared, which over time formed the New Testament canon, that is, the rule of faith and life of the New Testament Church. The first books were the epistles of the apostles, caused by the need to teach the churches in absentia, but then historical books appeared, in which the history of the earthly life of Jesus Christ and His most important apostles was set out in detail for the teaching of future generations. Just as in the Old Testament the economy of God was carried out first orally and then concluded in a written law, so the New Testament economy had to be concluded in writing over time, precisely with the aim of giving an immutable rule of faith, which could always be referred to when refuting any heresy that arises. This is precisely the purpose that the sacred writers of the New Testament had in mind, as can be seen from their own statements. So St. John wrote his Gospel for the purpose of “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31). In fulfilling this great task, the apostles had the supreme help of the Holy Spirit sent to them, who taught them everything and reminded them of everything that Christ, the founder of the New Testament, told them. Hence, what they wrote has unconditional truth, as the beloved disciple says about this: “This disciple also testifies to these things, and we know that his testimony is true” (John 21:24). The sacred books of the New Testament were written by different persons, at different times and for different reasons; but since the writers were guided by the same Holy Spirit, in the diversity of books the same truth is revealed from different sides, so that all the New Testament books, united in a canon, constitute, as it were, one whole book, divided into parts. There are twenty-seven books in the New Testament canon, and they are divided into historical, teaching and prophetic. The historical books include the four Gospels and the book of the Acts of the Apostles; to the teaching ones all the apostolic epistles in the amount of twenty-one and to the prophetic ones the book of revelation or the Apocalypse. Most of these books were written in Greek, which, as the most widespread language at that time, was the best instrument for disseminating the truth. Books written in it could be freely read by the most diverse tribal peoples - from the Atlantic Ocean to the Euphrates, since knowledge of this language was considered a necessary accessory to education among all the peoples that were part of the Roman Empire, and in Rome itself the educated classes not only considered it their duty to study this language and its literature, but even used it in common life, as a fashionable and intelligent language. The earliest historical book is the Gospel of Matthew. It was written, according to legend, eight years after the Ascension, probably in Palestine. Its author is the Apostle Matthew, elevated by Christ to the high apostolic dignity from the despised position of a tax collector. As a collector of duties, he necessarily had to be able to read and write, and this knowledge, which was first used for a low task - recording the collected duties, after his elevation to the apostleship, he used for the written presentation of the life of That Divine Teacher, Who called him to a higher spiritual life. According to legend, he wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, since he intended it as a lesson to his fellow tribesmen, and specifically to the scribes, in order to indicate, on the basis of Holy Scripture, the fulfillment of all the prophecies in Jesus about the Messiah in the Old Testament. But the Hebrew original was soon translated into Greek, and this translation, as having appeared in the apostolic age and, therefore, under the supreme leadership of the apostles or even the apostle himself. Matthew, has a meaning equivalent to the original. In accordance with the purpose of the Gospel, it was written for the purpose of showing the converted Jews that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah for whom they were waiting. Following all the events of the earthly life of the Savior, Ev. Matthew notes on every occasion how this or that event is in close correlation with Old Testament prophecy. Hence, he constantly repeats the saying: “This has happened, that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet who speaks might be fulfilled” (Matthew 1:22; 2:15, 2:23, etc.). Every more important message is confirmed by a reference to the Old Testament, and he has more such references than the other apostles, no less than 65, of which in 43 cases a literal quotation is made, and in the rest only an indication of the general meaning. The Gospel consists of twenty-eight chapters, begins with a statement of the genealogy of Jesus Christ from Abraham and ends with the farewell conversation of Christ with the apostles before the Ascension, when He commanded them to go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy. Spirit, and gave them a glorious promise to abide with them “always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). The Second Gospel was written by St. Mark, who in his youth bore a double name - John Mark, and the latter name, quite common among the Romans, was adopted by him at first as a nickname, but then over time it completely replaced the first, so that in the epistles of St. Paul mentions him only under this last name. He was the son of the famous Mary, in whose house there were more than once meetings of the apostles in Jerusalem after the Ascension. The apostle arrived at the house of this particular Mary. Peter after his miraculous deliverance from prison (Acts 12:12) and there at that very time “many gathered together and prayed.” From this time on, apparently young John Mark became deeply attached to the chief apostle. Burning with youthful zeal to work for Christ, he went with the apostle. Paul and Barnabas (to whom he was a nephew - Col. 4:10) as a servant during their first great missionary journey, but could not stand all the labor associated with it and returned home from Perga (Acts 12:25; 13:13). This circumstance subsequently became the subject of considerable controversy between the ap. Paul, who was dissatisfied with such a violation on the part of Mark of the obligation he had assumed, and Barnabas, who, as an uncle, tried to mitigate the guilt of his nephew and even wanted to take him on a second missionary journey, which the apostle resolutely opposed. Paul. But this did not in the least humiliate Mark in the eyes of the deeply insightful apostle, who later himself called him to himself, during his second imprisonment in Rome, as a person who was needed for his ministry (2 Tim. 4:11) and who had already proven his zeal in serving the apostle during his first imprisonment (Col. 4:10; Phil. 1:24). He was the link between app. Paul and Peter, and from Rome he traveled, apparently on an errand from the prisoner Paul, to distant Babylon, where Peter preached. For the latter, he was a “translator” - whether in the literal meaning of this word, or in the sense of an interpreter of the teachings of St. Peter, as he appears in his Gospel, according to legend, written down precisely from the words of the apostle. Petra. From Babylon he accompanied his teacher to Rome, and after the martyrdom of the ap. Peter was sent to preach in Egypt and there founded a church in Alexandria, was the bishop of the church he founded and suffered martyrdom there. Mark wrote his Gospel at the request of his listeners. Peter, who wanted to receive from him a written statement of the exact teachings of the supreme apostle. In response to this request, Mark outlined in detail everything that he had heard from the apostle. Peter about the earthly life of Jesus Christ, and as a result, his presentation is distinguished by extreme clarity and picturesqueness, revealing precisely the testimony of the closest eyewitness to the events described. He apparently intended his Gospel first for the pagans, hence it has a completely different character than the Gospel of Matthew. It rarely makes reference to the Old Testament, but often explains various Jewish customs, such as. eating unleavened bread on the Passover holiday, washing hands and vessels - which explanations would be completely unnecessary for the Jews, as indeed they are ignored by the Jews. Matthew. The Gospel was written by him either in Rome or in Alexandria, between 50 and 60 years old. It mainly depicts the time of the solemn ministry of the Messiah, when He victoriously spoke out against the sin and malice of the world, and the theme for it seemed to be the words of St. Peter: “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with Him” (Acts 10:38). The Gospel consists of sixteen chapters, begins with an image of the appearance of John the Baptist and ends with a message about how, after the ascension of Christ, the apostles “went out and preached everywhere, with the Lord’s cooperation and confirming the word with signs that followed” (Mark 16:20). It only incidentally tells about that unknown young man who, on the night of the capture of Christ by the soldiers, ran out into the street in only a blanket, and when one of the soldiers grabbed him by the blanket, then, breaking out of the warrior’s hands, he left the blanket in his hands and ran away completely naked (Mark 14:51–52). According to legend and probable assumption, this young man was the narrator himself, St. Evangelist Mark, who kept silent about his name. The third Gospel was written by St. Luka, a famous employee of the ap. Paul during his missionary travels. The name Luke is a shortened form of Lucan or Lucilius. He was originally from Antioch in Syria, but it is unknown of what origin. By training he was a doctor and an ap. Paul calls him his “beloved physician” (Col. 4:14), since he probably used his medical skill more than once for his various infirmities, which so often depressed him during his great labors. But medical education was not the property of the upper classes in ancient times, and often, on the contrary, was the property of slaves who were deliberately trained for this purpose. One might think that he was engaged in medical practice in coastal cities and on the ships themselves, and during one of his travels. Paul, he became his “beloved doctor.” According to another legend, he was also a painter, and the icons he painted are still revered by the Orthodox Church as a special shrine. It is not known when he was actually converted to the Christian faith, but according to one legend, he was one of the seventy disciples of Christ and thus was an eyewitness to the events of His earthly life. The first historical evidence of his personality finds him in Troas, where he joined the ap. Paul and shared a journey with him to Macedonia, as a result of which, when describing this journey in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, from that time on he uses the first person plural “we” (Acts 16:10). His conversion probably took place earlier, otherwise something would have been said about it, meanwhile he is completely silent about his conversion and joins the apostle as a person already quite familiar to him. St. Luke traveled with the apostles to the city of Philip and apparently remained there, since he is no longer mentioned in the narrative of the rest of the second missionary journey. During the third journey, he again joined the apostle and it was in Philippi (Acts. 20:6) and traveled with him through Miletus, Tire and Caesarea to Jerusalem, and apparently stayed there during all the troubles that led to the imprisonment of the ap. Pavel. From that time on, he was no longer separated from the apostle. Paul, traveled with him to Rome and shared all the horrors of the terrible shipwreck, so vividly and in detail described by him in the book of Acts. After the death of Ap. History is completely silent about Paul, but he apparently continued the work of his great teacher, who himself had previously highly valued his “beloved physician” and in his second letter to the Corinthians spoke flatteringly of him as “a brother praised in all churches for his gospel” (2 Cor. 8:18). According to legend, he suffered a martyr's death, thus receiving the crown along with most of the apostles. – He apparently wrote his Gospel around 60 A.D. During his travels with St. Paul, he learned to deeply understand his teaching as the most powerful and profound reproduction of the teachings of Christ in its many different applications, and as an eyewitness to the works of Christ, he knew in detail the earthly life of Christ himself. This, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, prompted him to write the Gospel, which he in particular intended for a certain “venerable Theophilus” (Luke 1:3), who obviously enjoyed great respect in the Christian church and wanted to “learn the solid foundation of the teaching in which he was instructed” (Luke 1:4). Before this time, the Gospels of Matthew and Mark were already in circulation, as well as other various narratives “about completely known events” (Luke 1:1); but ev. Luke wanted “after a thorough examination of everything, first, in order, to describe” (Luke 1:3) to the Venerable Theophilus the earthly life of the Savior, as far as he himself was an eyewitness of it and knew about it from other “eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word” (Luke 1:2). Since Theophilus, by assumption, was a pagan, the entire Gospel was written for pagan Christians. Therefore, the genealogy of Christ in it is not only from Abraham, as in the Gospel of Matthew, but from Adam, as the ancestor of all people. The life of Christ is presented primarily from its historical side, and the narrative is thorough, especially in the first chapters, which describe the events preceding the birth of the Savior. The Gospel consists of 24 chapters and ends with the story of Christ’s ascension into heaven, after which the apostles “returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and remained always in the church, glorifying and blessing God” (Luke 24:52–53). The Fourth Gospel was written by the “beloved disciple” John, who, due to the height of his teaching about God the Word, received the high title of Theologian in the Church. The Gospel was written by him in Ephesus, already in his advanced years. After the destruction of Jerusalem, Ephesus became the center of the Christian Church in the East, and at the same time it was the center of the general mental life of the East, since representatives of both Greek and Eastern thought collided there. It was there that the first heresiarch, Cerinthus, taught, who distorted Christianity precisely by introducing into it Greek-Eastern elements, which in turn he borrowed from Alexandria. Under such circumstances, it was especially necessary for the Church to have guidance for its faith, which would provide protection from surrounding errors. Having in the person of Ap. John, one of the closest witnesses and eyewitnesses of the “ministry of the Word,” the Christians of Ephesus began to ask him to describe to them the earthly life of the Savior. At this time, there were already the Gospels of the first three evangelists, but only one of them, namely Matthew, was one of the twelve, but he was called after John and, in any case, did not belong to the circle of the most chosen disciples, which is exactly what John was awarded. When the Christians brought John the very books of the first three evangelists, he praised them for the truth and veracity of the narrative, but found that they omitted a lot of very important things. When talking about Christ who came in the flesh, it is necessary to talk about His Divinity, since otherwise, over time, people will begin to think about Christ only by how He appeared in earthly life. As a result of such a statement, Christians asked him to write the Gospel in this spirit, and he deigned to comply with their request. Therefore, he began his Gospel not with a presentation of the human side in the life of Christ, but precisely the Divine side, with an indication that the incarnate Christ is the original Word, the same one who “in the beginning was with God and was God Himself” (John 1:1) - that Word through which everything began to be, what happened. Such an indication of the Divinity and eternal existence of Christ was also necessary in view of the misconceptions spread by Cerinthos regarding Jesus, whom he considered only a simple man who assumed the Divinity only temporarily, during the period from baptism to suffering, as well as in view of the Alexandrian false teachings about reason and word in their application to the relationship between God and His primordial Word. As for the narrative itself, it serves precisely as a complement to the previous three Gospels. All three of the former evangelists spoke primarily about the ministry of Christ in Galilee, so that many important events that took place in Judea were passed over in silence. Complementing them, the Evangelist John describes primarily the ministry of Christ precisely in Judea, and He specifically talks about Christ’s visit to Jerusalem on the great annual holidays along with other pilgrims. Although in this way many events in the life of Christ that were not recorded in the previous Gospels are filled in in the Gospel of John, His life is so immense in its activity that, according to John’s own statement, if one were to write about everything in detail, then the world itself would not be able to accommodate the books written (John 21:25). The Gospel of John consists of twenty-one chapters and ends with Christ’s prediction about the fate awaiting Peter and John in the future, as well as the testimony of John himself that “his testimony is true” (John 21:24). The Four Gospels exhaust the earthly life of Christ on four sides, to the extent that it can be exhausted in its immensity by divinely inspired witnesses of the truth. But for the teaching of Christians, it was not enough to describe the life of Christ himself, because His work was continued by the apostles, whose task was not only to water the sown seed of the Gospel, but also to spread it among all the nations of the earth, beyond the borders of the Promised Land. Such activity could not but have a very important influence on the life of the Church, and therefore it was necessary to have information about the activities of the apostles, at least soon after Christ’s ascension to heaven. This need of the Church was satisfied by St. Luke, when, after his Gospel, he wrote to the same venerable Theophilus a second book, known as the Acts of the Holy Apostles. This book begins where the Gospels end, i.e. from the story of the Ascension of the Lord, after which the apostles returned to Jerusalem, and going up to the upper room, “they all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication” (Acts 1:14). The first chapters describe how by the election of Matthias the sacred number of the twelve apostles, broken by the vile betrayal of Judas, was completed, and how these disciples received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, that Comforter of the Spirit, who, according to the promise of Christ, was to clothe them with power from above and remember to them everything that He Himself had told them. Then it is told how the divinely inspired apostles began to preach about the risen Christ to Jews and pagans, and how both were admitted into the Church. The main figure at first was the ap. Peter, who had the honor of winning the first converts from the Jews and introducing the first pagans into the Church of Christ. But since, in view of the unbelief of the majority of Jews, the Church in the future had to primarily gather her children from the pagans, God raised up a special apostle of the pagans, the apostle. Paul, whose work the rest of the book of Acts describes. The book of “Acts of the Apostles” consists of twenty-eight chapters and ends with a message about how St. Paul, upon arriving in Rome as a prisoner, “lived for two whole years on his own account, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness without restraint” (Acts 28:30–31). This ending partly determines the time of its writing. It was obviously written precisely during the first bonds of ap. Paul in Rome, when, given the increasingly deteriorating state of the government in Rome, it was difficult to hope for his release from bonds and therefore it was necessary to consider the work of the Apostle of the Gentiles as if completed. After the five historical books in the New Testament canon, there are seven conciliar epistles of the apostles James, Peter, John and Jude. They are called conciliar either because they were sent not to one specific church, but to a whole district or council of churches, or because they were sent on behalf of the conciliar Church. The conciliar epistles are followed by fourteen epistles of St. Paul to different churches and persons, and the New Testament canon ends with a prophetic book - the Apocalypse or “revelation of St. John the Theologian.” Apocalypse, according to St. Irenaeus, was written by John the Theologian “at the end of the reign of Domitian.” It was a time of persecution of Christians, and the ap. John was in exile to Fr. Patmos. There, in this involuntary solitude on a rocky, sparsely populated island, the apostle received a great revelation about the future destinies of the Church. Being “in the spirit on Sunday,” he heard a loud voice proclaiming to him: “I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last; write what you see in a book” (Rev. 1:10–11). Then someone “like the Son of Man” (Rev. 1:13) commanded the apostle to write messages to the angels (bishops) of the seven Asian churches, expressing in these messages praise or blame for the state of one or another church. From these messages it is clear what is required of the church by its supreme Head and what kind of deeds can contribute to its prosperity, as well as lead to decline, and they outline the Divine plan for the activities of the shepherds of the church for all times. After the messages there was a new vision: “and behold, a door was opened in heaven, and the former voice, which I heard like the sound of a trumpet, speaking to me, said: Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after this.” And then follows a whole series of mysterious visions in which, under the symbols of the seven seals, seven trumpets and seven vials of rage, the future destinies of the Church in history are gradually depicted. She had and will endure many sorrows and disasters, but since with her is the One who said that even the gates of hell will not prevail against her, then everything will end in judgment over the serpent as the embodiment of the original misanthrope and over his servants, and then the endless triumph of Christ will come, the marriage of the Lamb with His bride the Church, and the complete renewal of the world will follow. “Behold, I am coming quickly,” said the Son of Man in conclusion, “and My reward is with Me, to give to everyone according to his deeds” (Rev. 22:12). And the witness of all this mysterious and great revelation answered: “Hey, come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20) and this is repeated after him by all the true believers of the Church, who are waiting for the second coming of the Lord - to judge the living and the dead. This is how the canon of books of the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament was compiled. But these books were the divinely inspired embodiment of the faith of the Christian Church only in its most essential content and by no means exhausted everything that constituted the subject of this faith. Next to the Holy Scriptures, the Church had another equally important source of teaching, namely oral tradition. By tradition we mean the entire amount of religious knowledge that was not included in the books of Holy Scripture and remained the property of the church in oral transmission from one generation to another. And this sum is great, because not even the whole life of Jesus Christ was included in the books, and so many of His deeds and miracles remained unwritten that, with a detailed description of them, the world itself could not contain the written books (John 21:25). Most of the apostles also did not leave behind writings, and all their teaching thus became the property of the Church only in the form of tradition. Even those apostles who wrote down their teaching left much of it unwritten, although it was very essential for the faith (2 Thess. 2:15; 1 Cor. 11:2, etc.). Some of the most books of St. The scriptures are composed by writers who, e.g. ev. Mark and Luke were not personal eyewitnesses of all the events they described, but described them on the basis of oral testimony of eyewitnesses and, therefore, according to legend. Hence, the tradition in its content is much broader than Holy Scripture and even served to define the canon and interpret the latter. Only with the help of tradition could it be determined which books were written by God-inspired teachers of Christianity, as opposed to forged works, just as with its help it was only possible to correctly interpret all those passages in St. books that turned out to be difficult to understand (2 Pet. 3:16). Being a property of the Church, St. the tradition was preserved in its purity due to the fact that it was continuously preached by pastors and maintained by the flock, embodied in the entire structure of church life, in holidays and rituals, in pious customs, in public and private prayers, in the symbol of faith, in the rules and orders of Christian society. All this together, serving as the embodiment of tradition, was the treasury to which the Church always resorted in subsequent centuries, when it was necessary to clarify this or that religious truth and refute this or that error. L. The Primitive Church and Its Institutions. Worship of First Christians If for Christians there was a need for sacred books as the embodiment of the teaching that formed the basis of their faith and the rule of their life, then they also needed worship as an external expression of their internal attitude towards God and the Savior Christ. Although, according to the teaching of Christ in the New Testament Church, the narrowing to God had to be done in spirit and truth, because God is Spirit, this provision did not at all exclude external worship. They only destroyed the ancient belief that worship should be limited to one specific place. This latter belief naturally flowed from the general Old Testament economy, according to which God, in order to preserve the true faith among humanity immersed in idolatry, not only singled out special individuals and an entire people as bearers and guardians of the truth, but also appointed a special place of his co-presence, which was the Jerusalem temple, which served as a visual banner of the true faith for all who belonged to the Old Testament church. Now, when with the foundation of the New Testament kingdom, not only the chosen people, but the entire human race were supposed to belong to it, such a limitation of the place of co-presence of the Divine became unnecessary. God as the Spirit is present wherever true worshipers gather, in every place of His dominion. This position is not only clearly expressed by Christ in His famous conversation with the Samaritan woman (John 4:23-24), but also confirmed by direct sayings that wherever two or three gather in His name, there He is in the midst of them. Every such gathering of believers in Christ constituted a church, which was granted certain rights in relation to the judgment of its individual members, as can be seen from the Savior’s saying that a sinning and unrepentant brother must be told to the church, and if he does not listen to the verdict of the church, then he is cut off from it and becomes on the same level with the pagan and the tax collector (Matthew 18:17). These particular indications of the church as a special institution found final confirmation in the great commission that Christ gave to his disciples, when He gave them the power to knit and decide, ordered them to go into the whole world and baptize everyone in the name of the Holy Trinity, and to fulfill this great work sent down to them the highest help in the person of the Holy Spirit. As a special institution, the New Testament Church also had to receive certain external forms by which the members of the Church were connected with each other into one whole body. At its head in the apostolic age were the ancestors of New Testament humanity - the apostles, who concentrated in their hands all sacred power and together all the duties of sacred service. This was an age of extraordinary gifts, when their abundance, often manifested in individuals and entire congregations, made a more precise distribution of ministries or responsibilities unnecessary. But over time, when the duties of ministry became more complex with the increase in the number of believers, a distribution of these duties had to be made between separate classes of ministers of the Church, and thus the New Testament hierarchy with its three sacred degrees was formed. The separation occurred gradually, as required by circumstances. First, the apostles allocated the degree of deacon, as was necessitated by the well-known dispute between Jews and Hellenists. Then it was the apostles who found it necessary and opportune to free themselves from concern for the material needs of the Church in order to be able to “constantly remain in prayer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:1–4). Then, when the duty of preaching the Gospel constantly distracted the apostles from direct spiritual care for the believers, especially worthy elders were chosen from among the latter, who, through the ordination of the apostles, received the special gift of the priesthood and became elders of individual communities or churches. Such presbyters most often at first were converts from the Jews of the priesthood, who thus continued their sacred service in the New Testament Church (Acts 6:7). The apostles themselves continued to remain the highest hierarchs of the Church and, as such, oversaw the welfare of the churches of one or another region or country. But soon the Church spread so widely that even this highest service was not possible for the apostles to perform personally, especially when they had to travel long distances on missionary matters and be away from the churches they founded for a long time, as for example. this was especially true in the life and work of the apostle. Pavel. In order not to leave some churches without close supervision of their external and internal life, the apostles appointed especially trusted persons as bishops over individual districts and, through ordination, gave them the power, in turn, to ordain worthy persons to the lower degrees of the priesthood and generally oversee the state of the churches. Such bishops ap. Paul appointed his beloved co-workers Timothy and Titus, to whom he subsequently taught special rules and guidelines for their ministry, set forth in the letters addressed to them. Thus, from the apostolic authority, which initially concentrated all ministries, all three degrees of the New Testament hierarchy gradually emerged, as they still exist. From this method of distinguishing degrees, it becomes clear that at first these degrees were not strictly distinguished from each other, so that bishops often performed the ministry that constituted the property of presbyters, as a result of which the very names bishop and presbyter did not yet have a strictly technical meaning, which could only be established later. After the separation of these separate ministries from the fullness of the apostolic power, the apostles themselves became the supreme ministers of the Church, each in the area where he preached the Gospel and founded churches. As representatives of individual churches, they were completely equal in rights with each other, each contained the fullness of apostolic power in the Church; but so that through this no disunity would arise in the most important questions of teaching and life, as was possible even for the apostles, who, as people with established views, could disagree with each other even with their common guidance from the Holy Spirit, then for this purpose the foundation of a special highest institution in the Church was laid, namely the council, the first example of which is presented in the Council of Jerusalem. The apostles transferred all the fullness of their power to this institution, and the councils subsequently resolved all the most important issues that arose in the Church in the field of teaching and life. In addition to the three hierarchical degrees, there were also special ministries in the Apostolic Church, which were determined by the abundance of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which constituted the high advantage of the Church of this particular century over subsequent centuries. Such were the ministries of the prophets and evangelists. Prophets were called both those who had the gift of predicting the future, and those who, by special Divine inspiration, explained Holy Scripture by comparing Old Testament prophecies with New Testament events and thereby confirmed the truth of the Gospel. Such prophets constituted a special class of teachers of the Church, such as Agabus (Acts 11:27–28; 21:10), Judas and Silas (Acts 15:32). Women sometimes also possessed the gift of prophecy, such as four daughters of Deacon Philip, who dedicated themselves in virginity to serving God and His Church (Acts 21:9). The prophets offered their instructions in church meetings and were thus divinely inspired preachers from the pulpit of the Apostolic Church, which also possessed other diverse and extraordinary gifts, such as for example. and the gift of tongues, i.e. inspired speaking in unknown languages. Prophets were the usual interpreters of such preaching (1 Cor. 14:1–40). Then there were also evangelists or evangelists. These were people who dedicated themselves to preaching the Gospel. This position was usually connected with one of the hierarchical degrees, and it was corrected mainly by the employees of the apostles, who were, for example. Deacon Philip and Timothy (Acts 21:8; 2 Timothy 4:5). Just as sacred persons were necessary in the New Testament Church, so were sacred times, which were exclusively dedicated to the service of God. In the Church of Christ, all time was sacred and dedicated to God; therefore, at first there were no such established laws of times that would be deliberately allocated for the special service of God; Christians could gather at meetings and perform divine services at any time and every day, be edified by reading the Holy Books and celebrate love suppers. But such an order was possible only in the very first times, when the whole life of Christians was completely ablaze with the fire of enthusiastic faith. In the course of time, when the dust of the original enthusiasm gave way to a calmer state, a system of sacred times, like those of the Old Testament, had to be established. The most sacred day became the day of the Resurrection of Christ, replacing the Old Testament Saturday. On this day, in remembrance of this most joyful event, Christians usually gathered for public worship, as was the case, for example. in Troas, where Sunday worship was disrupted by the fall of the young man Eutychus (Acts 20:7). During the service on this day, St. Paul established the collection of alms in the churches of Galatia and Corinth, precisely because the services of this day were attended by a larger number of Christians than on other days. By the time the Apocalypse was written, Sunday was already clearly designated, and on this particular day, as the most sacred, there was a vision of St. John (Rev. 1:10). However, many of the believing Jews did not immediately switch to celebrating Sunday and continued to adhere to the Old Testament Sabbath, combining the decrees of legalistic righteousness with this celebration. Convicting such, ap. Paul wrote to the Galatians so that they “do not return to the weak and poor material principles,” do not enslave themselves to them and do not observe with Pharisaic attachment and formalism “days, months, times and years” (Gal. 4: 9–10). – Along with the weekly holidays, annual holidays also came into use, such as Easter and Pentecost. The New Testament holiday of Easter was celebrated by Christians in memory of the suffering and resurrection of Christ, which was prefigured by the Old Testament Easter. Celebrating the New Testament Easter, Christians, instead of slaughtering lambs, as was the case with the Jews, triumphantly celebrated the sacrament of the Eucharist established by Christ and partook of the Body and Blood of Christ. But at the very time of its celebration, the churches diverged from each other. In the east, Christians timed it to coincide with the fourteenth day of Nisan and celebrated it in this way together with the Jews, but others, mainly in the west, considered this coincidence inconvenient and attributed their Easter to the Sunday closest after this date. There was nothing reprehensible in this variety of holiday times, because the Church did not adhere to certain forms with slavish precision, especially since both of these customs found consecration in the tradition of the apostles - the first in the tradition of John the Theologian and the second in the tradition of St. Peter and Paul. But since disputes subsequently arose between the Eastern and Western churches because of this issue, the first ecumenical council finally determined the time of celebrating Easter on the first Sunday after the 14th of Nisan, exactly how the Western churches celebrated it. – The second annual holiday was the Feast of Pentecost. Since it was marked for the apostles by the descent of the Holy Spirit, the memory of this great event began to be predominantly associated with it in the Christian Church. – Along with the holidays, as days of joy, there were also fasts, as days of repentance. At first, no specific rule was established for this for everyone, and Christians fasted according to the inner need of their spiritual life, remembering the Savior’s instructions about the meaning of fasting (Matthew 17:21). Fasting was usually combined with prayer before some great deed, such as this. was before the release of Saul and Barnabas to missionary preaching (Acts 13:3). There were no specific regulations about fasting, but we can confidently believe that among the Christians who were burning with zeal in imitation of Christ, there was no shortage of people who, following His example, fasted not only one or two days a week, as was the case with the Jews, but also maintained a forty-day fast, which in the Church was called Pentecost. As for the sacred rites or worship itself, it developed gradually. Initially, it consisted of prayers and chants, sermons and prophecies, concluded with the celebration of the Eucharist, which became the central point of Christian worship. Anyone who felt a calling to preach was allowed to preach, except for a woman, but since subsequently such unlimitedness of this right led to unrest, as was especially the case in Corinth, famous for its art of eloquence, it was necessary to limit this right and introduce some specific rules in this regard, as the apostle did. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 14). Over time, preaching became the almost exclusive property of the leaders of the Church. In general, the service was very simple, as one can judge from the evidence that has reached us. Although these testimonies for the most part date back to the post-apostolic age, there was such a close connection between the first centuries until the complete triumph of Christianity that the testimony of one is completely applicable to the other. When the persecution of Christians had already begun, Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia, ordered an investigation into the faith and life of Christians. He presented the information he had obtained in one letter to Emperor Trajan. “The Christians,” says this letter, “declare that they are in the habit of meeting on a certain day before sunrise and singing common songs to Christ as God; that they further bind themselves by a vow (obviously the vow given at baptism) not to commit any crimes and especially to keep themselves clean from robbery, theft, adultery, lies and deceit. After this, they usually disperse, but then gather again to have a common meal and, moreover, a completely ordinary and innocent one.” Justin the Philosopher depicts the worship of leading Christians even more accurately: “On Sunday there is a meeting of all who live in cities or villages, and there the writings of the apostles or the books of the prophets are read, while we have time for that. Then, when the reading is over, the primate addresses the congregation with a word of edification and exhortation to zealously imitate those glorious examples. After this, we all stand up together and offer our prayers, and after the prayer is completed, bread, wine and water are brought, and the primate, if possible, performs prayers and thanksgiving. The congregation responds with an exclamation of “Amen,” and then there is a distribution of consecrated objects, which are accepted by everyone present and which are carried by the deacons to those absent. Wealthy and well-disposed people each give as they wish, and the collected gifts are transferred to the abbot, who provides assistance to widows and orphans, as well as to those visited by illness, those in prison, in short, to all those who are in need.” First, together with the Eucharist, and then separately from it, “love suppers” were celebrated, as already indicated in Pliny’s letter. The whole community, like one family, gathered for a common meal. Tertullian depicts in detail these love suppers as they were celebrated in his time. “Our meal,” he writes, “by its very name shows what it is. It is denoted by the word that the Greeks use to call love (αγάπη). The expenses incurred in this case serve to support the poor for the sake of charity. This is a worthy reason for our meal. Therefore, judge the order of our remaining behavior as it corresponds to our religious duty, which allows nothing base, nothing immoderate. We do not sit down at the table before a prayer has been offered to God; we eat as much as the hungry person needs; we do not drink more than is good for the bashful; we are saturated in the consciousness that during the night we must pray to God; we speak to each other, remembering that the Lord hears us. At the end of the meal, everyone is called to glorify God, and whoever can communicate anything from the Holy. Scripture or from his own spirit, he does it. This is the test of how drunk we are. The whole meeting ends with prayer and we disperse, not to idle on the streets, but to continue our exercise in virtue and honest living.” In the recently discovered “Teaching of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles,” the oldest church document, the prayers that were said at the Eucharist were also preserved. The following prayer was said about the bread: “We thank You, Our Father, for the life and knowledge that You have given us through Jesus Your servant. Glory to you forever. Just as this broken bread was scattered on the mountains, gathered and became one, so may Your Church also be gathered from all the ends of the earth into Your Kingdom. For Yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever.” A prayer was said about the cup: “We thank You, our Father, for the sacred vine of David, Your servant, which You revealed to us through Jesus, Your servant. Glory to you forever." Then, in conclusion, a general prayer of gratitude followed: “We thank You, Holy Father, for Your Holy Name, for which You have prepared a place in our hearts, and for the knowledge, faith and immortality that You have revealed to us through Jesus Your servant. Glory to you forever! You, Almighty Lord, have created everything for the sake of Your name. You gave food and drink to people so that they would thank You. You have made us worthy of Divine food for earthly life through Your Son. Remember, Lord, Your Church, save her from all evil and awaken her in Your love, gather her from the four winds into Your Kingdom, prepared by You. For Yours is the power and the glory forever. May grace come and may this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David! He who is holy, let him begin; he who is not, let him repent. Maranatha. Amen". After this, everyone partook of the Body and Blood of Christ, everyone was spiritually united at the supper of love, and then with a kiss of brotherhood and peace they went home. This simple divine service of Christians was distinguished by such sincerity and cordiality that, according to the testimony of the apostle. Paul, even the unbelievers, seeing and hearing him, fell on their faces, worshiped God and said: “Truly God is with you” (1 Cor. 14:24–25). The sacrament of the Eucharist, constantly performed during divine services, was only one of those seven sacred actions, which were called the seven sacraments and served to sanctify the life of Christians in its various respects. These sacraments, the essence of which lies in the requirement of holiness from all members of the Church and in the extension of the action of grace and gifts of the Holy Spirit to all aspects of life, were clearly expressed in certain forms already in the apostolic age. Of these, Baptism was like a door to the Church of Christ, and it was accomplished through immersion in water and preceded by instructions in faith. Baptism was followed by ordination and subsequently Confirmation, through which the gifts of the Holy Spirit were bestowed upon the newly baptized. Repentance served as a means of cleansing from newly committed sins, and it was performed either before the entire church (in especially important cases), or separately before the elders. Through the sacrament of the Priesthood, the gifts of the Holy Spirit were brought down to persons called to priestly service; the sacrament of Marriage sanctified the union between Christian spouses, and the sacrament of Anointing was performed on the sick in the hope of healing and remission of sins. Thus sanctifying the Christian in all ways of his life, these sacraments supported the principles of holiness in the Church and made it, according to the word of the Apostle, holy and immaculate (Eph. 5:27). LI. The life of leading Christians. Purity and sanctity of family life. The situation of women and children. Slaves and masters. Love for neighbors The faith of the first Christians was not just an external confession, but permeated their entire lives with its life-giving power, making them “holy and blameless.” By founding the Church as a kingdom not of this world, Christ founded a special society of people who, despite the moral corruption of the surrounding world, were to represent the true light of virtue and be the salt of the earth. And Christians were deeply aware of this and with their lives they fully justified their high purpose. Since ancient humanity was disintegrating at its very foundations, namely in family relations, to revive it it was necessary, first of all, to heal and elevate family life, and in the Church of Christ it found the healing salt for itself. Christianity completely renewed family life, giving marriage freedom, filling it with a new spirit, giving a woman a decent position, making her again from her husband’s slave to his helper. In ancient times, marriage, like all other relationships, had its center of gravity in the state. Its purpose was to produce citizens for the state. Therefore, everyone was obliged to marry in relation to the state, and the state, in view of the weakening of marriage ties, finally considered itself to have the right to force people to fulfill this obligation through punishment. Christianity proclaimed marriage to be free, and, respecting personal freedom, left it to everyone to choose whether they would marry or not. It, on the contrary, not only did not force marriage, but also attached special significance to a celibate life, which was precisely the triumph of Christianity over the false pagan view of marriage. Having raised it to the level of Divine institution, the Church carried it out in a manner consistent with this view. It was carried out with the knowledge and consent of the community. Prospective marriages were reported to the presbyter, and they were performed with his blessing. A marriage concluded without the assistance of the Church was not considered a true marriage by Christians. In Christianity, marriage received a much higher purpose than was known in paganism. He is, in the words of one Christian teacher, a pledge of virtues for those getting married, for their own upbringing and the upbringing of their children for eternity. Each family was to serve as a reflection of the Church, according to the word of the Savior: where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20). Husband and wife in a Christian marriage were not only made one flesh, but more importantly, one spirit, namely the spirit of one faith. As a result of this, the very position of women in the family was necessarily elevated. Although, according to Divine decree, the husband should be the master in marriage, the entire character of domesticity and family life is determined much more by the wife than by the husband. That is why there could not be a healthy family life in the pagan world, because women did not occupy the proper position. Among the Greeks, she was her husband's slave; Among the Romans, although she was respected more, she still had absolutely no rights in relation to her husband. Antiquity never recognized women as having full human dignity. Only a man was considered a complete person. Christianity freed woman from this slavery and this lack of rights, placing woman on an equal footing with man in everything that was highest in life, namely in relation to Christ and the Kingdom of God. She is also a joint heir of eternal life. “In that perfection,” as Clement of Alexandria expresses this thought, “husband and wife must equally participate.” Everything else follows naturally from this. If, according to the natural course of life, she remained subordinate to her husband, then nevertheless she was no longer his servant, but his assistant. “You did not consider the birth of Your Son from a woman unworthy,” says one prayer of the ancient church. This birth of the Son of God from a wife gave the woman a completely different position. True, just as God created a woman for service, so in the Church her calling was to serve. A woman was not to teach publicly in the congregation, because that would be giving her a right that did not belong to her. But since everything in the Church is a ministry, even the teaching position and the position of government, there was no humiliation for the woman in this, because by such a decree she was assigned only an appropriate place in the order established by God at creation. Emancipated women are the product of the pagan spirit, and in times of decline, even in Rome, despite the generally low view of women, there were many emancipated women who spent their nights in carousing with men and even fought in gladiator armor. Christian women, on the contrary, acted worthily as mothers who raised a truly virtuous generation for the Church. Pagans often cringed at the fact that there were so many women in Christian communities. As a result, they mockingly called Christianity the religion of old women and children. But they soon had to find out what Christianity made of these women, they had to involuntarily recognize the difference between a pagan and a Christian woman. There is a passion for clothes, vanity, immeasurable coquetry - here there is simplicity and naturalness; there is shamelessness and licentiousness, here there is chastity and modesty; there were women who spent their time preparing toilets and behind the toilet itself, with which they shone in the theater and circus, at feasts and holidays - here there were wives who tried to please their husbands, mothers who lived for their children; there is a relaxed zero, artificially painted and decorated - here are heroines who did not turn pale at the sight of the lions in the amphitheater, who calmly bowed their heads under the sword. “What kind of women are found among Christians!” the pagan Livanius exclaimed in amazement. The gospel gave human rights to children for the first time. In ancient times, children had absolutely no rights. The father could certainly dispose of them as he wished. He could accept them and educate them, but he could also, if he wanted to, throw them away and kill them. The Roman law of the Twelve Tables expressly recognized this right for the father. Plato and Aristotle looked upon it condescendingly if parents threw away children whom they were unable to raise, or who, as weak and sick, could not be useful to the state. Anyone who accepted a child thrown out in this way could dispose of him at will and even turn him into slavery. Fatherly power over children was limitless, extending even to their life and death. Christianity first taught people to look at children as a gift from God, as a deposit entrusted to them, for which they were responsible before God. It imposed on parents the high task of raising their baptized children as children of God for His Kingdom. The sacrament of baptism was performed on all children, and thus even the little ones became participants in the blessings and all the benefits of Christianity. With such a relationship between family members, every Christian home was like a church of God. The word of God was diligently read in it, prayers were performed zealously and reverently. “If you have a wife, says one ancient instruction, then pray with her; Let the marriage union not be an obstacle to prayer.” Before each meal, they not only prayed, but also ate part of the blessed bread brought from the church. At every exit and entrance, when dressing and putting on shoes, when washing, when lighting the light, lying down and getting up, they made the sign of the cross; and this was not a simple dead custom, but a living remembrance of the Crucified One, of baptism into His death and of the responsibilities assumed during baptism. Over the whole life of a Christian lay the imprint of a calm and sacred seriousness. Christians knew that they were the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and they tried to live up to this calling. Their gaze went into the future to their Lord, Who promised to come again, and, in anticipation of His imminent coming, they zealously tried to sanctify their lives, without which no one could appear before Him. Their whole life was, as it were, military service under the command of Christ, their military leader. They swore allegiance to him in baptism, rejecting the devil and all his works. Their banner was the cross; their password was confession of faith; their weapon, with which they stood guard day and night, being awake, was prayer. “Let us never go unarmed,” Tertullian convinces, “we will stand during the day and vigil at night. Fully armed with prayer we will guard the banner of our military leader; praying, let us wait for the trumpet of the Archangel.” Psalmody was often heard in Christian homes. The morning began with the usual reading of Holy Scripture and prayer, which ended with a doxology, after which all members of the family gave each other a kiss of peace and went to their day's work. In the evening, the day again ended with common prayer and evening song, which is still sung today. The Church, namely the song: “Quiet Light.” Christianity had no less beneficial influence on the relationship between masters and slaves. “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men” (Titus 2:11). Ancient slavery could not hold out for long in the face of such a gospel. Christianity declared that “there is no longer Jew nor Gentile; there is neither slave nor free; there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). “Christian righteousness makes equal in our eyes all who bear the name of man,” declares one ancient teacher of the Church. “He is a son, and sons are free. Since Christ freed us from sin and slavery to the law, freedom was established in everything. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17). While among the pagans the dignity of a person was valued according to his external condition, this latter had no meaning for Christians, and true internal dignity was valued completely independently of it. Slave or master is just something accidental. A slave can be in truth, namely internally, free, and a master can be in truth, namely internally, a slave. There is only one true slavery, and that is the slavery of sin, and there is only one true freedom, namely freedom in Christ. But therefore, it was the Christian Church that was completely far from the idea of ​​​​immediately freeing slaves. Even in this respect, she recognizes the existing order and teaches slaves to see God’s dispensation in it. “Everyone remain in what he is called to do” (1 Cor. 7:20), reads the basic rule of the apostle. Internal freedom was of such great importance to Christians that external civil freedom was often completely obscured in front of it. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the Church has left everything in the same position. The new beginning internally changed and transformed the relationship between masters and slaves. The treatment of slaves by their Christian masters and the relationship of Christian slaves to their masters immediately became different. They looked at themselves as brothers, and ap. Paul, in his letter to Philemon, writes about his servant Onesimus: “accept him forever, not as a slave anymore, but above a servant, as a beloved brother” (Phil. 1:15,16). There was no longer any difference between them, as members of the Church. They gathered in the same house of God, prayed to the same God, confessed the same Savior, sang sacred songs together, ate of the same bread and drank from the same cup. All this involuntarily set the master in a completely different mood towards his slaves. He could no longer treat the one who was his brother in Christ as a soulless thing. Every slave who entered the Church had all its advantages revealed to him, and he could even achieve episcopacy. It even happened later that the slave was an elder of the same community to which his master belonged as a simple member. This naturally often led to the freeing of slaves. Although the Church did not insist on this, so as not to encourage the carnal aspirations of slaves for freedom, if the master himself released the slave, she looked at it favorably, as a commendable deed. Therefore, cases of release occurred frequently. Some, converting to Christianity, freed all their slaves on the very day of baptism, or chose for their liberation some solemn holidays of the Church, especially Easter, in order to testify to their gratitude for the grace received. It is told about one rich Roman of the time of Trajan that, having become a Christian, on Easter he granted freedom to all his slaves, of whom he had 1,250 people. Since the third century, it became customary to free slaves in the church in the presence of the priest and the community. The master led the slaves by the hand to the altar, where the liberation letter was read and, in conclusion, the priest pronounced a blessing. And outwardly the situation was such that they had to thank the Church for their freedom. She was what she was, namely, the guardian and dispenser of freedom. Upon their liberation, slaves in the Christian community were not left to their fate, as was often the case in paganism, but continued to enjoy the assistance of the Church in organizing their lives. Their former masters considered it their duty to help them both in action and with advice, as their Christian brothers, and thus they found themselves not alienated from society, but became its closest members, since the Christian community taught them to correctly use their freedom and raised them to be active and useful people. The basis for this attitude towards slaves was that Christians had a completely different attitude towards work. He was not considered among them, as among the pagans, a disgrace for a free person, but an honor; Christians saw in it not humiliating slavery, but a Divine institution, obligatory for all people. After all, the Lord himself was a worker, he was the son of a carpenter, and the apostles were also workers: Peter was a fisherman, Paul was a tent maker. The Fathers of the Church often say that working people know God better than pagan sages. “You will find among us workers,” says Athenagoras, “who, even if they cannot prove in words the advantages of our teaching, prove it in deeds.” If some positions in life were closed to Christians, for example. military service, government positions, positions at temples, in which the pagans earned their bread, then the more honor and importance the craft work itself acquired among them. The “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” mentioned above commands communities to accept everyone who comes in the name of the Lord, but with testing. If he is a wanderer, then, if possible, he should be given assistance; but still he cannot stay more than two or three days. “But if he stays with you and he is a craftsman, then he must work and eat. If he does not know the craft, then according to your understanding, take care that some idle lover does not live with you under the name of a Christian. If he does not want to work, then this is a person who makes a trade out of Christianity: “move away from communication with such people.” The so-called “Apostolic Constitutions” also expressly exhort all members of the community to work hard, “for the Lord our God hates the idle.” The bishop was even charged with helping artisans find work. The greatest sages of antiquity, Plato and Aristotle, declared work for something that a free person could not do without humiliating himself; ap. Paul urges everyone to work and eat their own bread, and categorically lays down the rule: whoever does not work should not eat (2 Thess. 3:10). And the Christian communities were really guided by this very rule, from which a new world was then created, representing in itself a greater and more glorious world than Plato and Aristotle could see and imagine. In the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul, exhorting newly converted Christians to live according to the rule of the faith he accepted, says: “If anyone has stolen, let him no longer steal, but rather work, doing with your own hands what is useful, so that there will be something to give to the poor” (Eph. 4:28). These words fully defined the true purpose of labor. You need to work not only to acquire the means of life for yourself, much less for enrichment and pleasure, but in order to serve your brothers. This is the rule that Christians of the first times adhered to. Working with their own hands, they used their earnings to help their needy brothers. For the pagans this was something completely new. “I give you a new commandment” (John 13:34), this is how Christ proclaimed his commandment about love for others. “By this they will know you, that you are My disciples, that you love one another” (John 13:35). In the ancient pagan world everything was completely different. Everyone exclusively pursued their own interests, without caring at all about others, because the pagans knew only earthly life, and they had no other goal than to live happily here. And happiness itself, at its core, was only an imposition, although it was understood sometimes in a rougher, sometimes in a higher sense. They have their own personality as a center around which everything revolves. The ancient man despised everyone whom he attracted to his service, hated everyone who opposed him. “Man is a wolf to man” - this was the basic view of the ancient pre-Christian world. Hence he did not know condescension towards the weak, compassion for the oppressed. In this regard, even the thoughts of Plato, the noblest among the ancient sages, about the state are permeated with heartless egoism. All beggars, in his opinion, should be expelled from the state; the poor should not be accepted if they are sick. If the worker's constitution is not strong enough to withstand the disease, then the doctor can leave him without embarrassment, since the worker is no longer useful for continuing his trade. “A bad service,” says Plautus, is rendered to the poor by the one who gives him food and drink, because what he gives him only worsens and lengthens his life to his misery.” Good could only be done to those who do good to us; those who do us harm could only be hated, one even had to hate them. According to Aristotle, anger and revenge are legitimate passions; without them, people would not have strong incentives to do good. The ancient world had no idea about self-denial, about love, which can give more than it receives, and especially about love for enemies. Self-love was the main principle of his life, and hence the ancient world did not know any charity. Only the love proclaimed by Christianity could save humanity from this soulless selfishness. And this love revived him. The life of primitive Christians was completely imbued with this brotherly love. Nothing amazed the pagans so much, nothing was so incomprehensible to them as this particular love among Christians. “Look,” they shouted, “how they love each other!” Among themselves, Christians called themselves brothers, and this brotherly name was not just a word: they actually lived like brothers. The kiss with which they greeted each other during the celebration of the Eucharist was not a simple form; The Christian community was truly one family, all its members were children of one Heavenly Father. Each one served another, each one prayed for others. They had everything in common. Even a stranger who came from afar, as long as he brought a letter of approval from his community, proving that he was a Christian, was received as a brother, and everyone treated him like a brother. “They love without knowing each other!” says one pagan in amazement. All this, of course, represented the complete opposite of the pagan saying: “man is a wolf to man.” This brotherly love then expanded into universal love for people. Born out of love and living in love, Christ. the community was the true organ for the realization of love. She first of all embraced those of her members who in any way needed help, but then expanded to embrace with love those who were still outside the community. After all, they too should be attracted to the Christian community. From here love acted in a missionary spirit. It did not exclude anyone, just as the mercy from which it comes did not exclude anyone, even enemies, even persecutors. In Christian communities, individuals undoubtedly performed many acts of love on their own behalf. The Christian zealously followed the word of the Lord: “Give to those who ask you, and do not turn away from those who want to borrow from you” (Matthew 5:42). The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles says: “Do not be one who opens his hands to take, but closes them to give. Don’t be embarrassed to give, and when you give it, do it reluctantly. For you will know who the glorious creator of the reward is. Do not refuse the needy, but share everything with your brother, and do not say that it is yours. For if you are partners in the immortal, how much more so in the earthly.” The usual form of offerings was an offering for the celebration of the supper of love. Members of the community brought their gifts mostly in kind, and from them the required part of bread and wine was allocated for the Eucharist, and the rest went to the benefit of the clergy and the poor. The names of donors were recorded on tables, so-called diptychs, and commemorated in prayer. Gifts for the dead were brought by their relatives on the day of their remembrance - a custom that maintained a living and constant connection between the present and the afterlife community. The deceased themselves seemed to continue to serve the community. Then offerings were made under special circumstances - on the occasion of joyful events, on the day of baptism, etc. The poor, and especially widows, were cared for by the community. Ap. Paul took special care of them and gave special rules for issuing benefits to them. If they really led an honest widow's life, then they enjoyed high respect in the community and care until their death, for which they, in turn, had to provide services to the community, for example. in raising children. Poor orphans were brought up under the supervision of the bishop by widows. Boys learned a trade and received, upon reaching a certain age, the necessary crafts for their occupation; girls, if they did not take a vow to remain in virginity, entered into marriage with their Christian brothers. Children thrown away by pagans, of whom there were sometimes many, were often taken in and raised Christianly along with other orphans. The Christian community took part in them in later life, if their situation was especially difficult and dangerous for their Christian faith and Christian life, and generally helped them get settled in life. Thus, love for neighbors was the banner of the entire life of Christians, and therefore it was precisely the banner that everyone could recognize that these were people not of this world, but precisely the sons of the Kingdom of God on earth, disciples of Christ, who proclaimed the commandment of love. LII. The struggle of paganism with Christianity and the triumph of the Church Although love not only for neighbors, but also for enemies was the main commandment preached by Christ and His apostles, the ancient pagan world, ossified in cold self-love, did not want to understand this commandment and give way to those who carried it out in their lives. The principles by which the ancient pagan world lived were as opposed to the principles of Christianity as water and fire. When they collided, a struggle had to begin. The Savior Himself clearly predicted this when He told His disciples: “Do not think that I came to bring peace to earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). He did not hide the struggle that lay before His disciples, a struggle of life and death. “And you,” He said, “will be hated by all because of My name.” (Luke 21:17). They will lay their hands on you and persecute you. They will hand you over to the courts, they will beat you in their synagogues (Luke 21:12). And he who kills you will think that he is doing a service to God (John 16:2).” All this was exactly how it was, and it could not have been otherwise, because the pagan world was a kingdom of sin, the prince of this world who ruled in it involuntarily felt for himself in Christianity a destructive force to which he inevitably had to cede his dominance, which diminished as the Gospel spread, as the gospel of the redemption of mankind from slavery to sin and death. Christianity came out from the very beginning with a clear consciousness that it had to conquer the world. The apostles remembered that they were sent by the Lord to preach to all nations, baptizing them into the new faith, and they selflessly fulfilled the great commission. With miraculous speed, Christianity spread beyond the borders of Palestine and began to spread among the pagans, first in Antioch, from where the great apostle of the nations carried the gospel of it from city to city through all of Asia Minor to Europe, to Greece and from there to the very capital of the world - Rome. With the same speed, Christianity was spread by other apostles to the east, north and south, to Babylon, the shores of the Black Sea and Alexandria, so that by the end of the apostolic century the entire vast Roman state was covered with a network of Christian communities living among themselves in the closest unity, and in Rome itself, according to Tacitus, already by the time of Nero’s persecution, there were “a huge multitude” of Christians. The reason for such a rapid spread was both the divinely inspired zeal of Christian preachers, who, like winged eagles, swept throughout the world with their wonderful gospel, and the very state of the pagan world, languishing from unbelief and moral corruption and longing for revival. The call of Christianity was immediately responded to by all those who were weary and burdened, especially in the lower classes, from which the first Christian communities were mainly composed, although in a short time people from the upper classes, and even members of the imperial house, began to appear in the Church. But these converts were still only individual chosen ones, and the rest of the world in its immense mass remained completely alien to Christianity and treated it not only with contempt, but also with enmity, which grew into bloodthirsty hatred as Christianity progressed. Christianity, by its very essence, was such an unusual and new phenomenon and was so at odds with the views by which the ancient pagan world lived, that the pagans for the most part were absolutely incapable of understanding it. For them, first of all, the spiritual worship of Christians was completely incomprehensible. Without a temple and idols, without altars and sacrifices, a pagan could not imagine religion. Since among primitive Christians worship was performed “in the spirit,” that is, without external ceremonial forms, it seemed to the pagans that they did not have and did not recognize God at all. True, they knew that Christians were talking about some invisible, omnipresent God. But for the pagans this was incomprehensible. In one Christian work written by Minucius Felix in defense of Christianity, a pagan Caecilius is depicted who, while defending paganism, expresses views that were common at that time to the entire pagan world. Regarding the Christian teaching about the invisible and omnipresent God, he exclaims: “What absurdities Christians imagine! About God, whom they do not see and do not show to anyone, they say that He comes and goes, knows and judges the deeds of people, their words and even secret thoughts. They make Him out to be some kind of spy, a tireless detective who is constantly on the move. But how can He deal with each person individually if He is immediately involved with everyone? Or how can He care for everyone if He is completely devoted to each individual?” The Invisible God in the eyes of the pagans was not God at all. Therefore, Christians seemed to them to be complete atheists and wicked people. “Down with the atheists!” - such a cry was constantly heard among the mob during the persecution of Christians. Even if they admitted that Christians had their own God, then all the absurdities that were attributed to the Jews were told about them, namely, that they worshiped the head of a donkey. In the second century, a fairly common image was a figure of a man with donkey ears, wearing a toga and holding a book, and the inscription read: “This is the God of the Christians.” Recently, in the ruins of the imperial palaces in Rome, in one place that apparently served as a guardhouse for the sentries, an image was found crudely drawn in charcoal on the wall, which represents a man hanging on a cross with a donkey's head and under it there is an inscription made in bad Greek letters: “Anaxamenes prays to his God.” It is clear that this was a mockery of the pagan soldiers against their Christian comrade. Such crude religious concepts, as it seemed to the pagans, were only possible in that community, which, in their opinion, consisted of the scum of society, various homeless artisans and fugitive slaves. Hence, every educated pagan treated Christianity with arrogant contempt, which turned into disgust due to the fact that Christians allegedly combined the most immoral life with crude religion. Horrible things were said about them. Their close connection with each other, their brotherly mutual love, their strong attachment to each other - even to death, the pagans could not explain to themselves otherwise than by the assumption that they belonged to a secret criminal alliance, the entry into which was allegedly accompanied by a terrible oath and the most terrible rituals. In their meetings at love suppers, as the pagans told with horror, Christians ate human flesh and drank human blood. During such a terrible evening, it was further related, they got drunk, turned out the lights, and in the ensuing darkness the most disgusting debauchery ensued and the most vile orgies were committed. It is remarkable that these absurd rumors found trust even among educated pagans, and their echo is noticeable even in the writings of the famous historian Tacitus. But even besides these rumors, the absurdity of which was inevitably to be revealed over time, Christians were still hated by the pagans simply because, in their opinion, they were alien to everything great, beautiful and noble, hostile to all humanity and obvious misanthropes. Since the origin of their religion itself was rooted in barbarism and ignorance, they naturally, in the opinion of the Romans, despised all science and all arts. Their teachers, as the famous opponent of Christianity Celsus later claimed, allegedly preached: “See that none of you indulges in science, science is evil; Science takes away from the health of the soul, people perish from their wisdom.” Since Christians withdrew from public life, did not take part in the pleasures of the pagans, did not share their interests, they were considered unfit for life, as a dark class of people afraid of all light. Their life seemed bleak and gloomy to the pagans. The concern of Christians for the salvation of the soul was, in the opinion of pagans, the height of madness. It was not only incomprehensible to them, but also positively seemed funny to them, and thus Christians in their eyes were at the same time the most unreasonable and the most pitiful of people, since for the sake of an unknown future, in order to avoid imaginary torment and achieve imaginary bliss, they abandoned the undoubted blessings of real life. Mocking Christians’ beliefs in the afterlife and resurrection, Caecilius exclaimed: “after all, you, unfortunate ones, will not rise again and at the same time do not use life now.” All these and similar reproaches, which supported hatred and enmity among pagans towards Christians, became completely dangerous for the latter due to the fact that they could be turned into a political direction. Since social and state life was completely imbued with paganism, it is clear that Christians, of necessity, had to move away from it. Although the apostle clearly commanded Christians to “submit to every authority for the Lord’s sake” (Tit. 3:1) and “to every authority that holds”, and Christians sacredly kept this commandment, in general they still had to have a negative attitude towards the pagan state, since their interests were no longer connected with the interests of the Roman state and did not coincide with its greatness and glory. They avoided military service and public positions, because every warrior and official, by their very service, was obliged to be present at public sacrifices. As a result, the pagans said about Christians: “you are a lazy people, useless and inactive in state affairs, since every honest person should live for the fatherland and the state.” The pagan religion was completely national and coincided with the interests of one people, while Christianity acted as an all-round religion, as a religion for all peoples, and this was a completely unthinkable thing for the pagans. Even non-Romans, even barbarians who professed Christ, were considered brothers by Christians. From here it was not far to the dangerous reproach that they themselves were not Romans, but enemies of the Roman state. Since Christians did not take any part in the pagan festivities in honor of the emperor’s birthday and other similar events, the people considered them traitors and insults to the majesty. For the Romans, the eternal power of Rome was considered an immutable truth, and meanwhile Christians taught about the death of the whole world, and, consequently, of Rome, and with joyful hope they expected the imminent onset of this death, since they themselves, not having a city staying here for themselves, were looking for it in the future fatherland. Hence, the Romans involuntarily had the idea that Christians were plotting the destruction of Rome. If Christians could, in spite of all this, refer to the fact that they are obedient and peaceful subjects, that in their public meetings and in their homes they earnestly pray for the king and for everyone in power, that they regularly pay taxes and taxes, then all this was completely useless. There was such a contrast between them and the pagan world that a clash was inevitable, and it resulted in a whole series of bloody persecutions. Although a clash was thus inevitable between Christianity and paganism, the first enemy that Christianity encountered was not a pagan, but a Jewish one, which contributed to the acceleration and aggravation of the clash. While Christianity had not yet received external power and spread, it was completely alien to the pagan world, which did not even know about its existence as an independent religion, separate from Judaism, and for a long time confused it with the latter. But the Jews immediately felt a formidable force in him. Having crucified Christ because He turned out to be inconsistent with their false ideas about the Messiah and proclaimed the New Testament Kingdom on completely different principles than they would have liked, the Jews began to fiercely persecute His apostles. Both the Sanhedrin and the mob competed with each other in the persecution of Christians, and it was from the Jews that the blood of the first great martyrs was shed, such as St. Archdeacon Stefan, ap. Jacob and many other glorious men. It is also known with what rage and bloodthirsty persistence the Jews persecuted the apostle. Paul during his great missionary travels, when they not only chased him from city to city, inciting the authorities and the mob everywhere against him, but also sent special agents everywhere with the aim of destroying the fruits of his great missionary work, as was the case in Galatia. Having rejected the Messiah and thus losing their entire future, the Jews frantically took revenge on the preachers of Christianity for this and, as if anticipating their historical death, wanted to enjoy the blood of the perpetrators of this death. The entire period of the apostolic age from the ascension of Christ to the destruction of Jerusalem presents a picture of constant unrest caused by the persecution of Jews against Christians. These troubles involuntarily had to attract the attention of the Roman authorities, and this was precisely the first reason for the Romans to become acquainted with Christianity, the founder of which they considered a certain Christ, a disturber of social order. Despite these unrest, the Romans, however, for a long time could not understand the reasons for them, and therefore, not yet distinguishing Christianity from Judaism, they recognized it as only one of the sects of the latter, as a result of which they often did not pay due attention to the unrest itself as exclusively religious, and to stop them they sometimes resorted to drastic measures, such as the expulsion of the Jews from Rome, as was the case under the emperors Tiberius and Claudius, and apparently the decrees were applied indifferently both to Jews and Christians. This last circumstance even more aroused the anger of the Jews against Christians, since because of the latter, in their opinion, they had to endure a lot of trouble from the pagans, who already hated the Jews as the most worthless and misanthropic people. To get out of this situation, the Jews began to try in every possible way to make it clear to the Romans that they were completely different from Christians, that the latter had nothing in common with Judaism and represented a sect of all-world troublemakers, while the Jews themselves were a completely peaceful and loyal people. Since the Jews, thanks to their usual craftiness and money turnover, which was almost exclusively in their hands, enjoyed very great influence in Rome, they finally managed to completely separate themselves from the Christians and direct all the hatred of the pagans precisely at them, as the most dangerous sectarians and enemies of the Roman state. In this, by the time of the reign of Nero, they had already succeeded so much that not only the mob, but also the enlightened Romans, such as the historian Tacitus, treated Christians with hatred and malice, and when Rome suffered a terrible disaster from a terrible, destructive fire, it was not difficult for Nero to direct the people’s thirst for vengeance precisely at the Christians, who were then subjected to a terrible beating, and the Jews not only remained completely aloof from this great disaster, but they also apparently encouraged the pagans in this inhuman bloodshed. From that time on, Christians were already clearly distinguished as pagans from Jews, and all the hatred of the pagan world was now directed at them, especially when with the destruction of Jerusalem and the defeat of the Jewish people, the latter lost its political existence, and on its ruins a new world - the Christian one - began to be created with amazing speed. When the apostles preached about the Crucified One to the ends of the earth and special communities appeared everywhere, which, completely different from the rest of the world in their faith and life, their height and holiness, served as a visual exposure of the surrounding corruption, then the prince of this world raised all the political power that the pagan world had to the Church of God. But all the forces of hell were not able to overcome the Church, with which its Divine Founder promised to remain forever. The enemies of Christianity with frenzied fury began to shed the innocent blood of Christians, which for three centuries watered the soil of the entire Roman Empire. But all the horrors of bloody persecution could no longer stop the spread of Christianity. The amazing perseverance and selflessness of Christians was the best witness to the truth of their faith, even in the pagans it aroused involuntary amazement and forced them to replenish the ranks of executed martyrs with new converts to the persecuted faith, so that the blood of Christian martyrs was truly like the seed of Christianity. Despite the complete inequality of the external forces of the fighting parties, victory was ensured in advance for the weakest in this regard, namely Christianity. Just as spring waters, rushing violently from the mountains, wash away everything that is dilapidated and rotten in their path, so the streams of Christian blood uncontrollably washed away the formidable in appearance, but decaying inside, strongholds of the pagan world, and it inevitably had to collapse and crumble into ruins, on which the Christian field should have sprung up and blossomed magnificently. Christians had already foreseen such an end, and St. Already in the first century, John celebrated the triumph and final victory of Christianity when he exclaimed with inspiration: “Our faith is the victory that has overcome the world” (1 John 5:4). And this victory became an accomplished fact when a mysterious cross shone in the sky, on which the great Roman emperor read the inscription: “By this victory.” From that time on, the cross became the sacred banner of every true victory, and where this holy banner is hoisted with sincere faith and love, there is the victorious Kingdom of Christ, the Kingdom of faith, hope and love. You might be interested in: