In the East, especially in the first centuries, the approach was different. The patristic Eastern interpretation proceeded from the following words of the tempter: "But God knows that in the day that you eat of them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be as gods... (Gen. 3:5). Not at all an outward act of obedience, nor a promise of immortality, but the very essence of the matter: "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Immortality was primordial; there was no "promise," because creation itself was immortality, and just as men did not yet know good and evil, they did not know death either; they dwelt in the tree of life. God warned people not even to touch the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," because contact with it "opened the eyes," as Satan rightly put it in this case, opened their eyes to evil, which in cognition, in experience, instantly violated the essence of the tree of life in people, and they instantly found themselves "cut off from life," that is, they died. Life outside of Paradise, in separation from the Tree of Life, was no longer eternal life, even if it lasted for years and years and even centuries: "bad infinity" is not eternity.

"Be ye as gods," as if contact with evil was a "sign of divinity." But this was already a diabolical lie, on which his own, diabolical self-deification was built: the egoistic pride of self-admiration in emptiness, like wood shavings curled up around itself - with emptiness inside. Diabolical parasitism on Divine Creation.

What happened? What shook the very foundations of life?

And this is what happened: "And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasing to the eyes and desirable..." (Gen. 3:6). This is what happened: "lust," that is, an egoistic, separate, personal desire to quench one's unexpectedly manifested passion of love for oneself and for one's pleasure, "because it gives knowledge." Interest awoke. In America, they often say, considering it quite natural: "This is a conflict of interest." Yes, humanity began to live in a "conflict of interests" and in a struggle for interest, in a struggle for existence. And if we try to restructure ourselves in such a way as to destroy any interest, we see that such a restructuring turns out to be a living hell. Because without interest, no one can and does not want to do anything, and "building a paradise on earth" therefore turns into social suicide. This is what happened as a result of the Fall. "And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked" (Gen. 3:7). Nudity was revealed, as in a children's fairy tale: "the king has no clothes". "And the Lord God (Yahweh-Elohim - the Eternal-Godhead) said: Behold, Adam became as one of Us..." (Gen. 3:22).

How do you understand this "one of us"?

"We" are the Divine Trinity. "One of..." is the exact opposite of that. It is impossible to be in the "Trinitarian unity of the sacred mystery" and at the same time to be "one of...". It is impossible to separate the Holy Trinity, Yahweh-Elohim, Divine Love. You can try! But how? And this is exactly as Satan advised and as Adam did: "knowing good and evil." And instantly, being the image of the Holy Trinity, the one who lives by the Tree of Life turns into an "individual", "one of"... "From" whom? Yes, from all other people. Paradisiacal humanity, the Church created "before the foundation of the world," the Bride of the Lamb, is shattered to pieces into many particles. And he can no longer remain in Paradise: lest such a fragment "stretch out his hand, and take also of the tree of life [...] and did not live forever" (Gen. 3:22).

Smithereens

If Adam is a "splinter", then what about us, all the others? "Shards"! All people who have ever lived on earth, are now on it, and will be on it, are "Adam's fragments."

There is in Tradition an image depicting the Fall, attributed to St. Basil the Great. Experts assert that in the writings of St. There is no such text; However, another original text expressing the same idea indirectly points to a possible original authorship. The image is as follows: "Imagine a precious vessel falling and shattering into small pieces. Fragments fall some closer, others farther and, accordingly, faster and longer, depending on the distance. The vessel is Adam." Adam, as we already know, is "earth-born", from the word adam - "earth" - the name of both the first man and the totality of mankind - all-Adam (with the prefix "kol" of the ancient Hebrew interpretations). The Apostle Paul applied this name to Christ - "New Adam". Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) writes in his work "The Moral Idea of the Dogma of the Church," referring to Ap. St. Paul, St. Gregory the Theologian and Isaac the Syrian: "In St. In Scripture and Tradition, Christ Himself and the Church, headed by Christ, are called the new Adam or the new man." It is difficult to imagine that Ap. Paul, who knew the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Tradition of the ancient Hebrews well, used this analogy without thinking of Adam as "All the Man," because that is what it is all about. Thus, the tradition of Adam's all-humanity, that is, that all mankind was created in Adam, should be considered to go back to Ap. Paul and from him who came to St. Basil. The Apostle Paul writes in his Epistle to the Ephesians: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heaven, inasmuch as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him in love" (Ephesians 1:3-4). The Belgian edition of the New Testament in Russian of 1985 subtitles the above passage with the subtitle "The Origin of the Church."

Подлинные слова свт. Василия Великого, как их в русском переводе цитирует митрополит Антоний: "Общежительники, то есть монахи, изглаждают в себе грех праотца Адама, возобновляют первобытную доброту, потому что у людей не было бы ни разделения, ни раздоров, ни войны, если бы грех не рассек естества... Они - монахи - соревнуют жизни ангелов, подобно им во всей строгости соблюдая общность ...потому что расторгнутое и на тысячи частей рассеченное естество человеческое, по мере сил своих, они снова приводят в единение с самим собой и со Спасителем и, истребив лукавое рассечение, восстанавливают первобытное единство, подобно тому как наилучший врач целительными средствами вновь связывает тело, расторгнутое на многие части". Комментарий митрополита Антония: "Св. Василий Великий говорит о том, во-первых, что человеческое естество было единым до падения, во-вторых, что падением или грехом оно было рассечено; в-третьих, что ангелы, не впадшие в грех самолюбия и непослушания, сохранили это единство естества своего неповрежденным; в-четвертых, что Спаситель пришел восстановить это единство в падшем человеческом роде..." [14].

Православный богослов и крупный ученый новомученник о. Павел Флоренский в известном труде "Столп и утверждение истины" исследует вопрос творения всего человечества в Раю и всеобщего грехопадения во Адаме. Из этого исследования явствует, что все человечество было сотворено в Раю как Первозданная Церковь. Предание о таком творении Церкви восходит к I в. по Р.X., упоминается в "Пастыре" Ерма. Его цитирует видный канонист проф. Сергей Троицкий в своей "Христианской философии брака": "Ерм и Климент Римский учат, что Церковь существовала даже раньше создания человека и что не Христос является образом Адама, а Адам образом Христа и Ева образом Церкви. "Церковь, - пишет св. Климент, - создана прежде солнца и луны. Церковь живая есть тело Христово...". Точно так же и Ерм утверждает, что Церковь Божия сотворена прежде всего, а мир сотворен для нее: "Бог сотворил из не-сущего все сущее, ради Святой Церкви Своей..." Тертулиан писал в III в.: "Образ Божий, данный Адаму, есть образ Христов". Свт. Григорий Нисский в IV в., обращаясь к преданию, говорит о творении всего человечества в Раю, а его последователь св. Максим Исповедник в VII в. этот взгляд развивает. К этому времени на православном Востоке традиция принимает устойчивые формы, особенно в литургическом богословии, через которое доходит и до нас - на литургии Иоанна Златоуста мы изо дня в день повторяем:

...Ты (Боже) от небытия в бытие нас привел еси, и отпадшия возставил еси паки, и не отступил еси вся творя, дондеже нас на Небо возвел еси и Царство Твое даровал еси будущее...

То есть: когда мы - в нашем падении - разбились, как сосуд, на множество частей, стали и впрямь "осколками", тогда Ты, Боже, нас восстановил и взял на небо и даровал нам Свое будущее Царство. Это духовно-таинственное возвращение в Царство Небесное и происходит на каждой литургии и в ежедневной жизни Церкви Христовой.

Судьба осколков