"Whoever does not listen to the Church," says another holy father, "is not a son of the Church; whoever is not a son of the Church, to him Christ is not a shepherd; whoever is not a shepherd is not Christ's sheep, whoever is not Christ's sheep waits in vain for eternal life"

"Do you want to be saved? – teaches St. Chrysostom, – stay in the Church and it will not betray you. The Church is a fence: if you are inside this fence, you will not be touched by a wolf, and if you go out, you will be snatched away by a beast. Do not deviate from the Church: there is nothing in the world stronger than it. She is your hope, in her is your salvation." Remember: "To whom the Church is not a mother," says St. Cyprian, "to him God is not the Father!"

Вот вам заветы святых отцов и учителей Церкви! В этом руководственном общем правиле, или догмате, спасения уже заключается ответ и на вопрос: что делать, чтобы не погрешить в уразумении Священного Писания.

Крепче держись учения и руководства матери Церкви; когда встретишь в Слове Божием что-либо для тебя непонятное, ищи объяснения не в своем мудровании, не в мудровании самочинных толковников Писания, коих ныне развелось так много, а там, где повелевает искать его святая матерь твоя — Церковь православная. А она указывает нам такие объяснения в самом же Священном Писании (например, что непонятно в Ветхом Завете, то часто объясняется в Новом), предлагает в своих символах, или изложениях православной веры, в определениях Святых Соборов, в писаниях отцов и учителей Церкви — вот где найдешь ты разрешение всех твоих недоумении.

Святые отцы толковали Священное Писание так, как их учили сему святые апостолы. Из 2-го послания апостола Петра уже видно, что он объяснял своим ученикам “неудобовразумительные” места посланий апостола Павла. Апостол Павел не раз ссылается на то, чему он учил словесно. А как строго святые отцы и учители Церкви хранили все то, что приняли от святых Апостолов, это видно из их же писаний.

Так св. Ириней решительно говорит, что “незнающие предания апостольского не могут познать истину из одного Священного Писания”.

Св. Климент Александрийский говорит, что “те, кто толкуют Священное Писание не по церковному преданию, а по своему мудрованию, потеряли правило истины”. — “Только тогда прекратятся заблуждения человеческие, — пишет святитель Киприан, — когда мы будем толковать Слово Божие согласно с преданием Церкви”. — “Не следует самому вдаваться в изъяснение Священного Писания, — предостерегает св. Варсонофий Великий, — ибо дело сие представляет немалую опасность для неверующих. Когда не знаешь, то лучше не говори ничего, потому что говорить о Священных Писаниях по своему разумению — есть безумие” — Вот почему святая Церковь на Шестом Вселенском Соборе решительно законоположила: “аще будет исследуемо слово Писания, то не иначе да изъяснится оное, разве как изложили светила и учители Церкви — богоносные отцы” (пр. 19).

This is a general rule for those who seek an understanding of the Holy Scriptures. Live in the Church, think in the way of the Church, ask the Church about everything, seek from it the solution of all your perplexities, humbling your mind in obedience to the Church. And do not seek the highest for yourself, and do not test the strong: if you are told, abide in them. "Whoever is not in the Church," says St. Hilary, "cannot understand the divine word at all." And this is understandable: the Word of God is the word of life, but there is no grace-filled life outside the Church! That is why for those who are perishing it is foolishness at a time when for those who are being saved it is the power of God. And as long as a person does not live in the Church, does not fulfill the life-giving commandments of Christ, until then the Word of God is a book sealed, as if written in a foreign language.

Those who know, for example, the Hebrew alphabet, can read the Hebrew Bible line by line, but in order to understand every word in it, one must know the Hebrew language. Otherwise, you can read the Hebrew text aloud, but not understand what you are reading at all.

There are many scholars who know the Bible from board to board, who have studied its text in all kinds of languages, but who are completely alien to its spirit, who reason about this spirit as a blind man judges colors or a deaf man judges music. And whoever lives according to the commandments of God, in grace-filled communion with the Church, the words of Christ come true: Father, thou hast concealed this from the most wise and prudent, and hast revealed it as a child.

The great founder of the monastic life, the Monk Anthony, who was called the Great by the Church, did not even know how to read and write, but he knew the Word of God in a way that our scholars do not know it.

The Nun Mary of Egypt, who spent her stormy youth in sinful pleasures, and then, purified by 47 years of ascetic labor in the deserts of the Jordan, so amazed the Monk Zosima with her knowledge of the Scriptures, that the elder exclaimed: "Where did you learn the Scriptures?" – and received an answer from the humble ascetic: "God sends knowledge to mortals"... And such miracles of the enlightening grace of Christ are possible only in the Orthodox Church.

The same grace guided those holy men who, living in the Church, being sanctified and, so to speak, nourished by its sacraments, cleansing their hearts of passions, wrote their commentaries on the Word of God. For example, St. Proclus, his disciple and friend, and later successor in the cathedra, told us about St. Chrysostom, that he, Proclus, saw more than once at night, how, during the hours of writing, the Golden-Tongued teacher of his immortal commentaries on the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, this Apostle himself mysteriously guided the writing saint, and this vision was, as it were, the personification of the belief of the ancient Church, that whoever reverently studies the Word of God, guided by the tradition of the Church (and Chrysostom himself testifies that he writes "not his own words, but the words of our fathers, wondrous and famous men"), the grace of God mysteriously assists him in this holy work for the prayers of the Church, triumphant in heaven. What memory is in a living person, tradition is in the body of the Church: it is the living voice of the heavenly Church, which ever abides in grace-filled communion with the earthly Church. To be guided by one's own reflection in the interpretation of the Word of God, rejecting tradition, would mean the same as to lose one's memory in one's personal life, to forget one's personal experience, all the lessons of the past. As a person lives, he accumulates experience, enriches his memory; it is the same in the Church: in the course of centuries, the historical life of the Church became more complicated, new demands appeared, new false teachings appeared, and the collective mind of the Church had to sink deeper and deeper into the "sea of scriptures," as St. Chrysostom expresses it, and from there to extract more and more new pearls of the Church's teaching, and the chosen men, the bearers of the spirit of the Church, the faithful guardians of Church traditions, they recorded this in their writings and, thus, brought them into the treasury of Church Tradition. By the grace of God, the Orthodox Church lives to this day, carefully guarding the treasury of traditions, and the Spirit of God, we believe, enriches this treasury in our sinful times, according to the needs of the Church, raising up in the Church such men of faith and spiritual experience as St. Philaret of Moscow, Theophan of Vyshensky and others. Their contributions to the treasury of the Church's understanding of the Word of God will remain forever a precious property of Church Tradition. Even if something human is mixed with their opinions, then it will later come away of itself, but pure wheat, and the spirit of churchliness, will remain in their writings and will nourish future generations of children of the Church. The Church will appreciate the humble, reverent "labor of love" of these and similar pastors and teachers in interpreting the Word of God, will appreciate their love for its traditions, and will hold them up as an example to future successors... Thus, the Church's tradition is built up even in our poor days of faith, and the Spirit of God, we believe, guides us in this creation, by which the message Himself is in the ways. It is always based on the word of God, on the tradition of the Church of centuries past, always in accordance with these sources of Church teaching, and only reveals this teaching, applying itself to the needs of our time. And in this is manifested the life of the Church, as the body of Christ, ever living and ever one. That is why the Church, in her Catechism, recognizes the sacred Church Tradition as the source of Divine revelation on a par with Holy Scripture. That is why the zealots for the dissemination of the Holy Scriptures, refusing to disseminate interpretations of it approved by the Church, and thus, as it were, allowing the readers to be guided by their thinking against the Church, against those who thirst to understand the Word of God according to the mind of the Church. That is why, I will say in conclusion, it is impossible not to wish that the Society for the Dissemination of Holy Scripture would finally change its statutes, become without any doubt on the Orthodox soil in its holy work, cease, so to speak, to act with one hand, and include in the circle of its duties the distribution not only of the holy books, but also of interpretations of these sacred books approved by the Church. We live in a time when there should be nothing unsaid, nothing doubtful...

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