And you are the first - remember this! "You will be the first to die in the clutches of this fierce, merciless beast!"

"My Diaries"

1913

A double-edged sword

Never, perhaps, even in times of persecution from the pagans, have there been so many dangers for the Church as in our supposedly peaceful days. It is threatened by both external and internal enemies. The external ones are sects and schisms that have openly fallen away from it; the internal ones are those who have not openly broken their unity with it, but are no longer like-minded, already philosophizing in their own thinking in matters of faith and understanding of life according to faith. And the latter, under certain conditions, can be more dangerous than the former. Having lost confidence in the authority of the leadership of the Church, they can easily submit to the influence of heretical wisdom and become entangled in the nets set by heretics. And this may happen unnoticed by themselves: for some time they will still consider themselves Orthodox, believing that the differences of opinion they have adopted are not essential, but then, having strengthened themselves in these differences, they will accuse the Church herself of misunderstanding her teaching and thus carry away other, faithful children of the Church. And these children of the Church, knowing them to be Orthodox, will listen to their wisdom without any fear and be poisoned by them. That is why we, the pastors of the Church, need to stand vigilantly on guard over the holy sites of Orthodoxy, attentively following all, even apparently favorable trends and phenomena in the spiritual life of the people and educated society, knowing that Satan is sometimes transformed into an angel of light, and poison is sometimes offered in the guise of medicine... And the more innocent the outward form in which a dangerous tendency for the Church is clothed, the more useful this or that initiative, this or that good thought is presented, the more carefully it should be discussed from the point of view of Church teaching, the more it should be illuminated by the light of the Church. And this seems to be admitted, at least by some of those who are faithful to the precepts of the Church and understand the dangers that threaten her in our day. Involuntarily, you become a little, sometimes to the point of pain, when you constantly see how the enemy creeps up from the side from which you do not expect him. And therefore, let us, the pastors of the Church, be forgiven by those good laymen (I do not expect this from pastors) who unintentionally, carelessly, out of inexperience in the spiritual life and in the matter of teaching, sometimes one-sidedly illuminate this or that question in the field of this teaching, and thus give us reason to pay attention to this one-sidedness as a warning to the children of the Church against being carried away by this one-sidedness. We believe that such instructions are useful not only to these children of the Church, but also to those who are the willing or unwilling culprits of this infatuation. In the Church of God, as in the living body of Christ, all members must take care of each other, and each must know and do his own work in the spirit of love and holy obedience to the Lord and to her, our mother, the Church.

Recently I happened to be in a meeting of the Christian Fellowship of Student Youth. The report was made by the chairman of the Society for the Dissemination of the Holy Scriptures in Russia, the venerable E. K. Pistolkors, on the topic "On the Practical Significance of the Word of God in Life." In a lively, animated love speech for the word of God, the speaker depicted the "various facets" of the word of God, comparing it to a precious diamond - its effect on the human soul, the need for a Christian to study it, to put it into practice, "to react with it to the sad reality of our time" and to strive for spiritual rebirth through the word of God... The speech ended, but, as they say, there was something left unsaid in the air. The head of the "Commonwealth", Archpriest Lahostsky, invited those present to express themselves on the content of the report, and a young girl appeared at the department. A sensitive young soul tried to express what it seemed to me that she was not the only one in her heart. She pointed out that the speaker had somehow silenced the Church: in calling for the reading of the word of God, he did not mention that in church, during divine services, it is read constantly, that when reading at home, one must be especially careful in understanding it... After an exchange of thoughts between several persons, for my part, I said that I was very glad to meet not only with the representative, but also with the chairman of the society with whom I had conducted a polemic in Tserkovny Vestnik 25 years ago. At that time I pointed out one essential defect in the statutes of this society, a deficiency which is felt especially in our time. The fact is that the society has set itself the task of disseminating exclusively the word of God, the Holy Scriptures, not allowing any interpretations of the word of God, even approved by the Church, to be distributed through its book-carriers. Such a one-sided presentation of the matter does not at all correspond to our Orthodox understanding of this essentially holy matter. Even the Apostle Peter, for example, noted that in the Epistles of the Apostle Paul "there is something incomprehensible, which the ignorant and the unconfirmed, like the rest of the Scriptures, turn to their own destruction" (2 Pet. III, 16). The same Apostle, while commending believers for turning to the word of God "as to a lamp shining in a dark place," nevertheless warns "that no prophecy in the Scriptures can be resolved by itself" and that this must be "known first of all" (2 Pet. I, 20). The speaker himself said that the word of God, according to the testimony of the Apostle Paul, is a spiritual sword, and moreover it is "sharper than any two-edged sword" (Heb. IV, 12). Whoever knows how to wield this sword defeats the enemies of his salvation, and whoever does not know how to wield it as he should, can easily harm his own soul with it. It should always be remembered that this weapon is often used by our enemies – the devil and his faithful servants, various false teachers. Remember how Satan tempted the Lord: and he referred to the Holy Scriptures: "It is written... In a similar way he tempted the holy ascetics: for example, inducing them to violate the vow of chastity, he pointed to the words of the Scriptures: it is not good for the man alone to be... marriage is honest in all, and the bed is undefiled. All heresies, all false teachings and schisms arose because people did not understand the true meaning of the Holy Scriptures. If a person reads any passage in Scripture and begins to interpret it in his own way, as he pleases, he will err in his interpretation, and there he will separate himself from the unity of the Church of God, he will become a heresiarch. Do I need to give examples? Arius decided to interpret the words of Christ the Savior in his own way: "My Father is greater than Me," and he stumbled in his wisdom, and fell into blasphemous heresy: he called the Son of God, one in essence with the Father, the same creature as the Angels of God, for which he was anathematized at the First Ecumenical Council. And how many such insane, self-willed interpreters of the Holy Scriptures there were, and all of them were stubborn opponents of the Holy Church, sons of perdition! One interpreted the second commandment of God in his own way and became an iconoclast, the other began to explain the words of the Apostle in his own way: "One intercessor between God and man is Christ Jesus," and began to philosophize as if it was no longer necessary to call upon the help of the Mother of God, or the holy angels, or the holy saints of God in prayer; A third read the words of the same Apostle: "By grace thou hast a canopy, through faith," and began to interpret as if good works were not at all required for salvation... Such are the blasphemous false teachings that arise from the fact that people do not take up their own business – they interpret the word of God in their own way, as it comes to their minds, and not in the way the Holy Orthodox Church explains it.

What is to be done, what is to be done, so as not to err in the understanding of the Holy Scriptures? How to learn to wield this two-edged sword? First of all, always remember that you are not saved by yourself, not as an individual who supposedly has direct access to your Saviour, but only as a member of His body, the Church, you are saved in the Church and through the Church. The Lord entrusted the entire work of salvation to the Church, and outside of her saving bosom there is no salvation, just as no one escaped the universal flood outside of Noah's ark. Blessed Augustine says: "Only he is saved who has Christ as his head, and only he who is in His body, which is the Church, has Christ as his head." It and it alone is the pillar and ground of truth (1 Tim. 3:15), in it is the divinely established hierarchy, in it are all the divinely established sacraments, it is the guardian of sacred tradition and the infallible interpreter of the word of God. "One should not seek the truth from others," says St. Irenaeus, "it is easy to borrow it from the Church, for in it, as in a rich treasury, the Apostles placed everything that belongs to the truth. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God, there is all grace." "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!"

Here are the precepts of the Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church! In this guiding general rule, or dogma, of salvation is already contained the answer to the question: what to do in order not to err in the understanding of the Holy Scriptures. Hold fast to the teaching and guidance of the Mother Church; when you encounter something in the word of God that is incomprehensible to you, seek explanations not in your own wisdom, not in the wisdom of self-appointed interpreters of the Scriptures, of which there are so many now, but where your holy mother, the Orthodox Church, commands you to look for it. And it points out to us such explanations in the Holy Scriptures themselves (for example, what is incomprehensible in the Old Testament is often explained in the New), offers in its symbols, or expositions of the Orthodox faith, in the definitions of the holy councils, in the writings of the Fathers and Teachers of the Church – this is where you will find the solution to all your perplexities. The Holy Fathers interpreted the Holy Scriptures as they were taught by the holy Apostles. From the 2nd Epistle of the Apostle Peter it is already evident that he explained to his disciples the "incomprehensible" passages of the Epistles of the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul repeatedly refers to what he taught verbally. And how strictly the holy fathers and teachers of the Church preserved everything that they received from the holy Apostles, this is evident from their own writings. Thus, St. Irenaeus decisively says that "those who do not know the apostolic tradition cannot know the truth from Holy Scripture alone." St. St. Clement of Alexandria says that "those who interpret the Holy Scriptures not according to Church tradition, but according to their own wisdom, have lost the rule of truth." "Only then will human errors cease," writes St. Cyprian, "when we interpret the word of God in accordance with the tradition of the Church." "One should not go into the explanation of Holy Scripture oneself," warns St. Barsanuphius the Great, "for this matter presents no small danger to unbelievers. When you do not know, it is better not to say anything, because to speak of the Holy Scriptures according to your own understanding is madness." That is why the Holy Church at the Sixth Ecumenical Council decisively legislated: "If the word of Scripture be examined, let it be explained in no other way, except as the luminaries and teachers of the Church, the God-bearing Fathers, expounded" (Prov. 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 stronger: if you are commanded, 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 for him 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: "Thou hast concealed this, Father, from the 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. About St. Chrysostom, for example, his disciple and friend, and later successor in the cathedra, St. Proclus, recounted, 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 thinking alone 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 her traditions, and the Spirit of God, we believe, enriches this treasury even 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 their future successors... In this way 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, and by them Himself the message 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 readers to be guided by their own thinking in this holy matter, sin against the Church, against those who thirst to understand the word of God according to the understanding 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 nothing unsaid, nothing doubtful... About anonymous people, about "dissidents" and the answer of one of them.

Anonymous letters are in vogue today. Their usual content is barbs, reproaches, direct abuse or slander, and all this is from around the corner, so that the recipient does not know who is writing. True, sometimes writers seem to have a good purpose: to point out certain shortcomings and disorders, but then why should honest people hide themselves, at least from the person to whom they write?.. It is another thing to ask the addressee not to announce the name of the author of the letter, but for the addressee the name must be accurate, with the full address. Otherwise, these supposedly "well-intentioned" correspondents put themselves on a par with slanderers and scoffers, and all of them have the same name: cowards; in the first two cases - vile cowards, in the last - cowardly hares!

That is why I humbly ask everyone who even praises me to sign their letters to me in full, so that I can sometimes answer in writing, without taking up lines in my printed diaries. After all, it often turns out to be just an insignificant misunderstanding, and it is not worth answering in print, you could answer with a letter, but here it is a pity to leave a person in error, but it is not worth occupying the attention of several thousand readers with a printed answer. So you throw the letter into the trash.

It goes without saying that my request will not bring the "vile cowards" to their senses, they will not stop swearing, thus proving only the old truth that the impotent man's hat is "burning" on his head and he imagines that he is causing me grief with his scolding, while the value of such abusive letters is known: they only prove to me every time that the word of truth that I utter bothers someone, and therefore it is useful for the work of God, for which glory be to God! As for slander against one's neighbor, of which there are so many in anonymous books, we, pastors, follow the example of King David, who drove out every secret slanderer (Psalm 100:5) - we tear up such a letter and throw it into a basket or into a fireplace.

I appeal to those who think that they serve God with anonymous letters. Our teaching: the end cannot justify the means. God does not need the help of Satan, who is the father of lies and all deception. If it is your wish that I do not name my correspondent in the press, then let this correspondent of mine say about this in a letter to me: I will fulfill his wish. And I personally need to know with whom I am talking by letter. I repeat: often I would like to reply to the author of an anonymous letter by letter, but he hid behind some letter or did not deign to sign at all. In this way he deprives himself of the means of knowing what I believe to be the truth. And from this I have the right to conclude that my anonymous correspondent does not want to know what I could answer him. At least - is it polite?