1. The Testimony of the Apostolic Preaching

The apostolic preaching, as enshrined in the book of Acts and in the Epistles, was from the very beginning a sermon and an evangelism of the "historical Jesus," proceeded from the fact and events of His actual life, and was based on this. All the emphasis here lay precisely on a certain single historical event, all attention was turned to the living person of Christ Jesus. The Epistles of St. Paul. Paul, which fix in writings the main features of his oral evangelism. The Four Gospels, the "fourfold Gospel," as it was already called in antiquity, have the same character of historical narration and historical representation. This is precisely the story of the life, preaching, deeds and miracles, of the death and resurrection of the Savior the Lord Jesus Christ, and one of the most famous modern historians of the Church, Hell, quite rightly speaks. Harnack: "Whoever, on the basis of what the first Gospels give, even if we subject them to the strictest historical criticism, does not feel that they reveal a powerful, heart-conquering Personality who cannot be invented, is incapable of perceiving historical and personal life from sources and distinguishing it from fiction"... For in the Gospel there is first of all a living image of Christ, perfumed and warmed by personal remembrance and devoted love. The content of the first apostolic preaching basically coincided with the Gospel. A personal attitude to Christ, the memory of life and treatment of Him determined its entire tone and content. It was the sermon of eyewitnesses. And the very name of the apostles was originally limited to the circle of the Lord's self-witnesses, who were His companions and listeners during His earthly journey, from the Baptism of John to the days of His death on the Cross and Resurrection, and in His personal calling and embassy, from Him they had the foundation and support of their evangelistic authority (cf. Acts 1:21-22). The Apostles always proceed from specific historical facts and events and then reveal and explain the meaning of what has happened and what has happened and its saving power. They bring to life in the minds of their hearers, reproduce before their pious eyes the image of Christ, and then reveal Who He was. And the whole uniqueness and extraordinary nature of this historical image lies in the fact that He, visible and perceived as a man, was not only a man, but the Son of God and the Savior of the world. That is why the image of Christ does not fit into the earthly, only human framework, it outgrows them, and something super-historical and super-earthly is revealed in the historical facets. But these boundaries themselves are never erased or blurred, historical, human features never fade. In this lies the whole pathos and meaning of the apostolic preaching, that it is a story, a story about what we have seen and heard, "what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have seen, and what our hands have touched" (1 John 1:1). A story is about what came true and happened, and what happened in certain conditions of time and place. And the unprecedented happened: the Word was made flesh (John 1:14), the Son of God became the Son of man, "and was found in the likeness of a man" (Phil. 2:7). The Son of God became and was man – this is the focus of the Gospel preaching. And the face of the incarnate Lord is first of all inscribed by the apostolic hand in the Gospel. This is a human face, but not only a human one, for Jesus, whom many saw and heard, followed and treated Him, was not only a man, but also God. But He was also a real man. Man is fully and not only human - in the combination of both statements is the whole meaning, the whole mystery of the Gospel and the preaching of the Apostles.

The first apostolic sermon recorded on the pages of the Book of Acts, the sermon of St. Paul. Peter, on the very Day of Pentecost, relies on historical facts: "Jesus of Nazareth, a man testified unto you of God by powers, and wonders, and signs, which God hath wrought through him among you, as ye yourselves know. This, according to the definite counsel and foreknowledge of God, you took and, nailing him with the hands of the wicked, killed him... This Jesus God raised up, of which we are all witnesses... God hath made this Jesus, whom ye have crucified, Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:22-23, 32, 36). And the Apostle preaches about the same thing again at the healing of the lame man: "The God of Abraham. Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his Son Jesus, whom you betrayed and denied in the face of Pilate, when he thought to deliver Him" (Acts 3:13ff.; cf. 4:10,27; 5:30). And again in the house of Cornelius the centurion, in Caesarea, Ap. Peter preaches thus: "You know what happened in all Judea, beginning with Galilee, after the baptism preached by John. As God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power, and He went about doing good and healing all who were possessed by the devil, because God was with Him; and we are witnesses of all that he did in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, and that at last they killed him by hanging him on a tree" (Acts 10:37-39 ff.)... The time when the Acts of the Apostles were recorded is not difficult to determine approximately. This was before the destruction of Jerusalem (by Vespasian in 70 AD), of which there is no hint in the book, and this determines the lowest chronological limit, after which it would be improbable to postpone its writing. The story of the Book of Acts ends at the arrival of Ap. Paul to Rome, and it can be thought that the book was written precisely in the first years of his Roman bonds, and before his martyrdom. In the book of Acts, then, we have the testimony of the Church in the sixties. And this is the testimony of the "historical Jesus", of Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and resurrected.

To the same time belongs the testimony of St. Paul. Paul. He was not a direct disciple of the Savior during His earthly life and preached to the tongues that lived far from Palestine, where the message of Christ passed through someone else's media. And it is all the more striking that Ap. Paul preaches Christ and about Christ, and does not only transmit His sermons and teachings. It is not difficult to gather together all the historical features and references that are abundantly explained in Paul's Apostolic Epistles, and they merge into a realistic image of a living person. It must be remembered that the Epistles of St. Paul. St. Paul's Works are addressed to already established Christian communities. This is not the first catechesis, not the first word to them about Christ. This is a repetition and supplement of what has already been handed down and preached, and therefore the Apostle only reminds us of many things. He repeatedly refers to his previous sermon: "I remind you, brethren, of the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you were established" (1 Corinthians 15:1). And this was the Gospel of the "historical Christ" – "for I taught you from the beginning, which I myself received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures" (vv. 3-4)... In the Epistles of Ap. It would have been in vain for Paul to search for a complete and coherent Gospel history - this was not part of their task, it was assumed to be known from the oral apostolic catechesis and preaching. Only about individual features and events does the Apostle speak here: "In fulfillment of the times, in recent days, God sent His Son, who was born of a woman, and was subject to the law" (Galatians 4:4). He became and was a man like unto us, "and in form he became like a man," he belonged to the family of Abraham and the family of David, he was of Israel according to the flesh (Phil. 2:7; Rom. 1:3; 9:5; Gal. 3:16). His brothers, and among them James, Ap. Paul names them more than once (see 1 Corinthians 9:5; Galatians 1:19; 2:9). This sufficiently outlines the real historical framework. With special emphasis the Apostle speaks of the death on the cross and the resurrection of Christ, and in these events he posits the essence of the entire work of Christ and the foundation of all Christian hope and faith. Before his conversion, Paul-Saul was a zealous Judaist, "an immoderate zealot for the traditions of the fathers", according to his own later confession, "cruelly persecuted the Church of God and devastated it", "breathed murders and threats against the disciples of the Lord" (Galatians 1:13-14; Acts 8:3; 9:1, etc.). It can be thought that he was then confused and stirred up by the "temptation of the Cross," the very same "temptation" in which he later saw and pointed out the main obstacle to the conversion of Jews and Greeks (1 Corinthians 1:18,23; cf. Galatians 5:11). His Pharisaic heart was indignant at the Crucifixion, while before the sign of damnation and shame. His soul revered the crucifixion later, when he wrote in Corinth: "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). Before his spiritual gaze was always predestined Jesus Christ, crucified (cf. Galatians 3:1) and risen from the dead. Constantly in his epistles the Apostle speaks of the Cross and death on the Cross, of "the blood of His Cross" poured out for the atonement of sins and as a propitiation sacrifice (Col. 1:20; Rom. 3:25), of the sufferings of Christ, who was killed by the Jews, of His burial (Galatians 3:13; Rom. 8:17; Phil. 3:10; 2 Corinthians 13:4; 1. Thessalonians 2.15; 1 Corinthians 15:4). And for him it is a remembrance and a reminder of recent and actual events. With the same insistence he speaks of the resurrection. "Jesus and the Resurrection" he preached in Athens (Acts 17:18). On faith in the resurrection of Christ, "Who has risen for our justification" (Rom. 4:25), is based all the preaching of St. Paul. Paul... "If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is also in vain... But Christ rose from the dead, as the firstfruits of them that slept" (1 Corinthians 15:14,20). Faith in the actual resurrection of Christ, crucified, was the living focus of all early Christian life. And again, complete and perfect religious-historical realism exceeds, outgrows the boundaries of everyday experience. The risen Christ sits at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for us. But even in His glorification He remains and does not cease to be a man like us, just as He was not only a man, and did not cease to be God and the Son of God "in the days of His flesh." In this "likeness" lies all the power of the redemptive work of Christ. And at the same time, the Apostle lays stress not on the generic similarity of nature, but on the living attitude and imitation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again on the third day, appeared to Peter, twelve and more than five hundred brothers, "of whom the greater part are still alive, and some have also rested" (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). "And after all he appeared to me," adds the Apostle. It is very expressive that Ap. Paul directly compares himself with the other apostles and emphasizes that he saw Jesus Christ. Our Lord (1 Corinthians 9:1). The Damascus vision was not a vision, but the appearance of the Lord in glory and light. It is no less realistic than the entire humiliated life of the Lord on earth. The resurrection and ascension of Christ does not break the connection with Him. In the perception and in the depiction of Ap. Paul, Christ is one and the same both "in the days of his flesh" and now, when he is in glory. To this one image, to the living Christ, is bound up all the piety of the communities edified by the Apostle, the center of which is the Eucharistic meal, celebrated "in remembrance" of Christ and His death (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:23 ff.). In the resurrection of Christ, the Apostle affirms the hope for the universal resurrection of the dead, of all the dead (1 Corinthians 15:12 et seq.), and in this comparison the real humanity of Christ is again emphasized, which is why He is the firstborn, the firstfruits of dying people, with whom He is inseparably connected. In the center of the sermon of Ap.

Christ is the firstborn of the dead, a type and example for people, with whom we must conform and harmonize our lives. The Apostle does not stop at the remembrance and reproduction of the circumstances of the earthly life of the Savior, he does not limit himself to this. In his instruction he leads the believers whom he has "begotten by the gospel" from visible humanity to the hidden divinity of Christ. But all of his theology remains a revelation and interpretation of the historical image of Jesus, of His historical work. In the apostolic depiction there is an indisputable duality: Christ is both a man and more a man. But this duality has been brought to unity, it cannot be dissected. In this inseparable duality lies the whole meaning of the person of Christ. Connected with this duality is all the power of the redemptive work accomplished by Christ on earth. It was not an ordinary man who suffered on the Cross, but the Son of God, who humbled Himself to the point of servitude. And the Son of God sat down on the mountain, becoming one among men. This idea is revealed with particular clarity in the Epistle to the Hebrews. This epistle is not a historical narrative, but a theological interpretation of the redemptive work of Christ, namely a historical and singular work accomplished "in these last days" (Hebrews 1:2), and its individual features are constantly referred to here. And the very references to the prophecies of the Old Testament enhance the historical flavor. Prophecies were spoken about the future, about what would one day really happen. And now it has happened, it has come true, it has happened. Christ removed the veil from the Old Testament (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:14). That which was ahead in time for the righteous of the Old Testament, as an object of hope and hope, is now in the past and present. As the fulfillment and completion of prophecies and transformations, the image of Christ is put into a historical and chronological perspective. Everywhere and everywhere the Apostle speaks of the "historical Jesus," of what was and has happened.

The image of Christ, preserved and transmitted to the world in the apostolic preaching, is sealed and fixed in the Gospel.

In the four canonical Gospels, attested by the Church, the image of the God-Man is drawn with all the fullness of historical realism. And in this image, a unique and unique historical situation is conveyed with the utmost expressiveness. The historical image of the God-Man is drawn and drawn against the real background of life at that time. His disciples, questioners, and enemies stand before us as if they were alive. This is a story about what happened, a depiction of real events, meetings, conversations. The history of the Gospel was primarily the content of the early Christian evangelism and catechesis. First of all, it was told by the apostles and evangelists, who, in the words of the Teacher, acted as "witnesses" about Him. First of all, they reproduced what had been, drew the image of Christ as a Teacher and Wonderworker, as a denouncer and judge, conveyed His words, told about His deeds and signs. But not only did they tell and remember, but they also explained, interpreted the past, revealed the meaning of what was happening.

The Gospel is first of all a story, but a story about the God-Man. Precisely because this is a story and historical evidence, there is a certain understatement in it. The Gospel requires explanation and disclosure. For faith is not exhausted by memory, but is fulfilled only in the creative and living assimilation of what has been seen and learned, in living recognition and communion with Christ. The historical image of the God-man, born on earth, living and teaching among people – such is the content of the Gospel story, and therein lies its mysterious originality. In the Gospel is given an integral and unified image – in our perception it very often doubles and disintegrates, just as it may have doubled in the consciousness of those who contemplated Christ Himself with sensual eyes – until the heart was seen by faith. In the Gospels, everything speaks of One; and to the same belongs the majestic beginning of the Fourth, the "spiritual" Gospel, and all the narratives of humiliation, sorrows, deprivations, sufferings, and death. And only he who grasps this integral and living unity with a single glance will understand the Gospel to the end and see exactly what their scribes wrote in the Gospels.

This is a living memory of the past, what happened, but not the past.

The Gospel is the story and record of eyewitnesses, the outline of an image imprinted and preserved in memory. If not all the four Evangelists were, in the proper and precise sense of the word, self-witnesses of the earthly life of the Saviour, then even those who were not, relied precisely on the story and memory of the self-witnesses. According to ancient testimony (Papias of Hierapolis, II century), the Evangelist Mark, "Peter's interpreter", in his narration relied precisely on the stories and sermons of St. Paul. Peter, although "he himself did not listen to the Lord and did not accompany him." The Evangelist Luke directly refers to "eyewitnesses": "Since many have already begun to compose narratives of events that are completely known among us, as those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word from the very beginning have handed down to us, it has been decided that I, too, after a careful examination of everything from the beginning, should describe it in order" (Luke I. 1-3)... And at the same time, the Gospel in its fourfold composition is a record of the apostolic preaching - the written Gospel was preceded by the "gospel", the oral gospel. In this sense, the Gospel is the apostolic witness to Christ, the "memories of the apostles" or "memorial records," as St. Justin Martyr (second century) expressed it about the Gospels. In a sense, the Gospel is already an apostolic preaching, in which it is written, according to the direct testimony of the Evangelist John himself, not all that "Jesus did," and, of course, not all that the apostolic memory preserved (cf. Io. XXI. 25; TWENTIETH. 30). It was not the task of the Evangelists to give a complete historical account of the life of Christ, as it were, day by year. They drew His image and narrated Him in order to describe His face. This is not a chronicle, but a gospel.

The pictorial task did not require either chronicle rigor or chronicle completeness. The image does not lose its historical character and realism from this. The same must be said about the transmission and reproduction of the Savior's conversations and words. The Gospel can be called a historical icon, and moreover, it is an icon of the God-Man. To be more precise, four icons are a kind of four-shaped icon. And these four icons or images do not fully coincide with each other - even with a superficial observation it is not difficult to notice the "disagreements of the Evangelists". But it is necessary to remember how Christian antiquity treated them: it never tried or tried to erase or at least mitigate these visible "contradictions"; The history of the Gospel text knows nothing of such "biased corrections."

The Gospel images agree and coincide in the identity of the depicted, and the unity of the Divine-human face. And it must be added that the experience of the Gospel code was not successful in the Church, although very early such an experiment was made – to compile a single sequential story "by four" (the so-called Diatessaron of Tatiana, second half of the second century). The historical image of Christ is preserved in the Church in four reflections. And in all there is one Person, one Face.

The Gospel is the history of the earthly life of Man, who was not only a man.

So it was. In the multiplicity of individual memories, an unforgettable image of Jesus Christ comes to life. The earthly plane of the Gospel history is more than once cut through and permeated by the heavenly. To be more precise, it is always mysteriously transparent, the Divine reality always shines through historical evidence. True, not everyone can see it, just as they did not see it then... On the other hand, unbelievers and doubters are confused by this, and they are deterred by the historical authenticity of the Gospel story and description. It seems to them that something that is so unlike ordinary reality cannot be filmed or copied from nature. Hence the temptation to "correct" the Gospel image and tell it, to make it more ordinary. This is reflected in the hidden and biased denial of the Gospel miracle and the mystery of the Gospel, the mystery and miracle of God-manhood. No arguments can break such a denial, since it also rebels against the evidence of the Gospel. Here in the Gospel the preconceived opinion is confronted with a fact which it does not want to see and acknowledge, and therefore simply denies its validity as impossibility.