Chapter V. Man

Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God! Thou art wonderfully great, Thou art clothed with glory and majesty... Thou hast set the earth on firm foundations: it shall not be shaken for ever and ever. Thou hast covered it with the abyss, as with a garment; there are waters on the mountains. They flee from Thy rebuke, and quickly depart from the voice of Thy thunder... Thou hast sent springs into the valleys: between the mountains they flow, they give water to all the beasts of the field; wild asses quench their thirst. The birds of the air dwell with them, and from among the branches they make a voice. Thou shalt water the mountains from Thy heights, and the earth shall be satisfied with the fruits of Thy works. You bring forth grass for cattle and herbs for the benefit of man... Thou hast stretched out darkness, and there is night: during it the beasts of the forest roam; lions roar for prey and ask God for food. The sun rises, and they gather and lie down in their lairs. A man goes out to his work and to his work until evening. How numerous are Thy works, O Lord! Thou hast done all things wisely: the earth is full of Thy works. This sea is great and vast: there are reptiles that are innumerable, small animals with large ones. There are ships sailing, there is this leviathan that Thou hast created to play in it. You give them - they accept; if you open Your hand, they are filled with goodness... I will sing to the Lord all my life, I will sing to my God as long as I am... Bless the Lord, O my soul! Psalm 102The sun has bent to the west. Half the sky is covered with golden lights. Even small lilac clouds have golden edges. Under the heavens are the sad expanses of fields. What a depth of sadness in the Russian fields... It calls the soul to a country far, far away from the earth. The doors to the temple are open. From there we hear the singing of the evening psalm: "Bless the Lord, O my soul. Blessed art Thou, O Lord. Wondrous are Thy works, O Lord"... From the windows of the church one can see how evening goodness and peace fall on the fields, on the arable land and the distant forest... We are called to see other dawns and dawns, which are incomparably more beautiful than earthly ones, we must still go to the place where true peace and peace of heart are found." Memoirs of a Shepherd"When the yellowing field is agitatedAnd a fresh leaf rustles at the sound of the breeze,And a crimson plum hides in the forestUnder the shade of a sweet green leaf; When the dew is sprinkled with fragrant,On a ruddy evening or in the morning the hour of gold,From under the bush a silver lily of the valley nods its head in a friendly way; When the cold spring plays on the ravineAnd, plunging my thought into some vague dream,Babbles to me a mysterious sagaAbout the peaceful land from which it rushes, -Then the anxiety of my soul is humbled,Then the wrinkles on my brow part, -And happiness I can comprehend on earth,And in the heavens I see God... M. LermontovAnd now the amazing view of the mountain ranges and the delightfully picturesque beauty of the area on all sides and along the entire length to the horizon, as far as the eye could reach, opened up to our eyes... The sun was sinking to the west and with its rays gilded the whole country: the tops of the mountains, and the deep abysses yawning with darkness and inspiring fear, and the small glades between the mountains, here and there, covered with greenery... In all the space around us reigned dead silence and perfect silence: that was the absence of all worldly vanity. Here, far from the world, nature celebrated its rest from the bustle and revealed the mystery of the age to come... It was the temple of the Living God not made with hands, where every object proclaimed His glory and performed God's service..., preaching His omnipotence, everlasting power and Divinity... The Book of Nature revealed to us here one of the magnificent pages, and we saw and read everywhere... the footprints of God, and through the contemplation of creation they came to know the invisible perfections of God (Romans 1:20)... The silence of the mountains and the valleys gave rise to a new feeling: it was a state of inscrutable silence and peace... it was a quiet and spiritual joy - there was "a thin voice of coldness, where the Lord is" (3 Kings 19:12)... And so we sat and were silent, looking and wondering, and nourishing our hearts with sacred rapture, experiencing those sublime moments of inner life when a person feels the nearness of the invisible world, enters into sweet communion with it, and hears the terrible presence of the Divine. At this time, overwhelmed with holy feelings, he forgets everything earthly. His heart, warming up like wax from fire, becomes capable of receiving the impressions of the heavenly world. It burns with the purest love for God, and man tastes the bliss of inner enrichment; hears in his feeling that not for earthly vanity, but for the communion of eternity, the short days of earthly existence are given to him." On the mountains of the Caucasus, "Let us glorify the best Artist, Who created the world with wisdom and skill, and from the beauty of the visible let us understand Him Who surpasses all in beauty, and from the greatness of these sensible things let us draw a conclusion about the Infinite, Who surpasses all greatness and in the multitude of His power surpasses all knowledge. To know that there is a hidden Reality that is revealed to us as the highest Beauty, to know and feel it - this is the core of true religiosity. consider the powers of roots, juices, flowers, smells... consider also the preciousness and transparency of stones. Nature, as at a common feast, offered you everything... that you, above all, may know God from the blessings themselves... Go around the sea bays connected to each other and to the land, the beauty of forests, rivers, abundant and inexhaustible springs... Tell me, how and where did all this come from? What is the meaning of this great and artless fabric?.. Reason does not find anything to base itself on, except for God's will... Search, human, if you can explore and find something! Who dug rivers in the plains and mountains? Who gave them an unhindered flow?.. Whoever poured the air is abundant and inexhaustible wealth?.. Let us suppose that you have comprehended the circles, the revolutions, the approaches and the distances, the ascension of the stars and the sun, some parts and their subdivisions, and everything for which you extol your wondrous science... We know that there are some angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, luminaries, ascents, intellectual forces or minds, natures pure, unalloyed, unyielding or incapable of evil, constantly rejoicing around the First Cause... These minds have each accepted one part of the universe or are assigned to one thing in the world, as this was known to the One Who arranged and distributed everything, and they all... they sing the praises of God's majesty, they behold the eternal glory... St. Gregory the TheologianHe Himself is the Creator and Creator of the angels who brought them into existence out of nothing, Who created them in His own image... Of these angelic powers, the angel who stood at the head of the earthly order and to whom God entrusted the protection of the earth, was not born evil by nature, but was good and came into being for a good purpose... not having endured both the light and the honor that the Creator had granted him, he changed from a state of natural to an unnatural one by his own will... and the first, having fallen away from good, found himself in evil. For evil is nothing else but the deprivation of good, just as darkness is the deprivation of light; For good is spiritual light, in the same way evil is spiritual darkness.St. John of DamascusBefore the heavens were created, before the earth was produced, there was God the Creator, alone alone, the Light without beginning, the Light uncreated, the Light completely ineffable... There was no air, as there is now, no darkness at all, no light, no water, no ether, or anything else, but there was one God - the Spirit completely luminous and at the same time omnipotent and immaterial. He created angels, principalities and powers, cherubim and seraphim, dominions, thrones and unnamed ranks, serving Him and coming with fear and trembling. And after that He brought forth the heavens as a vault, material and visible... and together the earth, the waters and all the deeps... Thus, heaven was created material, and, differing in nature from the immaterial Light, remained as it were a great house without light; but the Lord of the Universe kindled the sun and the moon, so that they might shine for the sensible (creatures) in a sensual way... He Himself is far from all (material) light, and, being brighter than light and more brilliant than radiance, is intolerable to every creature. For just as in the light of the sun the stars are not visible, so if the Lord of creation wishes to shine, no living person will endure His rising.

The Creation of Man

Man is the crown of creation, the pinnacle of the creative process of the three Persons of the Divine Trinity. Before creating man, They consult with one another: "Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness" (Gen. 1:26). The "eternal council" of the Three was necessary not only because man is born as a higher being, endowed with reason and will, dominating the entire visible world, but also because, being absolutely free and independent of God, he would violate the commandment, fall away from heavenly bliss, and the sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross would be needed to open the way for him back to God. Intending to create man, God sees his future fate, because nothing is hidden from God's eyes: He sees the future as the present.But if God foresaw the fall of Adam in advance, does this not mean that Adam is innocent, since everything happened according to the will of the Creator? Answering this question, St. John of Damascus speaks of the difference between God's "foreknowledge" and "predestination": "God knows everything, but does not predetermine everything. For He knows beforehand what is in our power, but He does not predestinate it. For He does not want evil to happen, but He does not force good [1]." God's foreknowledge, therefore, is not the fate that determines the fate of man. It was not "written in the generation" for Adam to sin - the latter depended only on his free will. When we sin, God knows it beforehand, but God's foreknowledge does not absolve us of responsibility for sin. At the same time, God's mercy is so great that He is initially willing to sacrifice Himself in order to redeem mankind from the consequences of sin. Man is thus flesh of the flesh of the earth, from which he is fashioned by the hands of God. But God also "breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul" (Gen. 2:7). Being "earthly", earthly, man receives a certain Divine principle, a pledge of his communion with the Divine being: "Having created Adam in His image and likeness, God through inhalation put into him grace, enlightenment and a ray of the All-Holy Spirit" (Anastasius the Sinaite [2]). The "breath of life" can be understood as the Holy Spirit (both "breath" and "spirit" are referred to by the same term pneuma in the Greek Bible). Man participates in the Divinity by the very act of creation and therefore is radically different from all other living beings: he not only occupies the highest position in the hierarchy of animals, but is a "demigod" for the animal world. The Holy Fathers call man an "intermediary" between the visible and invisible worlds, a "mixture" of both worlds. They also call it, following the ancient philosophers, the microcosm - a small world, a small cosmos, uniting in itself the totality of created being [3].Man, according to St. Basil the Great, "had leadership in the likeness of angels" and "in his life was like archangels [4]". Being, however, the core of the created world, uniting in himself the spiritual and bodily principles, he in a sense surpassed the angels: wishing to emphasize the greatness of man, St. Gregory the Theologian calls him "the created god [5]." Creating man in His image and likeness, God creates a being called to become a god. Man is a God-man in his potential. Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2, 30^PG 89, 236C ^ See. Bishop Kallistos Ware. The Orthodox Way. P. 62–64^PG 31, 344C^PG 37, 690^

Image and likeness

"And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female he created he them" (Gen. 1:27). A lonely egocentric monad is incapable of love, and God creates not a one, but a two, so that love reigns between people. However, the love of the double is also not yet the fullness of love, since in the double there are two polar principles, the thesis and the antithesis, which must be completed in the synthesis. The synthesis of the human double is the birth of a child: a full-fledged family - husband, wife and child - is a reflection of the triune Divine love. That is why God says: "Be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:28)... It is also impossible not to note the similarity between the alternation of the singular and plural forms, which is found in the Bible when it comes to God ("let us create in Our image" - "created in His image"), and the same alternation when it comes to man ("created him" - "created them"): this emphasizes the unity of the nature of the entire human race with the difference in the hypostases of each particular person. "God is at the same time one Nature and three Hypostases; man is at the same time one nature and many hypostases; God is of one essence and trihypostasis; man is of one essence and multi-hypostasis [1]."The theme of the image and likeness of God is one of the central themes in Christian anthropology: to a greater or lesser extent, all ancient church writers tried to reveal it. Even Plato said that God "minted" living creatures "according to the nature of the prototype [2]". And Philo of Alexandria called man "created in the image of the ideal Prototype [3]". The Greek word "image" (eikon - hence "icon") means "portrait" or "image", that is, something created according to a model (prototypos - "prototype, prototype") and having a resemblance to a model, although not identical with the latter in nature. "Our mind... is akin to God, he serves as His intellectual image," says Origen [4]. "We are created in the image of the Creator, we have reason and word, which constitute the perfection of our nature," writes St. Basil the Great [5]. Is the human body the image of God? St. Basil thinks not. God is Spirit, and the image of God must be spiritual [6]. However, according to St. Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, the body, like any creation of God, bears the image of the Creator: "The human body, like the soul, is the artistic product of His (i.e., God's) humane and beneficent providence [7]." God created man absolutely free: out of His love, He does not want to force him to do either good or evil. In turn, He expects from man not just blind obedience, but reciprocal love. Only by being free can man become like God through love for Him.They speak of man's immortality and his dominant position in nature, as well as of his inherent desire for good as features of the image of God. Tatian calls man "the image of the immortality of God" [8], and St. Macarius of Egypt says that God created the soul "in the image of the virtue of the Spirit, putting into it the laws of virtue, prudence, knowledge, prudence, faith, love and other virtues, in the image of the Spirit [9]." God is a "worker": "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," says Christ (John 5:7). Man is also commanded to "cultivate" paradise (Gen. 2:15), that is, to work in it, to cultivate it. Man cannot create ex nihilo ("out of nothing"), but he can create from the material created by the Creator, and the material for him is the whole earth, where he is lord and master. Some Church Fathers distinguish "image" from "likeness," noting that an image is something that was originally placed in man by the Creator, and likeness is something that was to be achieved as a result of a virtuous life: "the expression 'in the image' means rational and endowed with free will, and the expression 'in likeness' means assimilation through virtue, as far as possible" (John of Damascus [10]). Man must realize all his abilities in the "cultivation" of the world, in creativity, in virtue, in love, in order to become like God through this, for "the limit of a virtuous life is likeness to God," as St. Gregory of Nyssa says. H. Yannaras. Faith of the Church. Introduction to Orthodox Theology. Moscow, 1992. P. 102 ^ Plato. Timaeus 39e ^ De opificio mundi 69. Cit. by: Archimandrite Cyprian (Kern). Anthropology of St. Gregory Palamas. Paris, 1950. pp. 105 ^ PG 11, 128 ^ PG 31, 221C ^ PG 30, 13 ^ PG 102, 180A-B ^ PG 6, 820B ^ V. E. P. 41, sel. 341 ^ Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2, 12 ^ Gregory of Nyssa. Interpretation of the Beatitudes 1, 4 ^

Body & Soul

All ancient religions knew that there is not only a material, but also a spiritual nature in man, but the correlation of these principles was understood in different ways. In dualistic religions, matter is initially evil and hostile to man: the Manichaeans even considered Satan to be the creator of the material world. In ancient philosophy, the body is a prison in which the soul is imprisoned, or a grave in which it is buried. For example, Plato derives the term soma (body) from sema ("tombstone", "coffin"): "Many believe that the body is like a tombstone, hiding the soul buried under it in this life... The soul endures punishment... and the flesh serves as a bulwark for it, so that it can survive, being in the body, as in a torture chamber [1]."Ancient Indian philosophical systems speak of the transmigration of souls from one body to another, including from man to animal (and vice versa): "As a man throws off old clothes and takes new ones, so after leaving the old body, the soul enters (Skt. dehih - spirit) into the new, the other," we read in the Bhagavad Gita [2]. The doctrine of metempsychosis (reincarnation) was rejected by the entire ancient Church tradition as not corresponding not only to Divine Revelation, but also to common sense: a person who possesses reason and free will cannot turn into an irrational animal, because any rational being is immortal and cannot disappear. In addition, the teaching that man on earth suffers punishment for his sins in previous lives contradicts the concept of the goodness of God: what is the point of punishment if a person does not know why he suffers it (after all, people do not remember their previous "existences")? united in the individual only for a certain time, but given simultaneously and forever in the very act of creation: the soul is "betrothed" to the body and inseparable from it. Only the totality of soul and body is a full-fledged person-hypostasis: neither soul nor body in themselves are such: "For what is man if not a rational living being consisting of soul and body? - says St. Justin the Philosopher. - So, is the soul itself a person? No... Can the body be called a person? No... Only a being consisting of a combination of both is called a man [3]." St. Gregory of Nyssa calls the indissoluble connection between soul and body "acquaintance," "friendship," and "love," which persist even after death: "In the soul and after separation from the body, certain signs remain... for the rich man and Lazarus (each other) knew each other in paradise. On the soul there remains, as it were, an imprint (of the body), and during the renewal it will again take upon itself (the body) [4]." Speaking of the body and matter in general, the Fathers of the Church emphasized their Divine origin, expressing themselves in a very lofty way: "I confess that matter is God's creation and it is beautiful...", says St. John of Damascus. "I do not worship matter, but I worship the Creator of matter, who became material for my sake... and to him who made my salvation through matter [5]." The assertion that Christianity allegedly preaches abhorrence of the flesh and contemptuous of the body seems to be profoundly wrong. Abhorrence of the flesh was characteristic of some heretics (Gnostics, Montanists, Manichaeans), whose views in patristic theology were sharply criticized: "Many of the heretics even say that the body was not created by God. It is not worth God creating it, they say, pointing to impurity, sweat, tears, toil, exhaustion, and all other imperfections of the body... But don't tell me about this fallen, condemned, humiliated man. If you want to know how God created our body in the beginning, then let us go to paradise and look at the first-created man" (John Chrysostom [6]).In all cases where Christian ascetic literature speaks of enmity between the flesh and the spirit (beginning with the Apostle Paul: "the flesh desires that which is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit that which is contrary to the flesh"; Gal. 5:17), we are talking about sinful flesh as a set of passions and vices, and not about the body in general. And when we speak of the "mortification of the flesh," we mean the mortification of sinful inclinations and "carnal lusts," and not contempt for the body as such. The Christian ideal is not to humiliate the flesh, but to purify it and free it from the consequences of the Fall, to return it to its original purity and make it worthy of being likened to God. In the Bible, this word sometimes refers to any living creature in general (Gen. 2:9), in other cases it is a certain vital principle or vital principle contained in the flesh (Gen. 9:4) and even blood (Lev. 17:11) of a living being, often the very life of a person (Gen. 19:17). In the Psalms of David it is often spoken of the soul as an inner immaterial principle in man: "My soul thirsts for Thee, My flesh yearns for Thee" (Psalm 62:2). The definition of the soul was given by St. Athanasius the Great: "The soul is an intelligent, incorporeal, passionless, immortal essence [7]." St. Gregory of Nyssa supplemented the definition: "The soul is a born essence, a living, intellectual essence, imparting by itself to the organic and sensual body the vital force [8]." In both definitions, the soul is called an essence (ousia), that is, it is not only a function of the body, its faculty, feeling, manifestation, but has an independent existence. The term "spirit" (Hebrew ruah, Greek pneuma) is of biblical origin and means rather "breath", sometimes "wind" (see, for example, Ps. 148:8, according to the LXX translation). The term "mind" (Greek nous) is borrowed from ancient philosophy and is not found in the Old Testament at all (it is replaced there by the concepts of "reason" and "prudence"), but it is often used by the Apostle Paul, and in the Greek Fathers of the Church it (and not "spirit") will become the main anthropological concept. By its nature, the mind is significantly different from everything that is in a person. He has the ability to comprehend the meaning of things, to penetrate into their essence. "And the mind sees, and the mind hears," said Menander [9]. And St. Anthony the Great says: "The mind sees everything, even that which is in heaven (i.e. in the spiritual world), and nothing darkens it except sin [10]." It is through the mind that a person can come into contact with God, pray to Him; with his mind he also hears God's "answer" to his prayer. St. Gregory Palamas calls the mind "a particle of the Godhead" [11], emphasizing its unearthly origin.In general, the biblical-Christian tradition is characterized by an exceptionally elevated view of man. The opinion about the "humiliation" of man in Christianity is deeply erroneous. What is a person in the perception of an atheist? This is a monkey, only with more developed abilities. What is a human being in the perception of a Buddhist? One of the reincarnations of the soul, which before its entry into the body of a man could exist in the body of a dog or a pig, and after the death of the human body can again find itself in the body of an animal. The concept of "personality" as the totality of soul and body, inseparably united, is completely absent: man in himself is only a certain intermediate stage in the soul's journey from body to body. In Christianity, a person is a person, a person created in the image of God, that is, being an icon of the Creator (Greek eikon means "image"). In his dignity, man is not inferior to angels. As the Prophet David says: "... What is man, that Thou rememberest him, and the son of man, that Thou visitest him? Thou hast humbled him not much before the angels: Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor; Thou hast made him ruler over the works of Thy hands; He put all things under his feet" (Psalm 8:5-7). Plato. Cratylus 400c ^ Bhagavad Gita 2, 22. Ashgabat, 1978. P. 86 ^ PG 6, 1585B ^ PG 44, 225B-229C ^ PG 94, 1297C-1300B ^ PG 49, 121 ^ PG 28, 608A ^ Gregoriou Nyssis erga. T. 1. Sel. 228 ^ Ibid. T. 1. Sel. 230 ^ Filokalia 1, 19 ^ PG 150, 144 ^

The life of the first people before the fall

To the materialistic view of the early stages of the development of mankind, when people were like beasts and led a bestial way of life, not knowing God and having no concept of morality, Christianity opposes the teaching about the blessedness of the first people in paradise and about their subsequent fall into sin and expulsion from paradise. It must be said that the legends about the initial bliss of people and their subsequent fall have been preserved in the mythology of many peoples, and there are some features of striking similarity between these legends. Isn't the Bible story one of these myths? And can it be treated as the real history of mankind or should it be perceived as an allegory? The Greek word mythos generally means a story, a story, a tradition, a parable, mainly a tale about gods and heroes, that is, about the prehistoric past of mankind. As A. Losev has shown, myth is not an invention, not a fantastic fiction and not an allegory, but "life itself", "being itself, reality itself", that is, real history, but expressed in words and symbols. At the same time, myth is a miracle, and in this it differs from the usual historical narrative based on a rational analysis of facts and events. The language of myth is the language of symbols: real history, becoming a myth, is clothed in words and images that have a symbolic meaning [1]. As this or that people moves away from the true faith, that is, from faith in one God, the real reality originally laid down in its mythology becomes more and more distorted and acquires fabulous, "mythical" (in the negative sense of the word) features. But there is still some truth in any mythology. This explains the similarities between the various mythologies.The biblical story differs from all ancient myths in that it belongs to God's chosen people - the only one who preserved the true faith, and therefore distortions did not penetrate into this story: he preserved the tradition intact. Moreover, the Church accepts everything that is written in the Bible as divinely revealed truth, that is, the truth revealed by God Himself through His chosen ones - teachers, apostles, prophets. In this sense, the biblical account is a real story, not an allegory or a parable. But, like any ancient tale, it is written in symbolic language, and every word, every image in it requires interpretation. We understand that "heaven and earth" is a symbol of something more significant than our astronomical sky and our globe. And the "serpent" who was "more cunning than all the beasts of the field" is not an ordinary snake, but some evil force that entered it. In the Bible, every last letter is true, but not everything is to be taken literally. Thus, having created man, God leads him into paradise - the garden that He "planted in Eden in the east" (Gen. 2:8). Paradise was given over to man, who lived in complete harmony with nature: he understood the language of the beasts, and they were obedient to him; all the elements were subordinate to him as a king. "The Lord hath made man the prince of this world, and the ruler of things visible. Neither the fire overcame him, nor the water drowned him, nor the beast harmed him," says St. Macarius of Egypt [2]. Adam had "shining glory" on his face, he was a friend of God, he was pure, he reigned over his thoughts and was blessed. The Word dwelt in Adam, and he had the Spirit of God in him. "The Word that dwelt in him was all things to him, knowledge, sensation, inheritance, and teaching."[4] God brings all the beasts to man, "to see what he shall call them, and that whatever man shall call every living creature, that shall be its name" (Gen. 2:19). And Adam gives names to all animals and birds, that is, he cognizes the meaning, the hidden logos of every living creature. For what is a name? It is more than just a symbol or a conventional designation of this or that creature. "The name - as the maximum tension of meaningful existence in general - is the foundation, force, goal, creativity and feat... of a lifetime... The name is the element of rational communication of living beings in the light of meaning and intelligent harmony, the revelation of mysterious faces and the bright cognition of the living energies of existence... Every living creature bears a name" (A. Losev [5]). By giving man the right to call the names of all creation, God as if brings him into the very heart of His creative process, calls him to co-creation, cooperation: "Adam had to behold the ineffable dispensation carried within himself by each animal. And they all approached Adam, acknowledging their slavish state... God says to Adam: be the creator of names, since you cannot be the creator of the creatures themselves... We share with you the glory of creative wisdom... Give names to those to whom I have given existence" (Basil of Seleucia [6]).God introduces man into the world as the priest of all visible creation. He is the only living creature who is able to praise God verbally and bless Him. The entire universe is given to him as a gift, for which he must offer a "sacrifice of praise" and which he must return to God as "Thine of Thine." In this unceasing Eucharistic (thanksgiving) sacrifice of man is the meaning and justification of his being, and at the same time his highest blessedness. Heaven, earth, sea, fields and mountains, birds and beasts - all creation as it were delegates man to this high priestly service in order to praise God through his lips.God allows man to eat from all the trees of paradise, including the tree of life, which grants immortality. However, he forbids eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because "to know evil" means to partake of evil and to fall away from bliss and immortality. The commandment of God is given, according to the explanation of St. John of Damascus, "as a kind of trial and trial, an exercise in the obedience and disobedience of man [7]." That is, a person is given the right to choose between good and evil, although God prompts him what the choice should be, warning him about the consequences of the Fall. Having chosen evil, man falls away from life and "dies by death"; having chosen the good, he ascends to perfection and achieves the highest goal of his existence.The goal of human life, according to the teaching of the Fathers of the Eastern Church, is "deification" (theosis). Assimilation to God and deification are one and the same: "Our salvation is possible only through deification. And deification is, as far as possible, assimilation to God and union with Him" (Dionysius the Areopagite [8]). The Apostle Paul calls this union with God "adoption" to God (Romans 8:15), the Apostle Peter - "communion of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4), Origen - "change (transformation) into God [9]". Union with God, which is the ultimate goal of human existence, is not merging with the divine essence and dissolution in the Divinity (as with the Neoplatonists), it is not, moreover, immersion in non-existence-nirvana (as with the Buddhists), but is life with God and in God, in which the personality of man does not disappear, but remains itself, partaking of the fullness of Divine love. A. Losev. Dialectics of myth. Philosophy, mythology, culture. Moscow, 1991. Ss. 23-27 ^ V. E. P. 42, 202 ^ Ibid ^ V. E. P. 41, 208 ^ A. Losev. Philosophy of the name. Moscow, 1990. P. 166. ^ PG 85, 40C-41A ^ Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2, 11 ^ PG 3, 376A ^ PG 11/1, 41 ^

Fall of man

"The serpent was more cunning than all the beasts of the field, which the Lord God had created" (Gen. 3:1); Thus begins the biblical narrative of the fall of the first people. This is the same "great dragon, the ancient serpent, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the world" spoken of in the Revelation of John the Theologian (Rev. 12:9) and who was once the Light-bearer (Lucifer), but fell away from the love of God and became the enemy of all good. St. John Chrysostom does not consider it possible to completely identify the devil with the serpent: he says that the devil used the serpent as a tool [1]. The devil deceives man with the "hope of deification," in the words of St. John of Damascus [2]. Man did not recognize deception because the desire for deification was put into him by the Creator. But deification is impossible without God, and the sign of the greatest pride is the desire to become equal to God in spite of Him.The biblical account of the Fall helps us to understand the entire tragic history of mankind and its present state, since it shows who we were and what we have become. He reveals to us that evil entered the world not through the will of God, but through the fault of man, who preferred the devil's deception to the Divine commandment. From generation to generation, mankind repeats the mistake of Adam, seducing false values and forgetting true ones - faith in God and faithfulness to Him. Freedom is the greatest gift that makes man the image of the Creator, but freedom initially contains the possibility of falling away from God. According to Archimandrite Sophrony, God, in creating man free, in a certain sense took a risk: "The creation of something is always a risky enterprise, and God's creation of man in His image and likeness involved a certain degree of risk... Giving man a godlike freedom opened up the possibility of resisting predestination in some form. Man is quite free to define himself negatively in relation to God - even to the point of conflict with Him [3]." God, because of His love for man, did not want to invade human freedom and forcibly prevent sin. But even the devil could not force man to evil. The culprit of the Fall is man himself, who used the freedom granted to him for evil.What was the sin of the first man? Blessed Augustine sees it in disobedience: "It cannot be that one's own will should not fall upon a man with the great weight of the fall, if he arrogantly prefers it to the higher will. This is what man experienced, having disobeyed the commandment of God, and through this experience he learned the difference between... the good of obedience and the evil of disobedience [4]."The majority of ancient church writers say that Adam fell because of pride: "Where the Fall occurred, there pride first settled," says St. John of the Ladder. "The punishment of the proud is a fall, and the vexation is the demon... From this one passion, without any other, someone (the devil) fell from heaven [5]." St. Symeon the New Theologian speaks of the same thing: "Eosphorus, and after him Adam, one being an angel and the other a man, came out of their nature and, being proud before their Creator, they themselves wanted to become gods [6]." Pride is a wall between man and God. The root of pride is egocentrism, self-centeredness, self-love, self-lust. Before the Fall, the only object of man's love was God, but now a value outside of God appeared - the tree seemed "good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable" (Gen. 3:6) - and the entire hierarchy of values collapses: my "I" is in the first place, and the object of my desire is in the second. There is no place for God: He is forgotten, expelled from my life. on the contrary, man suddenly felt his nakedness: he became ashamed, and he tried to hide from God. The feeling of one's own nakedness means the deprivation of that Divine covering light-bearing garment that protected man from the "knowledge of evil." A burning feeling of shame for one's own shame is the first feeling of a person after he has committed a sin. The second is the desire to hide from God, showing that he has lost the concept of God's omnipresence and is looking for some place where there is no God. A fall is not yet a falling away: a person could repent and thereby regain his former dignity. God goes out "in search" of fallen man: He walks among the trees of paradise and as if looking for him, asking "Where are you?" (Gen. 3:9). In this humble walk of God in paradise we see the humility of Christ, revealed to us in the New Testament, the humility with which God goes out to look for the lost sheep. He does not need to go and seek and ask, "Where art thou?" because He may call out from heaven with a voice of thunder or shake the foundations of the earth, but He still does not want to be the Judge of Adam, He still wants to be with him on an equal footing and hopes for his repentance. God's question contains a call to repentance, as Origen pointed out: "God said to Adam, 'Where are you?' not because he wanted to inquire about him, but because he wanted to remind him. For to him who at first walked in blessedness, but soon broke the commandment and became naked, he reminds (of this), saying: "Where are you? See in what state you were and where you are (now) when you have fallen away from the sweetness of paradise" [7]." If Adam had said "I have sinned," he would undoubtedly have been forgiven, affirms St. Symeon the New Theologian [8]. But instead of repentance, Adam pronounces self-justification, blaming his wife for everything: "... The woman whom Thou hast given me, she gave me of the tree, and I have eaten" (Gen. 3:12). You gave a wife, You are also to blame... And the wife blames the serpent for everything.The consequences of the Fall for the first man were catastrophic. Not only did he lose the bliss and sweetness of paradise, but the whole nature of man changed and distorted. Having sinned, he fell away from the natural state and fell into the unnatural state (Abba Dorotheus [9]). All parts of his spiritual and bodily composition were damaged: the spirit, instead of striving for God, became soulful, passionate; the soul has fallen into the power of bodily instincts; The body, in turn, lost its original lightness and turned into heavy sinful flesh. After the Fall, man became "deaf, blind, naked, insensible in relation to those (goods) from which he had fallen away, and moreover, he became mortal, perishable and senseless", "instead of divine and incorruptible knowledge, he took on carnal knowledge, for having become blind with the eyes of the soul... he saw with his bodily eyes" (St. Symeon the New Theologian [10]). Illnesses, sufferings and sorrows have entered human life. He became mortal because he lost the ability to eat from the tree of life.Not only man himself, but the entire world around him changed as a result of the Fall. The original harmony between nature and man is broken - now the elements can be hostile to him, storms, earthquakes, floods can destroy him. The earth will no longer grow everything by itself: it must be cultivated "by the sweat of its brow", and it will bring "thorns and thorns". Beasts also become enemies of man: the serpent will "bite his heel" and other predators will attack him (Gen. 3:14-19). The whole creation is subject to the "bondage of corruption," and now it will "await liberation" from this slavery together with man, because it submitted to vanity not voluntarily, but through the fault of man (Romans 8:19-21). not two or ten days, but... all his life. For how could one not cry, remembering... this meek Lord, this ineffable sweetness of paradise, this indescribable beauty of those flowers, this carefree and laborless life, this ascent and descent of angels to them?" (St. Symeon the New Theologian [11]). On the eve of Great Lent, the Church remembers Adam's exile, and the following words are sung at the service: "Adam was expelled from paradise through food; therefore, sitting opposite him, he wept, exclaiming in a touching voice: "Woe is me! How I suffered, miserable! I have transgressed one commandment of the Lord and have lost all blessings! O most holy paradise, planted for my sake... I will no longer enjoy your sweetness, nor will I see the Lord my God and Creator any more, for I will go to the ground from which I was taken." Explanatory Bible. T. 1. St. Petersburg, 1904. P. 24 ^ PG 96, 98B ^ Archimandrite Sophrony. His Life is Mine. New York, 1977. P. 32 ^ PL 34, 384 ^ Ladder 14, 32 [Ioannou tou Sinaitou Klimax. Athenai, 1989. Sel. 191] ^ Theological Homily 1, 357-359 [SC 122, 122] ^ V. E. P. 27, 67 ^ Catechetical Homily 5, 175-182 [SC 96, 390-392] ^ Homily 1, 1 [SC 92, 148] ^ Moral Homily 13, 63-67 [SC 129, 404] ^ Catechetical Homily 5, 282-310 [SC 96, 400] ^ Stanza on verse, see: Triodion katanyktikon, ekd. "Fos". Sel. 69 ^

Spreading Sin

After Adam and Eve, sin spreads rapidly among people. If they have sinned through pride and disobedience, then their son Cain commits fratricide... Cain's descendants very soon forgot God altogether and began to arrange their earthly life: Cain himself "built a city", of his closest descendants, one "was the father of all those who dwelt in tents with flocks", another "was the father of all those who play the harp and the flute", the third was "the forger of all instruments of brass and iron" (Gen. 4:17-22). That is, urban planning, cattle breeding, musical art and, in modern terms, "the production of tools" - all this was brought to mankind by the descendants of Cain as a kind of surrogate for the lost heavenly bliss. This is explained by the Apostle Paul: "As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed on to all men, because in him all sinned" (Romans 5:12). This text of Paul can be understood in different ways: the Greek words "ef' ho pantes hemarton" can be translated not only "because in him all sinned", but also "in whom all sinned" (i.e. in the person of Adam all people sinned). in this case, Adam is only a prototype of all future sinners, each of whom, repeating the sin of Adam, is responsible only for his own sins. "When we succumb to the influence of evil thoughts, let us blame ourselves, and not the sin of our ancestors," says St. Mark the Ascetic [1]. Adam's sin, according to this interpretation, is not the cause of our sinfulness, because we have no part in Adam's sin, and consequently his guilt should not be imputed to us.However, if we read "in whom all sinned" (as the Slavonic translator read: "in whom all sinned"), then we can speak of the imputation of Adam's sin to all subsequent generations of people due to the contamination of human nature with sin in general: the disposition to sin becomes hereditary, and the punishment for sin becomes universal. Man's nature is "sick with sin," in the words of St. Cyril of Alexandria [2], and, consequently, we are all guilty of Adam's sin because everything is of the same nature with him. St. Macarius of Egypt speaks of the "leaven of sin" [3] and of the "secret impurity and the abundant darkness of passions" [4], which entered into man's nature in spite of his primordial purity: sin was so deeply rooted in his nature that none of Adam's descendants was exempt from the hereditary predisposition to sin. "Behold, I was conceived in iniquity, and in sin my mother gave birth to me" (Psalm 50:7). They believed that God "punishes the children for the sins of their fathers, even to the third and fourth generation" (Exodus 20:5)—not innocent children, but those whose personal sinfulness was rooted in the guilt of their ancestors. Many theologians of the last centuries, who fought for the creation of "religion within the limits of reason alone" (Kant's expression), rejected this teaching as inconsistent with the arguments of reason. But not a single dogma is comprehended by reason, and religion within the limits of reason is not religion, but naked rationalism, because religion is super-rational, super-logical. The teaching about the responsibility of mankind for Adam's sin is revealed in the light of Divine Revelation and is comprehended in connection with the dogma of the redemption of man by the New Adam - Christ: "... As by the transgression of one man is the condemnation of all men, so by the righteousness of one man is justification unto life. For just as by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also by the obedience of one will many become righteous... that as sin reigned unto death, so grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 5:18-19, 21). Filokalia 1, 117 ^ PG 74, 785A ^ V. E. P. 41, 265 ^ V. E. P. 42, 205 ^