The Mystery of Faith. Introduction to Orthodox Dogmatic Theology

Anthology of Holy Texts

We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of all visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, begotten of the Father, that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, by Whom all things are (brought into) being. For our sake, people, and for our salvation, Who came down from heaven and was incarnate, and became man, and suffered, and rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and is coming again to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit. Those who say: "There was (a time) when (the Son) was not," and that He was created from non-existence, or who say that He is from another hypostasis or essence, or (call) the Son of God convertible or changeable, are anathematized (excommunicated) by the Catholic and Apostolic Church.The Creed of the Council of NicaeaIf the Word is not eternally co-existent with the Father, then the Trinity is not eternal, but was formerly a Unity, and through addition was subsequently made the Trinity... And again: if the Son is not His own birth of the Father's essence, but came from non-existence, then the Trinity was also composed of non-existence, and was when the Trinity did not exist... But this is not true. Let it not be so! The Trinity is not created, but the eternal and one Godhead in the Trinity, and the one glory of the Holy Trinity... The Christian faith knows the unchangeable, perfect, and always the same blessed Trinity, and does not add anything more to the Trinity, and does not imagine that it has ever been insufficient... worships Her, preserving the indivisibility and unity of Her Divinity.St. Athanasius the GreatIt is necessary to observe faith in one God, and to confess three Hypostases, or three Persons, each with His personal attribute. In my opinion, faith in one God is observed, when both the Son and the Spirit are attributed to one Cause... Faith is also observed in the three Hypostases, when we do not invent any confusion or fusion... Personal attributes will also be observed when we represent and call the Father beginningless and the beginning as the Cause, as the Source, as the eternal Light, and the Son not without beginning, but also the beginning of all things. When I say "the beginning," you do not bring time, do not put anything in between the Begat and the Born... Thus, the Father is without beginning, because He did not borrow His being from anyone else, not even from Himself. And the Son, if you imagine the Father as the Cause, is not beginningless, because the beginning of the Son is the Father as the Cause, but if you imagine the beginning in relation to time, he is beginningless, because the Lord of times has no beginning in time... But you will ask: "If the Son is begotten, how was he born?" The more and more he wants to see, the more he injures the senses, and to the extent that the object in question exceeds the scope of sight, such a person loses the very faculty of sight, if he wants to see the whole object, and not such a part of it as he could see without harm. You hear about birth: do not try to know what is the way of birth. You hear that the Spirit proceeds from the Father: do not be curious to know how it proceeds?.. We have one God, because the Godhead is one. And to the One those who are from God are raised, although they believe in the Three, because just as the One is not greater, so the Other is not less God: and the One is not before, and the Other is not after: They are not separated by will, nor are they divided according to power... The Divinity in the Divided Ones is indivisible, as in the three suns, which are enclosed one within the other, one dissolution of light. Therefore, when we have in our thoughts the Divinity, the First Cause, and the Unity of Authority, then what we imagine is one. And when we have in our thoughts Those in Whom there is Divinity, Who are from the First Cause, and Who are from Her at the same time and with equal honor, then there are three worshippers.St. Gregory the TheologianThis God's nature is Unity in three Persons, There is one Kingdom, and Divinity and Power, There is Unity in the Triad, and the Triad in Unity. Homogeneous to each other in essence and nature,Equal wholly and always equal,In unity remaining together unmerged,In separation, on the contrary, inseparable and united... The Holy Trinity is One in three Persons,That is, the three are One, and the One is the Trinity.Understand, worship and always believe in it!That Unity, appearing, shining, illuminating everything,Having been taught, surrendered, is every good.Therefore we often call this goodNot only by one word, but in different ways: light, peace, joy, life, food, moisture, dew,Clothing, covering, heavenly palace,Sunday, east, With consolation, with the font,And with fire, and with water, and with the fountain of life,And with the river, and with the stream, and with the riches of the faithful,With our daily bread, with the secret delight,With the eternally shining sun, with the ever-bright star,And with the lamp that shines brightly and clearly in the heart.St. Symeon the New TheologianThus, the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church expounds together the teaching about the Father and His Only-begotten Son, born of Him out of time... and impassibly and incomprehensibly, as God alone knows all things, just as fire and the light proceeding from it exist at the same time, and not first fire, and after it light, but together: and as the light, which is always born of fire, is always in it, in no way separated from it, so the Son is born of the Father, not at all separated from Him... We believe in the same way in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-giving, proceeding from the Father and resting in the Son, worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son as consubstantial and co-eternal... We do not say that the Spirit is from the Son, but only call Him the Spirit of the Son... and we confess that He has revealed Himself through the Son and is distributed to us... just as from the sun is a ray of sunlight and light, for it itself is the source of the sun's ray and light.

Chapter IV: Creation

God the Creator

One of the main dogmas of Christianity is the doctrine of God the Creator, Who, unlike Plato's Demiurge, who arranges the cosmos from some primordial substance, creates the Universe from nothing. This is how it is said in the Old Testament: "Look at the heavens and the earth, and seeing all that is in them, know that God created all things out of nothing" (2 Mac. 7:28). Everything that exists came into being thanks to the free will of the Creator: "He spoke, and it was done, He commanded, and it was manifested" (Psalm 32:9).All three Persons of the Holy Trinity participated in creation, as it is prophetically said already in the Old Testament: "By the word of the Lord were the heavens created, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their power" (Psalm 32:6). The Apostle John speaks of the creative role of God the Word at the beginning of the Gospel: "All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made" (John 1:3). The Bible says about the Spirit: "And the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the deep, and the Spirit of God moved over the waters" (Gen. 1:2). The Word and the Spirit, in the figurative expression of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, are the "two hands" of the Father [1]. It is about co-operation, joint creativity of the Three: Their will is one, but each has its own action. "The Father is the initial cause of all that exists," says St. Basil the Great. "The Son is the creative cause, the Holy Spirit is the perfect cause, so that by the will of the Father all things exist, by the action of the Son all things are brought into being, by the presence of the Spirit all things are accomplished [2]." In other words, in creation, the Father plays the role of the First Cause of everything, the Son Logos (the Word) plays the role of the Demiurge-Creator, and the Holy Spirit completes, that is, brings to perfection, all created things. "No one has ever seen God: the Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made manifest" (John 1:18). The Son revealed the Father to created being, thanks to the Son, the Father's love was poured out on created being, and it received life. Already in Philo of Alexandria, the Logos is an intermediary between God and creation, and the Christian tradition speaks directly of the creative power of the Logos. In the same sense, the words from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah are interpreted: "My word, which proceeds out of my mouth, it does not return to Me in vain, but does what pleases Me, and accomplishes what I sent Him to do" (Isaiah 55:11). At the same time, the Logos is the plan and law according to which everything is created, the rational foundation of things, thanks to which everything has purposefulness, meaningfulness, harmony and perfection. The divine essence in the process of creation of the world did not undergo any separation or change: it did not mix with creation and did not dissolve in it. God is the Artist, and creation is His painting, in which we can recognize His "brush", His "hand", see the reflections of His creative mind, but the Artist did not disappear in His painting: He remained what He was before its creation. To this question patristic theology answers: "out of an abundance of love and goodness." "As soon as the good and most gracious God was not satisfied with the contemplation of Himself, but out of the abundance of goodness desired something to happen that in the future would benefit from His blessings and be a partaker of His goodness, He brings from non-existence into existence and creates everything," writes St. John of Damascus [3]. In other words, God wanted something else to participate in His blessedness, to share in His love. Cit. by: Bishop Kallistos Ware. The Orthodox Waу. London-Oxford, 1979. P. 44^PG 32, 136^ Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2, 2^

Angels

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1). These first lines of the Bible point to God's creation of the invisible, spiritual, intelligible world and the visible, material world. As we have said, there are no abstract concepts in biblical language, and spiritual reality is often expressed by the word "heaven." Christ speaks of the Kingdom of Heaven, and in the prayer He gave us we read: "Our Father, Who art in heaven... Thy will be done, as it is in heaven and on earth" (Matt. 6:9-10). We are not talking here about the visible material sky. The kingdom of God is a spiritual, not a material, kingdom in which God lives, being by nature a Spirit. And when it is said "created the heavens", we are talking about the spiritual world with all the beings inhabiting it, that is, the angels. Angels are ministering spirits, bodiless, possessing intelligence and free will. St. John of Damascus speaks of the lightness, ardor, ardor, very great insight and impetuosity with which the angels desire God and serve Him, of their mobility, constant upward aspiration and freedom from all materiality. He also calls the angels "the second lights, having the light of the first beginningless Light [1]". Being in close proximity to God, they feed on His light and transmit it to us.The Bible mentions angels many times, but there are no detailed descriptions of the angelic world, there is no story about its creation (except for the mention of "heaven"). At the time of the creation of the visible world, the angels already existed: "When the stars were created, all my angels praised me with a loud voice" (Job 38:7, LXX translation). The angels themselves were created, as St. Isaac the Syrian points out, "in silence [2]", because the first word of God - "let there be light" refers to the visible world. In silence - that is, in secret, before words and before time.The main work of the angels is the unceasing praise of God. The prophet Isaiah describes a vision of the Lord, around whom the seraphim stood and exclaimed: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts! The whole earth is full of His glory!" (Isaiah 6:1-3). But angels are also messengers sent from God to people (Greek aggelos means "messenger"): they take a living and active part in human life. Thus, for example, the archangel announced to Mary the birth of Jesus from her (Luke 1:26-38), the angel announced to the shepherds the birth of the Messiah (Luke 2:8-20), the angels ministered to Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4:11), the angel strengthened Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:43), the angel announced to the myrrh-bearing women the resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 28:2-7). Each person has his own guardian angel, who is his companion, helper and protector (cf. Matt. 18:10).Not all angels are equal in their dignity and in their closeness to God: there are various hierarchies between them, which are in mutual subordination. In the treatise "On the Celestial Hierarchy", attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, its author counts three angelic hierarchies, each of which is divided into three ranks. To the first and highest hierarchy belong seraphim, cherubim and thrones, to the second - dominions, powers and powers, to the third - principalities, archangels and angels [3]. All the names of the nine ranks of angels are borrowed from the Holy Scriptures and, according to St. Isaac the Syrian, have the following meanings: "Seraphim - warming and burning (lit. " fiery"), cherubim - abundant in knowledge and wisdom, thrones - God's support and God's rest... they are also called dominions as having power over every kingdom, principalities as arranging ether (air), powers as ruling over nations and over each person, powers as strong in strength and terrible in their vision... the archangels as vigilant guards, the angels as those who are sent [4]." In addition, it is said of cherubs that they have many eyes, and of seraphim that they have six wings (let us recall Pushkin: "And a six-winged seraphim appeared to me at the crossroads" [5]). Wings and eyes, however, must be understood in a spiritual sense (as well as the "eyes", "face", "hands" of God), since the angels do not have material flesh.In the heavenly hierarchy, the higher ranks receive illumination by the Divine light and communion with the mysteries of the Godhead directly from the Creator Himself, and the lower - through the medium of the higher: "Each order receives (the mystery) from the other order with the observance of strict order and distinction in communication from the first order to the second, for the time being, the secret will thus pass to all ranks. But many of the mysteries stop at the first order and do not extend to the other orders, because, apart from this first order, all the others cannot contain the greatness of the mystery. And some of the mysteries, proceeding from the first order, are revealed only to the second order, who keeps them in silence... and some mysteries reach the third and fourth ranks" (Isaac the Syrian [6]).The angelic hierarchy, according to Dionysius, passes into the earthly ecclesiastical hierarchy (bishops, priests, deacons), which partakes of the Divine mystery through the heavenly hierarchy. The number of angels is spoken of in a general way - there are "thousands of thousands" and "myriads of myriads" (Dan. 7:10). In any case, there are more of them than people: St. Gregory of Nyssa sees all of humanity in the image of the lost sheep, and by the ninety-nine who have not gone astray (cf. Matt. 18:12) he understands the angelic world [7]. Ibid. 2, 3 ^ Homily 67 [Isaak tou Syrou eurethenta asketika. Sel. 268] ^ A. Louth. Denys the Areopagite. Wilton, CT (USA), 1989. P. 35–37 ^ Homily 67 [Isaak tou Syrou eurethenta asketika. Sel. 268] ^ A. Pushkin. Complete Works in 6 volumes. Moscow-Leningrad, 1936. T. 1. P. 464 ^ Homily 84 [Isaak tou Syrou eurethenta asketika. Sel. 325–326] ^ See. V. Lossky. An Essay on the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church; Dogmatic Theology. P. 234 ^

The Origin of Evil

At the dawn of the existence of created being, even before the creation of the visible world by God, but after the creation of the angels, a grandiose catastrophe occurred in the spiritual world, of which we know only from its consequences. Some of the angels, having resisted God, fell away from Him and became hostile to all that is good and holy. At the head of this fallen army stood Eosphorus, or Lucifer, whose very name (lit. "light-bearing") shows that at first he was good, but then, of his own free will, "and by his own will, he changed from the natural to the unnatural, he became proud against the God who created him, he wanted to oppose Him, and the first, having fallen away from good, found himself in evil" (John of Damascus [1]). Lucifer, who is also called the Devil and Satan [2], belonged to one of the highest ranks of the angelic hierarchy. Other angels fell away with him, as the Apocalypse allegorically narrates: "... And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp... and was amazed... a third part of the stars, so that a third part of them is eclipsed" (Rev. 8:10, 12). Some interpreters see in these words an indication that a third of the angels fell away with Lucifer.The devil and the demons found themselves in darkness of their own free will. Every rational living being, be it an angel or a man, is endowed by God with free will, that is, the right to choose between good and evil. Freedom of will is given to a living being so that, while practicing good, it can ontologically partake of this good, that is, so that the good does not remain only something given from outside, but becomes its own property. If the good were imposed by God as a necessity and inevitability, no living being could become a full-fledged free person. "No one has ever become good under compulsion," say the Holy Fathers [3]. Through unceasing growth in goodness, the angels had to ascend to the fullness of perfection to the point of complete assimilation to the super-good God. Some of them, however, made a choice not in favor of God, thereby predetermining both their fate and the fate of the Universe, which from that moment turned into an arena of confrontation between two polar (although unequal) principles: good, Divine and evil, demonic. The question of the origin of evil was very acute for Christian theological thought, since it constantly had to deal with overt or covert manifestations of dualism, that is, a philosophical doctrine according to which two equal forces initially operate in the world - good and evil - governing the world and, as it were, tearing it apart. At the end of the third century, Manichaeism became widespread in the East (named after its founder Mani), which existed under various names (Paulicianism, Bogomilism, Albigensianism) until the late Middle Ages: in this heresy, individual elements of Christianity were intertwined with elements of Eastern dualistic religions. According to the teaching of the Manichaeans, the totality of existence is two kingdoms that have always existed together: the kingdom of light, filled with numerous good aeons (angels), and the kingdom of darkness, filled with evil aeons (demons). The god of light subordinates the entire spiritual reality, and the god of darkness (Satan) reigns supreme over the material world. Matter itself is a sinful and evil principle: man must mortify his body in every possible way in order to free himself from matter and return to the immaterial kingdom of good. Evil is not some primordial essence, co-existent and equal to God, it is a falling away from the good, a resistance to the good. In this sense, it cannot be called an "essence" at all, because it does not exist in itself. Just as darkness or shadow is not an independent being, but only the absence of light, so evil is only the absence of good. "Evil," writes St. Basil the Great, "is not a living animate essence, but a state of the soul, contrary to virtue and happening... through falling away from the good. Therefore, do not look for evil outside, do not imagine that there is some original evil nature, but let everyone recognize himself as the culprit of his own evil temper [4]." God did not create anything evil: angels, people, and the material world are all good and beautiful by nature. But rational personal beings (angels and people) are given free will, and they can direct their freedom against God and thereby generate evil. And so it happened: the light-bearer-Lucifer, originally created by good, abused his freedom, distorted his own good nature and fell away from the Source of good.Being neither essence nor being, evil, however, becomes an active destructive principle, it is hypostasized, that is, it becomes a reality in the person of the devil and demons. In comparison with the Divine being, the activity of evil is illusory and imaginary: the devil has no power where God does not allow him to act, or, in other words, he acts only within the boundaries within which God allows him to act. But, being a slanderer and a liar, the devil uses lies as his main weapon: he deceives his victim, showing him that he has a powerful power and authority in his hands, when in fact he does not have this power. V. Lossky notes that in the Lord's Prayer we do not ask "deliver us from evil", that is, from all evil in general, but "deliver us from evil" - from a specific person who embodies evil [5]. This "evil one", not being inherently evil by nature, is the bearer of that deadening non-existence, that non-life (cf. the Slavic word "undead"), which leads to the death of both himself and the one who becomes his victim. Moreover, in the inscrutable ways of His Providence, for pedagogical or other purposes, God sometimes uses evil as a tool. This is evident from those places in the Bible where God is represented as sending evil upon people: for example, God hardened the heart of Pharaoh (Exodus 4:21; 7:3; 14:4); God sent an evil spirit upon Saul (1 Sam. 16:14; 19:9); God gave the people "evil commandments" (Ezek. 20:25, according to the Hebrew text and translation of the LXX); God gave people over to "uncleanness," "shameful passions," and "perverse minds" (Romans 1:24-32). In all these cases, it is not a question of God being the source of evil, but of God, being completely sovereign over both good and evil, and can use evil to achieve good or to deliver people from even greater evil. why does He allow evil? Blessed Augustine confessed that he was unable to answer this question: "I cannot penetrate into the depth of this decision, and I confess that it is beyond my strength," he wrote [6]. Having answered the question of the origin of evil, theology does not give a clear answer to the question of why God, not being the creator of evil, nevertheless allows it to act. Speaking of this, the theological mind once again freezes before the mystery, unable to penetrate into the depths of the Divine destinies. As God says in the book of the prophet Isaiah, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, and My ways are not your ways... But as heaven is separated from the earth, so is my way from your ways, and your thoughts from my thought" (Isaiah 55:8-9, LXX). An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2, 4 ^ Greek. diabolos literally means "slanderer" ^ Hymn 43, 137 [SC 196, 66] ^ Basil the Great. Discourse 2 on the Six Days [Creations, Vol. 1, p. 18] ^ V. Lossky. An Essay on the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church; Dogmatic Theology. pp. 250^PL 34, 431^

Universe

The visible world, according to the Bible, was created by God in six days (see Genesis 1). How are these "days" to be understood? It is hardly possible to think that we are talking about the usual six days - if only because the day depends on the Sun, and the Sun itself appeared on the fourth day. In the language of the Bible, the word "day," as noted above, meant a certain period of time, sometimes very long. For example, David calls the forty-year wandering of the Jews between the Red Sea and Canaan "a day of temptation in the wilderness" (Psalm 94:8). In another psalm he says: "A thousand years are before Thy eyes as yesterday" (Psalm 89:5). And the Apostle Peter says that "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8). Moreover, the seventh day is not said to be "and there was evening and there was morning," as it is said about the other days, from which we can conclude that the seventh day is not yet completed and continues now. Christians have called the "eighth day" since ancient times the future age and the Kingdom of Heaven. All this suggests that the biblical six days are six successive stages of creation, which unfolds gradually, like a grandiose picture of the great Artist. God creates time, but the "beginning" of time, as St. Basil says, is not yet time itself. The beginning is the first and brief moment that connects created being to eternity, because from the moment time passes, the universe will have to obey its laws, according to which the past no longer exists, the future does not yet exist, and the present is an elusive and always elusive moment, which, before it has time to begin, is already over. And although time appears simultaneously with the Universe, nevertheless, that brief moment of the "beginning", when time did not yet exist, and the Universe was about to begin, is, as it were, a guarantee that created being has joined eternity and someday, after the completion of its history, will again enter eternity. For eternity is the absence of time, and outside of time there is only super-being or non-being. The universe, called by the creative word of God from non-existence into temporary existence, will not disappear after the end of time, will not sink into non-existence, but will join the super-being and become eternal. Plato speaks of the creation of the universe in time: "Time came into being with the heavens, so that, being born at the same time, they would disintegrate at the same time, if dissolution should occur to them." And the Bible speaks of a "beginning" that was before time, and if there is a "decay" for time, then the universe will remain. Time, which is an icon of eternity ("eternal nature served as the prototype for time", according to Plato [2]), is sublimated into eternity, and the Universe into the Kingdom of the future age. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and empty, and darkness over the deep, and the Spirit of God moved over the waters" (Gen. 1:1-2). According to other ancient translations of the Bible, the earth was "something empty and insignificant" (Theodotion), "something idle and indistinguishable" (Symmachus [3]), that is, the formless primordial matter from which the world was to be created. The "land" of the first day is, in the words of Met. Philaret, "astonishing emptiness [4]", a chaotic primordial substance that has in itself a pledge of future beauty, harmony, and cosmicness. "Darkness" and "abyss" emphasize the disorganization and formlessness of matter, and "water" emphasizes its plasticity. It is said of the Holy Spirit that He "moved" over the waters. This verb in another place of the Bible denotes the flight of a bird over the nest with its chicks: "The eagle covers his nest, soars over his chicks, stretches out his wings, takes them up, and wears them on his feathers" (Deuteronomy 32:11). That is, the Holy Spirit guarded and gave life to matter, "hovering" over it and breathing into it the "spirit of life." And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good" (Gen. 1:3-4). The light of the first day is not the light of the Sun and the Moon, which appeared on the fourth day, but is the light of the Godhead reflected in created being. "Said" and "saw" are anthropomorphisms, which, however, have a deep meaning. The expression "said" indicates the action of the Word of God, one of the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity, and "saw" speaks of the consciousness and purposefulness of the creative process, of the Artist's satisfaction with the fact that the Cosmos created by him is really beautiful. "Out of chaos were born darkness and dark night," writes Hesiod in his Theogony. The word "chaos" comes from a verb meaning "to express amazement by opening one's mouth," and it fits perfectly with the biblical "astonishing emptiness" of primordial matter. Plato calls the Cosmos, in contrast to the "eternally existing" God, "the god who was to be [6]". He speaks of the rationality and animacy of the Cosmos: "Wishing that everything should be good and that nothing, as far as possible, should be bad, God took care of all visible things that were not at rest, but in disorderly discordant motion: He brought them out of disorder into order... He arranged the mind in the soul, and the soul in the body, and thus built the universe, intending to create a creation most beautiful and by nature the best... Our cosmos is a living being, endowed with soul and mind, and it was truly born with the help of Divine Providence [7]." The cosmos, according to Plato, is an icon of God: it "reproduces the Prototype and is a likeness of the real Image [8]."On the second day, God creates a "firmament" - a space that has strength, stability, and firmness. On the third day, He creates the dry land and the sea and separates one from the other. On the fourth day, God creates the Sun, the Moon and other luminaries: from that moment on, the mechanism of the day began to work - the rhythmic change of day and night. On the fifth day, the sea element, by God's command, gives birth to fish and reptiles, and the air element gives birth to birds. Finally, on the sixth day, animals and man appear.Researchers note the geocentrism of the biblical narrative: having spoken about the creation of the universe on the first and second days, the author of the book of Genesis, starting from the third day, turns to the Earth and what is happening on it. There is a deep symbolism in this. "This is not a remnant of some primitive cosmology... which does not correspond to our post-Copernican universe. The geocentrism here is not physical, but spiritual: the earth is spiritually central, because it is the flesh of man, because man... there is a central being, that being which unites in itself the sensible and the supersensible, and therefore participates more fully than the angels in the whole structure of earth and heaven. In the center of the Universe beats the heart of man" (Vl. Lossky [9]).The biblical picture of the creation of the world reveals to us God in all His creative power. Having created the spiritual world and populated it with angels, God then creates the material cosmos as a reflection-icon of His beauty that surpasses all thought. In the center of the universe, God settles man. All living things, according to the eternal plan of the Creator, are called to praise Him: "Praise the Lord from heaven, praise Him in the highest. Praise Him, all His angels, praise Him, all His powers. Praise Him, sun and moon, praise Him, all the stars and light. Praise Him, O heaven of heavens, and the water that is higher than the heavens. Let the name of the Lord be praised, for He spoke, and it was done. He commanded - and it was done... Praise the Lord from the earth, serpents and all the deeps: fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy winds that fulfill His word, mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, beasts and all cattle, creeping things and birds of feathers, kings of the earth and all nations... Praise Him in the firmament of His might... Let all that breathes praise the Lord" (Psalm 148:1-150:6, LXX).The universe created by God is a book that reveals to those who can read the greatness of the Creator. Unbelievers, observing the material world, do not see in it a reflection of the highest immaterial Beauty: for them there is nothing miraculous in the world, everything is natural and ordinary. The book of God's miracle is read with the eyes of faith. A famous philosopher came to Abba Anthony, an Egyptian hermit of the fourth century, and asked: "Abba, how can you live here, deprived of the consolation of reading books?" Plato. Timaeus 38b ^ Ibid. P. 478 ^ Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov) of Moscow. Notes Leading to a Thorough Understanding of the Book of Genesis. Part 1. Moscow, 1867. P. 6 ^ Ibid. ^ Ibid. P. 9 ^ Plato. Timaeus 34b ^ Plato. Timaeus 30a-c ^ Plato. Timaeus 29c ^ V. Lossky. An Essay on the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church; Dogmatic Theology. Ss. 234–235 ^ Op. cit. by: Bishop Kallistos Ware. The Orthodox Way. P. 54 ^

Anthology of Holy Texts

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.