In addition to these provisions, Bl. Zinovy dwells on the dogma we are considering two more times. In elucidating the mystery of the pre-eternal birth of the Word, Bl. Zinovy establishes precisely in which cases the Apostles call Christ God, and in which cases He is a man: "Since the Apostles often preached His cross, and blood, and death, by them Christ created salvation for us, and when the Apostles spoke the Passion of the Saviour, then they also spoke the man Christ; For it is for man to suffer, and not for God, and for truly God is man, since he is Christ. Whenever, apart from the cross and death, he speaks to the apostles about Christ, then the preaching of Christ is true of God" (233). These words most of all testify to the fact that Bl. Zinovy not only preserved the patristic understanding of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, but also conducted his independent reasoning on this question in a strictly patristic spirit and direction. Such is the teaching of the later of the Russian theologians we are considering about the Most Holy Person of Jesus Christ, a teaching that is completely identical with the general patristic understanding of the dogma of the Incarnation. However, in his further reasoning, Bl. Zinovy makes a decisive definition of Christ by means of human concepts: "We know and confess the Lord Jesus Christ, King and Holy Hierarch and Master of all: the King, because Thou hast created all things, and conquered the apostate devil, and the Lord, as He has dominion over all His creation, and the Holy Hierarch according to humanity, as the Advocate for us to God and the Father, as the Apostle Paul teaches" (982). It should be noted that these definitions are, so to speak, purely external and conditional. We are talking about images of God the Father and Jesus Christ on icons. Bl. Zinovy points out that it is more convenient to depict Christ in the form of the Tsar and Saint, because these epithets refer to Him in the Holy Scriptures. Scripture. Further we read: "And not God the Father, the king and the saint: for how and to whom to intercede, to reconsecrate, who Himself is God and the Father." Such reasoning was caused by the extreme ignorance of the interlocutors of Bl. Zinovy and the real absurdities allowed in the iconography of that epoch. In the same place we read a description of one image of the God of hosts in the image of David: "And the schema is inscribed on the head and the omophorion on the frame: the legend, as a king and a saint. And this is filled with more pious thoughts and blasphemy: for in the Scriptures of God the Father is not found to be a King and a Saint. Know God the Father, the King and the Lord, visible to all and invisible. For if in the Lord also was inscribed a king and a saint, and not God the Father, for the Lord is the king of kings and a great saint in the house of God, both are inscribed with pious thoughts, for there is a schema on the head, and this blasphemous mark of God's glory. For the schema does not show the Lord and King, but shows the servant subdued; the king is shown by a diadem and a purple. For the schema is possessed by kings, and not by kings; for they learn to think that they do not reign and rule, but that they know that they have come under the yoke of Christ to work for God and in His commandments irrevocably, and so on." (981). As can be seen, it is a matter of artistic symbolic representations of the Divine Hypostases, and not of metaphysical concepts, which are fully and definitely expressed in the purely dogmatic part of the creation of Bl. And the passages we have written down are contained in the "discourse on the mark of God, in the form of David and Jesus, sitting fully armed, as is accepted." This consideration was conducted during the tenth coming of the Kryloschans, when questions of church discipline and worship were considered in general, which were of great interest in the local Church with a predominantly ritual character, and in that epoch, which was distinguished by great zeal for the purity of church life. Questions of a purely dogmatic nature, as previously considered, were not considered during this "coming". Consequently, the above-mentioned names of the Lord, as purely accidental, do not in the least distort the general dogmatic understanding of Bliss. Zinovia.

IV. Features of Western Theology on the Incarnation

The universal teaching about the Divine Person of the Lord Jesus Christ has been preserved in its essential features and in the confessions of the Western community, which has deviated from communion with the Church. But there, without changing in its basis, it took on a significant addition, which at first glance has the character of an innocent interpretation, perhaps not entirely successful, but in any case does not in the least change the basic character of universal truth. Only the further development of the Latin complement shows how little it harmonizes with the spirit of patristic theology. - The Latin theologians did not fall into the heresy of Nestorius or Eutyches, and fully preserved the doctrine of the two wills in the one person of Christ, but they introduced into dogmatic theology the doctrine of Christ as Prophet, High Priest, and King. At first glance, this teaching does not introduce anything new into the dogma of the union of the two natures in one person, but only explains the meaning of various aspects of the life of Jesus Christ, and also defines the very meaning of the name "Christ" in the "Confessio" fidei christianae.

Such a subdivision, completely unknown to Sts. was unconsciously copied by the Kievan scholastics into Russian Orthodox Theology. It is contained in both documents of Kievan theology of the seventeenth century. Lawrence Zizanius in his "Large Catechism" (l.4) says that Christ was preceded by three Jesuses: Joshua - a military leader, Jesus of Sirach - a teacher and Jesus - a high priest who lived at the time of the return of the Jews from captivity. Thus, the purely accidental circumstance of the existence in Jewish history of the three famous names of Christ is interpreted in the spirit of Latin innovation. It is overlooked that Joshua was not only a military leader, but also a teacher of the people. In the Orthodox confession of Peter Mogila, the doctrine of the three ministries, which is Latin in origin, is also set forth in the Latin form. In the exposition and interpretation of the second article of the Creed, we read: "What do these two words Jesus Christ, placed in one article, mean? Jesus means the Saviour, as the Archangel explained when he said to Joseph: "And he shall bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). Therefore, it is fair to conclude that this name cannot belong to anyone else except our Lord and Saviour, Who delivered the entire human race from the eternal slavery of demons. The name Christ means the Anointed One, for in the Old Testament the anointed were called Christs, such as priests, kings, and prophets, to which three offices Christ was anointed, though not in common with the others, but above all the other anointed, as the Psalmist says of Him: "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hast hated iniquity: for this reason Thou hast anointed Thee, O God Thy God, with the oil of joy more than a partaker of Thy partakers" (Psalm 44:8). Here we must understand the anointing of the Holy Spirit, since He was anointed with the Holy Spirit, according to the story of St. John. Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, and for His sake I have anointed, to preach good tidings to the poor of My ambassador" (Isaiah 61:1). Which words Christ refers to Himself: "For today this scripture shall be fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:21). By a threefold advantage and especially by a glorious majesty, Christ surpasses His partners. First of all, it is the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, of which the Apostle says: "He was called of God High Priest after the order of Melchizedek" (Hebrews 5:10). In another place he calls Christ a priest, because He offered Himself as a sacrifice to God and the Father: "Who by the Holy Spirit offer unto Himself blameless to God." And below: "Christ was brought alone, to bear many sins" (Hebrews 9:14,28). Secondly, His royal dignity is especially glorious and advantageous, which was revealed by the Archangel Gabriel when he brought the salvific news to the Most-Pure Virgin: "And the Lord God shall give Him the throne of David His father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever, and his kingdom shall have no end" (Luke 1:32-33). Likewise, the Magi, who brought gifts at the time of His birth, bore witness to His kingdom, asking, "Where is the King of the Jews born?" (Matthew 2:2). The same is confirmed by the inscription of His guilt at His death: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" (John 19:19). The God-inspired Moses prophesied about the third advantage: "The Lord thy God will raise up a prophet from thy brethren as unto me" (Deuteronomy 18:15). This greatness of His is known from His holy teaching, in which He revealed both His Divinity and all that was necessary for the salvation of man, as He Himself says: "I have spoken Thy name unto them," and above: "The words which Thou hast given Me have been given unto them, and they have received and understood truly, for I have come forth from Thee, and believe, that Thou hast sent Me" (John 17). Christ showed His prophetic dignity (it is the third predominantly) when He foretold the future not by any revelation, but by His own knowledge, as God and man" (Rev. Ex. 92). Thus is the immeasurable and great name of the Son of God and the Divine Incarnation interpreted, the only phenomenon quite new and certainly extraordinary, which appears to be a simple combination in one person of three types, so common in the history of the Jewish kingdom in times of decadence. Christ appears as a priest of a bloody cult, as a king who controls the power of external power, and, finally, as a prophet-teacher, alien and shunning all coercive power and acting solely on the free human conscience. It should be noted that such a division is not found in a poetic or rhetorical work, where inaccuracies and repetition of the same thing are possible and even necessary for strengthening, but in a dogmatic system, the main feature of which is the accuracy and strict definiteness of expressions. Thus, Christ is recognized as the spokesman for the three ministries – the high priestly, the prophetic, and the royal; consequently, all these forms of service are thereby recognized as something original and fundamental.

Considering this teaching from the point of view of the universal tradition of the Church of Christ, it can be said that it is absolutely alien to the thinking of the Holy Fathers. Fathers. We may have dwelt in too much detail on the teaching of the Ecumenical and Old Russian Fathers about the Divine Person of the Lord, and, as can be seen from the numerous extracts we have made, we have not found anything of the kind. If Christ is called King or Bishop anywhere, then in a figurative or rhetorical sense, or simply the words of the Holy Scriptures are repeated. Scriptures, where Christ is called so. But in none of the monuments of patristic universal theology that we have analyzed does we find an exclusive reference to the three above-mentioned names. The absence of such a teaching in strictly ecclesiastical works imposes on the teaching itself the stamp of a certain alienation from the patristic understanding of Christianity. In addition to the degree of validity of the doctrine itself, its origin is very important, for, as St. Irenaeus of Lyons says: "One should not seek from others the truth, which is easy to receive from the Church, for the apostles, like a rich man in the treasury, have fully put into it all that pertains to the truth, so that whosoever willeth to take from it the drink of life" (Prot. Jer. 3:4).

Turning to the Bible, from which the images of the three ministries are borrowed, we see that the concepts of high priest, king, and prophet are by no means the only ones by which the sacred writers define the high dignity of Christ. In the "Great Catechism" of Lavrenty Zizanius, all the epithets of Christ existing in the Scriptures are indicated in detail. On what basis is preference given to these three, taken as accidentally as the others? After all, in the Bible Christ is called bread, and stone, and high priest, and sacrifice. Why are some epithets preferred over others? Calling Himself comparatively and figuratively bread (John 6:48) and vine (John 15:1), Christ literally calls Himself a teacher and guide. Indeed, for clarifying the nature of the earthly life of Jesus Christ, this epithet is the most appropriate. Christ, both in the way of life and in the form of His relations with the people, was a wandering teacher. Such was He for those who knew Him little or accidentally encountered Him, and His close friends and followers, having learned the exceptional nature of His preaching, understood that this was not a simple teacher, and through the mouth of Simon Peter they called Him "Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16). Can each of these epithets define Jesus Christ quite positively, and not comparatively only? The epithet of the High Priest is borrowed from the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Hebrews, written in the pictorial language of Jewish religious concepts borrowed from the cult of the Jerusalem temple. Devoted to the faith of their fathers, the Jews could not but relate with the greatest love and reverence to their holy place, to their glory and praise, to the temple in Jerusalem, where sacrifices were offered and praises to the true God were sung, while the whole world was polluted with idolatrous impiety and defiled by the stench of the impious teachings of the pagans. With ardent love for all that was good and beautiful in the world before the preaching of the Apostles, praising the piety even of the Athenians, the Apostle could only cherish deep sympathy for such sincere devotion to the sacred cult and with all his soul pity those of the pious Jews for whom faithfulness to the religion of the fathers was an obstacle to faith in the Saviour. To those who erred in their zeal for the institutions of Moses, the apostle wanted to show that Christianity can be compared even with the external side of the Jewish religion, and that this comparison is in favor of Christianity. From this point of view, he calls Christ the High Priest, and unlike the Jewish high priests, he calls Him the High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Obviously, such a name of Christ is nothing more than a simple comparison, since the sacrifices of the ancient priests were in themselves only a condescension to the human weakness of the Jews inclined to idolatry, and not some unconditional way of pleasing God. This is how Sts. Fathers. St. Irenaeus of Lyons writes: "Thus He (i.e. God) ordained for the people the building of the tabernacle, and the building of the temple, and the election of the Levites, sacrifices and offerings, and statutes, and all the rest of the ministry of the law. He Himself had need of nothing, for He was always full of all good things, having in Himself every stench of sweetness and all incense that was fragrant, before Moses was, but He taught the people, inclined to return to idols, by various means of invocation, disposing them to be constant and to serve God, and by means of the secondary calling to the primary, that is, by the rites to the truth, by the temporal to the eternal, by means of the carnal to the spiritual, by means of the earthly to the heavenly, as it was said to Moses: "Thou shalt do all things in the image of what thou hast seen on the mountain" (Exodus 25:40). These words of the father and teacher of the ancient Church show that the Old Testament high priestly ministry was in the minds of Christians only a precautionary measure against the Jews inclined to idolatry. With greater certainty and force, the same idea is expressed by the Father of the ancient Russian Church, St. Joseph, Abbot of Volotsk. In the third word of the "Illuminator" we read the following reasoning about the worthiness of the Old Testament sacrifices: "For the Israelites dwell in Egypt and devour idols and demons from them, and play and rejoice and enjoy the organ of the Music. And when God desired to free them from the enslavement of Egypt, it was the custom of the sacrifices of idols to those who wished to devour them, when He made a calf in the wilderness and devoured the sacrifice by a demon; then you shall be allowed to eat, but not all, but an ox, and a sheep, and a goat, and a dove, and a turtledove, which eat for the sake of weakness, and many others, and not with an idol, but with Him alone, the true God. For the Egyptians were gods of the ox, and the sheep, and the goat, and the dove, and the turtledove, and many other things that were eaten. For this reason the one worshipped by the Egyptians is commanded to eat it, so that the gods will not know how to name it." Further quoting the words of the Lord through the Prophet Isaiah about the uselessness of sacrifices in the sinful state of the soul (Isaiah 1:11, 12, 15), the Holy Father continues: "For this reason God did not want to give sacrifices to the Jews from the beginning. But as a physician keeps a man with a fire in vain, desiring cold drink, and despising it, if they do not give him it, I will lay a boa on myself and throw it into my rapids; but the physician is a greater evil, though he forbids a lesser evil, though he is delivered from an untimely death. Thus did God do: since the Jews saw the Jews raging and choking, desiring sacrifices, and as they would not receive to the idols themselves, but those who had already come of their own accord, He commanded them to make sacrifices, and did not say to them: "If you are furious and want to eat, then do not eat Me." From this it was revealed that it was made by the Jews as an evil demon after the feast, then the sacrifice was commanded. But having commanded not to allow it to go to the end, but to lead away the wisest snares. And like a physician, he spoke of him, having allowed little desire of the sick man, commanded that the cup should be brought from his house, and that the one cold drink should be taken to the sick man, and so he commanded that the cup should be broken, so that we might not shamefully and ashamedly lead the sick away from the desire for it. Thus God also commanded to eat, but in one Jerusalem." These words of the sacred teacher of the Church and champion of Orthodoxy are so eloquent and clear that they do not need any kind of commentary. The thoughts set forth in them testify to how alien to the ancient Russian Church was the opinion about the absolute necessity of bloody sacrifices. Without recognition of this necessity, the idea of the high priestly ministry of Jesus Christ fades by itself.

The concept of a "king" suffers from even greater vagueness and conventionality, whose ministry is ascribed by the scholasticists to Jesus Christ not as a pictorial comparison, but as an essential property. The unlimited Oriental despots, the hereditary representatives of Lacedaemon, subject to the supervision of the ephors, the medieval feudal monarchs, and the modern constitutional princes, are all kings. "But what do they have in common?" Except for one thing: the earthly nature of their power. But the Saviour directly recognized His kingdom as a kingdom "not of this world" (John 18:36), i.e. having nothing in common with human kingdoms; and long before Christ, the royal prophet David noted the earthly nature of the power of the pagan kings, hostile to God: "And the kings of the earth arise, and the princes take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed" (Psalm 2:2). As for the "Anointed One" himself, i.e. the king of the Jews, his very existence was almost a greater condescension to the weakness of the people than even the institution of blood sacrifices. The very desire to have a king was instilled in the Jews by the example of the Gentiles: "Set a king over us, that he may judge us as among other nations" (1 Samuel 8:19-20), the elders of Israel said to Samuel. The Lord, showing His long-suffering and consent, nevertheless recognized the establishment of royal power among the chosen people as almost apostasy: "And Samuel did not like this word, when they said, Give us a king, that he may judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. as they have done since the day that I brought them out of Egypt, and to this day they have forsaken Me and served other gods; so do they do to you; and so listen to their voices, only present to them, and declare to them the rights of a king who shall reign over them" (8:6-9). From these words of the Lord it is evident that the ideal order of social life from the biblical point of view should be considered a primitive purely religious, and consequently strictly theocratic; as for the various forms of political life, the Bible is completely indifferent to them. Psalms and parables praising royal power are well known, but the biblical understanding of life in the Book of Maccabees also pays tribute to the republican system of the ancient Romans, which protected the eternal city from the strife so common in ancient monarchies: "Not one of them put on a crown, nor clothed himself with purple to boast of it. They have formed a council, and every day three hundred and twenty people constantly consult about everything that concerns the people and their welfare. And every year they entrust to one man the rulership over themselves, and dominion over all their land, and all listen to the one, and there is neither envy nor jealousy among them" (1 Mac. 8:14-16). Consequently, there is no reason to think that, from the biblical point of view, royal power appears to be the unconditional and final expression and form of political existence. It should also be noted that in the Gospel Christ is called king either allegorically (for example, John 1:49), or in mockery, as by the Roman soldiers and Pilate. It seems to us that what has been said is enough to understand the relativity of the royal ministry of Jesus Christ.

The idea of the Lord's prophetic ministry is based on the words of Deuteronomy (18:15): "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among you, from among your brethren, like me, and you shall hear him," etc. It must be admitted that this ministry is the highest of all types of biblical relations with the people, and most of all can characterize the life and ministry of Christ. But it is quite impossible to accept it, because prophetic ministry (in the later sense) is possible only in the abnormal course of social life, when the usual organs of spiritual authority do not fulfill their purpose. The prophets of the earlier period (Moses, Samuel) were mainly the highest representatives and rulers of the people. In the normal course of life in the later period, their place was taken by high priests (e.g., Eli) and kings (David). And in general, remaining on biblical soil, it is not possible to distinguish between these types of ministry. The first high priest Aaron in the order of our proskomedia belongs to the prophets; David is also numbered among the host of prophets. The chief priests, provided they were faithful to their appointment, were also prophets, and the prophets Samuel and Elijah offered sacrifices with their own hands. In general, the concepts of high priest, king and prophet were divided due to the sinful life of Israel, and this division can in no way be considered legitimate. David the king was also a prophet, and the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel were priests. Christ, appearing to mankind as the Son of God, could not be a king, or a high priest, or a prophet in the proper sense of these words; the most apt designation of Christ, as the spiritual head of the Church established by Him, would be, as it seems to us, the name of the Shepherd. After all, the Old Testament leaders of the people, like Moses and Samuel, were not only prophets, and in general the prophetic ministry, which more closely resembles the ministry of the Lord, was purely pastoral. It is possible to fully define the main duties of the High Priest and King: the domain of the former is religious worship, and the latter the earthly affairs of Israel, but it would be disagreeable with history and with the character of the prophetic ministry depicted in the sacred books to limit it only to the prediction of the future, as the author of the Orthodox Confession tries to do.

The teaching of the three ministries of the Lord Jesus Christ, so to speak, legitimizes the division of church life into secular life and allows for the possibility of the lawful existence of an independent teaching principle. It is not difficult to understand that in further conclusions this teaching may turn out to justify secular culture and reduce Christianity from the level of the only independent principle of life to the category of ordinary cultural forces. These conclusions may be very sympathetic to modern religious thinkers, who have reason to gravitate not only towards European culture, but also towards apostate Rome, but they are completely alien to the spirit of patristic universal thinking, and we have no doubt that Sts. the Fathers, both universal and Russian of the sixteenth century, would have condemned them with rebuke.

V. The Meaning of the Incarnation from the Ascetic (Church) Point of View

Satan and the princes of darkness, from the time of the transgression of the commandment, sat in Adam's heart, mind, and body, as on their own throne. Why did the Lord finally come and take upon Himself a body from the Virgin; for if it had pleased Him to come uncovered by the Divinity, who could have endured it? On the contrary, by means of this instrument, the body, He spoke to men. And finally, the evil ones who sit in the body were deposed by the Lord from the thrones, i.e. the concepts and thoughts that they ruled, and cleansed their consciences and made the mind, the thoughts, and the body a throne for Himself. (Macarius the Great, Edessa, 5)

The deed done by the Lord Jesus is in direct contrast to the transgression of the first people and represents its correction. All Christian thinkers who stand on the basis of the Holy Scriptures agree on this. Hagiographa. But there is a great difference in the interpretation of the great work of the Lord.

It seems to us that the most important mistake that can easily be made in interpreting our deliverance from sin is to take comparative images as the absolute expression of truth. In this case, such a mistake is more disastrous than ever: Sts. the Fathers and Apostles often made comparative explanations of divine works and took images for comparisons from the sphere of ordinary everyday life of their time; there are such images from the religious cult of the ancient Jews, the merits of which we have already had occasion to speak, there are comparisons from the sphere of military relations, from the field of legal proceedings, etc., etc. Each of these comparisons, while somewhat explaining the great work of the Lord, cannot, of course, as taken from the narrow, limited sphere of human affairs and concepts, fully express the essence of the Divine work. Much more precious for us and more important in the very essence of the question are those instructions of Sts. The Fathers, who refer to the forces that act directly on man and free him from sin. Before approaching a real exposition of the various understandings of the divine work, it seems to us necessary to establish a definite view of these forces, i.e., of the instruments of our salvation. With such a formulation of the question, the merit of different understandings will be self-evident.

The dominion of sin, which began from the very first steps of the independent life of mankind without extraordinary divine guidance, had its main basis in false pagan religions and made even divinely revealed religion an inaccurate and incomplete reflection of the truth, adapted to the sinful weakness of people. In addition, it is difficult to speak of the ancient Jewish religion as a force that opposes sin, because the history of Israel seems to be a continuous series of betrayals of the revealed law. True, the Jewish religion restrained the worst aspects of human nature and by its institutions reminded man of his dependence on God, but because of human weakness it represented God Himself as a formidable punisher of human infirmities and therefore could not attract human hearts to itself; History convinces us that only grievous calamities taught the Jewish people the worship of God handed down from their fathers, while in happier times (with insignificant exceptions) the Jews were more attracted by the open deification of human passions, which constituted the content of all ancient pagan religions under various forms. From a psychological point of view, this phenomenon is quite understandable. A formidable, boundless power can subdue itself, suppressing the soul, but it is powerless to evoke the free and conscious, i.e., the only lasting obedience of the human heart. True, the prophets saw through divine love, but for the people God remained a formidable ruler, Whom it is necessary to fear, but difficult to love. This is a significant drawback of the Old Testament Jewish religion. The pagan religions, as we have already said, were the deification of the passions, i.e. sin itself. The few philosophical societies with a religious character did not have a solid foundation for their development and were inaccessible to the common people due to the abstractness of their teachings and very soon turned into crude idolatry, as happened with the greatest and most famous of the extreme Eastern beliefs - the teaching of Saki-Muni. There was no deliverance from sin.