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.

Appearing on earth as a loving sufferer for sins, Christ attracted to Himself the hearts of many, attracted them by His infinite love by virtue of an unchanging psychological law. And those who were attracted by Him were saved from sin, i.e. they ceased to live according to the sinful laws of the world and died to the passions. For conscious life an image is necessary, in other words, an object of reverence and imitation is necessary. For the followers of Christ, Christ Himself became such an ideal, a humble and humiliated sufferer, attracting with His infinite love. Looking at Him with a mental eye and seeing an endless example of humility unparalleled before, Christians drew from this contemplation new beginnings of life, already real and obvious freeing from sin. The basis of sin is self-love and the desire for pleasure; in the life of Christians, the predominant principle was the dogma established by Christ - self-denial and readiness to suffer. Death, as the ultimate expression of suffering, has lost all fear for Christians, because the meaning of life has been transferred to the age to come.

The life of the followers of the Crucified One was the exact opposite of the life of the rest of the people, who submitted to sin while Christians were freed from it. Christianity is the emergence of a new life. St. The Martyr Justin the Philosopher writes: "Christians do not differ from other people either in country, or in language, or in everyday customs. They do not inhabit any special cities, do not use any unusual dialect, and lead a life no different from others. Only their teaching is not the fruit of the thoughts or inventions of people who seek novelty; they are not attached to any human doctrine like others. But living among the Hellenic and barbarian peoples, wherever they could, and following the customs of those inhabitants in clothing, food, and everything else, they represent a wonderful and truly incredible way of life. They live in their own country, but as strangers; they have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as strangers. For them, every foreign country is a fatherland, and every fatherland is a foreign country. They get married, like everyone else, give birth to children, but do not abandon them. They have a common meal, and not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live according to the flesh. They are on earth, but they are heavenly citizens. They obey the established laws, but by their lives they surpass the laws themselves. They love everyone and are persecuted by everyone. They are not known, but they are condemned, they are killed, but they give life; they are poor, but they enrich many. They are lacking in all things, and abound in all things (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). They are dishonored, but they are glorified; they slander them, and they are found righteous; they slander, and they bless; they are insulted, and they pay homage; they do good, but they are punished as evildoers; being punished, they rejoice, as if they were given to live" (to Diognetus 5). Looking deeper into this picture of the Christian life, we see complete liberation from sin through a constant willingness to suffer for one's disobedience to sin. Suffering, previously hated by man, became an object of reverence. A similar description of the new, Christian life is found in the "Great Catechetical Discourse" of St. Gregory of Nyssa: "Who does not know how in every region of the universe the demonic deception has abounded, which has prevailed over the lives of people through idolatry? How was it lawful for all the pagan nations in the world to honor demons through idols by sacrificing animals and defilements committed at the altars? But when, as the Apostle says, the grace of God appeared, saving all men (Titus 2:11)

This, of course, they would not have undergone, without having a clear and indubitable proof of the divine coming" (v. 92). The same understanding of deliverance from sin through the establishment of a new life on the principles opposite to sin is found in St. St. John of Damascus: "The Son of God became incarnate in order to give him again that for which He created man, for He created him in His own image - rational and free and in likeness, i.e. perfect in every kind of virtue, to the extent that it is accessible to the nature of man. For these are, as it were, signs of the Divine nature: freedom from cares and restlessness and purity, goodness, wisdom, righteousness, freedom from all vice. And so, having placed man in communion with Himself, for He created it in incorruptibility, through communion with Himself, He raised him up to incorruption. And since, through the transgression of the commandment, we have darkened the features of the divine image, and destroyed and, finding ourselves in sin, have lost divine communion, what communion between light and darkness!

Thus, the worship of the demons ceased, the creation was sanctified by divine blood, the altars and temples of idols were overthrown, and the knowledge of God was planted.

Death, once very terrible, has been vanquished and anciently hated and disgusting is now preferred to life. These are the excellent works of Christ's coming; these are signs of His power.

For although those who had once sinned were disgraced, yet they continued to hold fast to sin, and sin was honored with them for God. Now, for the sake of piety and virtue, people prefer reproach, and torment, and death. Wonderful, in Christ is the Word of God, and wisdom, and power, and God Almighty. How can we, the poor, repay Thee for all this! For all things are Yours without exception, and Thou dost require nothing of us except that we should be saved, reigning Thyself, and this also, in Thy ineffable goodness, having good will toward those who receive salvation."

It is now evident that liberation from sin consists in the foundation of a new life according to the way of life of the suffering Christ who draws to Himself the suffering Christ, since the humiliation and suffering, by the power of which sin frightened people, were voluntarily accepted as the guiding principles of life, and the pleasures that attract the actions of sin were recognized as the main enemy of eternal truth.