3. What features characterize Book. Siracha?

4. What is Sirach's teaching about creation, Wisdom, and man?

5. How did Sirach understand the sinfulness of man?

6. According to Sirach, what are the characteristics of a righteous man?

7. What is the relation of this book to holy history, eschatology, and messianism?

Apocalyptic Writings and the Struggle for Faith in the IV-II Centuries BC

§26 The First Apocalyptics. The Gospel of the Resurrection (IV century B.C.)

1. Apocalyptic. Deep dissatisfaction with the present state of the world, a refusal to reconcile themselves to it, was already heard among the prophets, from Amos to Malachi. But most of them did not yet clearly distinguish the future transfiguration of creation from purely earthly and even political aspirations. However, the schism of the united kingdom of Israel, the foreign yoke, and the Captivity gradually freed the consciousness of the Old Testament Church from utopian illusions. In the biblical literature of the last centuries B.C., the final and greatest Manifestation of God is increasingly depicted as an event entirely miraculous, supernatural. This theme becomes the main one in the writings of the apocalyptics (from the Greek apocalypse – revelation).

"Under the name of the Jewish apocalyptic," writes Archpriest S. S. Bulgakov, "of course, a number of works containing a "revelation" of secrets regarding the present state of the world and mankind, its past and especially the future."

This orientation distinguishes apocalyptic from the tradition of the sages and shows that in that era in the Old Testament Church there existed several schools or trends in parallel.

The apocalyptic books include: canonical (Isaiah 24-27; Joel; Zechariah 9-14; Daniel), non-canonical (3 Ezra) and apocrypha. Most apocalyptic writings are characterized by three features:

saturation with complex and mysterious symbolism, which is designed to express the innermost essence of history;

a focus on eschatology and the Judgment of God, which overshadow specific political and social events (which attracted much attention from the old prophets);

Anonymity of authors. The prophets were not only writers, but also active participants in the life of the people. They acted in word and deed. Apocalyptics, on the other hand, most often express themselves through books. Moreover, many of them write anonymously or under a pseudonym. Wishing to show that the revelation given to them unites people with the eternal plans of God, the apocalyptics put in the titles of their writings the names of glorified men of the past (Enoch, Noah, the patriarchs, Isaiah, Daniel, etc.).