Избрание Апостолов

Пробыв всю ночь на горе (по мнению древних на горе Фавор), в молитве, несомненно, об утверждении основываемой Им Церкви, Господь призвал учеников Своих и избрал из их числа двенадцать, чтобы они постоянно находились при Нем и могли бы потом свидетельствовать о Нем. Это были как бы начальники будущих двенадцати колен Нового Израиля. Число 12 имеет в Священном Писании знаменательное значение, как произведение 3 и 4; три — вечно не созданное Существо Божье, а четыре — число мира, четыре стороны света. 12 обозначает проникновение человеческого и мирового Божественным. Три первых Евангелиста и книга Деяний дают нам имена всех 12-ти Апостолов. В этом списке замечательно то, что Апостолы разделены везде на три группы по четыре человека в каждой, при этом во главе каждой группы стоят одни и те же имена, и в составе их — одни и те же лица.Вот имена Апостолов: 1) Симон-Петр, 2) Андрей, 3) Иаков, 4) Иоанн, 5) Филипп, 6) Варфоломей, 7) Фома, 8) Матфей, 9) Иаков Алфеев, 10) Левий (или Фаддей, как называли Иуду Иаковлева), 11) Симон Кананит (или Зилот), 12) Иуда Искариотский. Варфоломея Евангелист Иоанн называет Нафанаилом. Кананит — это перевод на еврейский греческого слова зилот, что значит ревнитель. Так называлась еврейская партия, ревностно ратовавшая за независимость еврейского государства. Слово искариот считают составным из двух слов: иш (муж) и Кариот (название города). Само слово апостол в переводе с греческого значит посланник, что соответствует назначению избранных — быть посланными на проповедь. Для большего успеха их проповеди Господь облек их властью исцелять болезни и изгонять бесов.

Нагорная проповедь

Полностью Нагорная проповедь изложена только у Евангелиста Матфея. В сокращенном варианте излагает ее св. Лука, у которого отдельные части Нагорной проповеди встречаются во всем его Евангелии. Нагорная проповедь замечательна тем, что содержит сущность евангельского учения.Недалеко от Геннисаретского озера, между Капернаумом и Тивериадой, до сих пор показывают "гору блаженств", с которой, из-за многочисленности собравшегося народа, была произнесена Господом Нагорная проповедь.

С такими ложными мечтами о земном блаженстве, которое дарует им Мессия, евреи окружили Иисуса, ожидая, что вот-вот Он провозгласит себя Царем Израиля, и наступит тот блаженный, ожидаемый ими век. Они полагали, что наступает конец их страданиям и унижениям, и отныне все они будут счастливы и блаженны.

Заповеди блаженства

В ответ на эти мысли и чувства Господь раскрывает евреям Свое евангельское учение о блаженстве, разбивая их заблуждения в корне. Он учит здесь тому же, о чем говорил и Никодиму: нам необходимо переродиться духовно, чтобы создать на земле Царство Божье, этот потерянный людьми рай, и тем приготовить себе блаженство вечной жизни в Царствии Небесном. И первый шаг к тому — осознать свою духовную нищету, свой грех и ничтожество, смириться. Вот почему "Блаженны нищие духом, ибо их есть Царство Небесное" (Матф. 5:3). Блаженны те, кто, видя и осознавая свои грехи, препятствующие им вступить в это Царство, плачут, потому что тогда у них есть возможность примириться со своей совестью и утешиться. Оплакивающие свои грехи доходят до такого внутреннего спокойствия, что становятся уже неспособными на кого-либо гневаться, делаются кроткими. Кроткие христиане, действительно, унаследовали землю, которой прежде владели язычники, но они унаследуют землю и в будущей жизни, новую землю, которая возникнет после разрушения этого тленного мира, "землю живых" (Исх. 26:13; Апок. 21:1). "Блаженны алчущие и жаждущие правды, ибо они насытятся" (Матф. 5:6), то есть исполняющие во всем волю Божью достигнут той праведности и оправдания Божья, которое дает искреннее стремление во всем исполнять волю Божию. Милостивый Бог требует от людей милосердия — добродетели, которой достигают искренне стремящиеся жить по Его воле. Поэтому "Блаженны милостивые, ибо они помилованы будут" (Матф. 5:7), помилованы Богом, как и наоборот: "Суд без милости не оказавшему милость" (Иаков 2:13). Искренние дела милосердия очищают человеческое сердце от всякой греховной нечистоты, а "чистые сердцем" своим духовным оком "Узрят Бога" (Матф. 5:8). Зрящие Бога стремятся подражать Ему, уподобляться Сыну Его, примирившему человека с Богом, принесшего мир, то есть спокойствие, человеческой душе. Зрящие Бога ненавидят вражду и поэтому становятся миротворцами, стремятся всюду водворить мир. Поэтому они и блаженны, поскольку "Будут наречены сынами Божьими" (Матф. 5:9). Достигшие такой духовной высоты должны быть готовы к тому, что этот греховный мир, мир, который "Лежит во зле" (1Иоан. 5:19), возненавидит их за ту правду Божью, носителями которой они являются, и начнет гнать их, поносить, злословить и всячески преследовать за их преданность Господу Иисусу Христу и Его Божественному учению. Тех, кто много претерпят здесь за Христа, ожидает великая награда на Небесах (Матф. 5:12)Эти девять новозаветных заповедей, носящих название Заповедей блаженства, представляют собой как бы все Евангелие в сокращенном виде. Характерно их отличие от ветхозаветных десяти заповедей: в Ветхом Завете преимущественно рассматриваются внешние поступки человека и налагаются строгие запрещения в категорической форме, в Новом же Завете говорится больше о внутренней настроенности человеческой души и излагаются не требования, а лишь условия, при соблюдении которых достижимо вечное блаженство.Евангелист Лука дополняет учение св. Матфея о блаженствах. Он приводит слова Господа Иисуса Христа, содержащие предостережения тем людям, которые видят блаженство лишь в упоении земными благами: "Горе вам, богатые! Ибо вы уже получили свое утешение" (Луки 6:24), — говорит Господь, противопоставляя им нищих духом. Здесь, конечно, имеются в виду не просто обладающие каким-либо земным богатством, а уповающие на него, гордые, превозносящиеся, относящиеся к другим с надменностью. "Горе вам, пресыщенные ныне! Ибо взалчете" (Луки 6:25) — в противоположность "Алчущим и жаждущим правды", эти люди не ищут правды Божьей, но вполне довольны своей лжеправдой. "Горе вам, смеющиеся ныне! Ибо восплачете и возрыдаете" (Луки 6:25), — здесь говорится о людях беспечных, легкомысленно относящихся к прожигаемой ими греховной жизни. Мир, лежащий во зле, любит тех, кто потворствует ему, тех, кто живет во грехе, а потому: "Горе вам, когда все люди будут говорить о вас хорошо" (Луки 6:26), поскольку это — признак неблагополучия нравственного состояния.

The Light of the World

Further, the Lord says that all His followers who fulfill His instructions will be "the salt of the earth" (Matt. 5:13). Salt will protect food from spoilage, make it healthy, pleasant to the taste; In the same way, Christians must protect the world from moral corruption and contribute to its healing. Salt imparts its properties to all substances with which it comes into close contact; so Christians must communicate the Spirit of Christ to all other people who have not yet become Christians. Salt does not change the essence and appearance of the substance in which it dissolves, but only gives its taste; In the same way, Christianity does not produce any external breakdown in man and human society, but ennobles the soul of man and, through this, transforms his whole life, giving it a special, Christian character. "But if salt loses its savor, how wilt thou make it salty?" (Matt. 5:13). In the East, indeed, there is a type of salt that loses its taste under the influence of moisture, wind and sun. Nothing can restore such salt; so are those people who, having once tasted the noble communion with the Holy Spirit, have fallen into the unpardonable sin, and they are no longer able to be renewed spiritually without God's special help.The light of the world is, in fact, the Lord Jesus Christ, but since those who believe in Him receive this light and reflect it into the world, they are also the "light of the world." Such are the Apostles and their successors, whose purpose is precisely to shine with the light of Christ: the pastors of the Holy Church. They must live in such a way that, seeing their good deeds, people would glorify God.Wishing to show His attitude to the old law, the Lord first calms the zeal of the Jews for the law, emphasizing that He did not come to break the law, but to fulfill it. Christ, indeed, came to earth in order for the entire Old Testament Word of God to be fulfilled in Him, in order to reveal, implement and establish all the power of the law and the prophets, to show the true spirit and meaning of the Old Testament. "How did he fulfill the law? – asks Blessed Theophylact. — First, because He did all that the prophets foretold about Him. He also fulfilled all the commandments of the law, since He did not commit iniquity, and there was no flattery in His mouth. He fulfilled the law and fulfilled it by writing perfectly what is only a shadow in the law." He gave a complete and deep understanding of all the Old Testament commandments, preaching about the insufficiency of only external, formal obedience to the law. "Not one jot [the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet] or one tittle shall pass away from the law, until all things are fulfilled" (Matt. 5:18), says the Lord, emphasizing that even the smallest thing in the law of God will not remain unfulfilled. The Pharisees, on the other hand, divided the commandments into major and minor commandments and did not consider it a sin to violate the "small" commandments, including the commandments of love, almsgiving, and justice. "Whosoever shall break the least of these commandments, and teach men so shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven." According to the nature of the Greek expression, he will be called the smallest, which means that he will be rejected and will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

It is against such outward, ostentatious righteousness that the Lord warns His followers.

The Two Measures of Righteousness

Further, throughout chapter 5, beginning with verse 21, St. Matthew tells us how the Lord testifies in what way He came to complete the Old Testament law: He teaches a deeper and more spiritual understanding and fulfillment of the Old Testament commandments. It is not enough not to kill a person only physically, it is also impossible to kill him morally, being angry with him in vain: "Everyone who is angry with his brother in vain is subject to judgment; Whosoever shall say to his brother, The Raka [empty man] shall be liable to the Sanhedrin; but whosoever shall say a fool shall be liable to hell fire" (Matt. 5:22). Here, in relation to Jewish ideas, different degrees of the sin of anger against one's neighbor are indicated. The ordinary city court dealt with crimes of lesser gravity than the Great Sanhedrin, the supreme court located in Jerusalem and consisting of 72 members presided over by the high priest. To call a man of cancer meant to show him one's contempt, and to say to someone mad meant to express to one's neighbor an extreme degree of contempt or contempt: this was the name given not only to a foolish, but also to an impious, unscrupulous person. The punishment for this extreme degree of wrath was "Gehenna of fire" (this was the name of the valley of Ennom, located southwest of Jerusalem, where under impious kings the abominable service of Molech was performed (2 Kings 16:3; Chron. 28:3), where young men were led through fire and infants were sacrificed. those left without burial; sometimes the death penalty was also carried out there; The air in this valley was so polluted that a living fire was constantly maintained there to purify it. That is why this place, terrible and disgusting, called the valley of fire, began to serve as an image of the eternal torment of sinners.The meekness and love of a Christian for his neighbor should extend not only not to be angry with anyone, but also not to provoke anger against himself from his neighbor with an unkind, of course, feeling. This prevents one from offering prayers to God with a clear conscience, and therefore one must hasten to reconcile with one's brother before prayer. In the case of Roman legal proceedings, according to which a lender could forcibly lead his debtor to a judge, the brother we have offended is called our rival, with whom we must reconcile while we are still "on the path" of this earthly life, so that he does not give us over to the Judge-God, and we do not suffer the retribution we deserve. Thus, the Holy Apostle Paul hurried the offender to reconcile with the offended, saying: "Let not the sun go down on your anger" (Ephesians 4:26)In the same way, it is not enough to fulfill the 7th commandment of the law of God purely externally: "Thou shalt not commit adultery!" protecting oneself from sin only physically. The Lord teaches that not only an action, but also a thought, an inner lust or a longed-for look at a woman is already a crime. "He commits fornication with a woman in his heart," says St. Athanasius the Great, "who agrees to a deed, but is hindered by either the place, or the time, or the fear of the law." Not every look at a woman is a sin, but a look with a desire to commit the sin of adultery. In such cases, one must show all determination to suppress temptation, so as not to spare the most precious thing that the members of a person's body are: the eye or the hand. In this case, both the eye and the hand are indicated by the Lord as a symbol of everything precious to us, which we must sacrifice in order to eradicate passion and avoid sin. The Old Testament law of Moses (Deut. 24:1-2) allows a husband to divorce his wife by giving her a bill of divorce, a kind of written evidence that she was his wife, and that he is letting her go for such and such a reason. In the Evangelist Mark (10:2-12) the Lord says that the permission to divorce his wife was given by Moses to the Jews "because of the hardness of their hearts", but initially it was like this: "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (Mark 10:9). A marriage can be dissolved by itself only in case of adultery of one of the spouses. But if "Whoever divorces his wife, except for the guilt of fornication, gives her cause to commit adultery"; and he who "marries a divorced woman" commits adultery (Matt. 5:32)The Old Testament law forbids the use of an oath in the name of God in vain deeds, especially in lies. The third commandment of the law of God forbids the mention of the name of God in vain, forbids any frivolous attitude to the oath in the name of God. The Jews of the Lord Jesus Christ's time, wishing to fulfill this commandment literally, instead swore by heaven and earth, by Jerusalem, by their heads, and thus, without mentioning the name of God, they still swore by Him both in vain and in falsehood. It is these oaths that the Lord Jesus Christ forbids, since absolutely everything was created by God, and to swear by His creation is the same as to swear by the Creator, and to swear in a lie is the same as to insult the sanctity of the oath. A Christian must be so honest and truthful that he is believed by his own word alone, without any godliness. But this, by no means, prohibits a lawful oath or oath in important matters. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself confirmed the oath for judgment, when to the words of the high priest "I adjure Thee by the living God" He answered: "Thou hast spoken," since such was the form of the Jewish judicial oath (Matt. 26:63-64). And Ap. Paul swears, calling God as a witness to his words (Rom. 1:9, 9:1; 2 Cor. 1:23, 2:17; Gal. 1:20, etc.). In ancient times, revenge was so common that it was necessary to somehow moderate its manifestations, which, in general, was done by the Old Testament law. But Christ, by His new law, completely forbids revenge in any of its forms, preaching love for enemies. However, the saying "resist not evil" (Matt. 5:39) cannot be understood in the sense of non-resistance to evil, as Leo Tolstoy and similar false teachers do. The Lord forbids rebelling against a person who has caused evil with reciprocal malice, but a Christian must be absolutely irreconcilable to any evil as such and must fight evil by all means available to him, not allowing evil into his own heart under any pretext. Nor should we take literally the words "whosoever smites thee on thy right cheek, turn the other cheek also unto him" (Matt. 5:39), since we know that Christ Himself acted quite differently during the interrogation of the high priest Hannah, when one of the servants struck Him on the cheek (John 18:22-23). The evil feeling of vindictiveness is forbidden, but not the struggle with evil. And not only those who do evil, but also those who offend us, we must try to correct, about which in the Gospel of Matthew (18:15-18) there is a direct commandment of the Lord. Litigation is forbidden and, on the contrary, the satisfaction of the needs of one's neighbor is prescribed: "Give to him who asks you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you." Of course, this commandment excludes those cases when it is not only useless, but also harmful to help the beggar; True Christian love for one's neighbor is, for example, not to allow a murderer to take a knife or to prevent a person who wants to take his own life from poison.In the Old Testament there is no commandment "Hate thy enemy!" apparently, the Jews themselves derived it from the commandment to love one's neighbor, since they considered as neighbors only those people who were close in faith, by descent or in mutual services. The rest, that is, people of other faiths, tribes, or people who showed malice in any way, were considered enemies, love for whom was considered inappropriate. Christ commanded: just as our Heavenly Father, who is a stranger to anger and hatred towards anyone, loves all people, even the evil and unrighteous, as His children, so we, who wish to be worthy sons of the Heavenly Father, would love everyone, even our enemies. The Lord wants His followers to be morally superior to the Gentiles and Jews. Their love for others is essentially based on self-love. Love for God's sake, for the sake of God's commandment, is worthy of reward, but love from natural inclination or for the sake of profit does not and cannot deserve a reward. Ascending thus higher and higher on the ladder of Christian perfection, the Christian will finally reach the highest and most difficult love for enemies, impossible for an unregenerated person, the commandment of which the Lord concludes the first part of His Sermon on the Mount. And wishing to show how the fulfillment of this commandment brings a weak and imperfect person closer to God, He confirms that the ideal of a Christian is God: "Be ye perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). This is in full accord with the Divine plan expressed at the creation of man: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness" (Gen. 1:26). Divine holiness is unattainable for us, and therefore there is inequality between us and God, but we have in mind a kind of inner assimilation, a gradual approach of the human soul to its Prototype with the help of grace.

The main thing is to please God

2. The second part of the Sermon on the Mount, described in the 6th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, sets forth the Lord's teaching about almsgiving, prayer and fasting, as well as the exhortation to man to strive for the main goal of his life – the Kingdom of God. After warning His disciples what they should and should not do in order to attain blessedness, the Lord then proceeded to the question of how exactly to do what He commanded. Neither works of mercy nor worship of God, such as fasting and prayer in particular, should be performed for show, for the sake of glory among men, for in this case only human praise will be our only reward. Vanity, like a moth, devours all good deeds, and therefore it is better to do them secretly, so as not to lose the reward of our Heavenly Father. Naturally, you should give alms, but you should do it without the purpose of attracting attention to yourself, seeking praise from people. It is not forbidden to pray in churches, but it is forbidden to pray intentionally, for show. According to St. Chrysostom, it is possible to pray in a closed room out of vanity, and then "closed doors will not bring any benefit." We pray not because God does not know our needs, but solely in order to purify our hearts and become worthy of God's mercies by entering into inner communion with God in our spirit. This communion with God is the goal of prayer, the achievement of which does not depend on the number of words spoken. Condemning verbosity, the Lord at the same time commands unceasing prayer, teaching that one must always pray and not lose heart (Luke 18:1), while Himself spending the nights in prayer. Prayer must be reasonable: we must turn to God with such requests that are worthy of Him and the fulfillment of which is salvific for us. Teaching us such a prayer, the Lord gives us as a model the Lord's Prayer, which for this has received the name of the Lord's Prayer.