First of all, how is salvation understood? "What more do you seek, asks St. St. Gregory the Theologian, except salvation? Future glory and holiness? It is very important for me to be saved and get rid of the torment there. You walk the path that is untrodden and inaccessible, and I am the path that has been trodden, which has saved many" [104]. In these words, salvation is understood, as we see, exclusively from its external, formal side, the destruction of man is taken in the direct and general sense, without defining what exactly it consists in: man is threatened with misfortune, and he gets rid of it. The same meaning can be found in those passages of the Holy Scriptures. Scriptures, where eternal life is contrasted with judgment, perdition, and torment (e.g., Jo. III, 15; V, 24; Mph. XXY, 46, etc.).

If the essence of salvation is in the well-being of man, in his pleasure, then for what is man to be rewarded? "Without podvig no one is crowned" [105], says St. John. Ephraim the Syrian. Does it seem fair to you that earthly and transitory things and perishable glory should require effort and labor, and in order to gain hope of reigning with Christ for the ageless and endless ages of ages, it was not even proper to use this short time of your sojourn on earth for labors and feats, in order to reign for centuries afterwards" [106]. "Pay attention," says another Holy Father, "to the very law of righteousness, and enter into thyself. You have various ministers, some good and others bad; you respect the good, but you beat the bad. And if you are a judge, you praise the good, but punish the wicked. Is it possible that you are a mortal man, justice is observed, and God, the King, the unsuccessor of all, has no righteous retribution? It is impious to deny this" [107].

What is the basis for awarding a great reward in heaven to a person? The reward is given only for the feat; Next, and the heavenly reward is attained by podvig, "by righteous deeds" [108]. Deeds, therefore, give the right to eternal bliss, turn out to be, as it were, a price, a payment for it on the part of man. This assimilation is very common in the Holy Scriptures. Scripture and Tradition.

Thus, the Lord Jesus Christ very often, persuading his listeners to this or that Christian virtue, to Christian behavior in general, pointed out to them mainly that for such behavior, and only for it, the reward is given in heaven. "Take heed," he said, "do not your alms before men, that they may see you: otherwise you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you give alms, do not trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that people may glorify them. Verily I say unto you, they have already received their reward. You... etc., and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you openly" (Matt. VI, I – 6, etc.). Or, for example, the well-known saying about a single cup of cold water given to a prophet or disciple. "Whoever receives a prophet in the name of a prophet receives the reward of a prophet; and whoever receives the righteous in the name of the righteous will receive the reward of the righteous. And whosoever shall give one of these little ones to drink only a cup of cold water, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, shall not lose his reward" (Matt. X, 41 – 42).

St. The Apostles also often resort to this form of expression, and also in those cases when it is necessary to induce someone to do good. The afterlife reward is compared with the award on the lists, with the crown of the victors. "Do you not know," says the Holy Apostle Paul, "for example, that those who run in the field all run, but only one receives the reward; and you run so that you get. All ascetics (i.e., fighters) abstain from everything: they to receive a perishable crown, but we incorruptible" (1 Cor. IX, 24 – 5; Gal. V, 7; Philip. III, 14; 2 Tim. IY, 7 – 8; 1 Peter. V, 2 – 4, etc.). Restraining Christians from any vices, they point to the punishment that will befall all sinners from the Lord: "The will of God is your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication,.,, that you should not do unlawfully and covetously to your brother in anything; for the Lord is the avenger of all these things, as we have spoken to you before, and have testified" (I Thess. IV, 3 – 6). These and similar passages are used to justify the legal understanding of the moral life. Later we will see how fair this is.

It is exactly the same in the works of the Holy Fathers. The Fathers of the Church, with the same goal – to substantiate good deeds, to induce it, sometimes resort to such comparisons, which, apparently, directly – for an external understanding of life. Such, for example, is the analogy of buying and selling. "It is necessary," says St. Gregory of Nyssa, strengthened by faith in what is expected, to buy in advance (proemporeuetJai) future grace by virtuous behavior" [109]. The gift of freedom inherent in man is sometimes thought to be explained by the fact that otherwise it would be unfair to reward a person. If God had made everything a gift of nature, we would have been left without rewards and without crowns (astejanoi cai cwriV brabeiwn); and as the dumb cannot receive reward or approval for the perfections which they possess by nature, so we would not receive any of these. For the perfections of nature are for the praise and honor of those who do not possess them, but Him who gave them. Thus, that is why God did not present everything to nature" [110]. Virtue is recognized as a sufficient reason that makes retribution a matter of simple justice. "Spiritual healing takes care of the soul, so that the soul may inherit the heavenly glory for podvig and for the struggle with the earth, and, having been tempted by them here, like gold with fire, it will receive hope as a reward for virtue, and not only as a gift of God" [111]. If souls, says St. Ephraim the Syrian, prove to be skillful, faithful and worthy in all things, having endured to the end and preserved the hope of faith, then, having been vouchsafed deliverance by grace, in all justice they will become heirs of the kingdom" [112]. Or Nilus of Sinai: "On the day of judgment, God will rightly award retribution to everyone, not according to the erroneous assumption here, but as justice requires, according to the very truth of what has been done" [113].

Moreover, not only virtue, as a general and constant disposition of the soul, but also every good action, good deed, in itself, seems to be deserved. Such an idea can be given, for example, by the words of St. Cyril of Jerusalem: "Be only trustworthy; Do only, strive only diligently. Nothing will perish. Every prayer of yours, every psalmody is written down; all alms are recorded, all fasting is recorded; it is also recorded, if the marriage was honestly preserved, the abstinence observed for God is also recorded; the first crowns in this record are presented to virginity and purity" [114]. If we continue to study the works of the Holy Fathers in the same direction, then we can perhaps find in them traces of Catholic super-due merit. For example, in the Ladder we read: "There are souls who have done more than the commandments command" [115]. Or St. Gregory of Nyssa, praising Placyla, says that in her feats (catar Jwmasi) she surpassed the prescribed (purercetai cai taprostetagmena) [116]. In general, human life sometimes appears to be a kind of mechanical cohesion of various feats and merits, each of which expects a reward for itself and is done only for the latter. "Everyone's life is weighed, as it were," says St. Cyril of Alexandria, "retribution will certainly be balanced with our goodness" [117]. Previous good works lessen the punishment for sins, because the righteous Judge pronounces judgment, measuring the latter with the former," says Bl. Theodoret [118].

The legal conception of life can find the most grounds for itself in the works of St. John Chrysostom, who, perhaps more than anyone else, had to speak against greedy heartlessness towards the poor, and, consequently, to prove, first of all, the imprudence of such behavior. He could not, by the very nature of the matter, speak to a miser and selfish man about the sweetness of a sacrifice for his neighbor – when speaking to a hireling, he had to choose a suitable language. Hence the desire noticed in some places of the works of the saint to calculate when, for what and how much exactly a person should receive. "If you, says the saint, do something good (crhstou) and do not receive recompense for it here, do not be dismayed: a reward abundantly awaits you in the future [119]." "When you see a righteous man punished, consider him blessed, and say: this righteous man either has a sin on himself, and receives retribution for it, and goes there clean, or is punished beyond his sins, and an excess is calculated for him, an appendage to his righteousness (prosJhch dicaiosunhV autw logizetai). For there is a calculation (logoV) and God says to the righteous man: "You owe me so much, let us suppose he has entrusted him with ten oxen, and put ten oxen on account for him." But if he has spent sixty oxen, God says to him, "I count ten oxen for your sin, and fifty for righteousness" [120].

If we are now from oo. If we turn to the Western, it goes without saying that in their works we will find even more traces of a legal understanding of life: these Fathers had to deal with Rome directly, and therefore they could not ignore its mode of thinking, especially since the sinfulness of man seemed to justify such an understanding of life. "From the time," says Tertullian, "when evil entered the world and the goodness of God was offended, His justice began to govern Him gracefully. It has given goodness to the worthy, denied it to the unworthy, took it away from the ungrateful, and marked it for it to its enemies. It judges, condemns, punishes: His judgments, His executions, the fear they inspire to serve as a bridle of self-will, an encouragement of virtue" [121]. Hence the designation of human deeds of "merit," common to all Western Fathers. Deeds are considered mainly as a certain value that gives the right to a reward. Thus St. Cyprian writes to the confessors: "Some of you have preceded others by performing your martyrdom and have to accept a reward from the Lord according to your merits; and some are still languishing in prison, in mines and in chains, and... by the slowness of suffering, they acquire the fullest right to merit, according to which they hope to receive from heavenly rewards as many rewards as there are now days in torture" [122]. Tertullian, on the other hand, directly represents the Lord, as if he were a debtor for man's good deeds. God, he says, not wishing the death of his saints, has declared himself their intercessor, and therefore accepts their good deeds and repentance; and accepting this, He considers it His duty to reward them for this" [123]. The relationship between God and man is sometimes strictly equated with the relationship between the members of a simple legal union: the essence is placed in mutual satisfaction, with vengeance for every violation. For example, let's take the same Tertullian. Here, for example, is what he says in his work on patience: "Bodily sorrows are a sacrifice of purification, reconciling God to us through humility, when the flesh, being content with a little bread and water, offers its poverty and abstinence as a gift to the Lord, when it adds to this frequent fasts, and when it spends the fasts in ashes and sackcloth... Thus the once proud King Nebuchadnezzar, who provoked the Lord, offered a magnificent and useful sacrifice of patience by humble and strict repentance of the seven-year exile, during which he lived with the beasts, removed from the company of men; and by this cruel sacrifice he regained his kingdom, and what is even more important, by this purifying satisfaction he again gained the mercy of God" [124].

In spite of all these numerous traces of legal understanding of life in the Holy Scriptures. Scriptures and the works of oo. It is impossible for the Church to recognize this understanding of life as a real patristic or biblical understanding of life, or it is possible only if we use the Holy Scriptures. Scripture or Tradition only as a collection of incoherent sayings, and not as a single word of God, not as an expression of a single and integral worldview. All these traces must be compared with a long series of thoughts that were also constantly on the lips of sacred writers and oos. Church and who, nevertheless, directly deny the legal understanding of life.

First of all, is legal relations between God and man possible? On the basis of the Holy Scriptures. Scriptures and Traditions, we say that they are impossible. In fact, if a certain relation is to be presented as a legal relation, it must be required to fully conform to the concept of a legal relation; If there is no such correspondence, and the relation, however, does not contradict either reason or moral feeling, then this is because, consequently, this relation belongs to an order of phenomena different from the legal one and requires special laws and a special explanation.

Now, the legal union is based on a selfish desire for one's own well-being and is expressed in the mutual self-limitation of several selfishnesses in order that each of them may prosper to the greatest possible extent. Does this measure apply to God's relationship to man? To think so is not only impious, but also insane. "Can man," asks Eliphaz, "be of use to God? A wise man benefits himself. What pleasure is it to the Almighty that you are righteous? And will it profit Him that you keep your ways upright?" (Job XXP, 2-3). "God," says Bl. Augustine, does not need human righteousness itself, and everything in which the true worship of God is expressed is useful to man, and not to God. Of course, no one will say that he was useful to the spring when he drank from it, or to the light when he saw it" [125]. "Man, say St. Gregory of Nyssa is a weak and short-lived creature, well likened to grass (Ps. CII, 14), which exists today and tomorrow is not, believes that he has worthily honored the Divine nature. It is like lighting a thin thread of tow, thinking that with this spark you increase the brilliance of the sun's rays" [126]. "Who is man? asks St. Tikhon of Zadonsk: earth and pus. Who is God? There is the Creator of all creation, visible and invisible" [127]. Is there any comparison between them? And if it is impossible, then how can we understand the closeness of God to man? Why does the Lord, all-satisfied and all-perfect, descend to union with man, with this worm, with ashes, with this dream vision and shadow" [128]. "Lord," exclaims the Psalmist, "what is a man, that Thou knowest of him, and the Son of man, that dost Thou pay attention to him? Man is like a breath: his days are like a departing shadow" (Ps. CXLIII, 3-4), "What are the works of men? asks St. John Chrysostom: "Ashes and dust, dust before the wind, smoke and shadow, leaf and flower carried away by the wind, sleep, dream and fable, empty vibrations of the air, easily excited, feathers tossed, unstable currents, and everything that can only be more insignificant than this" [129]. Why did the Lord need these illusory human deeds? Why did He not only deign to "bring man from non-existence into existence, but also raised up the fallen and gave him the kingdom of the future" [130]. The legal principle will not explain to us this "gracious mercy" of God, by which He "did not suffer to see the tormented human race from the devil" [131]. Where right and satisfaction operate, there is no place for such causeless, unselfish goodness.

Let us take, however, the relationship between God and man as a given of experience; without thinking about their origin. Let us assume that there is a legal union between God and man at the present time: the virtue of man is the price that the Lord demands of him for the promised rewards. But even with this concession, the relationship between God and man will not be valid from a legal point of view: before thinking about any reward for his deeds, a person owes God for all the benefits received and received. "If God, say St. Macarius of Egypt, entered into court with us, then nothing would have been found, which in true truth belongs to man; for both possessions and all imaginary earthly goods, with which a person can do good, and the earth and everything that is on it, and the body itself, and the very soul belong to Him. And not only everything else, but also existence itself, man has by grace. Therefore, what property does he have, which he could rightly boast of and justify? [132]. As it is impossible to outstrip one's shadow, which advances in so far as we go forward, and always precedes us at an equal distance; just as it is impossible for the body to grow higher than the head, which always rises above it, so it is impossible for us to surpass God with our gifts. For we give nothing that does not belong to Him, or that is outside the circle of His bounty. Think, whence does being, breathing, and understanding come from in you? Whence comes the supreme advantage, that thou knowest God, that thou hast hoped for the kingdom of heaven?" [133]. "What shall we render to the merciful God for all these blessings and gifts, because He came down from heaven from the Father, or that for our sake He was incarnated in the womb, or because He was choked for us? In order to repay for one ear, then if we had lived on earth for thousands of years, we could in no way repay this mercy of God" [134] "Children," says St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, "whatever reverence and pleasing they do to their father, they give him what is due to him, as a parent, educator and provider, otherwise they would be ungrateful: so Christians, no matter how hard they try to please the heavenly Father, they give what is due, and thus they cannot deserve anything; but what they receive from God, they do not receive. For we cannot repay God for His beneficence to us, which has been shown and shown in any way, but we always remain debtors to Him" [135]. Thus, our good deeds, even if we recognize a certain value for it, still cannot deserve a reward for a person, it will go, so to speak, to pay off a debt; Thus, "if we do not do what is commanded to us, then we are not only deprived of the heavenly reward, but we have no right to be called even ineligible slaves" [136]. "You do not show mercy (to God by striving for good), says St. Cyril of Jerusalem: "because you yourself received it before: on the contrary, you repay mercy by repaying the debt to Him crucified for you on Golgotha" [137].

But this is not enough. If we measure the relationship between God and man by a legal mark and consistently; to the end, it must be admitted that, just as every good deed gives a man at least a phantom of the right to a reward, so, on the other hand, every sin, every violation of the covenant with God necessarily requires satisfaction, so to speak, of payment for oneself (as the Catholics really teach), and consequently, it also takes away the last phantom of the right to some reward from God. "The corruptible human race is worthy of a thousand deaths, because it abides in sins," says St. Basil the Great [138]. Sin is not the property of the imperfect alone, it is a universal phenomenon, and everyone can say of himself without any hesitation: "How shall man be justified before God? So He does not trust His servants and sees faults in His angels: all the more so in those who dwell in tabernacles of clay, whose foundation is dust, which are destroyed more quickly than moths (Job. IX, 2; IV, 18 – 19). "In the courage of even chosen men, one can, in the words of St. Cyril of Alexandria, find something worthy of just censure, which is seen by the knowledge of the Lawgiver, although it escapes our gaze" [139]. Let someone be righteous, says St. John Chrysostom, but even if he is righteous a thousand times (can muriaciV h dicaioV) and ascends to the very top, so as to renounce sins, he cannot be clean from defilement; though he be a thousand times righteous, he is a man" [140]. Where is the possibility of demanding from God any reward, any satisfaction, when on our part there is only a violation of the covenant with God, only an increase in an already great debt? "Know," says St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, "that we have not deserved any good from God, but, on the contrary, we are worthy of any punishment, and whatever punishment may be, our sins are still worthy of a greater one" [141] If this state (i.e., the state in hell after the general judgment) were the lot of all, then even in this case no one would have the right to reproach the justice of God, the avenger." says quite justly, from a strictly legal point of view, bl. Augustine [142].