1, c. 285]. See what spiritual blessings can be vouchsafed if you diligently study our subject.

St. John of the Ladder speaks of the same thing: "The soul, which during the day is constantly learning the word of God, usually exercises itself in the same thing even in sleep, for this second is the true reward for the first work, for to drive away spirits and evil dreams" (Ladder 20: 20) [46].

The Holy Fathers have warned us that the study of Holy Scripture cannot be reduced to a purely mechanical re-reading of it, cannot be completely successful, even if we read the corresponding interpretations. A true understanding of the Scriptures lends itself only to the person who by his life tries to fulfill what he encounters in the Scriptures. But even for this he must ask for help from God, "for," in the words of Blessed Theodoret, "wisdom and prudence are truly needed both for the knowledge and understanding of the words of God, and for their fulfillment and observance. It is impossible to understand them for those who have not received the illumination from the Spirit of God, and to preserve them for those who do not use help from above" [74: vol. 29, p. 270].

Bishop Theodore Pozdeevsky, rector of the Moscow Theological Academy, in his speech at a moleben before the beginning of the school year (1912) said: "For if we, too, looked upon the word of God not as a set of truths revealed in the interests of human curiosity alone, but as a revelation of the highest truths of a God-like life, as a revelation of the laws of the moral world order, then it goes without saying that the assimilation and understanding of these truths would be accomplished in a different way. than usual. After all, it is no secret for each of us that when we begin to delve deeper into the meaning of the words of Holy Scripture, then these attempts of ours remain almost completely in vain, and as if some kind of veil prevents us from understanding the hidden meaning of the Scriptures with pure eyes. And this, of course, is because "the law (of God) is spiritual," and man is "carnal, sold under sin" (Romans 7:14), and never, of course, can a person who lives according to the law of the flesh understand the laws of spiritual life, a life like God, for in order to know these laws, one must approach them in life itself and experience them. That is why St. Symeon the New Theologian, discussing the ways of understanding the Word of God, compares it to a locked chest with treasures. This chest can be carried uselessly on your shoulders and you will not be able to reach the treasures stored in it if you do not have the key to it. The key to the spiritual treasure contained in the Word of God is one – moral purity and holiness; that is why the Word of God, which contains all the knowledge of God, must be studied not so much with the mind as with a pure heart, capable of seeing God Himself" [71, pp. 348-349].

I will quote the words of St. Symeon the New Theologian, to which His Grace Theodore refers. St. Simeon compares the Holy Scriptures to a kind of strong chest, inside of which a treasure is locked. And he says that "just as if a man lifts this chest on his shoulders, cannot by this alone see the treasure that is within him, so if a man reads and even memorizes all the Divine Scriptures, and can read them all as one psalm, he cannot by this alone comprehend the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is hidden in them; for neither that which is inside the chest can be revealed by means of the chest itself, nor that which is hidden in the Divine Scriptures can be revealed by means of the writings themselves" [66, vol. 1, p. 443]. He says that such a person who has learned the Scriptures even by heart, but mechanically, is like one who carries this chest on his shoulders. The most he can achieve is to get himself some kind of back disease from diligence, and he will not be able to get treasure in this way. But the fulfillment of the commandments, the fulfillment of virtues is much more useful here, he says that "from the commandment are born virtues, and from virtues the sacraments hidden in the letter of the Scriptures are made manifest. Then they succeed in virtue when they keep the commandments, and, again, when they keep the commandments when they are zealous for virtue – and from this the door of knowledge is already opened, that is, those mysteries which are hidden in the divine Scriptures." So, you see, it turns out that you need to be zealous for reading the Holy Scriptures, you need to try to know them properly, but the real benefit can be obtained if you try to apply in your life what is revealed.

General information about the Holy Scriptures. From the course of the Catechism, you remember that the Holy Scriptures are "books written by the Spirit of God through people sanctified by God, called prophets and apostles. Usually these books are called the Bible." Depending on the time of writing, the books of the Holy Scriptures are divided into two sections: "Those Holy Books that were written before the Nativity of Christ are called the Books of the Old Testament, and those that were written after the Nativity of Christ are called the books of the New Testament."

In total, there are 50 books in the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament in our editions of the Bible, of which 39 books are canonical and 11 are non-canonical. It is necessary to say right away what this is, since in the course of the New Testament you have not come across the concept of non-canonical New Testament books – all the books that are contained in the corpus of the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament are canonical. If we open the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, we will find there also 11 non-canonical books, such as the Books of the Wisdom of Solomon and Jesus, the son of Sirach; The Epistle of Jeremiah, the Books of Maccabees, etc.[1]

These books were also written in antiquity, and some of them were written in the original in Hebrew, some in Greek, but these books were not recognized by the Church as divinely inspired books – this concept will now be discussed separately. That is, these books were recognized as very good, edifying, which contain certain grains of divinely revealed teaching, but which, on the whole, cannot be recognized as divinely inspired – the element of human wisdom is too strong. That is why these books are left by the Fathers in the lists among the other books of the Old Testament and, as it is said in the definitions of the Fathers, they are intended for edifying home reading for Christians and for reading for novices, since they contain a high moral teaching.

Protestants reject these books and call them apocrypha. Catholics at the Council of Trent included most of the non-canonical books in the canon. That is why they sometimes call them deuterocanonical.

With regard to the term "apocrypha," it should be explained that it was first used in relation to the Holy Scriptures by the Gnostics, who called the "secret" books that the apostles allegedly left for the "initiates," in contrast to the well-known books intended for the simple. Since these spurious books contained a teaching rejected by the Church, the name "apocrypha" was eventually established for all books that claimed to be part of Scripture but were rejected by the Church. In terms of themes and genres, they are close to the canonical books of the Bible, but, unlike non-canonical books, they are not recognized as useful and edifying. Of the fairly numerous Old Testament apocrypha, one can name the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Enoch, the Covenant of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Fourth Book of Maccabees.

It should be noted that the list of canonical books practically coincides with the canon accepted in modern Judaism. Does this mean that the Jewish canon is primary in relation to the ecclesiastical one? Not necessarily. The final fixation of the canons, which are now recognized by the Jews, took place at the beginning of the second century A.D. It took place simultaneously with the formation of a new tradition caused by the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, when it was necessary to organize community life on some new foundations, different from the previous ones. The result was the emergence of a virtually new religion, which is somewhat younger in age than Christianity. The Church of Christ considers herself to be to a much greater extent the successor of the Old Testament Church, if we consider the Old Testament as a preparation for the reception of the New (see Jeremiah 31:31). By the way, it was traditionally believed that the canon of the books of the Old Testament was concluded and compiled in the time of the priest Ezra, that is, in the fifth century B.C. We will have a separate discussion about this. Therefore, the most important thing for us is the Church's definitions of the worthiness of this or that book. Which books are canonical and should be read in the Church are established by the canons of the Holy Fathers and the Holy Ecumenical Councils.

It should be added here that the ecclesiastical text of Scripture has always been the text of the Septuagint, the text of the translation of the seventy interpreters who, in the third century B.C., translated the Holy Scriptures into Greek for the Egyptian king Ptolemy Philadelphus [44]. Following St. John Chrysostom, we will say that "it was the work of God's dispensation, so that these books would be used not only by those who knew the Hebrew language, but also by all the inhabitants of the world" [29, vol. 4, p. 26].

Thus, in our Bible we see 39 canonical inspired books of the Old Testament. However, in a number of ancient patristic texts – for example, in the poetic epistle of St. Gregory the Theologian to Amphilochius about what books should be read – we see that there are 22 books listed there. What does that mean? That in the time of St. Gregory there were fewer books? No, this means that there is a different calculation and division of these books.

Where does the number 22 come from? According to the number of letters of the Hebrew alphabet, they are calculated in the same way in the tradition of the Hebrew Bible. The composition of the text is the same, it's just that some books are grouped. How? In the epistle of St. Gregory, the following order is proposed: first come the books of the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges and Ruth; then the two books of Kings, that is, not four, as we now believe, but joining them two by two: the first-second, the third-fourth; Chronicles as one book and Ezra, that is, the 12 books that he called historical. Then there are 5 books, which he calls poetic: Job, David, that is, the Psalms, and 3 Solomons: Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, and Proverbs; The 5 books of the Prophetic Spirit: the 12 minor prophets as one book, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel – the division is almost the same as the one we now use for our practical needs. Note that he does not single out the books of the Pentateuch as law-positive books, as we are now distinguishing, but the other three criteria are clearly distinguishable: historical, didactic, and prophetic books.