Idolatry has taken hold of all men and the whole earth. A few chosen people have preserved true knowledge of God and divine services. Subsequently, God chose and set apart the people of Israel to serve Him, giving them a written Law. But the disease of idolatry was so strong in fallen mankind that even the chosen people, often abandoning the worship of the One True God, strove to worship idols.

Man, having been deprived of the Divine Light of the Holy Spirit by his fall, had to be content with his own, meager light – reason.

The human sciences, being the fruit of the fall, satisfying man, presenting to him God's grace and God Himself as unnecessary, blasphemy, rejecting, and humiliating the Holy Spirit, have become the most powerful instrument and means of sin and the devil to maintain and strengthen the fall. The light of men united with the light of demons and formed human learning (wisdom), hostile to God, corrupting man with devil-like pride [1518]; Overwhelmed by the disease of learning, the sage of this world subordinates everything to his mind and serves as his own idol, fulfilling Satan's proposal: "Ye shall be as God, leading good and evil." Learning, left to itself, is self-deception, is demonic deception, is knowledge full of falsehood and leads the scientist into a false attitude both to himself and to everything [1519]. Learning is an abomination and foolishness before God; it is possession. It proclaims its blindness to be the most satisfactory knowledge and vision, and thus makes blindness incurable, and the fall it preserves the inalienable property of the unfortunate scribe and Pharisee [1520]. Carnal wisdom is enmity against God: for he does not submit to the law of God, for he can do less. Carnal wisdom is death [1521]. The Holy Spirit commands the rejection of earthly wisdom for those who wish to approach God and become a partaker of spiritual wisdom [1522]. The Apostle Paul notes that few of the scholars have accepted the Christian faith [1523]; on the contrary, for these imaginary and pompous sages, spiritual wisdom, which is all-abundant and all-perfect in Christ, seemed madness [1524]. Philosophers and artists were the greatest champions of idolatry and enemies of the true knowledge of God. After the establishment of the Christian faith in the world, learning gave birth to innumerable heresies, and with them it tried to overthrow the holy Faith. The greatest crime – the murder of the God-Man – was committed by the scholars in the name of their wisdom and in the name of their law [1525]. In our time, learning returns the pagans who have accepted Christianity to paganism and, rejecting Christianity, reintroduces idolatry and service to Satan, changing forms for the most convenient deception of mankind. A rare, very rare scribe learns the Kingdom of Heaven and brings out the new teaching of the Spirit before the company of his brethren, cloaking this teaching in the old rags of human learning, so that it may be more easily accepted by those who love the old than the new [1526].

Death and Hell

After the fall of the first man and the rejection of him by God, and in him of the entire human race, all men, having ended their earthly pilgrimage with the death of the body, descended with their souls into the underworld of the dungeons of hell. Hell is in the bowels of the earth [1527]. There burns the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels [1528], who, therefore, by their fall preceded the creation of the material world. There is pitch darkness, there is tartarus, there is gnashing of teeth, there is a worm that never sleeps, there is weeping without consolation, uninterrupted and in vain. There are various torments for the variety of sins; there are different degrees of torment corresponding to different degrees of sinfulness. Spiritual death, essential death, which struck the human race in its ancestors, expressing its power over the body of the earthly pilgrim during his earthly pilgrimage through illnesses and other innumerable sufferings, at the end of his earthly pilgrimage expresses this power by the most terrible phenomenon: the separation of the soul from the body. After the separation of the soul from the body, the power of death over a person is fully developed (here we are talking about the times that preceded the Redeemer): the decaying and stinking body is buried in the bowels of the earth, and the soul of every person, both the wicked and the Old Testament righteous, descends into hell. The souls of the wicked were cast into eternal fire, as definitively belonging to eternal death; the souls of the righteous descended into hell, into its less deep and terrible prisons, where they dwelt, languishing in life in hell and together comforting themselves with the hope of redemption. All the circumstances of earthly life prove to man that he is an exile on earth for a terrible crime; but death proves this most of all. It shows neither respect nor regret for anything high and important human. It amazes youth, beauty, genius, power, and wealth. Nothing can prevent man from inexorable death, which serves as empirical proof for the human race of its fall, its transgression before God, its execution. It bears witness before men that man is a creature and a slave, rebelling against his Creator and Lord, that the most famous and most important deeds of man for the earth mean nothing for eternity, that the lofty things of man are an abomination before God [1529]. Death is an execution. Striking every man, it proves that every man is a criminal; By striking all human beings without exception, it proves that humanity is punished for a crime common to all mankind. Death reveres piety alone, and the prayer of the righteous can sometimes stop the axe of death and postpone its hour [1530].

The Prosperity of Evil on Earth

When the human race had spent many millennia in cruel enslavement to a fallen angel, then the Redeemer promised by God appeared on earth. Before we begin to describe this greatest and most miraculous event, let us also look at the state of the ill-fated world at the time when the Lord descended to earth and became man for the renewal and salvation of mankind. The world was immersed in idolatry throughout its entire space. Men, hating one another, envious of one another, poured their blood on the whole surface of the earth in fierce battles, in which numerous peoples were exterminated and disappeared, reaped by the sword and deprived of nationality by slavery and sold in the markets of the universe like cattle or soulless goods. The calamities and ruin of mankind are recognized as the greatest glory for mankind, and the conquerors, stained with the blood of their brethren, were proclaimed their gods during their lifetime. Other evildoers, distinguished by abominable vices, were given divine honor after their death. The satisfaction of the most shameful passions was considered the highest pleasure. Some of the most outcast men entered into open communion with Satan, putting on his power, and contributed to the strengthening of his dominion over the earth and mankind [1531]. This domination reached its full development. The chosen people of Israel also bowed to this dominion. Greatly diminished in numbers and degraded in civil terms, this people fell under the power of idolatrous peoples. His inner, essential strength, which consisted in communion with God through the knowledge and fulfillment of His will, was exhausted. Life according to God's commandments, which forms in man purity of mind and heart, which is overshadowed by Divine grace, enlightening man with true spiritual reason and theology, was replaced in most cases by the school study of the Law, combined with neglect of God-pleasing life, which the scribes and Pharisees, as the Jewish scholars of that time were called, tried to replace with pretense and hypocrisy. These scholars, darkened by satanic pride, full of contempt and hatred for all other classes of the people, slaves of the passions, incapable of faith because of their unlimited and frenzied attachment to earthly glory and earthly advantages, capable of all kinds of crimes because of this attachment, the perpetrators of these crimes, seized their doctrine in power, rejected the commandments of God from it, introduced into it their absurd traditions, striving in their blindness to perdition, they themselves drew the people led by them to it [1532]. Few, very few people remained faithful to God by their very lives and by their true knowledge of God, depending on such a life. Their holy names are in the Holy Gospel [1533].

Now let's move on to the most pleasant sight. Let us prepare, let us purify ourselves with tears of repentance, and, distracting our minds and hearts from all earthly cares, let us join the hosts of the Holy Angels, in order to devote ourselves together with them to the sacred contemplation of the incarnation of God the Word, so that together with them in sacred wonder and joy we may sing: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men [1534].

Memories

about St. Ignatius

From the manuscript

Mikhail Vasilyevich Chikhachev [1535]

At the same time as me, Dimitri Alexandrovich Brianchaninov decided to enter the Engineering School. In his parents' house he was taught by a seminary student, who thoroughly explained to him the Law of God and the Orthodox faith. So when his parents asked him where he wanted to enter the service, the young man answered: "Wherever you want, and I want to become a monk."