Man, Theodoulos, cannot humiliate himself without humiliating his God, and he cannot humiliate God and not humiliate himself. A crooked hoe is a disgrace to the blacksmith, and a muddy stream flows out of the muddy spring. Among the pagan peoples, both people and gods are humiliated to the level of cattle. People are slaughtered and burned like cattle as sacrifices to evil gods, and snakes, bulls, monkeys and birds are deified as real gods. Exceptions to this could scarcely be found on the whole globe in any rare people before the birth of Christ. And even thoughtful India was no exception. The land of the world's deepest philosophy, the most refined psychology, and the most strenuous human effort—intellectual, intuitive, and moral—India was seething and foaming with polytheistic delusions no less than gloomy Egypt and superficial Hellas, or formidable Syria and Chaldea.

Nowhere could people rise to the idea of a single, omnipotent and humane God. If faith in such a God began to sparkle somewhere, there immediately arose a counterbalance to Him - a god of immorality and destruction, a villain and a misanthrope, from whom people had to pay off with considerable sacrifices. This is how Shiva, the god of destruction, appears in India as an equal member of the trio: Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva. In Egypt, Osiris and Isis are at enmity because of the atrocity committed against Horus. In Hellas, Zeus often finds himself helpless in the face of a whole horde of immoral and nasty deities. He barely manages to stay in power and intrigue against the whole Olympic gypsy camp. In Persia, Ormuzd wages a fierce struggle against his rival Ahriman. In Syria, the monstrous Moloch insatiably swallows the people who are thrown at him as sacrifices. On the American continent and across the Pacific Islands, deities are like these, with the same appetite. The deification of snakes is a common feature of all pagan peoples. The one who appeared to the foremother Eve in the form of a serpent was able - by God's permission - to impose himself on the human race as an obligatory deity. He taught people magic and witchcraft. Humiliated himself, he did everything to humiliate God and people.

People accepted the evil suggestions of the serpent of hell and loved darkness more than light, falsehood more than truth, enmity more than benevolence; they believed more in sacrifices than in mercy, in idols of stone and wood more than in God Almighty, in serpents and other animals more than in their one Creator and Lord.

Among some peoples men are exalted (if it is only ascension) to the rank of gods, especially rulers and heroes, for there was nowhere such a polytheistic pantheon to which new gods could not be added. A pile of garbage does not resent when new garbage is added to it. Only truth does not tolerate addition and subtraction. For example, some Caesars in Rome were proclaimed gods by the Senate and included in the Roman pantheon. Bogdykhan, the king of China, from time immemorial was considered the son of heaven, a deity. The Mikado in Japan is still considered a deity and has a divine origin. Many famous samurai were also numbered among the gods for their patriotism, and temples were erected over their coffins and sacrifices were made. And although the deification of people looks somewhat better than the deification of snakes, both come from the father of all lies and all violence. Everything is calculated and directed to the darkening of the human mind, to the corruption of the heart and to evil; in the final analysis, to bring all mankind to despair and madness.

And indeed, at the time of the appearance of the Savior on earth, the world resembled a prison and an insane asylum; not only resembled, but was indeed a veritable prison for the desperate and a home for the insane. The whole world lay in evil. And the world did not know anything better. After all, neither Indian nirvana nor the Hellenic hades were any consolation for desperate people. That is why some Greek philosophers said, in agreement with the Sibyls, the prophetesses of Rome: "Only a certain God can save the world."

Seed and Seed

The seed is the word of God (cf. Luke 8:11).

In the silence of the starry night, in the deaf silence of the underground cave, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, was born.

In the East, the stars seem closer to the earth and the spiritual light is felt more brightly by people than in the West.

From what seed was Christ born? If it is human, then He could not be the Savior of people and the Healer of the sick. After all, in the seed is blood, and in the blood is the soul. But the soul of man was smitten with evil, and from the evil soul was evil blood, evil and seed. The Creator produced the entire human race from one blood (cf. Acts 17:26). This means that all the seed of Adam in the blood of man was damaged and sick. A messiah who came from such a seed would be like a sick man going to a hospital to treat the sick and a madman going to an insane asylum to heal the insane. There were many such false messiahs in the world. Plague among plague people, they could be told: a doctor! heal yourself.

The Messiah must be healthy; no, not only by the healthy one, but by the very source of health. Neither in His blood nor in His soul can there be any perishable inheritance, no Adam's and Cain's burden of evil, crime, fratricide, lies and violence, no responsibility for parental and ancestral sins. From the spirit of His health diseases must disappear, from the purity of His soul unclean spirits must flee, the fragrance of His being must refresh the entire plague atmosphere into which He descended, bowing the heavens to earth.

From what seed was Christ, Theodoulos, born? Undoubtedly, from the inhuman and unearthly. Who among the earthly sick could understand and foresee this, according to the lazy human mind, if the heavenly evangelist Gabriel had not announced and explained this?

When the Holy Virgin was troubled at the appearance of the radiant Archangel of the Heavenly Army in Nazareth, in the house of the elder Joseph, Gabriel said to Her: "Do not be afraid, Mary, for Thou hast found grace with God; and behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bear a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High, and shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and his kingdom shall have no end.

And when the innocent and meek Mary childishly asked: "How will this be, when I do not know my husband?" The heavenly messenger answered Her: The Holy Spirit will come upon You, and the power of the Most High will overshadow You... With God, no word will remain powerless.