Some He Himself brings, others through the holy prophets, apostles, holy and venerable fathers, and universal teachers. Our enemy the devil is constantly looking for whom he can devour and turn away from the right path. He began with Adam and to our time deceived many, teaching some to worship idols, others murder, adultery and other sins, and still others heresy.

The worst of all sins, heresy, is more abominable than any iniquity. Many have now succumbed to the devil, have distorted the true faith, spoken reckless words and deviated into various heresies, for they have misinterpreted many books of the Divine Scriptures, and therefore have departed from the true Christian faith to Judaism. I am talking about Archpriest Alexei, Priest Denis, Fyodor Kuritsyn and their like-minded people, who, to their perdition, first in Veliky Novgorod, and then in many other cities and villages, sowed the Jewish teaching and distorted the Divine Scriptures.

Let us now speak of one of their impious heretical teachings: that it is not proper to depict the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity on honorable icons, for Abraham, as they say, received and treated God with two angels, and not the Trinity. It is their custom to pervert the Holy Scriptures and interpret them in accordance with their heresy; in this matter the devil took them as his helpers, as he took Judas as his assistant in the Crucifixion of the Lord Jesus.

But we, not inventing it from ourselves, but according to the ancient Divine prophetic books, will answer the heretics and be convinced that Abraham saw God in three Persons, that is, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The great Moses says: "The Lord appeared to Abraham at the oak grove of Mamre" (cf. Gen. 18:1). Consider what he says: "The Lord appeared to Abraham." Why did Moses not say, "The Lord appeared to Abraham with two angels"?

Why did Moses speak of God and keep silent about the angels? Everyone who reads the Holy Scriptures knows that God has appeared holy many times – if God appeared alone, then the Scriptures directly say so, but if God appeared with angels, then this is reflected in the Scriptures. Scripture testifies that God alone appeared to Noah, many times alone appeared to Abraham and Moses.

When God appeared to Jacob on the ladder, the angels of God ascended and descended the ladder (Gen. 28:12-13); when He appeared to Isaiah sitting on the throne, the Seraphim stood before Him (Isaiah 6:1-3); God appeared to Daniel in the Ancient of Days, and thousands of thousands served Him (Dan. 7:9-10) – all this is directly stated in the Scriptures. Scripture does not say that God appeared to Abraham with two angels, but this is what it says: "God appeared to Abraham.

Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men standing against him, he ran to meet them and bowed down to the ground, and said, "Lord! if I have found grace before Thee, do not pass by Thy servant; and they shall bring water, and wash your feet; and they will bring bread, and you will eat. And Abraham said to his wife Sarah, "Quickly knead three sats of the best flour." And Abraham himself, taking the lad with him, ran to the flock, and took the best calf, and brought it, and prepared it.

And he took butter, honey, and milk, and set it before them, and they ate, while he himself stood beside them" (cf. Gen. 18:1-8). All three sat together, equal in glory, equal in honor, none greater or less than the Others; Abraham served Them equally and honored Them equally. If it were God with two angels, would the angels dare to be co-throned with God? Nowhere in Scripture will you find evidence that angels are ever co-throned with God, but only the Son and the Holy Spirit are co-throned with the Father, as the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments testify.

Thus says the wise Paul about Christ: "We have such a High Priest, Who is seated at the right hand of the throne of majesty in heaven..." (Heb. 8, 1.) "And he, having offered one sacrifice for sins, sat down forever at the right hand of God, waiting then until His enemies were made His footstool" (Heb. 10:12-13). And again says the holy Apostle Paul: "Of the angels it is said: Thou makest spirits by Thy angels...

And of the Son, Thy throne, O God, for ever and ever; the scepter of Thy kingdom is the scepter of righteousness. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: wherefore hast thou anointed thee, O God, thy God, with the oil of joy more than thy fellow-partakers" (Heb. 1:7-9). Wishing to show the glory of the Only-begotten Son of God, the Prophet David says: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever" (Psalm 44:7, we quote from the Slavonic text of the Psalm; in the Synodal Russian translation of the Bible, the same passage is quoted by Apostle Paul (Heb. 1:8)

coincides with the Slavonic Bible; In the Psalm itself, the translation gives: "Forever." – Ed.). Interpreting the Psalmist, the Apostle Paul says: "Of the angels it is said, 'Thou makest spirits by Thy angels' (Ps. 103, 4. In the Synodal translation, in the text of the psalm, it is "Thine," and in the quotation of Ap. Paul — "by his own"; In the Slavonic text of the psalm, there is no discrepancy with the quotation of the Apostle. – Ed.) ...

And about the Son: Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever" (Psalm 44:7). Lest anyone say that the words are addressed not to the Son, but to the Father: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever," a little further the Prophet David says: "Therefore Thy God hath anointed Thee, O God, with the oil of joy more than Thy fellow-partakers" (Psalm 44:8). Nowhere in Scripture does it say that the Father was anointed, only the Only Begotten Son of God was anointed in His human nature.

The same prophet says of the Only-begotten Son of God: "Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek" (Psalm 109:4). If He was a Priest, He was anointed. Just as Melchizedek was not a priest according to the law of Moses, so was the Lord Christ, of whom the Apostle Paul says: "But Christ, the High Priest of good things to come, having come with a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of such a dispensation, and not with the blood of goats and bulls, but with His own blood, entered once into the sanctuary, and obtained eternal redemption" (Heb. 9:11-12).

Of Him also the prophet David says: "Therefore I have anointed Thee, O God Thy God." For the Lord's Flesh was anointed by the coming upon Him of the Holy Spirit, Who is "the oil of joy," and the words "greater than Thy fellow-partakers" are spoken of all men, for all men are given in part the communion of the Holy Spirit. Having descended upon the Son of God, the Holy Spirit "dwelt upon Him" (John 1:32), as John said, and did not fly away from Him, being of one essence with Him.