The Nativity of Our Lord.

The time finally came for the promised Saviour of the world to appear on earth. He was born at night, of the Holy Virgin Mary, in the city of Bethlehem, in a cave which was used for sheltering cattle. An angel of the Lord brought the news to shepherds who were tending their cattle that night in a field not far from the cave. Together with the divine messenger there suddenly appeared a host of angels. They glorified God and sang: “Glory to God on high and peace on earth, and goodwill among men.” The shepherds rushed to the cave and knelt before the Infant Christ.

Two thousand years have passed since that blessed night, in which the angel announced the great joy that would come to all people. And in the course of these 2,000 years the Holy Church, while annually re-living the exultation of that night in Bethlehem, tells us over and over again of what happened, and that it was truly a great joy.

But what is the essence of that joy?

In the very beginning of mankind’s existence, when Adam and Eve dwelt in the Garden of Eden, they lived in a state of bliss which we, in our current sinful condition, cannot even begin to comprehend. They had the joy of speaking face-to-face, like children with their father, with God Himself, Who put aside His inaccessible majesty and appeared to them very simply, as a Father to His beloved children. But through the malicious envy of the devil, the first-created people sinned and lost that bliss, and were expelled from paradise.

But the Lord in His infinite mercy did not wish to abandon His beloved creation. In order to save man, who had fallen away from God, the Lord Himself came down to earth, to become man and to take on a form in which He would once again be easily accessible to men.

And so today there lies in the manger in Bethlehem the Divine God, Who is also man. As God He is inaccessible and awe-inspiring, and even the angelic host does not dare to gaze upon Him; yet at the same time He is a man like us, similar to us in all but sin. Therefore, since the One Who lies in the manger is a man and at the same time the Son of God, – then we, being His brethren by virtue of His humanity, through Him have now also become the sons of God.

Therein lies the deep significance of Christ’s incarnation.

Apostle Paul tells us that God sent His Son down to earth, in order for Him to redeem us, so that we could once again become His children. We – all of mankind – were foresworn sinners, but He came, took our sins upon Himself, atoned for all of us, and now we once more possess the grace of being the sons of God.

Thus, mentally standing on this great day at the manger in Bethlehem, we realize with joy and awe that we are not only God’s creation, but also His children. And let us remember with immense gratitude that the Lord has mercifully done such a wondrous deed, and that instead of punishing man, who was guilty of sin, He not only took that punishment upon Himself, but more than that – He affiliated man to God the Father.

Let us love the newborn Infant Christ with all the tenderness of our soul, as our Saviour and our Redeemer, and let us bring Him the gift of our pure and loving heart.

Christ is born – glorify Him!

Adapted from the sermons of Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky)

“Adam, where art thou?”

“Adam, where art thou?” That was the voice of God, resounding in Adam’s conscience after the fall and tormenting him. As long as Adam obeyed the Lord, cultivating and guarding the Garden of Eden, he received strength from the fruits of the Tree of Life, and was in constant communion with God. In Adam’s heart there was complete peace and joy. But then Adam disobeyed the divine commandment, ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the strand of communion with God in his heart broke off. Sin stood like a wall between God and man.

From this time begins the history of man’s life on earth. Man lives under a stigma, and has to toil and sweat to earn his living. But despite all his hard work he is unable to acquire a joyous heart. His life is spent in sin, which only continues to grow and grow until it finally spreads over the entire earth.

Then, in the words of a Russian scientist, the Lord makes His first cosmic correction. The deluge washes sin away, the earth is purified and new life begins. But Adam’s original sin still hasn’t been atoned, and now once more it continues to take possession of man, once more it covers the entire earth. But amid this darkness, amid this terrible anguish, there is one man who searches for spiritual joy, who remains faithful to God. This man is Abraham. He receives the law of life and the renewed promise, originally given by God to Adam in paradise, that a Saviour will come to earth.

Centuries pass, men wait desperately for the promised Saviour. Men try to free themselves of sin, but without the Tree of Life, without the promised Saviour, it is totally impossible. Once again mankind reaches an impasse. And then, finally, the promise is fulfilled. The second cosmic correction takes place. The Saviour of the world comes down to earth. He saves mankind from sin. He fulfills the commandment given to man on loving God and one’s neighbor. And, most importantly, through His Church, through the Holy Eucharist, He renews the Tree of Life which stood in paradise and by means of which Adam communed with God. He renews the peace and the joy that were lost by Adam.

“Adam, where art thou?” – so resounds this eternal question in our own conscience, and each one of us is asked this question by the Lord. Not in a geographical sense, of course, since the Lord knows exactly where each one of us is to be found, but in terms of our relationship to Him, our God and Creator.

In our times mankind has reached an impasse with even greater finality than before Christ’s coming to earth. Sin has now spread over the earth and has taken possession of man to a much greater degree than before the deluge. Right now we are standing at the edge of the third and final cosmic correction: the Lord’s Last Judgment. And at the same time now, more than ever before, we have all that we need for salvation, for returning to paradise. We have the Church, in which, like in Noah’s ark, we can save ourselves from the turbulent waters of the frightful life that surrounds us. In church we have God’s commandments, which guide us onto the right path of life. In church we have the saints, who show us a brilliant example of that blessed life in Christ which Adam had lost. And finally, in church, through the Holy Mysteries, we once more have the means to commune with God.

During these holy days the Church earnestly appeals to us not to disdain the riches with which the Lord has blessed us all. Right now, during the Christmas lent, as we again prepare to meet the Saviour of the world, Who comes down to earth for each one of us, we must not shun the opportunity to come to church and to commune with the Lord God Himself.

“Adam, where art thou?” Let us not leave this question unanswered. Let us say to the Lord: “Lord, I am here, I am at Thy manger, in Thy church, standing before Thy chalice. I believe, O Lord, and I confess that Thou art the true Christ, Son of the Living God, Who has come to earth to save all sinners…” Amen.

(Adapted from the sermons of Archbishop Andrew of Novo-Diveevo)

Threshold of the Great Lent

The church begins the preparatory period that constitutes the threshold of the Great Lent with the “Sunday of Zaccheus” – the Sunday on which we hear the Gospel reading about a publican named Zaccheus.

There is a certain characteristic which runs like a golden thread through the entire festive cycle from the Nativity to the Baptism of our Lord, and which connects it with the Gospel reading about Zaccheus and with the Great Lent. This characteristic is the virtue of humility.

Just consider, dear brethren, how the momentous event of God’s coming down to earth and becoming incarnated occurred with the greatest modesty. There were no pomp and circumstance, no fanfare, only the angels sang the glory and the majesty of the One Who was born in a humble cave, and this singing was heard only by humble shepherds.

Afterwards the early years of our Saviour’s life also passed in anonymity. And then came the moment when He appeared publicly to begin His service to mankind. This momentous event, too, took place without pomp or circumstance, without fanfare: the Lord quietly came down to the river Jordan, in order to be baptized by John just like all other repentant sinners. And it was only John the Baptist, and the others who were there, – who had repented and were cleansed, – who saw the majesty of this moment in the first open appearance on earth of the Holy Trinity: God the Father speaking from heaven, God the Son being baptized in Jordan, and God the Holy Spirit descending as a dove and bearing witness to God’s imminent reconciliation with mankind.

It is this virtue of humility that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself teaches us by the example of His entire life on earth, which the Church offers to us – in the Gospel reading about Zaccheus – as the beginning and the foundation of our purification, our spiritual regeneration, our unification with Christ.

In terms of human judgment, Zaccheus was a great sinner. First of all, in his capacity as chief of the publicans, i.e. tax collectors, he was a thief and an extortionist. By keeping back part of the money which he collected, he robbed both the people and the government, became rich at the expense of his neighbors, and cast widows and orphans into poverty. Moreover, by working for the occupationary Roman forces, he was a traitor to his own people and showed himself to be unscrupulous. However, from the description of his meeting with the Saviour we see that Zaccheus was not a hopeless sinner, because he was not filled with that certain pride which would have forever barred him from salvation.

The Gospel tells us of how the Lord passed through Jericho, where this Zaccheus lived. Zaccheus, who had obviously heard of this new and extraordinary Teacher, showed a lively interest in Him. Zaccheus did not haughtily remain at home, disdaining to run after the crowd, nor did he try to push his way forward or demand to be let through before everyone else. He humbly waited to see Christ along the way, and he showed his ardent desire to see the Lord by climbing up into a sycamore tree, because he was short in stature.

Consider this moment, dear brethren: Zaccheus ardently desires to see the Lord, humbly waits to see Him, and then overcomes all barriers to his desire: by climbing up into a tree he overcomes the physical impediment of his stature, and also overcomes the psychological impediment of his important position, the possibility of being mocked and ridiculed by others, etc.

And what do we see? What does humility lead to, even of such a great sinner as Zaccheus? “Zaccheus!” – the Lord says to him, – “make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house.” With these words the Lord says to Zaccheus: I must abide with you, because you have opened up your heart to Me, you have come to meet Me; I must abide at your house, that is, in your heart, because your humility has merited My grace; I must abide with you, because you have now become totally transformed spiritually, and I must strengthen this within you; I must abide within your heart, because it is now ready to accept Me

Thus we see how humility brought Zaccheus to his meeting with the Saviour; how humility attracted God’s grace to him; how humility transformed his entire being, made him cry out: “Lord! half of my goods I will give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man falsely, I will restore it fourfold.”

Such is the effect of humility, dear brethren! Let us follow the example of Zaccheus’ humility, let us burn with his ardor to see Christ, let us overcome all impediments to meeting with Christ, in order for the Lord to say to us: today I must abide at thy house, the house of thy heart. Amen.

Father Rostislav Sheniloff

Hasten to do good!

One of man’s greatest problems nowadays is that he is constantly hurrying, often senselessly and fruitlessly. Man conquers mountains with his energy. In a brief period of time he builds and destroys entire cities. But if we look closely at the energy produced by many people and analyze its consequences, we will see that this energy does not increase the amount of good in the world.

People’s lives have become more and more hurried… Everyone is running, everyone is afraid to be late somewhere, to miss someone or something, to forget to do something… Machines are speeding by in the air, in the water, on the ground. We see and feel this uncontrollable and ever accelerating spinning of things – and even concepts – in the world; the ever accelerating and uncontrollable – both in technology and in life – speeding of machines and people…

The reign of evil has to come to an end. It may be quite near. Doomed and perhaps sensing its forthcoming destruction, evil races around the world, agitates mankind, frightens and excites its imagination, entices it with many lures, and forces people who have not sealed their foreheads and their hearts with the sign of God’s cross to race increasingly towards an ever greater acquisition of material wealth… Harried and deafened with worldly vanity, people are no longer capable of entertaining thoughts of great and eternal truths, the attainment of which requires at least a minute of divine silence in one’s heart, at least a moment of sacred quiet.

Technology constantly increases the speed of transportation and the acquisition of material goods. It would seem that people would have more time left for the development of their high spirit and intellect. But, on the contrary, for many souls it has become more difficult to live. The soul languishes, it has no time to think of the lofty, to pine for the great, to turn to the holy. Everything spins and turns, and constantly increases its speed. How much illusoriness there is in mankind’s affairs! Instead of spiritual aspirations and inspiration, many people are possessed by a psychosis of exclusively multiplying their material values and energy. And so these values cease to be a blessed gift from God; they are not counterbalanced by a striving for truth. A “mirage of work” is created, for man has been called to work and cannot be tranquil without work. But material affairs do not bring peace to man if they are in control of him and not he of them. By becoming a slave of his material affairs man builds on sand, and all that he builds becomes destroyed. Of the many proud edifices that have towered yesterday, only dust and ashes remain today.

Pitiable man, find the time to do good! But you have no time even to think of it. Everything in your life is completely filled up, while good stands and knocks at your door. Good has nowhere to stay. If only you could invite it into your thoughts, your feelings, your desires for at least five minutes! But no –“there is no time”… And why does good not understand that, but continues to knock at the door of your conscience? O man, man, where is your goodness, where are you yourself? You have concealed yourself from God and from your own self, you have hidden behind the spinning wheels of life. I will say to you: hurry to do good, hurry while you are in this world! “Walk in the light while there is light”… Night will come, when you will no longer be able to do good even if you wished it.

Begin first by thinking of doing good; and then think of how to do it; and then begin to do it. Good is a source of light; it shines and warms up your life and all the people around you. Doing good is the most important thing in life. It is terrible to be late in doing good! To leave this earth for eternity with empty hands and a cold heart, and so to appear before the judgment of the Creator…

Whoever does not hasten to do good will never do it. The doing of good requires ardor. Lack of feeling and indifference try to bind us hand and foot before we can even think of doing good. Only those who are ardent, sincere, and fervent can do good. Only a man of lightning ardor can truly be a good man. This lightning speed is an expression of spiritual energy and great faith.

The evil hastiness and excitement which we now see in the world stem from a troubled conscience, from a heart that is self-absorbed and excited by mirages.

Evil always tries to force each soul – and each nation – into veritable bondage: into an exclusive striving for an unattainable and ever-distant mirage of material happiness, irrespective of an internal spiritual life… Good, on the other hand, lifts us up on the wings of holy inspiration, unites people in an unselfish alliance and leads us into the great joy of the Creator of the universe.

Let us do good always and to everyone. Against the hastiness of evil let us set forth the speed and passion of goodness. Let our first passion be the speed of repentance before God for all committed sins – be they evil deed, word or feeling. Let our second passion be the speed of forgiveness of our brethren. A speedy reply to all entreaties is the third true passion. A fiery rejection of all evil and temptation is the fourth passion of the spirit. The fifth passion is the ability to quickly notice the needs of those around us, the ability to serve others in all things great or small, the ability to pray for everyone. The sixth passion is the resolve to oppose all manifestations of evil with good, all manifestations of darkness – with the light of Christ, all deceit – with God’s truth. And the seventh passion of our faith, of our hope, and our love, is the ability to instantaneously raise our heart and our entire life to God, thanking and glorifying Him for everything.

Archbishop John of San Francisco

XII. The Mystery of the Union of the Divine and Human Nature in the One Person of our Lord Jesus Christ

The humanity of Jesus Christ does not have a separate individuality in our Saviour, does not constitute a separate hypostasis, but has been incorporated by His Divinity into the unity of His Divine Hypostasis or Person.

“The Hypostasis of God the Word became incarnated, taking on from the Virgin the foundation of our nature, i.e. flesh, animated by a vocal and rational soul, and through this assimilation of flesh the Hypostasis of God the Word also became the hypostasis of the flesh,” – says St. John Damascene. “The Hypostasis of God the Word,” – continues to reason St. John Damascene, – having become the hypostasis of two natures, does not allow one of the natures to become hypostasis-less, but at the same time it does not allow the two natures to be hetero-hypostatic. The Hypostasis of God the Word does not become the hypostasis of first one and then the other nature, but remains the inseparable and indivisible hypostasis of both natures. Jesus Christ is a single Divine Person, unilaterally perceiving Himself in the duality of His natures. Christ is the true Emmanuel, the God-man.”

This is why the Holy Scripture calls the single Person of Jesus Christ sometimes God, sometimes man, sometimes the Son of man, sometimes the Son of God. It now becomes understandable why human traits are sometimes attributed to Christ as God, or Divine traits attributed to Him as man.

In speaking of Christ as God, Apostle Paul has in mind His human nature, while in speaking of Him as man, he has in mind His Divinity: “But we preach the wisdom of God, which is a mystery, which is hidden, which God ordained before the world unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:7-8). In the Acts of the Apostles (3:14-15) we read: “But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of life, Whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses.”

Since God cannot be crucified, nor the Prince of life, i.e. God, be killed, the Lord God, our Saviour, being at the same time man, acquired His Church by means of His blood. All of this speaks of the unity of two natures in the single Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Only by positing the organic integrity of the two natures – Divine and human – in the single Person of the Lord may one understand how God – the Absolute Spiritual Origin – was able to acquire His Church by means of His blood. Only by positing the unity of the Hypostasis or Person in Jesus Christ does it become understandable how the Son of man (the Saviour), Who was born in the reign of the Roman Caesar Augustus, existed “even before Abraham was.”

The fact that the Divine and human natures in Christ remain an indivisible and single Hypostasis has been clearly confirmed by the Word of God:

The Evangelist John the Theologian says: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we beheld His glory, the glory as the Only-begotten of the Father” (John 1:14).

In his epistle to the Philippians (2:6-8), Apostle Paul attests that “Christ, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Commenting upon these words, St. Cyril of Alexandria says that they represent a clear teaching of the idea of the perfect unity of hypostasis in Jesus Christ. The Apostle would not have said that the Same One Who is in the form of God, i.e. has a Divine nature, has taken upon Him the form of a servant, if there had been two persons in Christ.

Commenting upon Apostle Paul’s words: “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law” (Gal. 4:4), St. John Damascene and St. Cyril of Jerusalem say: “It is not said ‘made through a woman,’ but ‘made of a woman,’ i.e. God did not enter a man created in advance, but Himself in essence and in fact became man; He Himself became the hypostasis for His flesh.”

Thus, according to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, the humanity in Christ did not receive a special hypostasis, did not constitute an independent person, but was received by His Divinity into the unity of His Divine Hypostasis, so that even after incarnation He remained the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.

Even from the point of view of common sense one simply cannot agree with the heretic Nestorius who divided Christ into two persons, because if the Son of God, God the Word, united Himself with the man Christ only mentally and not physically, and dwelled in Christ as He had previously done in Moses and the other prophets, then strictly speaking the incarnation of the Son of God would not have occurred, and then it could not be said that “the Word became flesh,” as the Evangelist John the Theologian confirms; it could not be said that God sent forth His Son, born of a woman.

However, despite the obvious truth of the unity of the Divine and human natures in the single Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, there appeared people who in their desire to philosophize about God more than man is allowed to philosophize, and being carried away by the proof that Christ had two natures, began to assert that Christ also had two persons. There emerged the heretic Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who tried to prove that it was a plain man who was born from the Virgin Mary, and that God the Word became united with him only mentally and not physically.

Having condemned the heresy of Nestorius at the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus in 431, the Church Fathers composed a hymn of glorification in honor of the Most-holy Theotokos, and anathematized all those who called Her not the Birth-giver to God, but Birth-giver to Christ or man.

Against the heresy of Nestorius, who posited two persons in Jesus Christ, took up arms Archimandrite Eutyches from a monastery in Constantinople, and became so carried away in proving the unity of hypostases in Christ that he also merged the two natures (Divine and human) into a single nature, thereby laying the foundation for the heresy of Monophysitism, which taught that Christ’s Divinity had engulfed His humanity, i.e. that Christ only had a single Divine nature, and that it was only His Divinity which had been crucified and suffered on the cross under the seeming appearance of flesh.

In order to put an end to such a terrible fallacy, the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon in 451 clearly formulated the teaching on the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ in the following words: “Following the Divine Fathers, we unanimously enjoin you to confess the One and Only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, absolute in Divinity and absolute in humanity; true God and true man; One-in-essence with the Father in Divinity and one-in-essence with us in humanity, and like unto us in all but sin; born before all ages from the Father in Divinity, and in the last days, for the sake of us and our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary Theotokos in humanity; the One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, having two unmerged, immutable, indivisible, and inseparable natures; not separated or divided into two persons, but One and the Same Only-begotten Son, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the ancient forefathers taught of Him, and as the Lord Jesus Himself taught us.”

Thus despite the fallacies of those who divided Jesus Christ into two persons, the two natures in the single Person of Jesus Christ are joined indivisibly and inseparably, while despite the fallacies of those who taught that Divinity engulfed humanity in Jesus Christ, the Church teaches that the two natures are joined unmerged, immutably, and unalterably.

Even from the point of view of common sense, Divinity cannot change, while human flesh is too weak and limited to subordinate Divinity to itself. Only their absolute integrity, preservation, and immutability could effect our salvation: God could suffer on the cross only through His humanity, while infinite value to His suffering could only be imparted by His Divinity. The Divine and human natures were joined in the Saviour’s single Hypostasis from the moment of His inception in the womb of the Most-holy Virgin Mary. From then on these two natures were never separated and will never be separated. Christ arose with His flesh, ascended into heaven with His flesh, and will once again appear as the Son of man to judge the world, as the Word of God tells us: “When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory” (Matt. 25:31).

In what manner the two natures became conjoined in the single Person of the God-man, in what manner Jesus Christ, absolute God and absolute man, remains a single Divine Person – that is, of course, the greatest supernatural miracle of miracles, unable to be comprehended by the limited human mind, and before which the holy Apostle Paul exclaims with all due humility: “Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16).

(To be conluded)

Professor G.A. Znamensky

Saint Basil the Great

On January 14th (the 1st by the old calendar) the Church commemorates Saint Basil the Great.

St. Basil was born in the city of Caesaria in Cappadocia in 330 A.D., in a prominent Christian family that was notable not only for its material well-being, but also for its spiritual blessings: its ancestors included martyrs and confessors for Christ. St. Basil received his primary education at home under his parents’ tutelage, but afterwards he attended the most prominent schools of Caesaria and Constantinople, and finished his superior education in Athens. St. Basil’s friend, St. Gregory the Theologian, reminisced about their years of study together: “We knew only two paths: one was to our holy churches and their teachers, and the other – to our professors of secular studies.” It was said of St. Basil that “he was better versed in all subjects than others were even in a single subject… This was a ship laden with knowledge to the greatest extent possible for human nature.”

Soon St. Basil stepped upon the path of asceticism. He visited Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, in order to acquire the knowledge of truth from the great desert-dwellers. Having given away all his possessions, he settled in the desert, where a monastery soon sprang up. Here St. Basil wrote his commentaries on the Holy Scriptures, simultaneously engaging in spiritual labors, fasting, and prayer.

At that time the Church was buffeted terribly by the heresy of Arius. The moment arrived for St. Basil to become active in church affairs and become known as a prominent teacher and hierarch of Christ’s Church. Battling against heretics, propagating the true faith, caring for the poor and the orphaned, setting up monasteries, establishing order in churches, strengthening Church unity, comforting true believers who were persecuted by heretics with the help of civil authorities, – in all these tasks the great hierarch St. Basil labored most selflessly. St. Basil not only did not disdain to visit lepers, but gladly embraced them, giving them the great joy of feeling his love for them.

Fighting heretics “with the weapon of his verbal utterances and the arrows of his writings,” the indefatigable defender of Orthodoxy was hated by Arian heretics all his life, and suffered many sorrows and deprivations because of them. Besides his commentaries on the Holy Scriptures, St. Basil also composed a Divine Liturgy based upon apostolic tradition, which to this day is served in the Orthodox Church ten times a year; he also wrote many prayers, canonical rules, and rules for monastics.

The labors of dogmatic teaching, strict ascetic labors, and the great concerns and sorrows of hierarchal service exhausted St. Basil quite early. He died peacefully at the age of 49, having served for nine years as an archbishop and for seven years as a hierarch. St. Basil the Great is glorified by the Church as “the glory and the beauty of the Church,” “the light and the eye of the universe,” “a teacher of dogmas,” “an edifice of knowledge,” “a leader in life.”

Discorse on Saint John the Baptist

“In those days, – the Gospel tells us, – came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness and saying: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:1-2). “In those days,” that is, in the days of the Lord Jesus Christ’s coming to earth, in the days when the Heavenly King appeared, in the days when the pre-eternal Light began to shine in the world. In those days John the Baptist came and preached in the wilderness, in an uninhabited land, for mankind at that time was like a wilderness – it had not yet become the abode of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

What did John proclaim? “‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’ John himself had a raiment of camel’s hair and a leather girdle around his loins” (Matt. 3:4). Let us, too, my beloved brethren, attire ourselves in John’s raiment, for in this raiment is concealed the mystery of our salvation. This raiment is the image of people coming from paganism to faith.

John had a raiment of camel’s hair. The Holy Scriptures often liken the devil to a camel, in view of the latter’s pride, perfidy, and rage. In the writings of Prophet Isaiah, for example, the watchman says from his watchtower: “And he saw a chariot of donkeys and a chariot of camels” (Isaiah 21:7). The chariot of donkeys represents Christ, Who entered Jerusalem sitting upon a donkey; while the chariot of camels represents the Antichrist, who will appear in the last days through the auspices of the devil. John had a raiment of camel’s hair. With his preaching he attracted pagans, who were like hair covering the devil, and thus, by making the devil lose his “hair,” John the Baptist united these pagans with the Church.

“John himself… had a leather girdle around his loins.” The Holy Scriptures speak also of John’s girdle and loins, in order to show that carnal desires, which so oppose virtue, were deadened by the external girdle made of dead skin; this girdle symbolized true inner chastity. According to the Gospel, John’s food was locusts and wild honey. This symbolizes the Jews’ abandonment of the law and the commandments, as it is described by the prophet: “Thy crowned ones are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun arises they flee away” (Nahum 3:17). And the wild honey indicates that by transgressing the commandments the Jews turned the sweetness of the law into bitterness for themselves.

“Then, – says the Gospel, – Jesus comes to Jordan unto John, to be baptized by him. But John restrained Him, saying: I have need to be baptized by Thee, and comest Thou to me? And Jesus replied to him: Suffer it to be so now, for thus we must fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:13-15). Suffer it now, for it behooves you to be a witness concerning Me. I have come to teach that “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:5), and therefore I Myself must first fulfill that which I shall teach others to do. Suffer it now, for the words of the long-suffering Job must be fulfilled: “Not one man shall be clean of impurity, even if he lives on earth just a single day.” I must cleanse the ancient sinful impurity and renew the soul by means of the Spirit and the body by means of water.

Then John let Jesus alone. And when Jesus descended into Jordan, a great miracle appeared before the eyes of all those standing around: they saw the Source of all things being cleansed in the river, and the River of all bounty immersing Himself in water. Christ is truly the source of all things, as He Himself testifies, saying: “They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters” (Jeremiah 2:13). At the same time Jesus Christ is a river of all bounty, as can be seen from the following prophetic words: “The river of God has been filled with water” (Psalm 64:9). The Saviour has descended upon the waters, and they have become blessed, for He has blessed them. If any of you, dear brethren, has not yet washed himself in the fountain of eternal being, let him come and see what God the Father proclaims from the heavens about Jesus: “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well-pleased” (Matt. 3:17). “Hear Him” (Luke 9:35). Thus, a voice is heard at the river Jordan, the Father calls the Son by name, the Son cleanses the heavens and blesses the water, the Holy Spirit renews the earth and blesses the air. Now the ancient words of the psalm come to pass: “Day unto day uttereth speech” (Psalm 19:2). The day is the Father, and the day is the Son; and so, the Father passes the word unto the Son, as the Apostle Paul confirms when he exhorts us: “And take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). By this word may we all be joined in Jesus Christ, our Lord, unto Whom are due glory and worship unto ages of ages. Amen.

St. John Chrysostome

Life on Earth before Deluge

The culture of Adam’s descendants

Here is what is known about the Obeidian culture, about the culture of Eridu and Ur.

“It is important to note that the temple acknowledged to be the most ancient one in Mesopotamia was discovered in 1948 in Eridu, while Eridu is named in the cuneiform tablets as the first residence of the antediluvian kings” (p.37). The cuneiform source lists ten antediluvian kings/patriarchs, attesting to the fact that Eridu was the first residence of the antediluvian forefathers. Moreover, all cuneiform tables of both Sumer and Babylon always divide history into “before the Deluge” and “after the Deluge.”

The Obeidian potters possessed a more sophisticated technique of clay-processing than the potters of the Halafi culture, since their ceramics were distinguished by a great variety of forms. “The clay was mixed with hay and made into bricks, for the purpose of erecting really fundamental buildings.”

Furthermore, the North Obeidian culture represents a singular and late peripheral variant of the culture of Sumer (which had appeared earlier than in other regions), and it was in Sumer that the North Obeidian culture was first discovered. “In fact, in this culture’s most ancient settlement – Eridu, which according to Sumerian tradition was considered to be the first city of the kings, the ancient ceramics were noticeably different from those of southern Babylon.”

We must note yet another essential detail: the Adamites of the Obeidian (antediluvian) period in Sumer had very beautiful painted ceramic pottery made of calcite, as well as mortars made of basalt and small-grained limestone.

“This is easily explained: there were no solid layers in Sumer suitable for such artifacts, but instead there were primarily various thin clays. Jericho, on the other hand, had rich deposits of crystalline layers: calcite, balsamite, and also dense small-grained limestone.

In Jericho there is an empty four-meter layer lying over the layer of the Natufian (antediluvian) culture, above which lie cultural layers containing fragments of ceramic pottery; this means that after the Deluge people from Sumer came to Jericho and brought with them the tradition of making clay pottery. This data allows us to say with certainty that Adamites lived in Jericho and were destroyed there during the Deluge. In Jericho there is a complete break between the Natufian culture and the empty four-meter layer and the layer above, and thus archaeologist Robert Braidwood, who conducted explorations there, believes that the Neolithic culture of Jericho (i.e. the one lying above the empty layer) cannot have issued from the Mesolithic Natufian culture (Gordon Childe, The Most Ancient Near East).

The cultures are provisionally called Neolithic and Mesolithic, in order to denote the epoch and not the stone industry, as is done in Europe.

From whence arose the high culture of the first most ancient settlements in mankind’s ancestral homeland? Gordon Childe does not write about this. It is naturally hard for a scientist reared on firmly entrenched views of man’s evolutionary provenance to explain the sudden appearance of the high culture of the Proto-Obeidian period by its having been brought in “from somewhere.” Who and from where is unknown. An atheist brain cannot think otherwise. To presume that the high culture of the Adamites was worthily preserved by Adam’s family, his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, for Gordon Childe was unthinkable.

Interestingly enough, the Sumerians themselves believed that they came from Delmun, which was located somewhere on the shores of the Persian Gulf, in other words on the territory of Paradise; by the time that written language appeared after the Deluge, the location of Paradise was erased from human memory, and only an approximate idea of it remained.

Thus all the most ancient cultures Halaf, Sumer, and Khasum were offshoots of a single common root – Eridu.

Despite the fact that we do not yet possess complete archaeological data, we may still have a fairly reliable idea of the culture of the Adamites and of the first-created Adam himself.

Adam lived on the shores of the sea, and all his closest descendants founded cities on the shores of the sea, close to each other. They had boats, caught fish, bred cattle, and with great difficulty tilled the earth.

Here is what Gordon Childe writes: “The lands of the Obeidian culture were annually enriched by new deposits of silt, but the exploitation of this natural paradise, this primeval Eden, demanded intense work and the organized cooperation of a great number of people. Arable land literally had to be created out of the chaos of marshes and sandbars” (p. 180).

This fully accords with what God said to Adam: “In sorrow shalt thou eat of it (the earth) all the days of thy life. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Gen. 3:17-19).

The suitability of the terrain for agriculture became the decisive factor for human settlements. In fact, we will subsequently see that the first civilizations arose in the valleys of the fertile lands of Euphrates and Tigris, Jordan and Nile, along the so-called “fertile crescent” of the Middle East. The other areas were deserts or mountainous regions unsuitable for the first agriculturalists.

The arid climate of these regions forced the residents to make use of irrigation canals and the flooding of the rivers, which each year brought in a new layer of silt.

The Adamites lived in tents or simple adobe homes made of unfired bricks. No caves were found in the area of these cities.

According to the Bible, Jabal was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle (Gen. 4:20).

The Adamites had strongly developed arts: they used paints, made colored ornamented pottery and even mosaics, and they had their own music and singing. The only thing they did not know was high technology, but at their level of knowledge it was not even needed.

Of their spiritual culture we may judge only from the Biblical narrative, although archaeology has not produced any information whatsoever that would raise doubt of their profound religious knowledge of the True God. Paganism appeared much later, after the Deluge, among the descendants of Ham who had intermixed with Semites in the Ninevehian and Babylonian cultures.

Adam lived for almost one thousand years, and all the people heard his account of God, the Creator of heaven and earth, of Paradise, of the Fall, of the expulsion from Paradise, of the fiery Cherubim, of the devil, of the fact that a time will come when Adam’s Descendant will strike the devil’s head, and of hope in the afterlife. Were there some among Adam’s descendants with a burnt conscience like Cain’s? Of course there were, and they were apparently becoming more and more numerous, the earth was becoming full of their iniquities, and when sons were born to Noah, God said to Noah about these evildoers: “Behold, I will destroy them from the face of the earth” (Gen. 6:13) – (this was when Noah’s father and grandfather had already died) – “but with thee will I establish My covenant” (Gen. 6:18).

The great antediluvian forefathers lived for over 900 years, but this does not mean that absolutely all Adamites lived so long. Longevity was granted to the righteous as a reward. To depraved people the Lord said: “Their days shall be 120 years” (Gen. 6:3).

After the Deluge even the lives of the righteous became curtailed. Shem lived for 600 years, his sons and grandsons lived for 400-300 years, and afterwards longevity gradually diminished. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived for about 150 years.

(To be continued)

Protopriest Stefan Lyashevsky