Alexander is the son of man to read. Mikhail Men, biography, news, photos

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Archpriest Alexander Men

Son of Man

In loving memory of my mother

What are these pages for? Are they necessary, if so much has already been said about the Founder of Christianity?

Any new book on the gospel subject can raise similar questions. In addition, it is obvious that no work on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ can replace its original source. “There is a book,” Pushkin wrote shortly before his death, “by which every word is interpreted, explained, preached in all corners of the earth, applied to all kinds of circumstances of life ... This book is called the Gospel, and such is its ever-new charm that if we , satiated with the world or dejected by despondency, we accidentally open it, then we are no longer able to resist its sweet passion and we are immersed in spirit in its divine eloquence. Indeed, who, apart from the evangelists, managed to cope with this daunting task - to capture the image of Jesus the Nazarene, and using surprisingly stingy means?

So, if we want to know the truth about Christ, we must seek it first of all in the Gospel.

But the one who picks it up for the first time may encounter certain difficulties. After all, the authors of the New Testament are separated from us by almost two thousand years. It is not easy for a modern person to understand many of their hints, turns of speech, and sometimes even the very course of their thought, which makes it necessary to comment, which gave the key to the Gospel.

The study of New Testament writing has long been a whole science. Hundreds of interpreters - theologians, historians, philologists - have done a great job of parsing and comparing texts, to clarify their meaning. They painstakingly examine every chapter and every verse of the gospel.

The value of these analytical works is undeniable. They helped to clarify a lot of important details. However, their authors followed a method that often left the main thing in the background. Extensive critical excursus on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John almost obscured Christ himself. But the evangelists sought to convey to us precisely the message of the Son of Man, Who is the alpha and omega of Christianity; without Him, it loses its soul, simply speaking, it does not exist.

That is why, over the past century and a half, in evangelical historiography, along with theological and literary analysis, they also began to use the method of generalization, synthesis. The authors who followed this path wanted, based on the data of textual criticism, to recreate a complete picture of the earthly life of Christ.

One of the first to use this approach was the well-known Russian preacher, Archbishop Innokenty of Kherson (Borisov). His essays were published in 1828 under the title "The Last Days of the Earthly Life of Jesus Christ." The book has since gone through many editions and continues to enjoy wide popularity. However, it covers only the events of Holy Week.

It remains to be regretted that the experience of such a "biography" of Christ, written in the form of a coherent narrative, was undertaken for the first time by a non-Christian author. We are talking about Ernest Renan, a French historian and thinker whose book The Life of Jesus appeared in 1863.

In it, the author managed to draw a vivid and truthful panorama of the gospel era and unusually vividly portray the Founder of Christianity Himself, although, being a positivist skeptic in his worldview, Renan largely distorted His appearance.

The success of the "Life of Jesus" was greatly facilitated by the fact that the central mystery of the Gospel - the mystery of God-manhood - in the Christian consciousness was actually lost. This naturally led to a reaction, of which Renan became the spokesman. Shortly after the publication of his book, Renan's compatriot Pastor Edmond Pressanse wrote: “The humanity of Christ was very often sacrificed to His Divinity, they forgot that the latter is inseparable from the former in Him and that Christ ... is not God, hiding under the guise of man, but God , made man, the Son of God, humiliated and mocked, speaking in the bold language of the Apostle Paul, Christ, who really submitted Himself to the conditions of earthly life ... Christ was very often presented to us as an abstract dogma, and therefore rushed to the opposite extreme.

Both admirers and opponents of Renan were at first more interested in his philosophical views; when interest in them cooled, and the passions that had flared up around the Life of Jesus began to subside, the merits of the method used in the book were clearly revealed.

The case that was told about Vladimir Solovyov is typical. Once, while talking with the chief procurator of the Synod, K.P. Pobedonostsev, an extremely conservative man, the philosopher asked him for permission to publish The Life of Jesus in Russian, providing it with critical notes.

- Do I hear it from you? - the chief prosecutor was indignant. - What is it that came to your mind?

“But after all, we must finally tell the people about Christ,” answered Solovyov, smiling.

He himself had a negative attitude towards Renan, but he wanted to emphasize that, as a rule, the theological works of critics and interpreters brought people little closer to the gospel Christ, rather, they even moved them away from Him. In this sense, against their background, Renan could also win.

It is not surprising that after the books of Archbishop Innokenty of Kherson and Renan, others began to appear, written in the same genre, and their number increased every decade. Often, however, the results were controversial and contradictory. Some wanted to see in the Nazarene only a reformer of Judaism, others - the last of the prophets; supporters of violence portrayed Him as a revolutionary, Tolstoyans as a teacher of non-resistance, occultists as an “initiate” of an esoteric order, and enemies of traditional social foundations as a fighter against routine. “There is something touching,” notes the famous historian Adolf Harnack, “in this desire of each and every one to approach this Jesus Christ from the side of their personality and their interests and find themselves in Him or receive at least some share in Him.” On the other hand, such attempts revealed the narrowness of people who tried to unravel the “mystery of Jesus” based only on their own, sometimes very one-sided views.

Meanwhile, the personality of Christ is inexhaustible, it surpasses all ordinary standards; that is why every epoch and every person can find in Him something new and close to them. This is particularly evidenced by the history of art. If we compare a fresco in the catacombs of Rome or an ancient Russian icon with the image of Christ by El Greco or the modernist Chagall, we can easily see how His image has been refracted in different ways over the centuries.

How can one check and correct these interpretations in painting, science and literature?

The only criterion here is the Gospel itself, on which all attempts to depict the Son of Man are based.

True, some historians argue that the Gospels are too laconic to provide material for a "biography" of Jesus. Indeed, many facts are omitted in them, a number of specific details remain unclear, but an unprejudiced researcher will find in them all the most important features of the life and teachings of Christ. In addition, the scarcity of sources usually does not prevent the creation of biographies of great people, about whom much less reliable data has been preserved.

There are also theologians who reject the possibility of presenting the gospel story on the sole ground that the New Testament is not an “objective story,” but a sermon about salvation and the Savior of the world. But even if the Gospels arose as church books, liturgical books, containing the gospel of faith, this does not at all exclude their historical value. Created neither by chroniclers nor historians, however, they contain evidence that has come to us from the first century of the Church, when eyewitnesses of Jesus' earthly ministry were still alive.

The evangelists' narratives are confirmed and supplemented by ancient and Jewish authors, as well as by the discoveries of modern archaeologists. All this makes it possible to consider the task of the biographers of Jesus Christ quite feasible.

Of course, a purely historical aspect cannot be the main one in His “biography”.

The Son of Man belongs not only to the past. Today, as in the time when He lived on earth, He is loved, believed in, and fought against.

However, we must not forget that the path of Christ passed among the people of a certain time, that His word was addressed to them first of all. St. John Chrysostom recommended, while reading the Gospel, to imagine a specific situation that served as a backdrop for sacred events. Now we can follow this advice more successfully than in the days of Chrysostom himself, since we have more detailed information about Judea of ​​the 1st century.

To see Jesus of Nazareth as His contemporaries saw is one of the main tasks of a book about Him, if it is built on the principle of historical-literary synthesis. Among Christian authors guided by this principle, the most famous were Frederic Farrard, Conningham Geikie, Alfred Edersheim, Henri Didon, Francois Mauriac, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Henri Daniel-Rops, Fulton Orsler, Arthur Nisin. But since they all wrote for the West, the appearance of another book in this direction, aimed at the Russian reader, can be justified.

In it, the author did not set himself research goals, but strove only for what Vl. Soloviev spoke about in a conversation with Pobedonostsev - just to talk about Christ. Tell on the basis of the Gospels, the best commentaries on them, as well as other sources. During the work, the most important results of modern New Testament criticism were taken into account, but taking into account the fact that it itself needs a critical approach.

This book is intended mainly for those who have read the Gospel for the first time or are even completely unfamiliar with it [See pp. glossary of terms]. Therefore, the story begins with external events, only gradually approaching deeper and more complex topics.

However, the sophisticated reader, perhaps, will also find something new here for himself, although only the section relating to the “theory of myth” and the origin of the Gospels is directly addressed to him.

Citing the New Testament, the author had to abandon the commonly used synodal translation. Its merits are undoubted, but, made more than a century and a half ago, it is outdated both in scientific and literary terms. Therefore, the book uses (with some amendments) a new translation carried out in Paris under the editorship of Archbishop Cassian.

If the proposed essay helps the reader to better understand the Gospel, arouses interest in it, or simply makes you think, the author's goal will be achieved.

Initially, the book was published in separate chapters in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate and Church Bulletin (Bulgaria); it was published in its entirety by the publishing house Life with God, which has done so much for the ecumenical cooperation of Christians. The author decided to prepare a new revised version at the request of friends, as well as taking into account the feedback and wishes of readers. Gratitude to the people who helped in the work, the author can not express anything except the prayerful memory of their selfless work.

In the spring of 63 B.C. columns of Roman soldiers appeared on the roads of Palestine. Behind them wagon trains creaked, heavy siege weapons rumbled, legionaries' shells gleamed in clouds of dust, and battle flags fluttered.

The army was commanded by the forty-three-year-old commander Gnaeus Pompey. Secretly dreaming of world domination, he liked to dress up in the toga of an international arbitrator and said that he had come to Syria not to seize foreign possessions, but as a defender of order and a liberator. During these years, he reached the zenith of fame and was surrounded by the love of the military. The fact that Pompey dealt with the pirates - this scourge of sailors - and victoriously completed the campaign against Mithridates of Pontus and Tigranes of Armenia, strengthened his position both in Rome and beyond.

Pompey found the Middle East in a state of war waged among themselves by local kings and rulers. Therefore, he hastened to establish peace there, distributing titles and crowns, and at the same time declared the entire Syrian coast a province of Rome.

This moment coincided with the stubborn struggle for the Jerusalem throne of two pretender brothers - Aristobulus and Hyrcanus. They turned to Pompey with a request to resolve their dispute. But while negotiations dragged on in Damascus, Aristobulus suddenly changed his mind and refused the help of the Romans. Upon learning of this, the enraged Pompey marched quickly to Jerusalem ...

Palestine, or the Land of Israel, through which the cohorts now marched and where in a hundred years the voice of Christ was to be heard, is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, which has constantly made it a bone of contention. Many conquerors over the centuries have encroached on its territory, although it has never been famous for its special fertility or natural wealth.

This small strip of land, stretching along the banks of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, includes all sorts of shades of climate and topography. No wonder it is called the edge of contrasts. Eternal snows lie on the tops of the Israelite mountains; in winter snow often falls even in the south, and in some places in summer the heat reaches almost tropical strength. Palms and pomegranates, figs and cypresses are adjacent to thickets of hazel and willow; green plains alternate with bare rocky ridges.

In ancient times, the most flourishing was the northern district - Galilee, located to the west of Lake Kinneret (Gennisaret), which was sometimes called the Sea of ​​Galilee. Many foreigners lived among the population of this area, which is why it was called “Pagan Galilee”. From the south, the region of Samaria adjoins it. Once, together with Galilee, it constituted the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which was destroyed in 722 BC. Assyrians. The conquerors drove the inhabitants of the cities into captivity, and people from Mesopotamia and Syria were resettled in their place. The colonists mixed with the Israelites and adopted their faith, retaining, however, their old customs. The Jews refused to recognize these Samaritans as fellows, considering them half-pagans, which led to conflicts, which are also mentioned in the Gospels. Several hundred Samaritans still live in Israel today. Like their ancestors, they revere sacred Mount Gerizim, where their temple once stood.

The southern part of the country, or Judea itself (the Romans called the whole of Palestine Judea.), is the exact opposite of the North. Inhospitable and barren, it looks like a mountainous desert with oases. Its harsh but healthy climate tempered the Jews, making them a hardy, effeminate people.

On the way of the Romans to Jerusalem, the last point, still preserving the charm of the fertile North, was Jericho; it was famous for its healing springs and palm groves. It was there that Pompey pitched his camp and from there led the soldiers to the walls of the Jewish capital.

Jerusalem, having survived fifteen centuries of glory and fall, has long been a legendary city. It was located on a mountain and was a powerful fortress. The sight of its walls confused Pompey, who knew a lot about siege business. However, he was helped by the strife that raged inside the city. Aristobulus surrendered to the mercy of the Romans, and the party of his brother Hyrcanus opened the gates to them. Only those who did not want to put up with the presence of strangers locked themselves in the temple citadel, ready to fight to the death.

The siege went on for three whole months, until the Romans, with the greatest difficulty, destroyed one of the towers. When they rushed into the Temple fence, they saw with amazement that the priests continued to celebrate the service. All the time that the desperate defense lasted, the clergy did not leave the altar and perished along with the defenders of the shrine.

Using the right of the winner, Pompey wanted to inspect the famous Temple, including Debir, the Holy of Holies, a place where only the high priest could enter, and even then once a year.

An uncontrollable curiosity pushed the Roman to cross the forbidden threshold: after all, such fantastic rumors circulated about the religion of the Jews. Some said that in Debir there was a golden image of a donkey's head, others assured that a man doomed to be slaughtered was hidden there. What is really hidden in it? What surprises did the mysterious East bring to the people of the West!

In a tense silence, the veil moved back ... And what? The surprise of Pompey and his officers knew no bounds. They expected to see something extraordinary, at least some image - beautiful or repulsive. But it was empty. The Invisible lived there...

With a strange feeling, mixed with superstitious fear, the Romans left the Temple without touching anything. But, perhaps, they would be even more surprised if they knew that fate had brought them face to face with a religion destined to become the cradle of a doctrine that would conquer East and West, white marble Hellas and their native Rome.

How is this religion different from others?

The answer to the question can only be started from afar.

Even then, when the light of reason first flared up in a person, he felt the reality of a certain Higher Power embracing the universe. It was natural for primitive hunters to identify Her with what we now call nature. Therefore, everywhere - in clouds and stars, in rivers and living beings, people were looking for the presence of the Divine.

At first, as a rule, this led to gross idolatry, to the deification of individual objects and phenomena. Later, in India, Greece, and China, the cult of nature gave rise to the belief that the visible world is the only true reality. But such a view went against the general human spiritual experience and did not receive wide recognition.

On the contrary, with the advent of the religious and philosophical maturity of cultures, the conviction was strengthened that the supreme Reality is fundamentally different from everything private and limited. The last word of pre-Christian thought was the doctrine of the Divine, Whose hidden, inscrutable being is on the other side of the visible. No matter how you call Him - Heaven, Father, Destiny - His depth cannot be known by any of the mortals. This idea not only stemmed from the experiences of the mystics, but also had a logical basis. Verily, what kind of mind is capable of embracing Infinity Itself?..

However, the mysterious upward impulse did not go out in a person. All the time he tried to overcome the distance separating him from Heaven, to connect his life with another world. As a result, two closely intertwined faiths continued to exist: faith in the Incomprehensible and - in elemental deities. The latter seemed to stand closer to the person, and direct contact could be made with them. It was believed that there are secret magical techniques with which people are able to influence demons and spirits. This utilitarian view remained dominant for thousands of years.

Polytheism and magic tried in vain to fill the abyss separating the earth from the sky.

For the first time this duality was removed in the biblical Revelation. It taught about God "holy", that is, incommensurable with the creature, and at the same time - about man as His "image and likeness". The mysterious relationship between the infinite Spirit and the finite spirit makes, according to the Bible, a Covenant between them possible.

The Covenant, or the Union, is the way to the unity of a person not with the gods, but with the Higher Beginning, which is above the Universe.

It is noteworthy that the religion of the Covenant was professed by a people who did not create a powerful civilization, did not stand out politically, and only for a short time achieved national independence. However, he managed to carry fidelity to God through the long centuries of his painfully difficult history.

The ancestors of this people from time immemorial wandered between Syria and Egypt. Tradition has preserved the memory of the tribal leader of the Jews, Abraham (c. 1900 BC), whose name is associated with the beginning of the Old Testament religion. Her first commandment pointed to the importance of human actions in the face of Heaven. “I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless.” Abraham was promised that through his descendants "all the families and peoples of the earth would be blessed," although it remained a mystery what that blessing would mean.

In the XVII century BC. Jews driven by hunger moved to the east of the Nile delta, where they gradually fell under the despotic power of the pharaohs. Abraham's faith was almost forgotten.

Around 1230, a group of Jewish clans called the “Sons of Israel,” or simply Israel, were united by Moses, their great prophet and legislator. He returned the people to the “God of the fathers”, to the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” and led the tribesmen out of the “house of slavery”. In memory of the “exodus” and liberation, Moses established the feast of Passover.

Hiding in the Sinai desert, the Israelites lived for some time in the vicinity of the sacred Mount Sinai and the oasis of Kadesh, where the prophet solemnly proclaimed the foundations of the religion of the Covenant.

Moses commanded the people to honor only one God, the Lord and Creator of the world, Who is Yahweh, the Existing One, the One Who has being, being Himself above all sensual. The Prophet forbade worshiping any natural gods and even making images of Yahweh Himself. The sign of His presence among the faithful was only the ark, a large casket, decorated with figures of winged creatures - kerubs. It was strengthened on long poles and carried in front of the soldiers during the battle.

Moses taught that by the will of Jehovah, Israel should become His chosen instrument, “a holy people and a kingdom of priests,” that is, a community of people destined to serve the true God.

The cult of the nomadic Israelites was free from the abundance of ceremonies characteristic of all ancient religions. The prophet's teaching is summarized in the Decalogue, the ten commandments, which were inscribed on two stone slabs. Their essence was reduced to fidelity to the Lord the Redeemer, as well as basic moral norms: honor your father and mother, do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not slander, do not envy. Of the cult customs, the Decalogue mentions only one - the law of the Sabbath day dedicated to God.

In addition to the Ten Commandments, the prayer-confession, which began with the words: “Listen, Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one. And love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength!”

The majestic simplicity of the Mosaic faith and its commandments, which are still so difficult to follow, marked a radical change in religious consciousness. No wonder Moses had to experience the tragedy of a misunderstood prophet.

The Bible tells how hard yesterday’s slaves perceived the lessons of their teacher, how they rebelled against him, how strong the power of habitual superstitions was over them. But the prophet did not back down even when it seemed to him that the case was lost. And his efforts were not in vain. The religion of the Covenant has become the strong root from which the spiritual steadfastness and unity of the people have grown.

Even under Moses, the Israelites began to penetrate into Canaan, as Palestine was then called, and after his death, most of them crossed the Jordan River and conquered the country. The dream of many generations has come true: to live in the “land of Abraham”.

The Jewish tribe settled in the region of the mountainous South, and the rest of the tribe - in the North. But it soon turned out that the children of the desert fell into the position of winners who had to submit to the culture of the vanquished. The civilization of the Canaanites, related to the Phoenician, was highly developed at that time. Nevertheless, the Canaanite cults continued to retain their ancient savage character. They practiced human sacrifices, ritual murders of children, and temple prostitution. Feasts associated with fertility were accompanied by the Canaanites with sensual rites and orgies.

Under the influence of the people among whom he had to live, Israel began to quickly lose its spiritual identity. The veneration of the Baals and other agricultural gods of Canaan imperceptibly entered the life of the Jewish peasants. As the Bible says, "The children of Israel turned away from Yahweh their God."

Around 1100, warriors landed on the coast of Canaan, who came from the islands of the Aegean. They were the Philistines, a people who had already mastered the secret of smelting iron. They quickly established power over the country, and from them subsequently it received its Greek name - Palestine. The Israelites and Canaanites, who had only bronze weapons, could not resist the conquerors.

Almost half a century passed before the yoke of foreigners was understood as a heavenly punishment for apostasy. And then preachers appeared, calling for a return to the faith of the fathers. They awakened the forces of the people and led an uprising against the Philistines.

The war lasted a long time and ended in victory. As a result, an independent Jewish kingdom was formed. Around 1000, under King David, it united several kindred tribes and stretched its borders “from the Nile to the Euphrates.” David made the Canaanite fortress of Jerusalem a religious and political capital, where, on his orders, the ark was transferred. The prophet Nathan predicted to the king that his devotion to the faith would be rewarded: one of the descendants of David would become the founder of an eternal kingdom.

According to the custom of the East, when a person was proclaimed a monarch, the priest poured a goblet of oil on his head. Oil, olive oil, was considered a symbol of strength. The rite of “anointing” reminded us that power is bestowed from God, whose Spirit will henceforth dwell on the Chosen One. Therefore, each ruler of Israel (and sometimes a prophet) was called the Anointed One, the Messiah, or in Greek - Christ. However, over time, this title began to be attributed only to the great King of the future.

For the Israelites, the promise of the Messiah merged with the common hope for the fulfillment of the unknown plans of the Lord. This hope has long been a feature of the Old Testament. It originated in the days of Abraham; then the “promised land” became the desired goal, where Moses pointed the way, and, finally, the prophecy of Nathan gave a new direction to the people's aspirations.

One should not, however, think that the spiritual life of Israel remained at that time unclouded. Every chapter of biblical history has dramatic pages of struggles and temptations, falls and apostasy. Cowardice and passions, cravings for foreign cults and the calculations of politicians have shaken faith more than once.

After David, contacts with Phoenicia and Egypt again strengthened the influence of paganism. Although in the Temple, which was built by King Solomon, there was no image of God (that is, the Mosaic covenant was observed), temples of the Gentiles were located next to it. When in 922 the kingdom split into North and South, Israel and Judah, the threat of idolatry became even more real. Altars and sacred groves were erected everywhere in honor of the Baals and Astarte, it seemed that one more step - and paganism would be recognized as the second official religion of Israel.

The spiritual crisis was accompanied by a social crisis. The autocracy of the monarchs, who increasingly expanded their privileges, the growth of property inequality, the lack of rights and ruin of the peasants, huge taxes, the penetration of Phoenician luxury into the country - all this could not but disturb people who believed in the mission of Israel and were horrified by its decline. Their eyes were turned to the ideals of Sinai, to the pure faith of patriarchal antiquity.

From among these oppositionists came the prophets, God's messengers, calling the people to wake up from hibernation.

Usually they preached in the temple. Not intending to create a new religion, the prophets wanted to revive and purify the one that had been inherited from the time of Moses. The prophets refused to flatter the crowd in the name of a falsely understood patriotism, and without hesitation began to reassess the entire order of national life.

The activities of the prophets coincided with the era when most civilized countries entered a period of religious revolutions. It was a historical turning point, which can only be compared with the advent of Christianity. The old worldview that placed ritual, spell, magic at its center began to waver. Everywhere, from China to Italy, world teachers appeared, trying to find new answers to the burning questions of life and faith. The authors of the Upanishads, Buddha, Mahavira, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Zarathustra and the Greek philosophers are the ones who spiritually shaped the world into which Jesus the Nazarene came. They were His forerunners, but in the strict sense of the word, only the Israelite prophets can be called that.

Much has them in common with the great sages of the East and West. Like the hermits of India, they knew that God, as the absolute source of being, surpasses everything earthly; like the Persian reformer Zarathustra, they believed in Him as the perfect Light and Good; like Heraclitus, they contemplated in Him a dynamic, "fiery" power; like Anaxagoras and Plato, they spoke of Him as the universal Mind, or Wisdom. But at the same time, the prophets were far from considering, together with the Buddha, this life as evil, a painful haze; unlike the metaphysicians of Hellas, they did not teach that the Creator and the world are an inseparable whole.

They knew that God, no matter how great He is, is bound by bonds of love with His creation, that man is His chosen one, to whom He reveals Himself.

The most incomprehensible thing about the prophets is the mystery of their inspiration. They did not build hypotheses, did not create speculative systems; God proclaimed His will directly through them. The speech of the prophets usually began with the words: "Thus says Yahweh." The Spirit of the Lord took possession of them with subduing power, and people heeded their voice as the voice of Heaven. This miracle shocked the prophets themselves. Sometimes it was even difficult for them to grasp with their minds everything that was revealed.

The prophets clearly recognized themselves as tools, heralds and messengers of the Most High. But at the same time, they were not like pagan soothsayers, like the Pythians, who spoke while in a state of unconscious trance. In the experience of the biblical seers, the enlightened human spirit stood before the Existing One, who revealed Himself as a Personality. God spoke to the world and waited for an answer from him. Thus, in the prophets, the unity of the creature with the Creator was realized, the Covenant was realized, which was the basis of the faith of Israel.

The prophets not only experienced a meeting with God in the depths of their being, but saw His hand in the life of nations. This was a revelation unique among other religions.

“The eternal law, which the Greeks saw in the harmonious development and movement of matter,” writes the English thinker Christopher Dawson, “for the Jews was realized in the vicissitudes of human history. While the philosophers of India and Greece pondered the illusory nature or eternity of cosmic processes, the prophets of Israel affirmed the moral purpose of history and explained the transient events of their time in their relation to the divine will.

Observing the unchanging rhythms of nature: sunrises and sunsets, the change of seasons and the movement of the planets, most ancient philosophers came to the idea of ​​the cyclical nature of being. Everything, they believed, rushes in a circle, everything that happened once will happen again, and nothing can be radically changed. Being born, dying and arising again, the Universe and man are doomed to an eternal cycle. In contrast to this view, the Bible teaches about a creation that strives upward, towards perfection. And although evil forces also grow along with good, in the end they will be defeated, and a free path to the Kingdom of God will be opened to the world. In other words, the prophets were the first to discover the direction and meaning of history.

What are these pages for? Are they necessary, if so much has already been said about the Founder of Christianity?
Any new book on the gospel subject can raise similar questions. In addition, it is obvious that no work on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ can replace its original source. “There is a book,” Pushkin wrote shortly before his death, “by which every word is interpreted, explained, preached in all corners of the earth, applied to all kinds of circumstances of life ... This book is called the Gospel, and such is its ever-new charm that if we , satiated with the world or dejected by despondency, we accidentally open it, then we are no longer able to resist its sweet passion and we are immersed in spirit in its divine eloquence. Indeed, who, apart from the evangelists, managed to cope with this daunting task - to capture the image of Jesus the Nazarene, and using surprisingly stingy means?
So, if we want to know the truth about Christ, we must seek it first of all in the Gospel.
But the one who picks it up for the first time may encounter certain difficulties. After all, the authors of the New Testament are separated from us by almost two thousand years. It is not easy for a modern person to understand many of their hints, turns of speech, and sometimes even the very course of their thought, which makes it necessary to comment, which gave the key to the Gospel.
The study of New Testament writing has long been a whole science. Hundreds of interpreters - theologians, historians, philologists - have done a great job of parsing and comparing texts, to clarify their meaning. They painstakingly examine every chapter and every verse of the gospel.
The value of these analytical works is undeniable. They helped to clarify a lot of important details. However, their authors followed a method that often left the main thing in the background. Extensive critical excursus on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John almost obscured Christ himself. But the evangelists sought to convey to us precisely the message of the Son of Man, Who is the alpha and omega of Christianity; without Him, it loses its soul, simply speaking, it does not exist.
That is why, over the past century and a half, in evangelical historiography, along with theological and literary analysis, they also began to use the method of generalization, synthesis. The authors who followed this path wanted, based on the data of textual criticism, to recreate a complete picture of the earthly life of Christ.
One of the first to use this approach was the well-known Russian preacher, Archbishop Innokenty of Kherson (Borisov). His essays were published in 1828 under the title "The Last Days of the Earthly Life of Jesus Christ." The book has since gone through many editions and continues to enjoy wide popularity. However, it covers only the events of Holy Week.
It remains to be regretted that the experience of such a "biography" of Christ, written in the form of a coherent narrative, was undertaken for the first time by a non-Christian author. We are talking about Ernest Renan, a French historian and thinker whose book The Life of Jesus appeared in 1863.
In it, the author managed to draw a vivid and truthful panorama of the gospel era and unusually vividly portray the Founder of Christianity Himself, although, being a positivist skeptic in his worldview, Renan largely distorted His appearance.
The success of the "Life of Jesus" was greatly facilitated by the fact that the central mystery of the Gospel - the mystery of God-manhood - in the Christian consciousness was actually lost. This naturally led to a reaction, of which Renan became the spokesman. Shortly after the publication of his book, Renan's compatriot Pastor Edmond Pressanse wrote: “The humanity of Christ was very often sacrificed to His Divinity, they forgot that the latter is inseparable from the former in Him and that Christ ... is not God, hiding under the guise of man, but God , made man, the Son of God, humiliated and mocked, speaking in the bold language of the Apostle Paul, Christ, who really submitted Himself to the conditions of earthly life ... Christ was very often presented to us as an abstract dogma, and therefore rushed to the opposite extreme.
Both admirers and opponents of Renan were at first more interested in his philosophical views; when interest in them cooled, and the passions that had flared up around the Life of Jesus began to subside, the merits of the method used in the book were clearly revealed.
The case that was told about Vladimir Solovyov is typical. Once, while talking with the chief procurator of the Synod, K.P. Pobedonostsev, an extremely conservative man, the philosopher asked him for permission to publish The Life of Jesus in Russian, providing it with critical notes.
- Do I hear it from you? - the chief prosecutor was indignant. - What is it that came to your mind?
“But after all, we must finally tell the people about Christ,” answered Solovyov, smiling.
He himself had a negative attitude towards Renan, but he wanted to emphasize that, as a rule, the theological works of critics and interpreters brought people little closer to the gospel Christ, rather, they even moved them away from Him. In this sense, against their background, Renan could also win.
It is not surprising that after the books of Archbishop Innokenty of Kherson and Renan, others began to appear, written in the same genre, and their number increased every decade. Often, however, the results were controversial and contradictory. Some wanted to see in the Nazarene only a reformer of Judaism, others - the last of the prophets; supporters of violence portrayed Him as a revolutionary, Tolstoyans as a teacher of non-resistance, occultists as an “initiate” of an esoteric order, and enemies of traditional social foundations as a fighter against routine. “There is something touching,” notes the famous historian Adolf Harnack, “in this desire of everyone to approach this Jesus Christ from the side of their personality and their interests and find themselves in Him or receive at least some share in Him.” On the other hand, such attempts revealed the narrowness of people who tried to unravel the “mystery of Jesus” based only on their own, sometimes very one-sided views.
Meanwhile, the personality of Christ is inexhaustible, it surpasses all ordinary standards; that is why every epoch and every person can find in Him something new and close to them. This is particularly evidenced by the history of art. If we compare a fresco in the catacombs of Rome or an ancient Russian icon with the image of Christ by El Greco or the modernist Chagall, we can easily see how His image has been refracted in different ways over the centuries.
How can one check and correct these interpretations in painting, science and literature?
The only criterion here is the Gospel itself, on which all attempts to depict the Son of Man are based.
True, some historians argue that the Gospels are too laconic to provide material for a "biography" of Jesus. Indeed, many facts are omitted in them, a number of specific details remain unclear, but an unprejudiced researcher will find in them all the most important features of the life and teachings of Christ. In addition, the scarcity of sources usually does not prevent the creation of biographies of great people, about whom much less reliable data has been preserved.
There are also theologians who reject the possibility of presenting the gospel story on the sole ground that the New Testament is not an “objective story,” but a sermon about salvation and the Savior of the world. But even if the Gospels arose as church books, liturgical books, containing the gospel of faith, this does not at all exclude their historical value. Created neither by chroniclers nor historians, however, they contain evidence that has come to us from the first century of the Church, when eyewitnesses of Jesus' earthly ministry were still alive.
The evangelists' narratives are confirmed and supplemented by ancient and Jewish authors, as well as by the discoveries of modern archaeologists. All this makes it possible to consider the task of the biographers of Jesus Christ quite feasible.
Of course, a purely historical aspect cannot be the main one in His “biography”.
The Son of Man belongs not only to the past. Today, as in the time when He lived on earth, He is loved, believed in, and fought against.
However, we must not forget that the path of Christ passed among the people of a certain time, that His word was addressed to them first of all. St. John Chrysostom recommended, while reading the Gospel, to imagine a specific situation that served as a backdrop for sacred events. Now we can follow this advice more successfully than in the days of Chrysostom himself, since we have more detailed information about Judea of ​​the 1st century.
To see Jesus of Nazareth as His contemporaries saw is one of the main tasks of a book about Him, if it is built on the principle of historical-literary synthesis. Among Christian authors guided by this principle, the most famous were Frederic Farrard, Conningham Geikie, Alfred Edersheim, Henri Didon, Francois Mauriac, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Henri Daniel-Rops, Fulton Orsler, Arthur Nisin. But since they all wrote for the West, the appearance of another book in this direction, aimed at the Russian reader, can be justified.
In it, the author did not set himself research goals, but strove only for what Vl. Soloviev spoke about in a conversation with Pobedonostsev - simply to talk about Christ. Tell on the basis of the Gospels, the best commentaries on them, as well as other sources. During the work, the most important results of modern New Testament criticism were taken into account, but taking into account the fact that it itself needs a critical approach.
This book is intended mainly for those who have read the Gospel for the first time or are even completely unfamiliar with it. Therefore, the story begins with external events, only gradually approaching deeper and more complex topics.
However, the sophisticated reader, perhaps, will also find something new here for himself, although only the section relating to the “theory of myth” and the origin of the Gospels is directly addressed to him.
The author hopes that the book will be of interest to non-believers as well. Any person should have an idea about the Founder of a religion that has become an integral part of world culture.
Citing the New Testament, the author had to abandon the commonly used synodal translation. Its merits are undoubted, but, made more than a century and a half ago, it is outdated both in scientific and literary terms. Therefore, the book uses (with some amendments) a new translation carried out in Paris under the editorship of Archbishop Cassian.
Literature references are provided only when necessary. Those wishing to deepen their knowledge in this area can refer to the works indicated in the bibliography.
If the proposed essay helps the reader to better understand the Gospel, arouses interest in it, or simply makes you think, the author's goal will be achieved.
Initially, the book was published in separate chapters in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate and Church Bulletin (Bulgaria); it was published in its entirety by the publishing house Life with God, which has done so much for the ecumenical cooperation of Christians. The author decided to prepare a new revised version at the request of friends, as well as taking into account the feedback and wishes of readers. Gratitude to the people who helped in the work, the author can not express anything except the prayerful memory of their selfless work.

PROLOGUE

In the spring of 63 B.C. columns of Roman soldiers appeared on the roads of Palestine. Behind them wagon trains creaked, heavy siege weapons rumbled, legionaries' shells gleamed in clouds of dust, and battle flags fluttered.
The army was commanded by the forty-three-year-old commander Gnaeus Pompey. Secretly dreaming of world domination, he liked to dress up in the toga of an international arbitrator and said that he had come to Syria not to seize foreign possessions, but as a defender of order and a liberator. During these years, he reached the zenith of fame and was surrounded by the love of the military. The fact that Pompey dealt with the pirates - this scourge of sailors - and victoriously completed the campaign against Mithridates of Pontus and Tigranes of Armenia, strengthened his position both in Rome and beyond.
Pompey found the Middle East in a state of war waged among themselves by local kings and rulers. Therefore, he hastened to establish peace there, distributing titles and crowns, and at the same time declared the entire Syrian coast a province of Rome.
This moment coincided with the stubborn struggle for the Jerusalem throne of two pretender brothers - Aristobulus and Hyrcanus. They turned to Pompey with a request to resolve their dispute. But while negotiations dragged on in Damascus, Aristobulus suddenly changed his mind and refused the help of the Romans. Upon learning of this, the enraged Pompey marched quickly to Jerusalem ...
Palestine, or the Land of Israel, through which the cohorts now marched and where in a hundred years the voice of Christ was to be heard, is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, which has constantly made it a bone of contention. Many conquerors over the centuries have encroached on its territory, although it has never been famous for its special fertility or natural wealth.
This small strip of land, stretching along the banks of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, includes all sorts of shades of climate and topography. No wonder it is called the edge of contrasts. Eternal snows lie on the tops of the Israelite mountains; in winter snow often falls even in the south, and in some places in summer the heat reaches almost tropical strength. Palms and pomegranates, figs and cypresses are adjacent to thickets of hazel and willow; green plains alternate with bare rocky ridges.
In ancient times, the most flourishing was the northern district - Galilee, located to the west of Lake Kinneret (Gennisaret), which was sometimes called the Sea of ​​Galilee. Many foreigners lived among the population of this area, which is why it was called “Pagan Galilee”. From the south, the region of Samaria adjoins it. Once, together with Galilee, it constituted the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which was destroyed in 722 BC. Assyrians. The conquerors drove the inhabitants of the cities into captivity, and people from Mesopotamia and Syria were resettled in their place. The colonists mixed with the Israelites and adopted their faith, retaining, however, their old customs. The Jews refused to recognize these Samaritans as fellows, considering them half-pagans, which led to conflicts, which are also mentioned in the Gospels. Several hundred Samaritans still live in Israel today. Like their ancestors, they revere sacred Mount Gerizim, where their temple once stood.
The southern part of the country, or Judea itself (the Romans called the whole of Palestine Judea.), is the exact opposite of the North. Inhospitable and barren, it looks like a mountainous desert with oases. Its harsh but healthy climate tempered the Jews, making them a hardy, effeminate people.
On the way of the Romans to Jerusalem, the last point, still preserving the charm of the fertile North, was Jericho; it was famous for its healing springs and palm groves. It was there that Pompey pitched his camp and from there led the soldiers to the walls of the Jewish capital.
Jerusalem, having survived fifteen centuries of glory and fall, has long been a legendary city. It was located on a mountain and was a powerful fortress. The sight of its walls confused Pompey, who knew a lot about siege business. However, he was helped by the strife that raged inside the city. Aristobulus surrendered to the mercy of the Romans, and the party of his brother Hyrcanus opened the gates to them. Only those who did not want to put up with the presence of strangers locked themselves in the temple citadel, ready to fight to the death.
The siege went on for three whole months, until the Romans, with the greatest difficulty, destroyed one of the towers. When they rushed into the Temple fence, they saw with amazement that the priests continued to celebrate the service. All the time that the desperate defense lasted, the clergy did not leave the altar and perished along with the defenders of the shrine.
Using the right of the winner, Pompey wanted to inspect the famous Temple, including Debir, the Holy of Holies, a place where only the high priest could enter, and even then once a year.
An uncontrollable curiosity pushed the Roman to cross the forbidden threshold: after all, such fantastic rumors circulated about the religion of the Jews. Some said that in Debir there was a golden image of a donkey's head, others assured that a man doomed to be slaughtered was hidden there. What is really hidden in it? What surprises did the mysterious East bring to the people of the West!
In a tense silence, the veil moved back ... And what? The surprise of Pompey and his officers knew no bounds. They expected to see something extraordinary, at least some image - beautiful or repulsive. But it was empty. The Invisible lived there...
With a strange feeling, mixed with superstitious fear, the Romans left the Temple without touching anything. But, perhaps, they would be even more surprised if they knew that fate had brought them face to face with a religion destined to become the cradle of a doctrine that would conquer East and West, white marble Hellas and their native Rome.
How is this religion different from others?
The answer to the question can only be started from afar.
Even then, when the light of reason first flared up in a person, he felt the reality of a certain Higher Power embracing the universe. It was natural for primitive hunters to identify Her with what we now call nature. Therefore, everywhere - in clouds and stars, in rivers and living beings, people were looking for the presence of the Divine.
At first, as a rule, this led to gross idolatry, to the deification of individual objects and phenomena. Later, in India, Greece, and China, the cult of nature gave rise to the belief that the visible world is the only true reality. But such a view went against the general human spiritual experience and did not receive wide recognition.
On the contrary, with the advent of the religious and philosophical maturity of cultures, the conviction was strengthened that the supreme Reality is fundamentally different from everything private and limited. The last word of pre-Christian thought was the doctrine of the Divine, Whose hidden, inscrutable being is on the other side of the visible. No matter how you call Him - Heaven, Father, Destiny - His depth cannot be known by any of the mortals. This idea not only stemmed from the experiences of the mystics, but also had a logical basis. Verily, what kind of mind is capable of embracing Infinity Itself?..
However, the mysterious upward impulse did not go out in a person. All the time he tried to overcome the distance separating him from Heaven, to connect his life with another world. As a result, two closely intertwined faiths continued to exist: faith in the Incomprehensible and - in elemental deities. The latter seemed to stand closer to the person, and direct contact could be made with them. It was believed that there are secret magical techniques with which people are able to influence demons and spirits. This utilitarian view remained dominant for thousands of years.
Polytheism and magic tried in vain to fill the abyss separating the earth from the sky.
For the first time this duality was removed in the biblical Revelation. It taught about God "holy", that is, incommensurable with the creature, and at the same time - about man as His "image and likeness". The mysterious relationship between the infinite Spirit and the finite spirit makes, according to the Bible, a Covenant between them possible.
The Covenant, or the Union, is the way to the unity of a person not with the gods, but with the Higher Beginning, which is above the Universe.
It is noteworthy that the religion of the Covenant was professed by a people who did not create a powerful civilization, did not stand out politically, and only for a short time achieved national independence. However, he managed to carry fidelity to God through the long centuries of his painfully difficult history.
The ancestors of this people from time immemorial wandered between Syria and Egypt. Tradition has preserved the memory of the tribal leader of the Jews, Abraham (c. 1900 BC), whose name is associated with the beginning of the Old Testament religion. Her first commandment pointed to the importance of human actions in the face of Heaven. “I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless.” Abraham was promised that through his descendants “all the families and peoples of the earth would be blessed,” although it remained a mystery what that blessing would mean.
In the XVII century BC. Jews driven by hunger moved to the east of the Nile delta, where they gradually fell under the despotic power of the pharaohs. Abraham's faith was almost forgotten.
Around 1230, a group of Jewish clans bearing the name "Sons of Israel", or simply Israel, were united by Moses, their great prophet and legislator. He returned the people to the “God of the fathers”, to the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” and led the tribesmen out of the “house of slavery”. In memory of the “exodus” and liberation, Moses established the feast of Passover.
Hiding in the Sinai desert, the Israelites lived for some time in the vicinity of the sacred Mount Sinai and the oasis of Kadesh, where the prophet solemnly proclaimed the foundations of the religion of the Covenant.
Moses commanded the people to honor only one God, the Lord and Creator of the world, Who is Yahweh, the Existing One, the One Who has being, being Himself above all sensual. The Prophet forbade worshiping any natural gods and even making images of Yahweh Himself. The only sign of His stay among the faithful was the ark, a large casket, decorated with figures of winged creatures - kerubs. It was strengthened on long poles and carried in front of the soldiers during the battle.
Moses taught that by the will of Jehovah, Israel should become His chosen instrument, “a holy people and a kingdom of priests,” that is, a community of people destined to serve the true God.
The cult of the nomadic Israelites was free from the abundance of ceremonies characteristic of all ancient religions. The prophet's teaching is summarized in the Decalogue, the ten commandments, which were inscribed on two stone slabs. Their essence was reduced to fidelity to the Lord the Redeemer, as well as basic moral norms: honor your father and mother, do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not slander, do not envy. Of the cult customs, the Decalogue mentions only one - the law of the Sabbath day, dedicated to God.
In addition to the Ten Commandments, the prayer-confession, which began with the words: “Listen, Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one. And love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength!”
The majestic simplicity of the Mosaic faith and its commandments, which are still so difficult to follow, marked a radical change in religious consciousness. No wonder Moses had to experience the tragedy of a misunderstood prophet.
The Bible tells how hard yesterday’s slaves perceived the lessons of their teacher, how they rebelled against him, how strong the power of habitual superstitions was over them. But the prophet did not back down even when it seemed to him that the case was lost. And his efforts were not in vain. The religion of the Covenant has become the strong root from which the spiritual steadfastness and unity of the people have grown.
Even under Moses, the Israelites began to penetrate into Canaan, as Palestine was then called, and after his death, most of them crossed the Jordan River and conquered the country. The dream of many generations has come true: to live in the “land of Abraham”.
The Jewish tribe settled in the region of the mountainous South, and the rest of the tribe - in the North. But it soon turned out that the children of the desert fell into the position of winners who had to submit to the culture of the vanquished. The civilization of the Canaanites, related to the Phoenician, was highly developed at that time. Nevertheless, the Canaanite cults continued to retain their ancient savage character. They practiced human sacrifices, ritual murders of children, and temple prostitution. Feasts associated with fertility were accompanied by the Canaanites with sensual rites and orgies.
Under the influence of the people among whom he had to live, Israel began to quickly lose its spiritual identity. The veneration of the Baals and other agricultural gods of Canaan imperceptibly entered the life of the Jewish peasants. As the Bible says, "The children of Israel turned away from Yahweh their God."
Around 1100, warriors landed on the coast of Canaan, who came from the islands of the Aegean. They were the Philistines, a people who had already mastered the secret of smelting iron. They quickly established power over the country, and from them subsequently it received its Greek name - Palestine. The Israelites and Canaanites, who had only bronze weapons, could not resist the conquerors.
Almost half a century passed before the yoke of foreigners was understood as a heavenly punishment for apostasy. And then preachers appeared, calling for a return to the faith of the fathers. They awakened the forces of the people and led an uprising against the Philistines.
The war lasted a long time and ended in victory. As a result, an independent Jewish kingdom was formed. Around 1000, under King David, it united several kindred tribes and stretched its borders “from the Nile to the Euphrates.” David made the Canaanite fortress of Jerusalem a religious and political capital, where, on his orders, the ark was transferred. The prophet Nathan predicted to the king that his devotion to the faith would be rewarded: one of the descendants of David would become the founder of an eternal kingdom.
According to the custom of the East, when a person was proclaimed a monarch, the priest poured a goblet of oil on his head. Oil, olive oil, was considered a symbol of strength. The rite of “anointing” reminded us that power is bestowed from God, whose Spirit will henceforth dwell on the Chosen One. Therefore, each ruler of Israel (and sometimes a prophet) was called the Anointed One, the Messiah, or in Greek - Christ. However, over time, this title began to be attributed only to the great King of the future.
For the Israelites, the promise of the Messiah merged with the common hope for the fulfillment of the unknown plans of the Lord. This hope has long been a feature of the Old Testament. It originated in the days of Abraham; then the “promised land” became the desired goal, where Moses pointed the way, and, finally, the prophecy of Nathan gave a new direction to the people's aspirations.
One should not, however, think that the spiritual life of Israel remained at that time unclouded. Every chapter of biblical history has dramatic pages of struggles and temptations, falls and apostasy. Cowardice and passions, cravings for foreign cults and the calculations of politicians have shaken faith more than once.
After David, contacts with Phoenicia and Egypt again strengthened the influence of paganism. Although in the Temple, which was built by King Solomon, there was no image of God (that is, the Mosaic covenant was observed), temples of the Gentiles were located next to it. When in 922 the kingdom split into North and South, Israel and Judah, the threat of idolatry became even more real. Altars and sacred groves were erected everywhere in honor of the Baals and Astarte, it seemed that one more step - and paganism would be recognized as the second official religion of Israel.
The spiritual crisis was accompanied by a social crisis. The autocracy of monarchs, who increasingly expanded their privileges, the growth of property inequality, the lack of rights and ruin of the peasants, huge taxes, the penetration of Phoenician luxury into the country - all this could not but disturb people who believed in the mission of Israel and were horrified by its decline. Their eyes were turned to the ideals of Sinai, to the pure faith of patriarchal antiquity.
From among these oppositionists came the prophets, God's messengers, calling the people to wake up from hibernation.
Usually they preached in the temple. Not intending to create a new religion, the prophets wanted to revive and purify the one that had been inherited from the time of Moses. The prophets refused to flatter the crowd in the name of a falsely understood patriotism, and without hesitation began to reassess the entire order of national life.
The activities of the prophets coincided with the era when most civilized countries entered a period of religious revolutions. It was a historical turning point, which can only be compared with the advent of Christianity. The old worldview that placed ritual, spell, magic at its center began to waver. Everywhere, from China to Italy, world teachers appeared, trying to find new answers to the burning questions of life and faith. The authors of the Upanishads, Buddha, Mahavira, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Zarathustra and the Greek philosophers are the ones who spiritually shaped the world into which Jesus the Nazarene came. They were His forerunners, but in the strict sense of the word, only the Israelite prophets can be called that.
Much has them in common with the great sages of the East and West. Like the hermits of India, they knew that God, as the absolute source of being, surpasses everything earthly; like the Persian reformer Zarathustra, they believed in Him as the perfect Light and Good; like Heraclitus, they contemplated in Him a dynamic, "fiery" power; like Anaxagoras and Plato, they spoke of Him as the universal Mind, or Wisdom. But at the same time, the prophets were far from considering, together with the Buddha, this life as evil, a painful haze; unlike the metaphysicians of Hellas, they did not teach that the Creator and the world are an inseparable whole.
They knew that God, no matter how great He is, is bound by bonds of love with His creation, that man is His chosen one, to whom He reveals Himself.
The most incomprehensible thing about the prophets is the mystery of their inspiration. They did not build hypotheses, did not create speculative systems; God proclaimed His will directly through them. The speech of the prophets usually began with the words: "Thus says Yahweh." The Spirit of the Lord took possession of them with subduing power, and people heeded their voice as the voice of Heaven. This miracle shocked the prophets themselves. Sometimes it was even difficult for them to grasp with their minds everything that was revealed.
The prophets clearly recognized themselves as tools, heralds and messengers of the Most High. But at the same time, they were not like pagan soothsayers, like the Pythians, who spoke while in a state of unconscious trance. In the experience of the biblical seers, the enlightened human spirit stood before the Existing One, who revealed Himself as a Personality. God spoke to the world and waited for an answer from him. Thus, in the prophets, the unity of the creature with the Creator was realized, the Covenant was realized, which was the basis of the faith of Israel.
The prophets not only experienced a meeting with God in the depths of their being, but saw His hand in the life of nations. This was a revelation unique among other religions.
“The eternal law, which the Greeks saw in the harmonious development and movement of matter,” writes the English thinker Christopher Dawson, “for the Jews was realized in the vicissitudes of human history. While the philosophers of India and Greece pondered the illusory nature or eternity of cosmic processes, the prophets of Israel affirmed the moral purpose of history and explained the transient events of their time in their relation to the divine will.
Observing the unchanging rhythms of nature: sunrises and sunsets, the change of seasons and the movement of the planets, most of the ancient philosophers came to the idea of ​​the cyclical nature of being. Everything, they believed, rushes in a circle, everything that happened once will happen again, and nothing can be radically changed. Being born, dying and arising again, the Universe and man are doomed to an eternal cycle. In contrast to this view, the Bible teaches about a creation that strives upward, towards perfection. And although evil forces also grow along with good, in the end they will be defeated, and a free path to the Kingdom of God will be opened to the world. In other words, the prophets were the first to discover the direction and meaning of history.
Thanks to the prophets, the teachings of Moses acquired the features of a world religion (that is, a universal religion, as opposed to the old purely national cults.). According to Pascal, the only expression of biblical faith "should be the love of God, and God condemns everything else." This love required not so much church ceremonies as humanity, kindness and truth. Therefore, in the preaching of the prophets, the idea of ​​social justice occupied such a large place.
No matter how different the teachers of Israel were in their character, temperament and social status, they were all united by their uncompromising attitude towards apostates, tyrants and hypocrites who hoped to “appease” the Creator with gifts and sacrifices.
Here is the fiery Elijah (c. 850 BC), the defender of the persecuted and the destitute, who without hesitation throws a reproach in the face of the king himself.
Here is the shepherd Amos (c. 770), a man of the people who does not even want to call himself a prophet; but he cannot be silent when the Lord commanded him to go through the cities and proclaim the Day of Judgment. Let the Israelis not hope for their chosenness. Only those who follow the law of God's righteousness will be worthy of it.

Are they not like the sons of the Ethiopians
for me, you children of Israel? says Yahweh. -
Did I not bring Israel out of Egypt,
like the Philistines from Crete
and the Syrians from Cyrus?

Here is the Levite Hosea (c. 750), lamenting the spiritual degeneration of the northern kingdom. He proclaims that love between people is dearer to the God of all magnificent rituals. “I want mercy, not sacrifice,” says the Lord through the prophet.
Here is Isaiah, a noble from Jerusalem, an influential adviser to the king (c. 730). He cannot be deceived by the ostentatious splendor of the court; the crowds in the court of the House of the Lord do not rejoice. No incense and prayers can replace purity of heart and righteous deeds.

Why do I need your multitude of sacrifices? -
Yahweh says...
When you come before me,
who is asking you to do this?
Enough to trample My yards,
and bring no more unnecessary gifts...
Remove your evil deeds from my eyes,
stop doing evil
learn to do good
Seek the truth, hold back the rapists
protect the orphan, stand up for the widow.

Prophets are often called social utopians. But in fact they did not propose any political reforms. If Plato developed a draft regime with the community of property and government control over all spheres of life, and the philosopher Yambul dreamed of the City of the Sun, where everyone would be equal, then the prophets put faith and moral tasks of man in the first place. They knew that external changes alone were not enough, that harmony in the world was possible only as a result of harmony between the will of God and the will of people.
But that is precisely why the prophets were not going to put up with the plagues of society. Their passionate protest was dictated by faith in the high destiny of man. They spoke of the "Day of the Lord" when the reign of evil among men would end. The spiritual gaze of Isaiah was presented with the appearance of the Anointed One, through whom Jehovah would establish His Kingdom. Then all nations will know the eternal truth, will leave idols and criminal deeds. God will "wipe away every tear" and Eden will be restored to the earth again. The prophet Jeremiah (c. 630) associated the end of the old world with the New Testament, which will no longer be inscribed on stone tablets, but in the souls of people.
The eschatological aspirations of the prophets sharpened in them a sense of responsibility for their people. He was given a revelation, and therefore his sins are doubly criminal. He is entrusted with the mission to lead mankind to God, but if the elect are unworthy, the heavenly cover will leave them. Gentiles will come from distant countries to destroy the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
The dire predictions soon came true. In 772, the northern monarchy of the Jews was swept off the face of the earth by Assyria, and in 586 the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar II stormed Jerusalem, burned the temple and drove the bulk of the Jews to Babylon.
It seemed that such a catastrophe could lead to the complete disappearance of Israel and its religion. But this did not happen. The leaven of the prophets was so strong that even far from their homeland the Jews continued to recognize themselves as the people of God. The test deepened in them a feeling of repentance, and since then pagan temptations have ceased to beckon them, as before. The prophets who lived among the exiles - Ezekiel (c. 580) and Isaiah II (c. 550) - continued the work of their predecessors. They preached in houses of worship, held discussions, wrote books. Under their influence, Judaism gradually turned into a close-knit Community - the Church of the Old Testament.
Half a century later, “captivity on the rivers of Babylon” ended, Chaldea was captured by the Persians. In 538, King Cyrus, the founder of the greatest power of the East, allowed all foreigners resettled in Babylon to return to their homeland. Encouraged by the speeches of the preachers, many Jews went to the land of their fathers. But the bold dreams of enthusiasts, who imagined that the days of the Messiah would come immediately, were dashed against an unsightly reality. Instead of the former Israel, a small principality was formed, subject to Persia, which included only Jerusalem and its suburbs. The fortress of David lay in ruins, the newcomers endured hardship.
The time of the prophets has passed; now it was necessary to learn to live according to their precepts, but no one had the strength, energy, or confidence in the future. When the priest Ezra (Ezra) arrived from Babylon around the year 400, he found the temple somehow rebuilt and the people in a state of complete apathy.
Ezra brought with him the full text of the Law of God, called the Torah, or the Pentateuch of Moses. The Torah grew out of the Ten Commandments and has been supplemented over the centuries. The priests wrote down the oral traditions and statutes of the time of Moses, and also included liturgical rules in the book. Henceforth, it was to serve as the religious, moral, and civil code of Israel.
Fearing the influence of pagan neighbors, Ezra and his successors the scribes conceived to separate the Jews from the whole world. Strict observance of the Sabbath, food prohibitions and other customs pursued one goal - the protection of the Community.
At first glance, it seems that the legalists have buried the heritage of the prophets under a pile of petty prescriptions. However, as time has shown, their drastic isolation measures were justified. It was thanks to their powerful armor that the religion of the Bible emerged unscathed from the battle that took place in Palestine under the Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes.
Greece by this time had long ceased to be an island of democracy. It was destroyed by the party struggle, wars and strife. Everywhere the people gravitated towards a strong centralized government. Therefore, when in the IV century BC. Alexander the Great proclaimed himself a monarch, he only brought to a logical end a process that had already begun a hundred years before him.
In order to give the royal power the highest authority, Alexander ranked himself among the host of the gods. So did his heirs, and among them was Antiochus Epiphanes (175-163). This king, who seriously imagined himself a superman, wanted to solder the peoples subject to him, planting among them a single civilization of Hellenism, its style, tastes, and religion. Antiochus' enterprise met no obstacles anywhere, and only the faith of Israel became the stone on which he stumbled.
Ordinary clergy, scribes and the people at first offered him only passive resistance, but when the king defiled the Temple, setting up an altar to Zeus there, and began to introduce polytheism through terror, an uprising broke out against him. It quickly escalated into a war of liberation led by Judas Maccabee, a Hasmonean general.
During the years of struggle, the prophetic word sounded again. An unknown seer, hiding under the name of Daniel, wrote a book where he condemned tyranny and religious persecution. The author portrayed the great powers in the form of greedy beasts and predicted that the hour would come when the Deliverer would appear from heaven and put an end to predatory empires. Unlike the monsters who personified the kingdoms of this world, the Messiah, according to Daniel, will be like a man, the "Son of Man." This contrast points to the fundamental upheaval that awaits the world.
The surge of inspiration worked wonders. Maccabeus inflicted a series of sensitive blows on the army of Antiochus, liberated Jerusalem from enemies and threw out the "abomination" from the Temple, as the Jews called the pagan altar. When Maccabeus died in battle, his brothers continued his work. In 140, Simon the Hasmoneans was crowned and became king-high priest. Israel achieved independence and returned to the borders that it had under Solomon.
Communities outside the country also strengthened. These "scattering churches" served as a link between Judea and the rest of the world. Through their work, the Bible was first translated into Greek. By the time of the Nativity of Christ, out of 4 million Jews, almost 3 million lived in foreign lands. Subsequently, the existence of their hearths, scattered everywhere, will render no small service to the apostles of Christianity.
The Hasmonean dynasty, however, did not live up to the expectations of the people. The new kings soon turned into ordinary despots who did not want to reckon with the Law of God. The arbitrariness of the authorities caused the alienation of the zealots of the faith from the reigning house. In addition, according to tradition, only the descendants of David were considered legitimate monarchs. Because of this, the Hasmoneans were simply tolerated as temporary rulers.
The soul of the opposition to the court was a group of pious people who were called "separate" or Pharisees. At first they tried to overthrow the dynasty, but in 88 their rebellion was ruthlessly crushed. Hundreds of Pharisees were crucified on crosses by King Alexander Jannai.
After the death of Yannai, the position of the Pharisees was strengthened. But gradually they moved away from politics, devoting themselves entirely to religious activities. Many of the Pharisees became interpreters of the Law and teachers, rabbis. In schools and synagogues, they carried out difficult but necessary work: they strengthened the foundations of faith and morality in people. Unshakable devotion to God, strong family foundations, humanity, love for freedom and justice - all this was instilled in the people by the best representatives of the hypocrisy, among whom the meek sage Hillel, who arrived in Jerusalem around 40 BC, stood out in particular. In his opinion, the essence of the Law lies in the golden rule: do not do to others what you do not wish for yourself, and Hillel considered everything else to be only a “commentary”.
There was also another direction in legalism. Hillel's rival, Shammai, became its leader. If the first willingly introduced foreigners to the faith, then the second contemptuously drove them away from him. Shammai attached great importance to the so-called "traditions of the elders." His disciples multiplied the number of ritual prescriptions and liked to flaunt their piety.
The Pharisees enjoyed great respect among the people. But the Sadducees - the priestly aristocracy associated with the court - were hostile to them and did not share their views. Unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees believed that everything ends for a person with death. They recognized only the Pentateuch, and looked upon the writings of the prophets as secondary. These rich and arrogant people did not trust the predictions about the Messiah and focused only on earthly politics.
In parallel with the Pharisaic brotherhood, about 160, a semi-monastic order of the "Sons of the Light" or Essenes arose in Palestine. Not wanting to have anything to do with the sinful world, the Essenes chose a solitary life in the wilderness. Around the year 140, their leader, whom they called the Master of Righteousness, founded a colony on the shores of the Dead Sea at Qumran. There, away from the bustle, the Essenes worked together, spending their free time in ritual meals, prayers and reading the Bible. Their communities, totaling up to 4,000 people (a significant number for a small country), flocked to all kinds of dreamers, as well as disappointed and tired people. Most of the Essenes were celibate, although some maintained a family lifestyle.
Confident in the imminent appearance of Christ, the "Sons of Light" were preparing to adequately meet His coming. They had no doubt that on the Day of Judgment, all but them would perish.
Attacks by sectarians against the Hasmonean house led to the persecution of the Teacher of Righteousness. His admirers said that in punishment for this, the monarchy should be severely punished.
The prediction of the Essenes was fulfilled half a century after the death of their leader. In 63, Palestine was occupied by the troops of Pompey. He annexed it to the empire and left Hyrcanus II only a shadow of supreme power. And in the year 40, the Roman Senate granted the title of king of Judea to the Idumean commander Herod, who, after a three-year civil war, ascended the throne of David.
Meanwhile, the Jews of the “dispersion” continued to actively assimilate elements of Greek culture. The most educated among them sought to harmonize ancient philosophy with the Bible. In this direction, Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Herod, did especially much. He taught about the divine Force, which, following the sages of Hellas, he called the Logos, the Word.
The mystery of the Deity, Philo said, is immense and inexpressible, but when It manifests Its power and goodness, it acts through the Word. With the Word, Jehovah creates and maintains the Universe, in which He reveals Himself to mortals. Filonov's idea of ​​the Logos as an intermediary between the Creator and the cosmos helped subsequently to expound the Gospel in the language of philosophers.
The rapprochement of the Jews with the Hellenistic world led to the fact that many pagans became interested in their religion. The denial of idolatry, healthy morality, a lively religious feeling of the Jews - brought them the first converts. The words of the prophets about the peoples who will come to the God of truth, goodness and justice have finally begun to come true. In some places the word "Jew" began to acquire a religious meaning.
In the II and especially in the I century BC. proselytes, that is, people who converted to Judaism, appeared in large numbers in different parts of the Roman Empire. Some of them were converted under the influence of books written on behalf of the Greek clairvoyant Sibyl. This name was a pseudonym used by the Jewish missionaries of Egypt. They predicted the death of the world because it gave itself into the power of idols and despots. Word was passed from mouth to mouth that someone would come out of Judea, destined to become the ruler of the nations.
But meanwhile, in reality, world domination was increasingly concentrated in the hands of the Romans.
The transformation of Rome into an empire began already around 200 BC. after his victory over the main competitor - Carthage. However, at the same time, military power turned out to be detrimental to the republican system of Italy itself. Too many lands had to be held in obedience, the army became too powerful for the democratic elements of government to survive. By promising, coercing, bribing, the dictators imperceptibly nullified most political freedoms. The Republic was strangled, and Rome was heading full sail towards sole tyranny.
After the civil wars and bloody terror of the 30s BC. Julius Caesar's nephew Octavian August established autocratic order quite easily. According to Tacitus, Augustus, “calling himself a consul and allegedly content with tribune power to protect the rights of the people, first conquered the soldiers with his generosity, the distribution of bread - the crowd, and all together - the sweet blessings of the world, and then, gaining little by little strength, began to replace a senate, magistrates, and laws."
Even Julius Caesar banned all unions and organizations, even the most harmless ones, while the regime of Augustus made constant supervision of citizens a principle. Playing a democrat, Octavian kept a vigilant eye on any possible hotbed of discontent. An extensive network of spies served this purpose well.
However, many believed that absolutism was quite a moderate price to pay for peace, stability and lasting international peace. The "Age of Augustus" was called the best period of Rome, the golden age of its culture. Under Augustus, the Capitol proudly rose above the world, inspiring respect and fear. The Roman eagle spread its wings from the Atlantic to the Middle East and from Britain to the African shores. The city on seven hills turned into a center where “all roads led”.
Brilliant military equipment, organization and discipline won the Romans the position of masters of the Mediterranean. Government officials exported untold wealth from the conquered countries. From all over they flowed to Rome: slaves, ivory and circus animals from Numidia, marble from Greece, bread from Egypt, glass and purple from Phoenicia. Commercial caravans brought carpets, fabrics and jewelry from Babylon, Arabia, India and even China. The capital has been rebuilt. It was said that Caesar accepted her brick, and left marble.
Excellent highways connected Rome with the outskirts; trade and contacts between the provinces revived. The legal equality of all who became "Roman citizens" contributed to the rapprochement of the peoples of East and West. It seemed that the dream of the Stoic philosophers about a single state, where every person is a citizen of the Universe, was close to being realized.
It is not surprising that the court poets extolled Augustus and were not stingy with panegyrics. Caesar himself encouraged flatterers and maintained his authority by all means. For this, gradually, starting from the eastern provinces, the cult of the emperor began to be created. Soon, temples of Augustus were already operating throughout the state; praises were sung to him, he was proclaimed "father of the fatherland", "soter" - the savior of nations.
The spectacle of a rising empire with a man-god at its head amazed contemporaries. They have already started talking about the “indestructible kingdom” established for centuries. However, the conquered peoples did not want to put up with this prospect. At the end of the reign of Augustus, unrest began in many provinces, where Rome was viewed as an enslaver. The Jews believed that this apocalyptic Beast would fall by the sword of the Messiah.
The conquests did not save Rome from serious internal conflicts. Land holdings and finances were increasingly concentrated in the hands of the oligarchy. The ruined peasants of Italy marched in droves to Rome, where they lived on odd jobs and handouts from the government. Long wars literally flooded the capital with slaves (there were about a million of them). Slaves rebelled many times, trying to return to their native lands, but these attempts invariably ended in reprisals. So, after the defeat of the gladiators of Spartacus, six thousand disobedient were crucified along the road from Capua to Rome.
No less profound was the spiritual crisis. Ancient beliefs and myths have become ridiculed by many. Religion was losing its significance, turning into an integral part of civic duties. Even Cicero said that the official cult is needed only to maintain order among the masses.
There were also people who were ready to go much further. The poet Lucretius saw in religion simply a harmful delusion. In his book On the Nature of Things, he resurrected the materialism of the old Greek philosophers Democritus and Epicurus. According to their doctrine, the universe is nothing but a random formation generated by the dance of atoms. Sooner or later, death awaits her. Lucretius already saw everywhere the symptoms of the world autumn, foreshadowing the end and disintegration of the world. Such ideas have spread widely not only in the West, but also in India and China.
However, the very nature of the human spirit did not allow him to reconcile himself too easily with nonsense. Even having lost faith in everything, people did not want to recognize life as an accidental burst of matter, followed by darkness.
Therefore, having become acquainted with the religions of the East, the Romans greedily reached out to them. The real conquest of the West by foreign cults began. Egyptian Isis began to pray from Britain to the Balkans, Jewish synagogues were built in Rome, temples to the Phrygian mother goddess Cybele, the Persian god Mithra. Street preachers proclaimed the truths brought from the banks of the Ganges, from Parthia and Central Asia. The Greek mysteries were revived, which promised their participants immortality and knowledge of the higher worlds. Occult teachings, astrology, magic and divination found followers in all classes of society. The pursuit of the miraculous caused the growth of superstition and quackery.
Seeing this, skeptical people were ready to give up the hope of unraveling the meaning of life altogether. In their opinion, to the question “what is truth?” the answer doesn't exist. In a word, confusion in the minds was complete. Mystical searches and lack of spirituality, the thirst for purity and moral decay could meet in one family. Often the father closed himself in stoic contempt for the vanity of the world, the mother went to the sectarians' nightly celebrations, and the son invented new types of pleasures and thrills.
A man stood at a crossroads and heard inviting voices from all sides: be indifferent to the sorrows and joys of life, plunge into calm contemplation - said the Buddhists and the Stoics; live according to nature, like all creatures, the Cynics and Epicureans taught; happiness in knowledge and reflection - the natural philosophers objected to them; purify yourself with secret rites and you will gain immortality - the mentors of the mysteries assured; be faithful to the one God and keep His law - proclaimed the religion of Israel; and the Roman eagle, looking out for prey, soared above this whirlpool of the spirit, where, as in primordial chaos, opposing principles mixed up.
From time to time, the hope revived that someone would appear who would lead the world out of the labyrinth. The poet Virgil predicted the birth of a baby, from which a new Saturn era would begin. Buddhists were waiting for Buddha Maitreya, Hindus - another incarnation of the god Vishnu, Persians - the Savior-Saoshiant, Jews - the Messiah ...
In Palestine, the atmosphere of mystical aspirations thickened every year. They hoped that the prophet Elijah was about to appear from heaven and anoint the Messenger of God. Many thought that He would be a great warrior who would crush the pagan kingdoms. Others believed in the final triumph of good over evil, light over darkness, immortality over death, believed that "God will visit His people."
Finally, when everything seemed to have already been tested, the morning dawn lit up over the dark horizon of history. In the twentieth year of the reign of Augustus, in the small village of Nazareth, the Virgin of Galilee heard the message: “You will give birth to a Son and call Him the name JESUS. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord will give him the throne of David his father; and shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom shall have no end.”

Part I
FROM BETHLEHEM TO CAPERNAUM

Chapter first.
“IN THE DAYS OF KING HEROD”
4 BC

Let us now mentally move to Judea in the last months of Herod's reign.
The inhabitants of Jerusalem, accustomed to the fact that their city was often visited by pilgrims from distant lands, probably did not pay attention to the caravan of foreigners that moved through its streets in the winter of 750 from the founding of Rome. But soon they were talked about, as it became known that the travelers were looking for the king of Judea, and not Herod at all, but another, recently born. “We saw his star rise and came to worship him,” they explained. It turned out that they were oriental magicians who discovered the sign of the great Lord in the sky. The fact that they came to Jerusalem to look for him could not surprise anyone. Everyone has heard the prophecies about the mysterious Man from Judah who was to conquer the world.
“Where is the King of the Jews who has been born?” the Magi asked, but instead of answering, frightened people hurried past. It was necessary to know at least a little about the state of affairs in Jerusalem in those years in order to understand how provocative and careless this very question seemed. But the travelers, traveling from afar, hardly guessed their mistake. They were probably completely ignorant of everything that was going on in Judea under Herod.
The life of this monarch, nicknamed the Great by flatterers, could provide the plot for several tragedies in the spirit of Macbeth. Having seized power with the support of the Romans and against the will of the people, he tried in vain to gain popularity. During the thirty-three years of his reign, outwardly brilliant, hostility towards Herod only increased.
A cruel and ambitious man, constantly tormented by passions, Herod was far from the religious problems that worried the Jews at that time. Palace intrigues and women, wars and construction absorbed him entirely. Under him, the country regained autonomy. Herod covered it with dozens of fortresses and erected many Western-style buildings in the cities. With equal zeal, he was engaged in the construction of theaters, hippodromes, sanctuaries in honor of his patron Augustus and the repair of the Jerusalem Temple. True, the latter was the subject of special concerns of the king. In his vanity, Herod wanted to outshine the ancient Solomon. He was proud of the Temple, in which he invested huge amounts of money and which he turned into one of the wonders of the world. However, even with this, he could not win the trust of his subjects.
Herod's father was an Idumean dignitary, and his mother was of Arab origin, so he had no legal rights to the crown. Like all usurpers, the tsar suffered from morbid suspiciousness, and treason seemed to him everywhere. The Hasmoneans, descendants of the dynasty he had overthrown, caused Herod's greatest fears; so he used every excuse to get rid of them.
A fatal role in the fate of the king was played by the fact that his wife Mariamne (it seems the only creature that he sincerely loved) was a princess of the Hasmonean family. The spirit of warriors who fought for the independence of the country lived in this proud and courageous beauty. She did not know how to hide her contempt for her husband, and her mother Alexandra, often interfering in their lives, aroused the alarm of the already suspicious Herod.
When Alexandra, using the influence of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, achieved the title of high priest for her seventeen-year-old son, she unwittingly pushed him to death. Herod noticed that the young man began to enjoy love in Jerusalem, and could not bear it. In 35 BC during the holidays, Mariamne's brother was drowned at night in front of the king. His end was presented as an accident, but his sister and mother understood perfectly well what really happened.
In the year 30, Herod's position was stronger than ever. After the Battle of Actia, which brought Octavian full power, the king of Judea received a reliable political landmark. The trust and support of Augustus ensured the inviolability of his throne. But the more successful Herod's diplomatic affairs were, the more unbearable life became in his own house.
By the age of 29, the family drama had reached a catastrophic point. Mariamne's hatred became so obvious that the king suspected her of involvement in the conspiracy. And one day, instigated by relatives, Herod in a fit of rage pronounced a sentence on the one that was dearest to him. Obedient judges quickly agreed with the will of the king.
Mariamne went to the execution without asking for mercy, and behaved with amazing dignity. The mother, in fear for her fate, publicly reviled her. This scene plunged into a shudder all the witnesses of the last minutes of the queen.
Herod barely survived the fateful day. When it was all over, he almost lost his mind. He was haunted by the image of the murdered woman, he endlessly called Mariamne by name, shouted to bring her to him, drank himself unconscious, spent nights in orgies, arranged frantic races, but the ghosts did not leave him. The health of the king was so undermined that it seemed that he was on the verge of death.
Nevertheless, Herod recovered and, with redoubled energy, continued the bacchanalia of murders. He executed Alexandra, executed his sister's husband and many other relatives and courtiers.
The sons of Mariamne, Alexander and Aristobulus, who arrived from Rome after a long absence, Herod at first received cordially, but soon they aroused distrust in him. False letters, denunciations, testimonies torn from servants under torture - everything was put into play in a disgusting game, which ended with the fact that both princes were hanged in Samaria.
The last years of Herod's life were especially dark. Although the Herodian party saw in him an ideal monarch, almost a Messiah, he knew that the people's hatred of him only increased. These sentiments were supported in the country by the Pharisees, who boycotted any undertakings of the king. Many of them were executed for predicting the imminent decline of criminal rule.
It is easy to imagine the dismay of the seventy-year-old king when he learned that some eastern ambassadors were inquiring in the city about the "born King of the Jews." Who is this next contender for the throne? What forces are behind him?... The most unpleasant news for Herod was that he heard about this next conspiracy for the first time.
Having met with strangers, Herod found out that the speech, apparently, was about the Child, Who is considered the future Messiah. The tsar had dealt with such encroachments on his power more than once and understood that speed and decisiveness were needed here. He began to find out from the priests where the birth of the Messiah was expected, and when they called him Bethlehem, he sent the Magi there, asking them to provide detailed information about the newly-appeared King of the Jews. The last thing Herod cared about was the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. The confused mind of the old man made plans for a new massacre.
Bethlehem was located near the capital. When the strangers arrived in the town, they had long known about the mysterious Baby who had been born in the sheep shelter. Local shepherds - the first to see Him - spoke of extraordinary signs that led them to the cave.
The carpenter Joseph and Mary, the parents of the Child, were from Galilee; they appeared in Bethlehem a year and a half ago during the census conducted in connection with the oath to Augustus.
It was said that when the Mother came with the Child to Jerusalem to perform cleansing rites and initiation of the firstborn, a great future was predicted for Her Son. The perspicacious elder Simeon, having taken the Child from the hands of the young Mother, thanked God and said that now he could die in peace, for he had seen the Salvation that God had “prepared for the enlightenment of the Gentiles and the glory of Israel.” The righteous man blessed the astonished parents and added, turning to Mary: “Here he lies for the fall and the uprising of many in Israel, and as a sign that is disputed, but the sword will go through your very soul.”

Went to the mountain country

This prophecy was heard by many in the Temple. Those who expected the "comfort of Israel" passed it from mouth to mouth. It came, of course, to Bethlehem. Therefore, the Magi could easily find Joseph and Mary. Entering their house, they laid down their gifts at the feet of the Child and, bowing to Him, departed...
Herod waited in vain for news: the magicians preferred to go to their homeland in a different way, bypassing Jerusalem.

Joseph took the baby and mother at night.

Convinced that his plan had failed, the king decided to put an end to the perceived danger at once. A detachment of soldiers was sent to Bethlehem with orders to kill all babies under two years of age there.
To what extent the order was carried out is unknown. Herod undoubtedly gave it in deep secrecy. Even Josephus, who wrote about those times, does not mention the Bethlehem tragedy. However, in his eyes, she was too insignificant in comparison with the countless atrocities of Herod.

Went to Egypt

Be that as it may, the One whom the murderers were looking for was already far from the city. The Galilean family went into hiding shortly after the departure of the Magi. Joseph knew that it was wiser to completely leave the borders of Herod's possessions, and went to Egypt - one of the nearest centers where the Jews of the "dispersion" lived.
Thus, we see that from the very first days the world met the Messiah with hatred and threats. But it wasn't the whole world. Those who believed and waited, who were pure in heart and full of hope, met Christ differently. The Bethlehem shepherds, the elder Simeon and the wise men of the East recognized Him as the coming King.
In the spring of that year, Herod was bedridden by a serious illness. He continued to be tormented by fears, he continually listened to informers, changed his will several times. The king was haunted by the thought that the people were looking forward to his end. Upon learning that some young men, incited by the rabbis, had smashed the gilded eagle, the emblem of Rome, on the Temple, he ordered them to be immediately arrested and judged with all severity. Despite the illness, Herod found the strength to even be present at the trial. The accused were sentenced to be burned at the stake, which caused an uproar in Jerusalem.

And was there

The dying king was taken to Jericho, where they tried to heal with water. There was a moment when the pains almost led Herod to commit suicide; they barely managed to save him. The noise and cries of the servants reached the eldest son of the king, who was in custody, he decided that his father had died, and asked the jailer to release him. But the guard reported this to Herod, and he, in a rage, gave the order to immediately kill the prince. And five days later, death overtook the monarch himself.
His agony was terrible, he poured curses, raved about new executions. They say that he ordered to cut a group of noble hostages in order to somehow deprive the people of joy and make them shed tears. The day of Herod's death later became a national holiday for the Jews.
The king's family gave him a magnificent funeral. The purple-clad body was carried on a golden litter. Behind them, accompanied by the guards, were his sons: Archelaus, Antipas, Philip and others, who were born from the numerous wives of Herod. But the cries of hired mourners did not have time to stop, as the struggle for power between the heirs began. According to the will, the Jordanian region and Galilee went to Antipas, the lands to the north of them - to Philip, and the throne of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria - to Archelaus. However, to approve the partition, it was necessary to go to Rome. Before the departure of the royal family, riots broke out in the city; the people demanded that the accomplices of Herod's crimes be punished. Archelaus rejected all petitions and left, entrusting Jerusalem to the Roman command, which brutally cracked down on the rebels. Nevertheless, the country continued to rage, and delegates went to the emperor with a request for the complete elimination of the hated dynasty.
Augustus approved Herod's will. Each of his three sons received his share of the inheritance. But Archelaus, contrary to his expectations, returned home without a royal title. Caesar gave him only the title of "ethnarch", the ruler of the people, although he promised that he would make him king later if he proved his loyalty to the senate.

Chapter two.
NAZARETH
3 BC - 27 AD

When the news of Herod's death reached Egypt, the carpenter Joseph, hoping that the danger had passed, began to gather for his homeland. But he was afraid of persecution by Archelaus and did not return to Bethlehem. He preferred to move to the North, to the small town of Nazareth, where he had previously lived with Mary.
In those days, Galilee was a densely populated region, and its geographical position made it open to all the winds of the world. “Here were near Phoenicia, Syria, Arabia, Babylon and Egypt. The islands of the Gentiles and all the glorious countries of Europe were almost visible beyond the shining waters of the Western Sea. The banners of Rome fluttered on the plain... Pharaohs and Ptolemies, emirs and arsacids, judges and consuls - all fought for the possession of this beautiful region. Here the spears of the Amalekites glittered, the earth shook under the chariots of Sesostris, the Macedonian phalanxes marched along it, the blows of wide Roman swords were heard here, the cries of the crusaders were intended to be heard here, the artillery of England and France rattled. It seemed that Europe and Asia, Judaism and paganism, barbarism and civilization, the Old and New Testaments, the history of the past and the hopes of the future came into collision on this plain of Jezreel.
However, Nazareth itself stood aloof from these great historical roads; in the evangelical era it was considered a provincial village. There was even a saying: “Can there be anything good from Nazareth?” And as if in order to refute all human assessments, it was this poor village that became the “fatherland” of Christ; he spent the greater part of his life. For almost 30 years He walked along its rocky streets and climbed the paths to the surrounding hills. Few knew about the actual place of His birth, but even those who heard about it called Him Hanotsri, the Nazarene.

Returned to Nazareth

If we could find ourselves in Nazareth of those years, we would see about a hundred white houses with flat roofs, scattered on a mountain framed by vineyards and olive groves. From the gently sloping hills, a picturesque panorama opens up, on which, probably, the gaze of Jesus rested more than once: blue mountain ranges, green valleys, sown fields.
Much has changed since then, but the nature of Galilee has remained almost the same as two thousand years ago. Travelers unanimously claim that Nazareth and its environs are a unique corner of the holy land, it is called “mountain rose” and “earthly paradise”. The air of heights is pure and transparent. After the winter rains, the slopes of Nazareth turn into a garden; they are covered with a variety of flowers of the most delicate shades: lilies, mountain tulips, anemones. Jesus loved flowers. He said that even the decorations of King Solomon cannot be compared with them.
In the spring, the fields of Nazareth resound with the trilling of larks, the cooing of turtledoves is carried far away, flocks of pink pelicans swim in the thick blue of the sky. Birds, like flowers, became in the speeches of Christ the image of a soul that placed its hope in God. He cited them as an example of vain and caring people.

In Nazareth

Galileans - healthy, strong, spontaneous people - for the most part were engaged in agriculture. They grew grapes, fig trees, olive trees, grazed goats and sheep in the meadows, cultivated the fields. In the mornings, the Nazarene women walked with jugs to the spring, which still supplies the district with water. The Virgin Mary went to him. The well still bears her name.
How did she live in Nazareth? How did Jesus live? Apocryphal legends tell many details about these years. But we cannot consider them reliable, if only because they are in sharp contradiction with the gospel spirit. Matthew and Luke, referring to this period of the life of Christ, preferred restrained laconism and spoke only about what they knew well.
Only two facts reported by the apocrypha seem to be reliable. They claim that Joseph died when Jesus was nineteen years old. Legends, on the other hand, usually tend to give symbolic numbers (3, 7, 12, 40 belonged to their category.). Jesus was called “the Son of Mary” during His public ministry, which means that Joseph was no longer alive. According to another story, Jesus, as a teenager, was tending sheep. The intonations that permeate His parables about the shepherds indirectly confirm this. In any case, the Nazarene Servant constantly saw people carefully guarding their flocks.
He also saw the vine-growers tying up the vines, the sowers in the spring fields, the reapers with sickles cutting the ears. Later, all these pictures served as images for His parables. They take us to the world of a quiet Galilean village that surrounded Jesus from a young age.
On Saturdays, Joseph's family came to the Nazareth prayer house, the synagogue, where the people listened to the Holy Scriptures and the conversations of the mentors. The reader recited the doxology, and all those present echoed him. Jesus loved these expressions of sincere faith, and later in His sermon echoes of the prayers He heard in Nazareth from a young age will sound more than once.

But it would be wrong to paint the life of Galilee as a serene idyll. And there passions boiled, and there they dreamed of freedom. The people were under double and even triple oppression: the publicans squeezed imperial taxes out of it, Jerusalem took its tithe, and the local landowners oppressed the peasants. People, however, believed that sooner or later justice would prevail. The books of the prophets that were read in the synagogues, and the apocalyptic writings that went from hand to hand, gave hope for the imminent end of the old world.
When Herod died, a rebellion swept through Galilee. It was headed by Judas Gavlonite, the leader of the party of Zealots, "zealots". Religious anarchists, Judas and his like-minded Pharisee Zadok rejected any authority over the people of God, except for the authority of the Creator Himself.
Crowds of desperate Galileans, inspired by the theocratic idea, formed a whole army and took the city of Sepphoris, where the arsenal was located, with a fight. The legionnaires of Quintilius Varus barely succeeded in putting down the rebellion. Hundreds of rebels were crucified.
In the 6th year, Archelaus, who inherited the vices, but not the state talents of Herod, was deposed and sent into exile. The high priest of Jerusalem began to manage his lands, and the general control over the region was transferred to the procurator Coponius. As under Pompey, it was included in the Syrian province of Rome. Antipas and Philip, although they retained the puppet power of the tetrarchs, found themselves even more dependent on the empire.
Immediately after the deposition of Archelaus, the governor of Syria, Quirinius, began a census throughout Palestine in order to establish the amount of tax. Judas Gaulonite, taking advantage of this, again raised Galilee against the Romans, but was soon killed in battle. However, his death could not extinguish the spirit of militant messianism. The ruler of Galilee, Herod Antipas, a man who valued his peace more than anything in the world, lost it very often. Every time a new leader appeared, calling the people to arms, the Galileans immediately rushed after him, hoping that at a critical moment angels would descend from heaven and crush the Roman eagle with them. “These fighters,” writes Flavius, “can never be reproached for lack of courage.” Not without reason, sixty years later, when the army of Vespasian marched through Galilee, she had to storm almost every village.
The house of Jesus must have known about the revolt of Judas, since Sepphoris was near Nazareth. Perhaps some of the partisans appeared there, and the Son of Mary saw them. He Himself will also speak of the freedom and dominion of God, but between Him and the people who have chosen the path of violence, an abyss will lie. A spiritual upheaval was being prepared in Nazareth, the meaning of which would remain incomprehensible to the Zealots.

The authors of the apocrypha did not skimp on describing the miracles with which Jesus allegedly struck everyone in childhood. But it is clear from the Gospels that at that time He showed no superiority over other people and, on the contrary, seemed to hide His secret from strangers. Only once did He let his parents know that he did not belong to them, but to another, higher world. This happened on Easter days, probably not long before the Galilean revolt.
Like all devout Jews, Joseph went every year to Jerusalem for the feast. Pilgrimage was not a duty for women, but Mary, who loved the Temple, always visited the holy city. When Her Son came of age in the Church, She took Him with Her.
In those days, motley lines of people stretched along the roads leading to the capital, and the singing of psalms sounded over the valleys. Thousands of pilgrims arrived in Jerusalem, the guards hardly maintained order. The square in front of the Temple was filled with crowds of people, sacrifices were constantly made, and in the evening families gathered in houses for a festive meal.
At the end of the celebrations, Joseph and Mary set off on their return journey. They walked along with relatives and neighbors, and therefore at first they were not disturbed that Jesus was not with them. When they realized that He had remained in the city, they hurried to Jerusalem in confusion. The times were turbulent, and Mary's heart sank in fear.

Began to search

In the crowded city, the Son was not easy to find. Joseph and Mary walked the streets for a long time until they came to one of the galleries that surrounded the Temple. There, rabbis and scribes usually spent time in theological discussions and exposition of the Law. Among them, Mother saw Jesus. He sat listening to the speeches of the scientists and asking them questions. The connoisseurs of the Scriptures were amazed at the “reason and answers” ​​of the obscure Galilean Servant, who did not study in their schools...
“My child,” Mary exclaimed, “why did You do this to us? Here is Your father and I are looking for You with pain.
- Why were you looking for me? Jesus answered. Did you not know that I must be in the domain of my Father?
He seemed to suddenly become distant and mysterious, and His words caused confusion in the parents. They didn't understand what He meant. However, Jesus immediately got up and followed them. For the only time, an unearthly beam flashed from behind a cloud and disappeared. He is again an ordinary Child, like other children.

Found in the temple among the teachers

After the incident in Jerusalem, Jesus, according to the evangelist, lived "in obedience" to his parents, "prospering in wisdom and stature and in love with God and people." Mary “kept in her heart” this first sign of a fulfilling prophecy.
Jesus did not go to theological school like his peers who had a religious calling. He became a carpenter and a bricklayer, and after the death of Joseph fed the Mother with the labors of His hands (The Word. . . . means both a carpenter and a bricklayer. Compare the abundance of images borrowed from the work of the builder in the speeches and parables of Christ (Mt 7.21; 16.18 ; 21:42; Luke 14:28; Jn 2:19).
Evangelist Luke says that those around him loved Jesus; but for them He was only a rural youth, although, perhaps, somewhat strange, often immersed in some of His own thoughts, unknown to anyone. Knowing Him closely, encountering Jesus almost every day, the inhabitants of Nazareth did not notice anything supernatural in Him. When He began to preach the kingdom of God, it took them by surprise and plunged them into genuine astonishment. Apparently, He did not have trusted friends among fellow countrymen. None of them, except for two or three women, followed Jesus.
The unbelief of the Nazarenes amazed Christ Himself. According to Him, they confirmed the proverb: "There is no prophet in his own country."
Mary and Her Son had many relatives in the town: Mary's sister with her family, cousins ​​of Jesus. However, these people, for the most part, remained spiritually far from Him. Their cramped world was limited to their street, home, work. Later, when they learned about the preaching and work of Jesus in Capernaum, His brothers were alarmed and thought that He was mad.
The spiritual loneliness of Jesus is also reflected in His words not recorded in the Gospel: “Those who are close to Me did not understand Me.” The only close being was only Mother.
Evangelists talk little about Her; but even if they had not said a single word about Mary, this would not have diminished the greatness of the Mother of the Messiah. He grew up before Her eyes, She gave Him the first motherly lessons, She was the only witness of the miracle taking place in Him.
It was revealed to Mary that Her Son is the Anointed of the Lord, but it is difficult for us now to understand how much spiritual strength was needed to maintain faith in this; because we are looking at it from a different perspective. If we imagine the everyday Nazarene life, we can guess that between the Annunciation and the Resurrection, Mary went a long way of trials.

carpenter's son

François Mauriac, a subtle connoisseur of the human soul, made an attempt to see this path. “The child became a youth, an adult. He was not great, He was not called the Son of the Most High; He had no throne, but only a stool by the fire in a poor hut. The mother might have doubted, but here is the testimony of Luke: “Mary kept everything in her heart” ... She kept the prophecies in her heart and did not tell anyone about them, perhaps even her Son.
The formation of any personality, and especially an extraordinary one, is always a mystery, all the more it is not given to us to penetrate into the mystery of the soul of Jesus. Can we know what He was thinking about while working in a small workshop, what He was praying for? One thing only seems indisputable: He was free from the conflicts that torment a person from childhood; demonic elements had no power over Him. If He knew the inner tragedy, then only loneliness, compassion, pain from contact with the world of evil gave birth to it, and not the torment of sin and the struggle with dark instincts. Everything that is known about the character of Jesus testifies to this.

Filled with wisdom

Even such a scholar as hostile to Christianity as David Strauss, after long reflections on the Gospel, admitted that the harmony of the spirit of Jesus was not the result of an internal crisis, but the result of a natural disclosure of the forces inherent in Him. “All characters,” Strauss wrote, “cleansed by struggle and strong shocks, for example, Paul, Augustine, Luther, have retained indelible traces of such a struggle, their image breathes something harsh, sharp, gloomy. There is nothing like this in Jesus. He immediately appears before us as a perfect nature, obeying only its own law, recognizing and asserting itself in its consciousness, having no need to transform and start a new life.
There was no sense of sinfulness in Him, which is inherent in every saint, there was nothing defective. Even though He often remained misunderstood and alone, this did not darken the enlightenment of His spirit; Jesus was constantly with the One He called His Father.
Probably, during his free hours, Jesus, as well as later, during his preaching years, liked to go to solitary places, where a heavenly voice sounded in Him in the midst of silence. There, on the hills of Nazareth, the future of the world was imperceptibly prepared...
Who could have known about it at the time? Roman politicians did not suspect that the day would come when their descendants would kneel before the Carpenter from the far eastern province.
Great and small events succeeded each other. The Germans defeated the legions in the Teutoburg Forest; rebellions flared up alternately on the Danube and the Rhine, in Gaul and Thrace. Augustus died, identifying himself with the host of gods, and the gloomy and suspicious Tiberius became his heir. Ovid, Titus Livius, Hillel died. Pliny the Elder is born; The philosopher Seneca returned to Rome from Egypt. The fifth procurator, Pontius Pilate, was appointed to Judea.
In Nazareth, outwardly, everything seemed to proceed without change. However, the long preparatory period of Jesus' life was drawing to a close. He was about thirty years old when, full of spiritual and bodily strength, He was only waiting for a sign to throw the first seeds of the Good News into the world.
And the sign was given.

Chapter three.
FORERUNNER. JESUS ​​IN THE DESERT
27 y.

Once a group of people, consisting of clergy and scribes, went out of the gates of Jerusalem and set off along the road leading to the banks of the Jordan. They were prompted to undertake the journey by a rumor about the young hermit John. In a short time, he became known throughout the country. The embassy was instructed to find out what the claims of this man are, what he teaches and whether he is a dangerous rebel of the people.
John called himself "the voice of one crying" (ie the voice of a herald, messenger.), which in itself spoke volumes.
Five centuries ago, when the days of exile ended and the Jews were able to return from Babylon, the great teacher of the faith, Isaiah II, composed a hymn about Theophany. It describes the Easter procession through the barren desert, which blooms before the face of the Lord, turning into a garden. Ahead - herald. He calls to clear the way for the Walking One.
Since then messianic hopes have been associated with this vision. It was expected that the forerunner of the Redeemer would be the prophet Elijah himself, who would again be sent to earth.
The Essene monks who lived near the Dead Sea assured that the role of heralds would fall to their lot. But it seemed to them that the world was too deeply mired in iniquity, and only the “Sons of Light” were worthy to meet the Messiah. The inhabitants of Qumran looked upon themselves as the only chosen ones. The history of the world, according to the Essenes, failed, and all but them are doomed. They lived outside the walls of their villages, punctually observing rituals and believing that only with them would the New Covenant predicted by the prophet Jeremiah be concluded (see Prologue).
Of course, even among the sectarians there were people who were concerned about the fate of the “sons of darkness”. Not each of them could rejoice at the death of the world or calmly reconcile with it. One of the Qumran theologians wrote: “Do not all peoples hate Krivda?.. Isn’t the voice of Truth heard from the mouths of all peoples?” But right then and there he bitterly admitted that in reality no one follows the truth of God. And if so, then the sinners have nothing to count on. Saints must remain on guard. What does it matter to them if the wicked get what they deserve?
John's sermon must have thrown the Essenes into confusion. They had nothing to reproach him with, and even more so they could not rank the hermit among the “sons of darkness”. John led the life of an ascetic, even more strict than the people of Qumran. He dressed in a rough shepherd's sackcloth made of camel hair, kept Nazirite vows, that is, did not cut his hair and did not drink wine. His food consisted of sun-dried locusts and wild honey. However, this hermit did not share the cold complacency of the Essenes, did not turn away from the world, but began to preach "to all the people of Israel."

John came from the priestly class. He lost his parents early and was raised by strangers. It is highly probable that he was adopted by none other than the Essenes, who often adopted orphans for their upbringing. But when John was thirty years old, God called him to leave the wilderness. It was revealed to him that he was given the mission to become "the voice of one crying," the forerunner of the Redeemer.
From the desert, John came to the adjacent Jordan Valley, where he began his sermon. “Repent,” said the prophet, “for the Kingdom of Heaven is near!” His words fell on prepared soil and immediately found a wide response. Crowds of people from the surrounding towns and villages went to the river. There were scribes and soldiers, officials and peasants. The impression from the speeches and the very appearance of the prophet was enormous. He spoke of the Judgment of the world, and it seemed that everything around John was breathing with a premonition of the imminence of great events.
As a symbol of entry into the messianic era, John chose the rite of immersion in the waters of the Jordan, the river, which since ancient times was considered the boundary of the Holy Land. Just as water washes the body, so repentance purifies the soul. When a pagan joined the Old Testament church, they performed tevil, ablution, on him. The prophet demanded this from the Jews themselves as a sign that they were born for a new life. Therefore, John was called “Hamatvil”, the Baptist (the word “tevila” in Greek means immersion, washing; in Russian it is usually translated as baptism).
Many Israelites were offended that they were offered to go through ablution as if they were new converts from other faiths. Does not belonging to the people of God sanctify in itself? But the Baptist did not hesitate to declare such a view to be a delusion. When he saw the scribes on the shore, he spoke to them sharply and sternly: “Spawn of vipers! Who told you to flee from future wrath? And do not think to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father,” for I tell you that God is able to raise up children of Abraham from these stones.” It is not birth that makes sons of the Covenant, but faithfulness to the commandments of the Lord.
John reproached those who thought that one rite of tevila was already enough for the forgiveness of sins for frivolity. He demanded a reassessment of all life, sincere repentance. Before baptism, people "confessed their sins." But even this was not enough. Real results of inner change were needed. “Create,” the prophet said, “fruit worthy of repentance!.. Already the ax lies at the root of the trees; Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Baptized from him

What did John want? Did he call on the people to flee from the world and lock themselves up in the monastery walls? This would sound quite natural in the mouth of an ascetic. But the Baptist wanted more: that people, remaining where they live, remained faithful to the word of God.
According to Josephus Flavius, John taught the people "to lead a clean way of life, to be fair to each other and reverent towards the Eternal." By emphasizing the importance of the ethical standards of the Law, the Baptist was following the tradition of the ancient prophets. Speaking little about rituals, he put the moral duty of a person in the first place: “He who has two shirts, let him share with the poor, whoever has food, let him do the same.” The Prophet did not suggest that the soldiers abandon their service and said that it was more important for them to avoid violence and slander. To everyone's amazement, he did not even condemn the despised trade of tax collectors - publicans, but only demanded that they not extort more than they were supposed to (By collecting the imperial tax, the publicans usually profited at the expense of the population).
At the same time, in relation to the powerful of this world, John behaved so independently that he soon aroused discontent. According to tradition, the Baptist once visited Jerusalem and there spoke out against the members of the Council. When asked who he was and where he came from, John said: "I am a man, and I lived where the Spirit of God led me, feeding me with roots and tree shoots." To the threat to deal with him if he did not stop embarrassing the crowd, John replied: “It is you who need to stop doing your base deeds and cling to the Lord your God.” Then an Essenes named Simon, who appeared in the assembly, contemptuously remarked: “We read the sacred books every day, and now you have come out of the forest like a beast, and you dare to teach us and seduce people with your rebellious speeches.” After that, the Baptist never came to the capital again.

John usually lived near Betania, or Bethavara, a river crossing, where he baptized the people who came to him. Soon a community formed around him, to which John gave his rules and prayers. By name we know only two of the disciples of the Baptist - Andrew of Bethsaida and the young man John, the son of Zebedee. Both were fishermen and came from the shores of the Sea of ​​Galilee.
How did the Johnites look at the teacher? Most likely, they saw in him an eschatological Prophet, whose coming was expected by many. But some have formed the conviction that the Baptist himself is the promised Messiah.
John's influence increased daily. In his speeches, he began to mention Herod Antipas, who belonged to the Jordanian region. As a result, writes Flavius, the tetrarch "began to fear that John's power over the masses would lead to some kind of unrest."
The Sanhedrin was also alarmed, and that is why priests were sent to the Jordan with authority from him.
- Who are you? Isn't it the Messiah? they asked the Baptist.
“I am not the Messiah,” he answered.
- What? Are you Elijah?
- I'm not Elijah.
- Prophet?
- Not.
“Then who are you to give us an answer to those who sent us?” What do you say about yourself?
- I am the voice of one crying: “In the wilderness make straight the way for the Lord,” as the prophet Isaiah said.
- What do you baptize, - they asked him, - if you are not the Messiah, and not Elijah, and not the Prophet?
And then they heard the answer, full of humility and faith, which clearly identified the calling of John as the Forerunner of Christ:
- I baptize with water, but in the midst of you stands the One Whom you do not know, Who is following me, Who has become ahead of me, Whom I am not worthy to untie the strap of His shoes ... He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His shovel is in His hand, and He will cleanse His threshing floor and gather His wheat into barns, and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Everyone understood what that meant. The world must pass through the fire of God's truth, but John is only a harbinger of a cleansing thunderstorm.
The Messiah has been talked about for a long time, but only a Jordanian teacher proclaimed that the days of His coming had finally come. Listening to the Forerunner, the people were constantly “in expectation”. Many knew that the Deliverer would long hide unrecognized, so the words of John: “He stands among you” made hearts beat faster.
At that very moment, the Man from Nazareth appeared among the crowd on the shore.
His arrival hardly attracted attention, especially since He, along with others, was preparing to be baptized by John. However, when He approached the water, everyone was struck by the strange words of the prophet addressed to the Galilean: "I need to be baptized by You."

Was in the desert with the beasts

Did John know even before, or did he only now feel that before him was not an ordinary person, but Someone greater than himself? Jesus' answer: “Let it be now, for this is how it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” - he did not explain anything to those around him. Did He mean to say that “we” people need to start with repentance? Would you like to give an example? Or looked at baptism as an act that marked the beginning of His mission? In any case, for John, these words had a certain meaning, and he agreed to perform the ceremony.
It was a symbolic meeting. The hermit in a sackcloth, with a sun-blackened, emaciated face, with a lion's mane of hair, embodied the thorny path of pre-Christian religion, and a new Revelation was brought by a Man Who, outwardly, seemed to be no different from any commoner from Galilee.
While Jesus was standing in the river praying, something mysterious happened. Subsequently, John told his disciples: “I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and He abode on Him. And I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water, He said to me: “On whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, He is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I saw and testified that He is the Son of God.”

After being baptized, Jesus immediately left Betania and went deep into the wilderness south of the Jordan. There, in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, among the bare, lifeless hills, where the silence was broken only by the weeping of jackals and the cries of birds of prey, He spent more than a month in fasting. According to the evangelists, in those days, on the threshold of His ministry, He was "tempted by the devil."
Did Jesus have a vision, as artists usually like to portray, did any of the inhabitants of the desert try to lead Him onto a false path, or did everything happen in the soul of Christ invisibly? No one could tell about this except Jesus Himself. But He told the disciples only the essence of what was happening. Satan offered the Messiah three of his own ways to conquer the World. The first was to win over the masses with the promise of earthly goods. Feed them, “make stones into bread”, and they will follow You anywhere, said the tempter. But Jesus refused to resort to such a lure: “Man does not live by bread alone...”
Another time the Nazarene stood on a high mountain. At His feet lay the ashen teeth of the rocks, behind which the “kingdoms of this world” were guessed. Somewhere in the distance, invincible Roman legions were moving, ships were sailing on the sea, crowds of people were agitated. What governs them, what reigns over the world? Is it not the power of gold, is it not the power of the sword, is it not the element of selfishness, cruelty and violence? Caesar only commands the peoples because he recognized the dominion of the dark principles in man. “I will give you all this power,” said Satan, “and their glory, because it is given to me, and I give it to whom I want.” Become like the rulers of empires, and people will be at Your feet. The Jewish Zealots were waiting for such a Messiah-warrior. However, Jesus did not yield to the temptation of the sword; He did not come to follow in the footsteps of the oppressors. "Depart from me, Satan," was His answer, "it is written: worship the Lord thy God, and serve Him alone."
From the desert Jesus went to Jerusalem. But even there the spirit of evil did not depart from Him. “Throw yourself down,” he suggested, when Christ stood on one of the high temple grounds; for the crowd, seeing a man who fell on the stones and remained unharmed, will surely consider Him a great sorcerer. But the way of the screaming miracle, which was followed by both false mystics and admirers of “technical miracles”, could not be accepted by Jesus. He will always try to hide his power, avoiding spiritual violence against people.
The gospels say that the defeated Satan departed from Christ "until the time". In other words, the temptations were not limited to these critical days of His life.

Returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit

Returning to Galilee, Jesus again stopped for a while at Betania. When John saw Him, he said to the people around him, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." The word "Lamb" was reminiscent of the prophets who were persecuted and killed, and in the Book of Isaiah the Servant of the Lord was called the Lamb, Whose torment will be performed for the atonement of the sins of mankind.
The Baptist repeated his testimony in the circle of close disciples, after which Andrew and John began to seek a meeting with Jesus. One day, when they saw Him, they timidly followed Him, not knowing how to start a conversation. Jesus turned around and asked:
- What do you want?
- Rabbi, where do you live? they asked, a little confused.
- Come and see.
They came with Him to the house where He was staying and stayed with Jesus all day. We do not know what they talked about, but the next day Andrew found his brother Simon and enthusiastically declared: “We have found the Messiah...”

teacher where do you live

A startling message immediately spread among the Galileans who had come to the Jordan. Some hesitated. Everything was very different from what had been predicted. One of Andrei's countrymen, Nathanael, shook his head incredulously: Messiah from Nazareth? But he was answered simply: "Come and see." Nathanael agreed, and the very first words of the Nazarene pierced his soul. The hint that revealed the foresight of Jesus dispelled all doubts.
- Rabbi, You are the Son of God, You are the King of Israel! exclaimed Nathanael.
“Truly, truly, I say to you,” Jesus said in response, “you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.
He did not utter the word "Messiah", but the expression "Son of Man" was clear to them; it meant that the new Teacher is the One Whom everyone has been looking forward to for a long time.

Getting up early in the morning

Most likely, these simple-hearted people decided that the Tsar they found was hiding only for the time being, but the hour would come, and brave people would rally around Him, the powers of heaven would elevate Him to the throne, and they, who recognized Christ, would gain glory in the Messianic Kingdom. .
So, Jesus came to the North not alone, but accompanied by followers.

Chapter Four.
GALILEE. FIRST STUDENTS
Spring 27

At first it might seem that the preaching of Christ was only a continuation of the mission of John the Baptist. Both spoke of the nearness of the Kingdom of God, both called the people to repentance and accepted water baptism as a rite. Nevertheless, some difference between the two teachers became noticeable immediately. If John waited for the audience to gather to him, then Jesus himself went to the people. He went around cities and villages; on Saturdays His speech was heard in prayer houses, and on the rest of the days - somewhere on a hill or by the sea in the open air. Sometimes the crowd was so large that Jesus got into a boat and from there spoke to the people on the shore.
Living in Galilee, the Teacher invariably got up early and often met the sunrise on solitary peaks. There the disciples found Him and asked Him to continue conversations with those who came. The day of Jesus was filled with hard work: until dark, the sick followed Him, waiting for relief from their ailments, believers eagerly hung on His words, skeptics asked ridiculous questions or entered into disputes with Him, scribes demanded clarification of difficult passages of the Bible. At times, Jesus and His disciples had no time to eat. However, the Gospels only twice say that the Teacher was very tired. Ordinarily we see Him tireless and full of energy. "My food," He said, "to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to do His work."

We should not be surprised that there are no images of Christ made by His contemporaries. After all, there are no reliable portraits of either Buddha, or Zarathustra, or Pythagoras, or most other religious reformers, and in Judea it was generally not customary to portray people.
The early Christians did not retain the memory of the outward features of Jesus; first of all, the spiritual image of the Son of Man was dear to them. “If we knew Christ according to the flesh,” said the Apostle Paul, “now we don’t know.”
The earliest frescoes, where the face of Jesus is presented as it was finally established in church art, date back to the 2nd or even 3rd century. It is difficult to say to what extent this image is connected with the oral tradition. But in any case, the Teacher, who made long journeys under the sultry sun of Palestine, whose hands knew hard physical labor, hardly resembled the Christ of the Italian masters. He dressed not in an ancient toga, but in the simple clothes of the Galileans - a long striped chiton and an upper cape; His head was probably always covered with a white handkerchief with a woolen bandage.
In Russian painting of the 19th century, Polenov's appearance of Christ is the most authentic, but his paintings do not convey the spiritual power that emanated from the Son of Man.
This is what the evangelists captured. In their stories, you can feel the conquering influence of Jesus on a wide variety of people. He almost instantly took possession of the hearts of His future apostles. The temple guards sent to arrest the Nazarene failed to obey the order, shocked by His preaching. There was something about Him that made even enemies speak respectfully to Him. The scribes called Him Rabbi, the Instructor. With Pilate, one look and a few words of Jesus aroused secret respect against his will.

Some exciting mystery, inexplicable attraction created around Him an atmosphere of love, joy, and faith. But often the disciples were seized next to Jesus by a sacred awe, almost fear, as from proximity to the Incomprehensible. At the same time, there was nothing priestly, pompous in Him. He did not consider it below His dignity to come to a wedding or to share a meal with publicans in the house of Matthew, to visit the Pharisee Simon, Lazarus. Least of all He looked like a detached ascetic or a gloomy teacher. Saints said about Him: “Here is a man who loves to eat and drink wine.”
It is said that one medieval monk drove past a picturesque lake without noticing it. That's not how Jesus is. Even the little things of life do not escape His sight; among people He is at home.
The evangelists paint Christ as profoundly human. Tears were seen in His eyes, they saw how He mourns, is surprised, rejoices, hugs children, admires flowers. His speech breathes condescension to the weaknesses of man, but He never softens His demands. He can speak with gentle kindness, or he can be strict, even harsh. Sometimes bitter irony flashes in His words (“they strain out a mosquito and swallow a camel”). Usually meek and patient, Jesus is merciless to bigots; He expels merchants from the temple, stigmatizes Herod Antipas and the lawyers, and reproaches the disciples for lack of faith. He is calm and restrained, sometimes he is seized with sacred anger. However, inner discord is alien to Him. Jesus always remains Himself. Except for a few tragic moments, the clarity of spirit never leaves Christ. Being in the midst of life, He at the same time, as it were, abides in another world, in unity with the Father. Close people saw in Him a Man who wants only one thing: "to do the will of Him who sent Him."
Christ is far from painful exaltation, from frenzied fanaticism, characteristic of many ascetics and founders of religions. Enlightened sobriety is one of the main traits of His character. When He speaks about extraordinary things, when He calls for difficult accomplishments and courage, He does it without false pathos and anguish. He could easily talk to people at the well or at the festive table, and He could utter the words that shocked everyone: “I am the Bread of Life.” He speaks of trials and struggles, and He brings light everywhere, blessing and transforming life.
Writers have never been able to create a convincing image of a hero if his portrait was not set off by flaws. Evangelicals are an exception, not because they were unsurpassed masters of the word, but because they portrayed an unsurpassed Person.
One cannot but agree with Rousseau, who asserted that it was impossible to invent the gospel story. According to Goethe, “all four Gospels are authentic, since all four reflect that spiritual height, the source of which was the person of Christ and which is more divine than anything else on earth.”

In contrast to the hermits of Qumran, Jesus did not turn away from the world, did not hide the treasures of the spirit from it, but generously gave them to people. “When,” He said, “they light a lamp, they do not put it under a vessel, but on a candlestick, and it shines for everyone in the house.” The Word of God must be “preached on the rooftops”—that is His will.
By that time, the Hebrew language had become a literary language. For conversations, they usually used the Aramaic dialect. It was him that Christ used when talking with the people. This is evidenced by Aramaic words and expressions preserved in the New Testament.
In His sermon, Jesus used the traditional forms of sacred biblical poetry. Often His words sounded like a majestic recitative, reminiscent of the hymns of the ancient prophets. In addition, He followed the methods of the scribes: he expressed himself in aphorisms, posed questions, and did not neglect logical arguments. Jesus especially loved examples from everyday life - parables. They most fully imprinted His teaching.
Parables were known in Israel for a long time, but Jesus made them the main way of expressing His thoughts. He did not appeal to one intellect, but sought to touch the whole being of man. Drawing familiar pictures of nature and life before people, Christ often left the listeners themselves to draw conclusions from His stories. Thus, avoiding abstract words about human brotherhood, He cites an incident on the Jericho road, when a Jew who suffered from robbers received help from a non-Christian Samaritan. Such stories sank into the soul and turned out to be more effective than any reasoning.

By the Sea of ​​Galilee

The coast of the Sea of ​​Galilee, where Jesus came, subsequently suffered greatly from wars; Only relatively recently has this region begun to acquire its former appearance. In gospel times, Gennesaret was distinguished, according to Flavius, “by amazing nature and beauty.” Orchards, palm trees and vineyards lined the blue waters. Behind the fences grew acacias, oleanders, myrtle bushes with white flowers. Harvested during all months. The lake gave a plentiful catch. Day and night its surface was dotted with fishing boats.
There is a deep meaning in the fact that the preaching of the gospel turned out to be closely connected with this country. The news of the Kingdom of God was heard for the first time not in stuffy, dusty capitals, but along the shores of an azure lake, among verdant groves and hills, reminding us that the beauty of the earth is a reflection of the eternal beauty of Heaven.
Along Gennesaret stretched a series of small seaside towns, of which Jesus chose Capernaum. Evangelists even call Capernaum “His city”. There, next to the synagogue built by a Roman proselyte, He lived in the house of Simon, brother of Andrew; from there Jesus went to preach, heading along the coast to Bethsaida, Chorazin, Magdala, from there he went on holidays to Jerusalem and returned there. In Capernaum, people witnessed His first healings and saw how with one word He stopped the convulsions of a possessed man who was shouting: “Leave it! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazarene? You have come to destroy us! I know You, Who You are, Holy One of God!..”

Settled in Capernaum seaside

The relatives of Jesus, having learned about His sermon and miracles, decided that the Son of Mary "has lost his temper." They hastened to Capernaum, desiring to take Jesus by force back to Nazareth; but they never managed to get into the house, which was literally besieged by the people.
From then on, it was already painful for Mary to remain among the Nazarenes, who looked at Jesus as a madman. It has been suggested that she moved for a time to Cana, where some people, probably relatives, gave her shelter.
Once, when a wedding was being celebrated in their family, Jesus and his disciples were invited there, and Mother was able to see Him again.
In the midst of a modest celebration, to the great chagrin and shame of the hosts, the wine ran out. Obviously, all the shops were already closed, and there was nothing to treat the audience. Mary, noticing this, turned to the Son: "They have no wine."
What help did she hope for? Or just waiting for words of encouragement? It seems incomprehensible and the answer of Jesus, uttered as if with a sigh: “What should I do with You? My Hour has not yet come” - this is how you can roughly convey the meaning of His words. Nevertheless, Mary realized that He was still ready to help in some way, and told the servants: "Do whatever He tells you." Jesus ordered to pour water into large stone vessels intended for ablutions, and, having drawn from them, carry it to the manager of the feast. The servants exactly carried out the strange order, and when the manager tasted the drink, he was amazed and said to the groom: “Good wine is always served first, but you have saved it until now ...”
So the manifestation of Christ's power over nature began not with frightening signs, but at the festive table, to the sounds of wedding songs. He used it so that the day of joy would not be darkened, as if by chance. After all, He came to give people joy, fullness and “excess” of life.

In Cana of Galilee

The Galilean fishermen were deeply affected by what happened at Cana. Evangelist John says that from that moment they truly believed in Jesus. And when one day, finding them on the shore, He called them to follow Him, they left their nets without hesitation and from now on belonged entirely to the Teacher alone.
The newly formed community, which a few years later began to be called "Nazarene", in contrast to the orders of the Buddha or St. Francis, was not mendicant. She had the means and was even able to help the poor. The money came from the disciples and belonged to the whole brotherhood. This principle was later adopted by the Jerusalem Church.
Probably all of the first followers of Jesus were young. Seniority belonged to a fisherman from Bethsaida - Simon bar-Jone (i.e., the son of Jonah (in some manuscripts, "the son of John")). His name is at the beginning of every list of apostles. When the Master asked the disciples about something, Simon usually answered for others. Christ gave him the nickname Cephas, a stone, which in Greek sounds like Peter. The meaning of this name Jesus explained to His disciple later. Impetuous temperament was combined in Simon with timidity. But he, more than the rest of the disciples, was attached to the Mentor, and this love helped Peter overcome his characteristic cowardice.

Simon and Andrew

Simon lived in Capernaum with his brother, wife and her mother. Jesus constantly enjoyed their hospitality and Peter's boat. Simon's house became His home for a long time.
Peter was brought to the Master by his brother Andrew, about whom we know as little as we know about James, son of the fisherman Zebedee. But the other son of Zebedee, John, the youngest of the apostles, is described in the Gospels more fully. He probably resembled his mother Salome, an energetic, sincere believer who later also joined Jesus. Listening to the sermons of the Baptist, John became convinced of the nearness of the Kingdom of the Messiah. A young man "unlearned and simple", he, however, was apparently familiar with the teachings of the Essenes, which deepened his apocalyptic mood. He wanted to see in Jesus a thunderer who would strike His enemies with lightning. John and James secretly dreamed of taking the first places at the throne of Christ. Jesus called both brothers Benegeres, "sons of the storm." Ardent John became His favorite disciple.

James and John

There was a customs house at Capernaum near the shore. Visiting her, Jesus met there the publican Levi, nicknamed Matthew, and said to him: “Follow me.” Matthew not only immediately joined the Nazarene Teacher, but also brought other publicans to Him. Later, this man was probably the first to write down the words of Christ.

Levi Matthew

In addition to the four fishermen of Gennesaret and Matthew, the inner circle of Jesus' followers included Nathanael bar-Tolomei (Greek: Bartholomew) from Cana, his friend Philip, a resident of Bethsaida, who knew the Greek language better than others, Simon Zealot, who left the party of violent extremists for the sake of Christ, the fisherman Thomas (Thomas (aram.), or Didim (Greek), i.e. Gemini, is most likely a nickname. According to legend, the name of the apostle was Judas.), as well as Judas Thaddeus and Jacob Alfeev. All of them came from Galilee, only Judas bar-Simon, a native of the city of Keriot, was a southerner. To the latter Jesus entrusted the custody of the money of His community. Thus, perhaps, He wanted to emphasize His trust in Judas.
The name of this man has long become a symbol of baseness and treachery. However, it is doubtful that Christ wished to draw close to Himself a moral monster, a being morally hopeless. Probably, Judas' ideas about the work of the Teacher were wrong, but in this he differed little from Peter and the other apostles. It was difficult for all of them to overcome the illusions that were firmly rooted in their minds. Many of the disciples turned away from Jesus when it became clear that He was not what they imagined the Messiah to be. The drama of Judas was also connected with the loss of faith in the Master. But disappointment gave birth to a feeling of anger in him and pushed him to a treacherous step. Perhaps, in this way, he wanted to avenge his ambitious plans that had been destroyed. In any case, to believe that Judas was guided only by greed is to oversimplify the gospel tragedy.
All evangelists claim that these people, whom Jesus brought closer to Himself, at first poorly understood Himself and His purposes. Sometimes it was difficult for them to catch even a simple thought of the Master. This, of course, should have upset Jesus, but He patiently brought up the disciples and rejoiced every time something was clear to them. “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,” Jesus exclaimed at such moments, “that You hid this from the wise and prudent and revealed it to babies!” If the Good News had been delivered to the “wise men” first, there would have been a danger that its essence would remain obscured. This happened a hundred years later, when Eastern occultists adopted the new faith and intertwined Christianity with Gnostic theosophy. In true purity, the gospel was able to be preserved precisely by simpletons, alien to pride and “leadership”, not poisoned by dry casuistry and metaphysical theories, people who introduced the minimum of their own into the teachings of Jesus. Personality, thought, the will of the Lord were for them the only and most precious treasure.
Jesus loved this spiritual family and prioritized His relationship with them over blood relationship. When, during a large gathering of people, the Teacher was informed that His Mother and brothers were waiting outside the door, He pointed to the disciples: “Here are My Mother and My brothers...”

Gradually, the rumor about the Galilean Mentor and Healer spread throughout the region. Crowds constantly followed Jesus. As soon as He left to be alone, the disciples found Him: "Everyone is looking for You." And then Jesus again and again went to those who were waiting for Him.
But there were also in this ascetic life rare days, or rather, hours of rest. When you think about them, you involuntarily imagine an evening on the banks of Gennesaret. The sun sets behind the city. The massive silhouette of the synagogue stands out sharply against the background of the sunset. The wind slightly stirs the reeds and tree branches. To the east are purple hills. The singing of the fishermen returning home can be heard from afar.
Jesus sits on the stones of the shore, His eyes are turned to the calm surface of the water. Simon and other students appear. They silently stop, afraid to disturb the Teacher. And He sits motionless, immersed in prayer, illuminated by a quiet evening light. Do the disciples understand, do they guess, looking at Jesus at that moment, that in Him that Higher One, which creates and moves the Universe, will be revealed to them? ..
Short southern twilight, and now the stars light up over the sea. Everyone goes to Simon's house. The room is lit by the flickering fire of an earthen lamp; The teacher and students gathered at the table. The women serve a modest dinner. Jesus says a prayer of thanksgiving and breaks bread. He speaks of the Kingdom, for the sake of which one must boldly and decisively leave everything; the one who “takes up the plow and turns back” is unfit for the work of God.
Simon probably has many questions, but he is shy, although he is ready to follow his Lord to the ends of the earth. John's eyes sparkle; visions of the universal Judgment and the image of the Son of Man, crowned with the crown of David, flash through his mind...
Jesus continues to speak.
Night descends over Capernaum.

Chapter five.
GOOD NEWS

The Teaching of Christ is Good, or Joyful, News. So He Himself called him: Besora in Aramaic, in Greek the Gospel.
He brought to the world not new philosophical doctrines, not projects of social reforms, and not knowledge of the mysteries of the other world. He fundamentally changed the very attitude of people to God, revealing to them that His face, which before was only vaguely guessed. The Good News of Jesus speaks of man's higher calling and the joy that unity with the Creator gives him.
The inexhaustible richness of the Gospel is not easy to outline in brief, so we will focus only on the main points.

Heavenly Father and Sonship

The Old Testament most often spoke of the relationship between God and the people. The gospel puts forward the relationship between God and the soul.
Jesus' sermon is addressed not to the "masses", not to the faceless anthill, but to the individual. In the crowd, the spiritual level of people is reduced, they are at the mercy of herd instincts. That is why Christ attaches such importance to individual destinies. In any person there is a whole world, infinitely valuable in the eyes of God.
If Jesus used the word “flock,” it sounded very different in His mouth than it does today. For His listeners, it was associated with an object of love and constant care: the sheep were looked upon almost as members of the family. “The good shepherd,” Jesus said, “calls every sheep by name” and is ready to “lay down his life for it.”
When the scribes wondered why the Master associates with people of dubious reputation, He answered them with a parable:
“Which of you, having a hundred sheep and having lost one of them, does not leave ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until he finds her? And having found, he takes her on his shoulders, rejoicing; and, having come to his house, he calls friends and neighbors, and says to them: “Rejoice with me, because I found my lost sheep.” I tell you that in this way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous who do not need repentance. Or what woman who has ten drachmas, if she loses one drachma, does not light a lamp, and does not sweep the house, and does not search diligently until she finds it? And having found it, she calls her friends and neighbors and says: “Rejoice with me, because I found the drachma that I lost.” Thus, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

Speaking of Being, Jesus meant “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” that is, the God who revealed himself in the religious consciousness of the Old Testament; and, like the biblical prophets, the gospel of Christ teaches not so much about God "in Himself" as about God addressed to the world and man.
Of all the names by which the Creator is called in Scripture, Jesus preferred the word Father. In His prayers, it sounded like Abba. This is how children addressed their fathers in Aramaic.
This choice is deeply significant.
The “Father” in world religions is often referred to as the supreme Beginning. But usually He was presented as a despotic and powerful ruler. Such a view, which bears the impress of people's fear of existence and of earthly rulers, even affected the thinking of the Old Testament. When a Jew uttered the word “Father”, as a rule, he associated it with the concept of a harsh Lord and Protector of the whole people.
Only Jesus speaks of the Father, whom every human soul can have if they so desire. The gospel brings to people the gift of divine sonship. Those who receive it will fulfill the promises of Christ. They learn that one can speak with the Creator of the Universe one on one, as with “Abba”, as with a loving Father Who is waiting for reciprocal love.
The love of God does not impose itself, it protects human freedom. The Lord is like the owner of the house, who invites everyone to his feast and for whom the guests are a great joy. Christ expressed this idea even more clearly in the parable of the self-willed son.
The young man demanded from his father the share of the inheritance due to him and left for a foreign country. When parting with him, the father did not utter a single word of reproach. He did not want forced love and therefore did not hold back his son. When the young man squandered everything he had and returned back poor, hoping to become at least the last servant in the house, his father not only accepted him, but also arranged a feast in honor of the return of the prodigal son.
This caused envy and annoyance of the older brother.
“Here I have been serving you for so many years,” he said, “and I have never violated your commandments, and you have never given me a goat to have fun with my friends. And when your son came, having eaten away your property with harlots, you slaughtered a fatted calf for him.
“My child,” replied the father, “you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours, but you should have rejoiced and rejoiced that this brother of yours was dead and came to life, disappeared and was found.
Far from God there is no true life; leaving Him, a person reaps the bitter fruits of sin, but the Lord is always ready to accept the repentant - such is the meaning of the story. Heavenly will in it is symbolized not by a demanding master, a formidable king or a strict judge, but by a person who respects the freedom of another, a father who loves and forgives. This image most closely corresponds to the revelation of Christ about God. Just as a father patiently waited for his son, sitting at the threshold, so the Lord is looking for the free love of man.

They brought the children

One day the women brought children to Jesus to be blessed by Him. The disciples, fearing to tire Him, did not allow them to enter the house. But the Teacher said, "Let the children go, do not prevent them from coming to Me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." And when the disciples asked Christ who was the greatest in the Kingdom of God, He called the child, placed him among them and, embracing him, said: “Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” The openness and trustfulness of a child's soul is an image of a person's trust in his Divine Father (the Hebrew word emuna (faith) itself does not mean confidence in some abstract truth, but trust in God, fidelity to Him. From the same root, the word amen, right.). That's why Jesus loved the childish word "Abba".
“Sent,” says Apostle Paul, “God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit, crying out: Abba, Father! So you are no longer a slave, but a son.” The one who has known the happiness of divine sonship opens the world, as it were, anew. He broke free from the deadly grip of chance. The Lord is close to him and knows his every step, "all the hairs on his head are numbered."
Trust must be unlimited; it excludes "serving two masters". If a person is absorbed in the pursuit of vanity, then he gives his heart to the power of the idol of Mammon (as wealth was called in Aramaic). “What does it profit,” Jesus said, “to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” .
Having handed itself over to the Father, the soul overcomes care - not the daily care that is necessary, but a painful, obsessive, mind-clouding concern.
If the Father cares even for small birds, if he bestowed wondrous beauty on flowers, then will He really forget about His children? After all, they are dearer to Him than all creation.

So don't worry and don't say, "What shall we eat?"
or: “What shall we drink?” or: “what to wear?”,
for all these things the Gentiles seek;
your heavenly Father knows
that you need it all.

Living close to the Father casts out fear and uncertainty. By praying, the children of God open their thoughts, hopes and sorrows to Him. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.”
If, as the parable of Christ says, even a heartless judge could not refuse the poor widow who persistently asked him, then will the loving Father refuse those who turn to Him with a prayer? In prayer, it is important to be sure that a person will be heard.

Is there a person between you
from whom his son asks for bread,
and he will give him a stone?
Or ask the fish
and he will give him a snake?
So if you, being evil,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more your Father who is in heaven,
will give good to those who ask Him.

The pagans believed that the gods themselves needed offerings. This idea was deeply alien to the Old Testament. All nature belongs to the Creator. The most precious gift to Him is the human heart. Rites only make sense when they express love for the Creator. Therefore, Jesus did not reject the custom of offering sacrifices on the altar. He even pointed out that this should not be done without reconciling with his brother. However, it is noteworthy that the evangelists nowhere say that Christ Himself participated in the sacrifices. The temple for Him was first of all a “house of prayer”.
But neither the temple action, nor even joint prayer can replace communion with God in private, a secret conversation with the Father.
God does not need a formal tribute of worship, respectable religiosity, subject to custom. Jesus warns:

When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites
who like to pray in synagogues
and standing on street corners
to show people...
You, when you pray
enter into your inner peace;
and shut your door
pray to your Father,
Which is in secret;
and your Father who sees in secret,
will reward you.
When you pray, do not talk like pagans;
for they think that in their verbosity they will be heard.
So don't be like them
for your Father knows
what you need.

If we ask anything from God, it is only because we confess before Him everything that lies on our hearts.
Jesus teaches to pray in simple words, with love and trust:

Our Father who is in heaven! We are your children, and you have our homeland.
May your name be hallowed. Let reverence for your sacred secret be in us.
May Your kingdom come, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are waiting for You to reign in all Your creation, so that Your plan will be fulfilled and You alone become our King and Lord.
Give us our daily bread today. Support our life now, for we believe that You will take care of tomorrow.
And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors. The filial debt that we so badly pay to You is reciprocal love. Teach us to love and forgive one another as You love and forgive us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Protect us from evil coming from outside and from ourselves.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Note that the first place in this prayer is not human desires, but the will of the Lord. Turning to Him, people should not seek only their own. The Son is always ready to rely on the Father in everything.
The words “Thy kingdom come” indicate that it has not yet come in full. Christ directly says that in this “age” demonic forces rule on earth. Satan is still "the prince of this world."
Christ did not explain where the evil came from, and therefore considered sufficient what was revealed in the Old Testament. Man is called not so much to think about evil as to fight against it. In the Gospel, the problem of evil is a practical problem, a vital task set before those who seek agreement with God's plan.

commandment of love

Evil, with which a person comes into contact most closely, lives in himself: the will to dominate, suppress and violence, on the one hand, and blind rebellion, seeking self-affirmation and boundless scope for instincts, on the other. These demons slumber at the bottom of the soul, ready to break out at any moment. They are nourished by the feeling of their "I" as the only center of value. The dissolution of the “I” in the elements of society, it would seem, limits the rebellion of the individual, but at the same time it levels out, erases the personality. The way out of the impasse was given in the biblical commandment: "Love your neighbor as yourself." She calls for a struggle against animal egocentric principles, for the recognition of the value of another “I”, for a struggle that should create a higher person, a “new creation”. Only love can defeat Satan.
Let much in the world around man and in himself rise up against the commandment of love; people will find the power to fulfill it in Him Who Himself is Love, Who revealed Himself in the Gospel of Jesus as a merciful Father.
Genuine faith is inseparable from humanity. People who forget this are like builders who built a house without a foundation, right on the sand. Such a building is doomed to collapse at the first storm.
As the basis of morality, Jesus preserved the precepts of the Decalogue. “If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments,” He said to the rich young man. In addition, He approved of Hillel's principle: "Do not do to another what is not pleasing to yourself," but gave this saying a shade of greater activity and effectiveness. “In everything you want people to do to you, do the same to them.”
The gospel is far from negative moralism with its formal scheme of "virtue" which boils down to nothing but prohibitions. Blessed Augustine wrote: "Love God, and then do as you like," that is, the attitude towards people should flow organically from faith. He who knows the Father cannot but love His creation. Moreover, Jesus directly says: "What you did to one of the least of My brothers, you did to Me." He will judge not by the "beliefs" of people, but by their deeds. He who serves his neighbor serves God, even if he does not realize it.

And what should the disciples of Christ do if they encounter the misdeeds of other people?
Many Jewish teachers spoke out against the sin of judgment. Jesus wholeheartedly approves of this.
Expecting forgiveness from the Lord, you need to learn to forgive yourself. Will that person act well who, having received forgiveness from the king of a large debt, himself turns out to be a ruthless creditor and throws his comrade into a debtor's prison?
When we see the weaknesses of our neighbor, we should not pass judgment on him, but sympathize, remembering our own sinfulness. “Judge not,” Jesus warns, “lest you also be judged, for by what judgment you judge, and by what measure you measure, so shall it be measured to you. Why do you look at the mote in your brother's eye, but do not notice the beam in your eye? .
The Pharisees used to look down on "ignorant in the Law." The word "am-haaretz", a hillbilly, was among them a synonym for the wicked. They wanted nothing to do with such a person. It was impossible to pray together with him, to sit down at the table and even to feed him in case of need. “The ignoramus is not afraid of sin, the am-khaar cannot be righteous,” the scientists said. Jesus was the exact opposite in this respect. He rather preferred to deal with ordinary people. Moreover, all the outcasts, all the pariahs of society found in Him a friend and intercessor. Publicans, who were not recognized as people, and street women were often among those who surrounded Him. This shocked the respectable scribes, who boasted of their righteousness. Hearing their complaints, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Go and learn what it means: "I want mercy, not sacrifice." I came to call not the righteous, but sinners.”

Who among you is without sin?

Christ put sincere repentance above the tranquility of those who considered themselves pleasing to God. One day He told about two people praying in the temple. One - a pious Pharisee - thanked God that he was "not like other people", often fasts, donates to the Temple and is unlike "this publican". And the publican stood in the distance, not daring to raise his eyes, beating his chest and lamentingly repeating: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” “I tell you,” Jesus concluded the parable, “this one came to his house justified, not that one. For everyone who lifts himself up will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be lifted up.”
However, repentance should not be limited to words. No wonder John the Baptist spoke of the “fruits of repentance.” Again, Jesus gives an example from everyday life: “A man had two children, and he went up to the first one and said, “My child, go work in the vineyard today.” He answered: “I am going, sir,” and did not go. And, going to the second, he said the same. And he answered: “I don’t want to,” and then he repented and went. Which of the two carried out the will of the father? .
When Jesus visited Matthew's house, where his companions, the publicans, had gathered, it caused an outburst of indignation. Reproaches fell on the Teacher. How can He share a meal with such persons? However, Jesus once again reminded that every soul deserves care and compassion. Those who forget this are like the older brother from the parable of the prodigal son, who did not rejoice at the return of the wanderer.
By drawing sinners closer to Himself, Christ wanted to awaken in them repentance and a thirst for a new life. Often, His kindness and trust performed genuine miracles.
Once the Master was passing through Jericho. At the gates of the city He was met by a multitude of people. Everyone wanted Jesus to stay in their house. One of the Jericho men, named Zacchaeus, “chief of the publicans,” tried to squeeze through the crowd, hoping to at least look at the Teacher with one eye, but his small stature prevented him. Then, forgetting about decency, he ran ahead and climbed a tree, by which the Lord was supposed to pass.
Jesus actually approached this place and, looking up, noticed a little man sitting on a fig tree. “Zacchaeus,” Jesus said suddenly, “come down quickly! Today I need to be with you.”
Beside himself with joy, the publican ran home to meet the Lord, and those around him began to grumble: “He stayed with such a sinful person!”
But the Master's step had an effect.
“Lord,” said Zacchaeus, meeting Him, “half of what I have, I give to the poor, and if I unjustly forced something from someone, I will compensate four times.
“Now salvation has come to this house,” answered Christ, “because he, too, is the son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost.
In Capernaum, a certain Pharisee Simon invited Jesus to his place. During dinner, a woman entered the room, known in the area for her dissolute lifestyle. In her hands was an alabaster vessel with precious incense; standing silently near the Teacher, she wept, then fell at His feet, irrigating them with myrrh and wiping them with her loose hair. Did she hear Jesus' words about forgiveness of sinners? Did you want to thank Him for mercy to the fallen? But this scene unpleasantly struck the host. "If He were a prophet," the Pharisee thought squeamishly, "he would know what sort of woman touches Him." Meanwhile, Jesus penetrated his thoughts.
- Simon, I have something to tell you.
- Tell me, Teacher.
- A certain creditor had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Since they had nothing to pay, he forgave them both. Which of them will love him more?
- I believe that the one to whom he forgave more.
“You judged correctly,” Jesus answered and explained why he brought this parable. He pointed out the difference between Simon, who considered himself blameless and for whom the conversation with Jesus was only an argument, and a woman who was aware of her fall. She reached out to the One Who can forgive her and save her from her former life.
When Christ directly addressed the harlot with the words: “Your sins are forgiven,” everyone present was even more indignant. The strange Prophet asked them a new riddle. Can anyone but God forgive sins? Where does this Nazarene have the right to speak with such authority?
But they would have been more indignant if they had heard Jesus interpret the sacred precepts of the Law.
old and new
Many generations of Jewish theologians have tried to accurately determine the number of commandments contained in the Torah, and some of them believed that there are commandments that express the very foundation of faith. Therefore, one of the scribes decided to get the opinion of Jesus and thereby get a clear idea of ​​the views of the Galilean Instructor.
“Master,” he asked, “what is the first commandment of all?”
- The first is, - answered Christ, - “Listen, Israel! The Lord our God is one God, and love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” And here's the second one: "Love your neighbor as yourself." There is no other commandment greater than these. These two commandments hold the Law and the Prophets (“The Law and the Prophets” is a synonym for the Old Testament.).
“Excellent, Teacher,” the scribe had to agree. - Truly You said that He is one and there is no other besides Him; and love Him with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.
Answering the scribe, Christ determined His attitude to the ancient Mosaic Law, and from His words it becomes clear why He wanted to keep it. When it came to Scripture, Jesus was direct:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets;
I came not to abolish, but to fulfill.
For truly I say to you:
until heaven and earth pass,
not one iota or not one tittle will pass in the Law,
until it all comes true...
If your righteousness will not
more than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Thus, Christ taught about the Bible as a divine Revelation and recognized the need for a living church tradition that would reveal its meaning. That's why He told the people about the Pharisees: "Whatever they tell you, do it." But if the scribes often added hundreds of petty rules to the Law, then Jesus returned the Old Testament to its sources, to the Ten Commandments of Sinai, to the authentic Mosaic heritage preserved by the prophets. Moreover, He was also careful about external prescriptions, not wanting to tempt “these little ones” and break with tradition. “No one,” Jesus remarked, “having drunk the old (wine), will not want the young, for he says: the old is better.” Nevertheless, in interpreting the Torah, He shifted the center of gravity from the sphere of ceremonies to the sphere of spiritual and moral. Moreover, He deepened and supplemented the ethical requirements of the Law.
If the Law forbade murder, then Jesus calls to expel hatred from the heart - the root of the crime. If the Law condemned the violation of fidelity in marriage, then Jesus speaks of the danger of vicious feelings. If the Law required the observance of an oath, then Jesus generally considers it superfluous:

May your word be
“yes - yes”, “no - no”,
and what is beyond this is from the evil one.

In pagan codes, punishment was often more severe than the crime itself. The Old Testament laid the foundation for the law of justice: "An eye for an eye - a tooth for a tooth." Jesus separates criminal law from morality, where different principles apply. It is natural for people to hate their enemies, but the children of God must overcome evil with good. They should fight vindictive feelings. Moreover, they should wish well to their offenders. This is the highest feat and a manifestation of the true strength of the spirit, assimilation to the Creator Himself.

Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may become sons of your Father who is in heaven,
because He raises His sun over the evil and the good
and it rains on the righteous and the unrighteous.
For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have?
Do not the publicans do the same?
And if you greet only your brothers,
what are you doing special?
Don't the pagans do the same thing?
So be perfect
how perfect your heavenly Father is.

Putting forward the spiritual essence of the Law to the first place, Christ returned the original meaning to the prescription of the Sabbath.
A person of our day cannot always appreciate the significance of this commandment. Having become accustomed to the established days of rest, we forget what the Sabbath was for the ancients. She did not allow daily worries to overwhelm the soul, providing time for prayer and reflection; she gave a break in work to everyone: both free and slaves, and even domestic animals.
However, there was also a flip side. Many devout people, preserving the holiness of the "seventh day", began to attach an exaggerated importance to it.
During the Maccabean War, a group of rebels preferred to die "without throwing a stone" than to fight on the Sabbath, and were completely exterminated. Then the inspirer of the struggle for the faith, the priest Mattathias, decided to act differently. “We will fight on Saturday,” he said. And among the Pharisees more than once there were voices of protest against the exaggeration of the laws of rest. “The Sabbath is given to you, and not you to the Sabbath,” said one of them. And yet, the statutory prohibitions continued to grow, obscuring the purpose of God's blessed gift. Pedants literally paralyzed life on Saturday. The Essenes were especially zealous. They believed, for example, that if a person or animal fell into a pit on Saturday, they could only be pulled out the next day.
Christ saw in such views a distortion of the spirit of the Mosaic commandment. “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,” He said.
Once on Saturday, the disciples of Jesus, hungry, began to pluck the ears, grind them and eat the grains. The Pharisees considered this a form of threshing and asked, “Why do your disciples break the Sabbath?” Then the Teacher reminded them that David, when he was left without food with his retinue, took sacrificial bread, and after all, only priests were supposed to eat them. The king did the right thing, because human need is more important than ritual prohibitions.
Several times Jesus performed healings on the Sabbath and thus provoked protests from the lawyers. They began to closely follow Him in order to publicly rebuke Him for disrespect for the Law. In vain did He refer to the fact that some important rites on the Sabbath are not cancelled, in vain did He explain to them that helping people is always God's work. He asked the Pharisees, “Which of you whose son or ox falls into a well will not pull him up on the Sabbath day?” . They could not find convincing objections, but stood their ground.
Sometimes Jesus deliberately challenged theologians. A man with a paralyzed hand came to the synagogue, hoping to receive healing from the Master.

What are these pages for? Are they necessary, if so much has already been said about the Founder of Christianity?

Any new book on the gospel subject can raise similar questions. In addition, it is obvious that no work on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ can replace its original source. “There is a book,” Pushkin wrote shortly before his death, “by which every word is interpreted, explained, preached in all corners of the earth, applied to all kinds of circumstances of life ... This book is called the Gospel, and such is its ever-new charm that if we , satiated with the world or dejected by despondency, we accidentally open it, then we are no longer able to resist its sweet passion and we are immersed in spirit in its divine eloquence. Indeed, who, apart from the evangelists, managed to cope with this daunting task - to capture the image of Jesus the Nazarene, and using surprisingly stingy means?

So, if we want to know the truth about Christ, we must seek it first of all in the Gospel.

But the one who picks it up for the first time may encounter certain difficulties. After all, the authors of the New Testament are separated from us by almost two thousand years. It is not easy for a modern person to understand many of their hints, turns of speech, and sometimes even the very course of their thought, which makes it necessary to comment, which gave the key to the Gospel.

The study of New Testament writing has long been a whole science. Hundreds of interpreters - theologians, historians, philologists - have done a great job of parsing and comparing texts, to clarify their meaning. They painstakingly examine every chapter and every verse of the gospel.

The value of these analytical works is undeniable. They helped to clarify a lot of important details. However, their authors followed a method that often left the main thing in the background. Extensive critical excursus on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John almost obscured Christ himself. But the evangelists sought to convey to us precisely the message of the Son of Man, Who is the alpha and omega of Christianity; without Him, it loses its soul, simply speaking, it does not exist.

That is why, over the past century and a half, in evangelical historiography, along with theological and literary analysis, they also began to use the method of generalization, synthesis. The authors who followed this path wanted, based on the data of textual criticism, to recreate a complete picture of the earthly life of Christ.

One of the first to use this approach was the well-known Russian preacher, Archbishop Innokenty of Kherson (Borisov). His essays were published in 1828 under the title "The Last Days of the Earthly Life of Jesus Christ." The book has since gone through many editions and continues to enjoy wide popularity. However, it covers only the events of Holy Week.

It remains to be regretted that the experience of such a "biography" of Christ, written in the form of a coherent narrative, was undertaken for the first time by a non-Christian author. We are talking about Ernest Renan, a French historian and thinker whose book The Life of Jesus appeared in 1863.

In it, the author managed to draw a vivid and truthful panorama of the gospel era and unusually vividly portray the Founder of Christianity Himself, although, being a positivist skeptic in his worldview, Renan largely distorted His appearance.

The success of the "Life of Jesus" was greatly facilitated by the fact that the central mystery of the Gospel - the mystery of God-manhood - in the Christian consciousness was actually lost. This naturally led to a reaction, of which Renan became the spokesman. Shortly after the publication of his book, Renan's compatriot Pastor Edmond Pressanse wrote: “The humanity of Christ was very often sacrificed to His Divinity, they forgot that the latter is inseparable from the former in Him and that Christ ... is not God, hiding under the guise of man, but God , made man, the Son of God, humiliated and mocked, speaking in the bold language of the Apostle Paul, Christ, who really submitted Himself to the conditions of earthly life ... Christ was very often presented to us as an abstract dogma, and therefore rushed to the opposite extreme.

Both admirers and opponents of Renan were at first more interested in his philosophical views; when interest in them cooled, and the passions that had flared up around the Life of Jesus began to subside, the merits of the method used in the book were clearly revealed.

The case that was told about Vladimir Solovyov is typical. Once, while talking with the chief procurator of the Synod, K.P. Pobedonostsev, an extremely conservative man, the philosopher asked him for permission to publish The Life of Jesus in Russian, providing it with critical notes.

Do I hear it from you? - the chief prosecutor was indignant. - What is it that came to your mind?

But you must finally tell the people about Christ, - answered, smiling, Solovyov.

He himself had a negative attitude towards Renan, but he wanted to emphasize that, as a rule, the theological works of critics and interpreters brought people little closer to the gospel Christ, rather, they even moved them away from Him. In this sense, against their background, Renan could also win.

It is not surprising that after the books of Archbishop Innokenty of Kherson and Renan, others began to appear, written in the same genre, and their number increased every decade. Often, however, the results were controversial and contradictory. Some wanted to see in the Nazarene only a reformer of Judaism, others - the last of the prophets; supporters of violence portrayed Him as a revolutionary, Tolstoyans as a teacher of non-resistance, occultists as an “initiate” of an esoteric order, and enemies of traditional social foundations as a fighter against routine. “There is something touching,” notes the famous historian Adolf Harnack, “in this desire of everyone to approach this Jesus Christ from the side of their personality and their interests and find themselves in Him or receive at least some share in Him.” On the other hand, such attempts revealed the narrowness of people who tried to unravel the “mystery of Jesus” based only on their own, sometimes very one-sided views.

Meanwhile, the personality of Christ is inexhaustible, it surpasses all ordinary standards; that is why every epoch and every person can find in Him something new and close to them. This is particularly evidenced by the history of art. If we compare a fresco in the catacombs of Rome or an ancient Russian icon with the image of Christ by El Greco or the modernist Chagall, we can easily see how His image has been refracted in different ways over the centuries.

How can one check and correct these interpretations in painting, science and literature?

The only criterion here is the Gospel itself, on which all attempts to depict the Son of Man are based.

True, some historians argue that the Gospels are too laconic to provide material for a "biography" of Jesus. Indeed, many facts are omitted in them, a number of specific details remain unclear, but an unprejudiced researcher will find in them all the most important features of the life and teachings of Christ. In addition, the scarcity of sources usually does not prevent the creation of biographies of great people, about whom much less reliable data has been preserved.

There are also theologians who reject the possibility of presenting the gospel story on the sole ground that the New Testament is not an “objective story,” but a sermon about salvation and the Savior of the world. But even if the Gospels arose as church books, liturgical books, containing the gospel of faith, this does not at all exclude their historical value. Created neither by chroniclers nor historians, however, they contain evidence that has come to us from the first century of the Church, when eyewitnesses of Jesus' earthly ministry were still alive.

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This section is about different personalities. And I always want to touch on a story that is not like the previous one, and that it is closer to our time. So the idea was born to find out the biography of Alexander Men. For me, every story is a discovery. You delve into different sources and always want to understand a person, what he thought about, what was the motive of the heart. So Alexander Men initially became for me a deeply thinking Orthodox priest, but later, a competent, educated and wise preacher of the truth, whose words even now make you think about God's wisdom and look at familiar words from the other side.

Three main questions will help to highlight the main views of Alexander Men:

1) The fetus in life

2) The fetus after life

3) Personal life / inner harmony.

Family of Alexander Men

The life story of the future priest Alexander Men began on January 22, 1935 in Moscow in a Jewish family. Father Volf Gersh-Leibovich (Vladimir Georgievich) Men studied at a Jewish school and could read ancient scriptures in Hebrew, but was not religious. He worked as an engineer in Orekhovo-Zuevo. Mom Elena Semyonovna Men (nee Zuperfein) was born in Bern, from childhood she was drawn to Christianity, she studied Orthodoxy in a private gymnasium in Kharkov.

Alexander was a beloved son, who was surrounded by care from the first days of both his mother and aunt Vera Yakovlevna. Mom raised her son on a spiritual basis. She knew from an early age that the fear of God is the fear of grieving God. In those days, more than 95% of the churches were closed. The Church became a mystery, a catacomb. But at the age of 6, Alexander himself and his mother were secretly baptized by the priest of the Catacomb Church, Father Seraphim, who also became the first spiritual mentor of the young Alexander. Even as a child, Alexander Men absorbed the teachings and was very God-fearing about confession with Father Seraphim. “I felt with my grandfather as if I were in God’s heaven, and at the same time he spoke to me as simply as we talk to each other,” Meng said about conversations with a spiritual mentor. At this time, the NKVD arrested his father, Vladimir Georgievich, on false charges and, after a year of imprisonment, they sent him to the Urals, where he worked until the end of his days.

Interests of Alexander Men

When Alexander was 7 years old, the Great Patriotic War began. It was a difficult time, the family had to move a lot from place to place to protect themselves. At that time, the family lived in a communal apartment, and already here Alexander showed his individuality. He behaved differently, not like other children, he went to bed at 9 pm in order to wake up early in the morning and read the selected book. Surprisingly, at the age of 6 he wrote his first book, which fit on several notebooks with his own illustrations. Alexander Men diligently expounded on the pages of his first book his personal understanding of the Gospel, which was not characteristic of his age. He tried to convey the essence in simple words to his peers, who may not have known anything about Christ.

Study of Alexander Men

After reading the Bible at the age of 12, Alexander Men decided to become a priest. His personal meeting with Christ took place, all previous plans for working in science were forgotten. He was blessed by his mentor, Mother Mary. After that, Alexander went to the theological seminary, where he was refused because he was not an adult. This did not stop Me, he continued to engage in his own development. At the age of 13 I read Kant, and at the age of 15 I read a book by Vladimir Solovyov (one of the first Russian religious thinkers) found at a flea market. Solovyov opened a new view, he pointed out that at the center of everything is dynamism, which connects the nature of man and God. Going to the chemistry professor Nikolai Pestov, Alexander saw a photo of Teresa from Lisieux, Pestov learned Catholicism and communicated with the Baptists, so he introduced me to Western Christianity. To understand the Bible better, Alexander Men studied the Ancient East. At this time, he himself read and sang in the choir of the church.

Not very pleasant memories were connected with Alexander Men's school time. He was an active participant in the life of the class (creating wall newspapers, showed interest in poetry, music and painting (even painted icons)). He studied with future celebrities: the poet Andrei Voznesensky, the director Andrei Tarkovsky, Alexander Borisov, who later, communicating with Men, took the holy orders.

Already during the war, Stalin changed his attitude towards the church, it was allowed to hold services, the theological academy and seminary were restored in Moscow. The Orthodox Church was kept within certain limits, but the revival of spirituality began. Many could hear the sermons. The parishioners of the Mechev fathers gathered at the apartment to listen to lectures on culture and religion and read the New Testament together. Alik, as Alexander Men was called, was present at such meetings and enriched himself both intellectually and absorbed the example of the unity and steadfastness of believers. Alexander, took the words of his aunt as a rule: what he did not have time in childhood - do not make up. She taught him not to put off, but to set serious goals and try to solve them as early as possible.

Student years of Alexander Men

Due to his nationality, Menu found it difficult to enter the university. In 1953 he entered the Fur Institute in Balashikha. Alexander, in turn, independently studies the program of the theological seminary. At the institute, Alexander chose his father Nikolai Golubtsov as his spiritual ideal. He was democratic and sociable, able to carry on a conversation with unbelievers. With the transfer of the institute to Irkutsk, Alexander Men also moved to Siberia. He plans to enter the theological seminary and serves in the Bishops' Cathedral. Alexander's friends understood Me's views. Alexander was able, through friendship, communication and active participation in the life of the group, to convey his Christian views to everyone for three years, and the students perceived this normally.

Student time was not easy. Alexander Men lived with Gleb Yakunin in a very small apartment. Gleb later became a fighter for religious freedom. In 1956, Alexander found himself a life partner at the institute - student Grigorenko Natalya, with whom he lived all his life, feeling support in difficult days.

De-Stalinization was already beginning under Khrushchev's rule, millions of people were released from the Gulag, censorship was no longer strict. But for the church, the thaw was not long, in 1958. According to Khrushchev, there should be no more religion in 20 years. The Communist Party put its employees in the management of the church, and the priests were obliged only to lead the ministry.

The position of faith was initially unshakable in Alexander Men. It was necessary for him to give an answer when passing the exam on Marxism-Leninism, to the question: “Are you a believer?”. Alexander gave an affirmative answer. The examiner said that Men could not be allowed to pass and despite the knowledge of the material, he did not even listen, put it "unsatisfactorily" and for this I was expelled from the institute. This turn of events came as a surprise, as Meng intended to work for a few more years before accepting the priesthood, but accepted the challenge.

The beginning of Alexander Men's ministry

A month later, on June 1, 1958, Fr. Nikolai Golubtsov became a deacon and sent him to the Odintsovo station near Moscow. There he, his wife and one-year-old daughter settled in a dilapidated house and lived on little money. The population was not religious in that area, fear was still preserved, the rector of the church was generally an accountant. Here Men led a series of talks about the life of Christ, and he himself studied in absentia at the Leningrad Theological Seminary. A year later he became a priest and was transferred to Alabino near Moscow, at first he became the second priest and a year later became the rector of the temple. My family already has a son. The family did not live in the best conditions, the temple was in a very deplorable state, the painting required restoration. And in this situation, Men did the impossible, using his ability to negotiate - he received the consent of the executive committee to restore the church, although the state still had a bad attitude towards religion.

Alexander Men became widely known, people came to listen to his Saturday talks not only from Moscow, but even from abroad. He explained the creed, the meaning of the main prayers and the liturgy. This led to him being recorded on tape and the manuscripts of his sermons passed from hand to hand. Men gained popularity, more and more people were drawn to him, some of them remained friends for life. A circle of active Christians was organized - young priests of Moscow. Their desire was for the church to be renewed. As the group gathered, they self-studyed in the theological field and tried to solve the problems that existed in the ministry. It so happened that two members of the circle wrote letters in 1965 to Patriarch Alexei I and the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which brought dissatisfaction with the government on Alexander Men, because the authorship of the letters was attributed to Menu. The letters spoke of state interference in the affairs of the church. This resonated with many, and even abroad. Men himself saw his task in another answer to the spiritual needs that exist in society.

It is interesting that Men, even when he was famous and recognized in public places, did not stop learning. He had experience and fundamental knowledge, knew how to attract and hold the attention of listeners, and yet he created plans for sermons.

Confrontation of power

In 1964 Alexander Menu, the Authorized Council for the Affairs of the Orthodox Church, ordered to leave Alabino, where he lived. Men first moved to Tarasovka and later changed and moved to Semkhoz. He lived simply, but he always received everyone in his house, and everyone said that peace and tranquility were always felt in the house. I think this is the presence of God's love. Men tried not to get into a confrontation and to conduct his ministry modestly, and for about 20 years he did not revise the terms of payment. For Alexander Men, it was important to communicate with young people who left illusions about communist power and direct them to Christ, to answer questions. The abbot did not like all this, and he informed the KGB about me. Alexander wanted to transfer, but the parishioners did not let him go for another year.

Views of Alexander Men

It seems that Alexander Men's whole life is saturated with the goal of serving God, and this is love for people, not in form, but from the bottom of his heart. Men himself worked with his hands, at home he did physical work, cultivated a garden. He did not divide the duties in the family into male and female, if the wife of Natalya Fedorovna was not at home, he himself prepared food for the guests, laughing, singing and reciting poetry. His house was simple and impeccable order reigned. In the village, everyone knew Me, he went into houses, communed, unction, sanctified houses. He had a small house near the church, where he could sleep on the couch, and be baptized there, in secret, otherwise there could be trouble. He served not only intellectuals, but also ordinary people. He was respected and believed in the power of his prayer. The fact that Men tried to help everyone and not take a single ruble already speaks of principles and great love for people. Men helped everyone who asked. He traveled to those who were afraid to go to him. He helped both spiritually, morally and even financially, he imperceptibly left money to the owners. He helped simply by a service, to find a doctor, to bring together the right people, or advice to a husband and wife. I found the right gifts in my stuffed briefcase. Disbelieving people came to his office, unbelievers, and we don’t even know how much faith, hope, and the meaning of life were found there.

He compared the church to a doctor and played this role himself, listened, encouraged, inspired hope, healed with love. There were many testimonies about the power of his prayer (including healing). All friends knew about this power. Already in the 70s there were dozens of groups and dozens of branches from them that gathered for communication. He communicated with many scientists, writers, artists, and only God knows how many of them turned to faith. Alexander always remained modest, was simply called a village priest and estimated his work as small in comparison with global tasks.

He did not call for leaving the world, but called for further work, appreciated art and believed that God was manifested in it. He said that tradition should not be an end in itself. He did not divide the Christian Church into confessions, he adhered to the words of Bishop Plato that our earthly partitions do not reach God. He met with Catholics, he had converted Jews, and always the main goal was to gain faith, not to impose, but to make an independent decision on a person.

Personality of Alexander Men

Alexander Men really had the ability to find a common language with everyone, and these were not only believers, but even executive committee workers who were atheists. When asked to sing someone at home, Alexander found a way out and, with the ban of the authorities, asked for a certificate from the executive committee. They provided him. His brother Pavel said that over time he had collected about 200 such papers and no one could accuse Alexander of violating the law.

What attracted me in the personality of Alexander? It was noted that this is energy, hard work and love of life and wisdom, in other words, an unconventional view of things. He had a balance between his work and his family. The children said that he always communicated with them as with adults, but did not suppress his authority, did not impose an opinion, but talked about the situation in the country, led to conclusions, clearly pointing to examples, subtly noticing the facets.

People began to seek God more, many came to church, and it was not only the elderly, but many young people. Interest has increased in substitutes for religion, namely yoga, parapsychology, and astrology. That which concerns the supernatural, but is not the Truth.

There was persecution of Christians until 1987. And then it happened that Christians of different denominations united for a common prayer.

It is surprising that Alexander Men was so open to new methods, he became the first to go on television preaching the Gospel. His main motive was to bring the truth to more people, to share what he himself knew. He attracted young people. Once, before shooting the program, he was forbidden to say the word God, but here Alexander Men found a way out, he complied with the requirement, but the attention of the listeners was riveted to him and the Truth. He influenced people.

Works of Alexander Men

During the time of the Soviet Union, the authorities could not allow any teachings other than the ideology of the party and, accordingly, attacks on Me began. He was accused of supporting the West, and then the book of Me "Son of Man" was published abroad. Even Men managed to implement the idea - to write in several volumes the history of Religion "In search of the Way, Truth and Life." In the 1970s, 5 volumes of this series were published in Brussels. Alexander Men finished the guide - "How to read the Bible" - 1981 edition. He finished work, as for me, on a colossal work - a seven-volume dictionary of bibliology. For children, he created an album with illustrations "Where did all this come from?" and everything was printed in Italy. Nothing was published in the Soviet Union during the author's lifetime. The value of his work is also emphasized by the fact that Men never took a fee for his work. It says a lot, about the heart, about the motive, about the meaning of life. That is, his works have become just a gift for everyone.

New performances by Alexander Men

Alexander Menu had a hard time. He was persecuted, he was searched, summoned to the authorities, and attacks began in the press. He almost ended up in jail in 1990. and only the word of the metropolitan stopped the process. During perestroika, the attitude of the state towards religion changed in 1988. Men spoke at the Palace of Culture of the Moscow Institute in front of teachers and students. It began to be shown more often on television. He spoke at one of the Moscow schools No. 67, which was written about in the well-known newspaper Izvestia, and since that time invitations to him have been pouring in one after another, he has been in front of various audiences, including militant atheists. He has written over 30 press articles in the past year. After speaking at school, he read about 200 lectures in a year. He participated in disputes with propagandists of atheism, but they could not adequately answer him.

The fact that Alexander Men's life was very eventful is to say nothing. Relatives were worried and asked to take a rest, but he said that time was short and he tried to do a lot. Alexander Men in one day could hold a service and even give lectures in different parts of Moscow, he traveled by train. He wanted to sow the word of truth, realizing that many would not accept, but he set out to bring the revival even to a few. He understood his time, feeling a connection with the One who led him through life, protected and supported him in preaching the Word, which he did all his life.

New confrontations and achievements of Alexander Men

For all his work, attacks, denunciations and various threats, Alexander Men was not a dull shepherd, he was unabashedly joyful, and friends said that he was going to write about the humor of Christ. Although in childhood he sometimes fell into a melancholy state, now working on his personality, having a personal relationship with Christ, he was able not to concentrate on the conditions of his work. A familiar doctor said that Alexander seemed inexhaustible, but it looked different, his health was far from the best, it was not at all clear how Men was holding on and it was definitely an “alien charge”.

In 1983, while under arrest, one of Menya's students compromised him and others. A long series of interrogations and searches followed. Here he could no longer conduct his former activities and studied the dictionary. Relatives thought about the possibility of moving to another country, but Men never supported such conversations. He remembered all his spiritual children.

The main features of Alexander Men

Describing Alexander Men, we can say that, despite the hardships of life, his beautiful features radiated tenderness. Burning eyes betrayed kindness and intelligence. His voice was soft and he didn't need a record to perform. He knew how to find a solid answer to any question.

With the coming to power of Gorbachev, the situation did not change immediately for the Orthodox Church and Christians, the pressure continued. Only in 1988 did the situation begin to change and freedom came. On Easter 1990, Cardinal Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris, was in the USSR and made a special visit to Alexander Menu. They talked literally for about 10 minutes, but after that the cardinal was very happy about this opportunity, he considered Alexander his brother, whose life was more filled with the Gospel than his.

In 1990, Alexander Men participated with Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants in the creation of the Russian Bible Society, then in the founding of the Orthodox University. He attended a children's hospital, opened a Sunday school. Easter 1990 Baptists gathered in the Olympic stadium. The patriarchy refused to participate, but Alexander accepted the invitation and spoke to everyone about the Last Supper. He had a series of programs for children on the radio and was even offered to host a weekly TV show. Four were recorded, but after his death it was discovered that the tapes were demagnetized. In recent years, Men' has been abroad in Poland, Brussels, and Italy.

The last day of Alexander Men

The last day of Alexander Men was September 9, 1990. As usual, he went in the morning to celebrate the liturgy in another village 30 km from home. But he did not reach the station, he was hit on the head with an ax. He got home and died from blood loss. His wife did not immediately recognize him, she was afraid to look, she heard groans - she called an ambulance and the police. It is generally accepted that this was a contract killing and the culprit was either not found or not made public. Recently, Alexander Men often spoke about death, he reminded that people are travelers in this world "came from a mystery to return to a mystery." Alexander Men said that this should not frighten, but give an awareness of the meaning of life.

The consequences were the cessation of the broadcast of the programs of Me. His work began to be published in his homeland a little later. But the seed that he laboriously scattered is still alive today, because these are eternal values.

Relatives of Alexander Me today

Little is said about Alexander Men's family. He has two children. Daughter Elena Men, born in 1957. She chose for herself to go in the same direction with her father, began to paint icons. In the 80s she worked in the icon-painting workshop of the Moscow Patriarchate and in the scientific and restoration center. Emigrated to Italy in 1989. Lives in the city of Bologna. She painted icons for churches in Italy for the Church of All Saints in the city of Modena.

Son Mikhail Men, born in 1960. He went the other way. He studied at the Institute of Culture at the directing department. Later he became a doctor of philosophical sciences, now a Russian politician, governor of the Ivanovo region from 2005-2013. currently Minister of Construction, Housing and Communal Services of the Russian Federation since 2013. Close to the leadership of the Russian Federation. Father Alexander Men himself refused to participate in political races, he always sought the salvation of souls.

His wife, Natalya Fedorovna Grigorenko-Men, still lives in the same place. They met at the institute. Then everyone thought that Alexander was an eccentric, but they accepted him. He walked in boots, riding breeches and with a field bag in which there was a Bible, which he constantly read, and if he got tired at a party, he hid and fell asleep, laying his head on this bag. Now Natalia works as an elder in the Moscow church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in Shubin, where the rector is a close friend of the family, Archpriest Alexander Borisov. Natalya Fedorovna cultivates her garden in Semkhoz. He says that they were always open to everyone, both believers and non-believers, so they got along with others. He says that with Fr. Alexander lived well, there was mutual understanding and concurrence of views. Maybe I just wanted more attention to my family, children, but the workload was big. But he always read to children at a young age at night. When Natalya Fedorovna went to work, her husband took over part of the housework, although at first he did not like it. Met my wife for dinner when she came home from work. After the death of Alexander, Natalya Fedorovna started a charitable foundation, the publishing house of books by A. Men. She continues her husband's work, honors his work and publishes books that have not yet been published even after a quarter of a century since his death.

Interesting Facts:

– My first book was “The Son of Man”, written back in school and published in 1968 in six copies, which were mastered by an old typewriter. The illustrations were pictures cut out of magazines.

– The formation of my personality was influenced by Mother Maria, who was a prayer book and was devoid of traits of hypocrisy, a narrow view of things or conservatism. She was open to people and their problems and searches. Her view that it is necessary to conduct a dialogue between the Church and society has become one of the key principles of Me in his life.

– All the teachings of Alexander Men were focused on Jesus Christ. One of his disciples said: "Father Alexander could endlessly talk about Christ as about a close person, each time finding new living features in him."

- Once Alexander I was asked to talk about love in front of the camera for the film "To Love". He agreed, decided that even if they didn’t let it air, then at least the “eagles” themselves would listen. And so it turned out he was asked a lot and not about love, only about the decline of spirituality and listened to. The film was not released to the screens, but now the episodes can be found online.

Quotes:

“And now, like the sower in the parable, I have a unique opportunity to scatter seeds. Yes, most of them will fall on stony ground, there will be no sprouts ... But if after my speech at least a few people wake up, even one, is that not enough? You know, it feels like it’s all over soon, at least for me…”

– “In ancient mythology, it is told about the giant Antaeus, he gained strength by touching the earth, we, on the contrary, in order to gain strength, must touch the sky for a moment”

“Christianity is not a sum of dogmas and moral precepts, first of all it is Jesus Christ himself. Notice that Christ did not leave us a single written line, did not leave the tablets, did not dictate the Koran, did not form an order, but He said to the disciples: “I remain with you all the days until the end of the age ...” The whole deepest experience of Christianity is built on this.

“I have come to believe that the Church is essentially one, and that it is chiefly their narrowness, narrowness, and sins that have divided Christians.”

“The most difficult moment will come for the Church when everything is allowed to us. Then we will be ashamed, because we will not be ready to "testify." We are not well prepared for this. When we have something to say, God will give us a platform and even television.”

1) Fruit in life. The work of Alexander Me is difficult to overestimate. Hundreds and hundreds of people gained faith through him. He was an example for both the older generation and the younger. He was able to show that a dialogue between the church and unbelievers can and should be built. He was an example of love.

2) Fruit after life. He left behind works that have eternal value because they are based on the Truth of God's word.

3) Personal life / inner harmony. Alexander Men worked on himself constantly, it seems he himself was in love with what he did, and it all touched others from the heart. He had inner strength, had an invisible connection with the one whom he served, and therefore he could help those around him, enthusiastically and devotedly.

For me, Alexander Men was a discovery. I could not cut the material, every word seemed important. It is a great pleasure to come into contact with the life of a person who knows the truth and is an example. I read accusations against him, but it is hard to believe in them, because the cases of Alexander Men claim the opposite. It's nice that such a wise man managed to get out of stereotyped views, confrontations between Christians of different denominations and based on the unity of faith, to see a brother in a Catholic and a Protestant. The one who sincerely seeks God, to him He is fully revealed. Those prayers are heard and answered that come from the heart.

What are these pages for? Are they necessary, if so much has already been said about the Founder of Christianity?
Any new book on the gospel subject can raise similar questions. In addition, it is obvious that no work on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ can replace its original source. “There is a book,” Pushkin wrote shortly before his death, “by which every word is interpreted, explained, preached in all corners of the earth, applied to all kinds of circumstances of life ... This book is called the Gospel, and such is its ever-new charm that if we , satiated with the world or dejected by despondency, we accidentally open it, then we are no longer able to resist its sweet passion and we are immersed in spirit in its divine eloquence. Indeed, who, apart from the evangelists, managed to cope with this daunting task - to capture the image of Jesus the Nazarene, and using surprisingly stingy means?
So, if we want to know the truth about Christ, we must seek it first of all in the Gospel.
But the one who picks it up for the first time may encounter certain difficulties. After all, the authors of the New Testament are separated from us by almost two thousand years. It is not easy for a modern person to understand many of their hints, turns of speech, and sometimes even the very course of their thought, which makes it necessary to comment, which gave the key to the Gospel.
The study of New Testament writing has long been a whole science. Hundreds of interpreters - theologians, historians, philologists - have done a great job of parsing and comparing texts, to clarify their meaning. They painstakingly examine every chapter and every verse of the gospel.
The value of these analytical works is undeniable. They helped to clarify a lot of important details. However, their authors followed a method that often left the main thing in the background. Extensive critical excursus on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John almost obscured Christ himself. But the evangelists sought to convey to us precisely the message of the Son of Man, Who is the alpha and omega of Christianity; without Him, it loses its soul, simply speaking, it does not exist.
That is why, over the past century and a half, in evangelical historiography, along with theological and literary analysis, they also began to use the method of generalization, synthesis. The authors who followed this path wanted, based on the data of textual criticism, to recreate a complete picture of the earthly life of Christ.
One of the first to use this approach was the well-known Russian preacher, Archbishop Innokenty of Kherson (Borisov). His essays were published in 1828 under the title "The Last Days of the Earthly Life of Jesus Christ." The book has since gone through many editions and continues to enjoy wide popularity. However, it covers only the events of Holy Week.
It remains to be regretted that the experience of such a "biography" of Christ, written in the form of a coherent narrative, was undertaken for the first time by a non-Christian author. We are talking about Ernest Renan, a French historian and thinker whose book The Life of Jesus appeared in 1863.
In it, the author managed to draw a vivid and truthful panorama of the gospel era and unusually vividly portray the Founder of Christianity Himself, although, being a positivist skeptic in his worldview, Renan largely distorted His appearance.
The success of the "Life of Jesus" was greatly facilitated by the fact that the central mystery of the Gospel - the mystery of God-manhood - in the Christian consciousness was actually lost. This naturally led to a reaction, of which Renan became the spokesman. Shortly after the publication of his book, Renan's compatriot Pastor Edmond Pressanse wrote: “The humanity of Christ was very often sacrificed to His Divinity, they forgot that the latter is inseparable from the former in Him and that Christ ... is not God, hiding under the guise of man, but God , made man, the Son of God, humiliated and mocked, speaking in the bold language of the Apostle Paul, Christ, who really submitted Himself to the conditions of earthly life ... Christ was very often presented to us as an abstract dogma, and therefore rushed to the opposite extreme.
Both admirers and opponents of Renan were at first more interested in his philosophical views; when interest in them cooled, and the passions that had flared up around the Life of Jesus began to subside, the merits of the method used in the book were clearly revealed.
The case that was told about Vladimir Solovyov is typical. Once, while talking with the chief procurator of the Synod, K.P. Pobedonostsev, an extremely conservative man, the philosopher asked him for permission to publish The Life of Jesus in Russian, providing it with critical notes.
- Do I hear it from you? - the chief prosecutor was indignant. - What is it that came to your mind?
“But after all, we must finally tell the people about Christ,” answered Solovyov, smiling.
He himself had a negative attitude towards Renan, but he wanted to emphasize that, as a rule, the theological works of critics and interpreters brought people little closer to the gospel Christ, rather, they even moved them away from Him. In this sense, against their background, Renan could also win.
It is not surprising that after the books of Archbishop Innokenty of Kherson and Renan, others began to appear, written in the same genre, and their number increased every decade. Often, however, the results were controversial and contradictory. Some wanted to see in the Nazarene only a reformer of Judaism, others - the last of the prophets; supporters of violence portrayed Him as a revolutionary, Tolstoyans as a teacher of non-resistance, occultists as an “initiate” of an esoteric order, and enemies of traditional social foundations as a fighter against routine. “There is something touching,” notes the famous historian Adolf Harnack, “in this desire of everyone to approach this Jesus Christ from the side of their personality and their interests and find themselves in Him or receive at least some share in Him.” On the other hand, such attempts revealed the narrowness of people who tried to unravel the “mystery of Jesus” based only on their own, sometimes very one-sided views.
Meanwhile, the personality of Christ is inexhaustible, it surpasses all ordinary standards; that is why every epoch and every person can find in Him something new and close to them. This is particularly evidenced by the history of art. If we compare a fresco in the catacombs of Rome or an ancient Russian icon with the image of Christ by El Greco or the modernist Chagall, we can easily see how His image has been refracted in different ways over the centuries.
How can one check and correct these interpretations in painting, science and literature?
The only criterion here is the Gospel itself, on which all attempts to depict the Son of Man are based.
True, some historians argue that the Gospels are too laconic to provide material for a "biography" of Jesus. Indeed, many facts are omitted in them, a number of specific details remain unclear, but an unprejudiced researcher will find in them all the most important features of the life and teachings of Christ. In addition, the scarcity of sources usually does not prevent the creation of biographies of great people, about whom much less reliable data has been preserved.
There are also theologians who reject the possibility of presenting the gospel story on the sole ground that the New Testament is not an “objective story,” but a sermon about salvation and the Savior of the world. But even if the Gospels arose as church books, liturgical books, containing the gospel of faith, this does not at all exclude their historical value. Created neither by chroniclers nor historians, however, they contain evidence that has come to us from the first century of the Church, when eyewitnesses of Jesus' earthly ministry were still alive.
The evangelists' narratives are confirmed and supplemented by ancient and Jewish authors, as well as by the discoveries of modern archaeologists. All this makes it possible to consider the task of the biographers of Jesus Christ quite feasible.
Of course, a purely historical aspect cannot be the main one in His “biography”.
The Son of Man belongs not only to the past. Today, as in the time when He lived on earth, He is loved, believed in, and fought against.
However, we must not forget that the path of Christ passed among the people of a certain time, that His word was addressed to them first of all. St. John Chrysostom recommended, while reading the Gospel, to imagine a specific situation that served as a backdrop for sacred events. Now we can follow this advice more successfully than in the days of Chrysostom himself, since we have more detailed information about Judea of ​​the 1st century.
To see Jesus of Nazareth as His contemporaries saw is one of the main tasks of a book about Him, if it is built on the principle of historical-literary synthesis. Among Christian authors guided by this principle, the most famous were Frederic Farrard, Conningham Geikie, Alfred Edersheim, Henri Didon, Francois Mauriac, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Henri Daniel-Rops, Fulton Orsler, Arthur Nisin. But since they all wrote for the West, the appearance of another book in this direction, aimed at the Russian reader, can be justified.
In it, the author did not set himself research goals, but strove only for what Vl. Soloviev spoke about in a conversation with Pobedonostsev - simply to talk about Christ. Tell on the basis of the Gospels, the best commentaries on them, as well as other sources. During the work, the most important results of modern New Testament criticism were taken into account, but taking into account the fact that it itself needs a critical approach.
This book is intended mainly for those who have read the Gospel for the first time or are even completely unfamiliar with it. Therefore, the story begins with external events, only gradually approaching deeper and more complex topics.
However, the sophisticated reader, perhaps, will also find something new here for himself, although only the section relating to the “theory of myth” and the origin of the Gospels is directly addressed to him.
The author hopes that the book will be of interest to non-believers as well. Any person should have an idea about the Founder of a religion that has become an integral part of world culture.
Citing the New Testament, the author had to abandon the commonly used synodal translation. Its merits are undoubted, but, made more than a century and a half ago, it is outdated both in scientific and literary terms. Therefore, the book uses (with some amendments) a new translation carried out in Paris under the editorship of Archbishop Cassian.
Literature references are provided only when necessary. Those wishing to deepen their knowledge in this area can refer to the works indicated in the bibliography.
If the proposed essay helps the reader to better understand the Gospel, arouses interest in it, or simply makes you think, the author's goal will be achieved.
Initially, the book was published in separate chapters in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate and Church Bulletin (Bulgaria); it was published in its entirety by the publishing house Life with God, which has done so much for the ecumenical cooperation of Christians. The author decided to prepare a new revised version at the request of friends, as well as taking into account the feedback and wishes of readers. Gratitude to the people who helped in the work, the author can not express anything except the prayerful memory of their selfless work.

PROLOGUE

In the spring of 63 B.C. columns of Roman soldiers appeared on the roads of Palestine. Behind them wagon trains creaked, heavy siege weapons rumbled, legionaries' shells gleamed in clouds of dust, and battle flags fluttered.
The army was commanded by the forty-three-year-old commander Gnaeus Pompey. Secretly dreaming of world domination, he liked to dress up in the toga of an international arbitrator and said that he had come to Syria not to seize foreign possessions, but as a defender of order and a liberator. During these years, he reached the zenith of fame and was surrounded by the love of the military. The fact that Pompey dealt with the pirates - this scourge of sailors - and victoriously completed the campaign against Mithridates of Pontus and Tigranes of Armenia, strengthened his position both in Rome and beyond.
Pompey found the Middle East in a state of war waged among themselves by local kings and rulers. Therefore, he hastened to establish peace there, distributing titles and crowns, and at the same time declared the entire Syrian coast a province of Rome.
This moment coincided with the stubborn struggle for the Jerusalem throne of two pretender brothers - Aristobulus and Hyrcanus. They turned to Pompey with a request to resolve their dispute. But while negotiations dragged on in Damascus, Aristobulus suddenly changed his mind and refused the help of the Romans. Upon learning of this, the enraged Pompey marched quickly to Jerusalem ...
Palestine, or the Land of Israel, through which the cohorts now marched and where in a hundred years the voice of Christ was to be heard, is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, which has constantly made it a bone of contention. Many conquerors over the centuries have encroached on its territory, although it has never been famous for its special fertility or natural wealth.
This small strip of land, stretching along the banks of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, includes all sorts of shades of climate and topography. No wonder it is called the edge of contrasts. Eternal snows lie on the tops of the Israelite mountains; in winter snow often falls even in the south, and in some places in summer the heat reaches almost tropical strength. Palms and pomegranates, figs and cypresses are adjacent to thickets of hazel and willow; green plains alternate with bare rocky ridges.
In ancient times, the most flourishing was the northern district - Galilee, located to the west of Lake Kinneret (Gennisaret), which was sometimes called the Sea of ​​Galilee. Many foreigners lived among the population of this area, which is why it was called “Pagan Galilee”. From the south, the region of Samaria adjoins it. Once, together with Galilee, it constituted the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which was destroyed in 722 BC. Assyrians. The conquerors drove the inhabitants of the cities into captivity, and people from Mesopotamia and Syria were resettled in their place. The colonists mixed with the Israelites and adopted their faith, retaining, however, their old customs. The Jews refused to recognize these Samaritans as fellows, considering them half-pagans, which led to conflicts, which are also mentioned in the Gospels. Several hundred Samaritans still live in Israel today. Like their ancestors, they revere sacred Mount Gerizim, where their temple once stood.
The southern part of the country, or Judea itself (the Romans called the whole of Palestine Judea.), is the exact opposite of the North. Inhospitable and barren, it looks like a mountainous desert with oases. Its harsh but healthy climate tempered the Jews, making them a hardy, effeminate people.
On the way of the Romans to Jerusalem, the last point, still preserving the charm of the fertile North, was Jericho; it was famous for its healing springs and palm groves. It was there that Pompey pitched his camp and from there led the soldiers to the walls of the Jewish capital.
Jerusalem, having survived fifteen centuries of glory and fall, has long been a legendary city. It was located on a mountain and was a powerful fortress. The sight of its walls confused Pompey, who knew a lot about siege business. However, he was helped by the strife that raged inside the city. Aristobulus surrendered to the mercy of the Romans, and the party of his brother Hyrcanus opened the gates to them. Only those who did not want to put up with the presence of strangers locked themselves in the temple citadel, ready to fight to the death.
The siege went on for three whole months, until the Romans, with the greatest difficulty, destroyed one of the towers. When they rushed into the Temple fence, they saw with amazement that the priests continued to celebrate the service. All the time that the desperate defense lasted, the clergy did not leave the altar and perished along with the defenders of the shrine.
Using the right of the winner, Pompey wanted to inspect the famous Temple, including Debir, the Holy of Holies, a place where only the high priest could enter, and even then once a year.
An uncontrollable curiosity pushed the Roman to cross the forbidden threshold: after all, such fantastic rumors circulated about the religion of the Jews. Some said that in Debir there was a golden image of a donkey's head, others assured that a man doomed to be slaughtered was hidden there. What is really hidden in it? What surprises did the mysterious East bring to the people of the West!
In a tense silence, the veil moved back ... And what? The surprise of Pompey and his officers knew no bounds. They expected to see something extraordinary, at least some image - beautiful or repulsive. But it was empty. The Invisible lived there...
With a strange feeling, mixed with superstitious fear, the Romans left the Temple without touching anything. But, perhaps, they would be even more surprised if they knew that fate had brought them face to face with a religion destined to become the cradle of a doctrine that would conquer East and West, white marble Hellas and their native Rome.
How is this religion different from others?
The answer to the question can only be started from afar.
Even then, when the light of reason first flared up in a person, he felt the reality of a certain Higher Power embracing the universe. It was natural for primitive hunters to identify Her with what we now call nature. Therefore, everywhere - in clouds and stars, in rivers and living beings, people were looking for the presence of the Divine.
At first, as a rule, this led to gross idolatry, to the deification of individual objects and phenomena. Later, in India, Greece, and China, the cult of nature gave rise to the belief that the visible world is the only true reality. But such a view went against the general human spiritual experience and did not receive wide recognition.
On the contrary, with the advent of the religious and philosophical maturity of cultures, the conviction was strengthened that the supreme Reality is fundamentally different from everything private and limited. The last word of pre-Christian thought was the doctrine of the Divine, Whose hidden, inscrutable being is on the other side of the visible. No matter how you call Him - Heaven, Father, Destiny - His depth cannot be known by any of the mortals. This idea not only stemmed from the experiences of the mystics, but also had a logical basis. Verily, what kind of mind is capable of embracing Infinity Itself?..
However, the mysterious upward impulse did not go out in a person. All the time he tried to overcome the distance separating him from Heaven, to connect his life with another world. As a result, two closely intertwined faiths continued to exist: faith in the Incomprehensible and - in elemental deities. The latter seemed to stand closer to the person, and direct contact could be made with them. It was believed that there are secret magical techniques with which people are able to influence demons and spirits. This utilitarian view remained dominant for thousands of years.
Polytheism and magic tried in vain to fill the abyss separating the earth from the sky.
For the first time this duality was removed in the biblical Revelation. It taught about God "holy", that is, incommensurable with the creature, and at the same time - about man as His "image and likeness". The mysterious relationship between the infinite Spirit and the finite spirit makes, according to the Bible, a Covenant between them possible.
The Covenant, or the Union, is the way to the unity of a person not with the gods, but with the Higher Beginning, which is above the Universe.
It is noteworthy that the religion of the Covenant was professed by a people who did not create a powerful civilization, did not stand out politically, and only for a short time achieved national independence. However, he managed to carry fidelity to God through the long centuries of his painfully difficult history.
The ancestors of this people from time immemorial wandered between Syria and Egypt. Tradition has preserved the memory of the tribal leader of the Jews, Abraham (c. 1900 BC), whose name is associated with the beginning of the Old Testament religion. Her first commandment pointed to the importance of human actions in the face of Heaven. “I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be blameless.” Abraham was promised that through his descendants “all the families and peoples of the earth would be blessed,” although it remained a mystery what that blessing would mean.
In the XVII century BC. Jews driven by hunger moved to the east of the Nile delta, where they gradually fell under the despotic power of the pharaohs. Abraham's faith was almost forgotten.
Around 1230, a group of Jewish clans bearing the name "Sons of Israel", or simply Israel, were united by Moses, their great prophet and legislator. He returned the people to the “God of the fathers”, to the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” and led the tribesmen out of the “house of slavery”. In memory of the “exodus” and liberation, Moses established the feast of Passover.
Hiding in the Sinai desert, the Israelites lived for some time in the vicinity of the sacred Mount Sinai and the oasis of Kadesh, where the prophet solemnly proclaimed the foundations of the religion of the Covenant.
Moses commanded the people to honor only one God, the Lord and Creator of the world, Who is Yahweh, the Existing One, the One Who has being, being Himself above all sensual. The Prophet forbade worshiping any natural gods and even making images of Yahweh Himself. The only sign of His stay among the faithful was the ark, a large casket, decorated with figures of winged creatures - kerubs. It was strengthened on long poles and carried in front of the soldiers during the battle.
Moses taught that by the will of Jehovah, Israel should become His chosen instrument, “a holy people and a kingdom of priests,” that is, a community of people destined to serve the true God.
The cult of the nomadic Israelites was free from the abundance of ceremonies characteristic of all ancient religions. The prophet's teaching is summarized in the Decalogue, the ten commandments, which were inscribed on two stone slabs. Their essence was reduced to fidelity to the Lord the Redeemer, as well as basic moral norms: honor your father and mother, do not kill, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not slander, do not envy. Of the cult customs, the Decalogue mentions only one - the law of the Sabbath day, dedicated to God.
In addition to the Ten Commandments, the prayer-confession, which began with the words: “Listen, Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one. And love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength!”
The majestic simplicity of the Mosaic faith and its commandments, which are still so difficult to follow, marked a radical change in religious consciousness. No wonder Moses had to experience the tragedy of a misunderstood prophet.
The Bible tells how hard yesterday’s slaves perceived the lessons of their teacher, how they rebelled against him, how strong the power of habitual superstitions was over them. But the prophet did not back down even when it seemed to him that the case was lost. And his efforts were not in vain. The religion of the Covenant has become the strong root from which the spiritual steadfastness and unity of the people have grown.
Even under Moses, the Israelites began to penetrate into Canaan, as Palestine was then called, and after his death, most of them crossed the Jordan River and conquered the country. The dream of many generations has come true: to live in the “land of Abraham”.
The Jewish tribe settled in the region of the mountainous South, and the rest of the tribe - in the North. But it soon turned out that the children of the desert fell into the position of winners who had to submit to the culture of the vanquished. The civilization of the Canaanites, related to the Phoenician, was highly developed at that time. Nevertheless, the Canaanite cults continued to retain their ancient savage character. They practiced human sacrifices, ritual murders of children, and temple prostitution. Feasts associated with fertility were accompanied by the Canaanites with sensual rites and orgies.
Under the influence of the people among whom he had to live, Israel began to quickly lose its spiritual identity. The veneration of the Baals and other agricultural gods of Canaan imperceptibly entered the life of the Jewish peasants. As the Bible says, "The children of Israel turned away from Yahweh their God."
Around 1100, warriors landed on the coast of Canaan, who came from the islands of the Aegean. They were the Philistines, a people who had already mastered the secret of smelting iron. They quickly established power over the country, and from them subsequently it received its Greek name - Palestine. The Israelites and Canaanites, who had only bronze weapons, could not resist the conquerors.
Almost half a century passed before the yoke of foreigners was understood as a heavenly punishment for apostasy. And then preachers appeared, calling for a return to the faith of the fathers. They awakened the forces of the people and led an uprising against the Philistines.
The war lasted a long time and ended in victory. As a result, an independent Jewish kingdom was formed. Around 1000, under King David, it united several kindred tribes and stretched its borders “from the Nile to the Euphrates.” David made the Canaanite fortress of Jerusalem a religious and political capital, where, on his orders, the ark was transferred. The prophet Nathan predicted to the king that his devotion to the faith would be rewarded: one of the descendants of David would become the founder of an eternal kingdom.
According to the custom of the East, when a person was proclaimed a monarch, the priest poured a goblet of oil on his head. Oil, olive oil, was considered a symbol of strength. The rite of “anointing” reminded us that power is bestowed from God, whose Spirit will henceforth dwell on the Chosen One. Therefore, each ruler of Israel (and sometimes a prophet) was called the Anointed One, the Messiah, or in Greek - Christ. However, over time, this title began to be attributed only to the great King of the future.
For the Israelites, the promise of the Messiah merged with the common hope for the fulfillment of the unknown plans of the Lord. This hope has long been a feature of the Old Testament. It originated in the days of Abraham; then the “promised land” became the desired goal, where Moses pointed the way, and, finally, the prophecy of Nathan gave a new direction to the people's aspirations.
One should not, however, think that the spiritual life of Israel remained at that time unclouded. Every chapter of biblical history has dramatic pages of struggles and temptations, falls and apostasy. Cowardice and passions, cravings for foreign cults and the calculations of politicians have shaken faith more than once.
After David, contacts with Phoenicia and Egypt again strengthened the influence of paganism. Although in the Temple, which was built by King Solomon, there was no image of God (that is, the Mosaic covenant was observed), temples of the Gentiles were located next to it. When in 922 the kingdom split into North and South, Israel and Judah, the threat of idolatry became even more real. Altars and sacred groves were erected everywhere in honor of the Baals and Astarte, it seemed that one more step - and paganism would be recognized as the second official religion of Israel.
The spiritual crisis was accompanied by a social crisis. The autocracy of monarchs, who increasingly expanded their privileges, the growth of property inequality, the lack of rights and ruin of the peasants, huge taxes, the penetration of Phoenician luxury into the country - all this could not but disturb people who believed in the mission of Israel and were horrified by its decline. Their eyes were turned to the ideals of Sinai, to the pure faith of patriarchal antiquity.
From among these oppositionists came the prophets, God's messengers, calling the people to wake up from hibernation.
Usually they preached in the temple. Not intending to create a new religion, the prophets wanted to revive and purify the one that had been inherited from the time of Moses. The prophets refused to flatter the crowd in the name of a falsely understood patriotism, and without hesitation began to reassess the entire order of national life.
The activities of the prophets coincided with the era when most civilized countries entered a period of religious revolutions. It was a historical turning point, which can only be compared with the advent of Christianity. The old worldview that placed ritual, spell, magic at its center began to waver. Everywhere, from China to Italy, world teachers appeared, trying to find new answers to the burning questions of life and faith. The authors of the Upanishads, Buddha, Mahavira, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Zarathustra and the Greek philosophers are the ones who spiritually shaped the world into which Jesus the Nazarene came. They were His forerunners, but in the strict sense of the word, only the Israelite prophets can be called that.
Much has them in common with the great sages of the East and West. Like the hermits of India, they knew that God, as the absolute source of being, surpasses everything earthly; like the Persian reformer Zarathustra, they believed in Him as the perfect Light and Good; like Heraclitus, they contemplated in Him a dynamic, "fiery" power; like Anaxagoras and Plato, they spoke of Him as the universal Mind, or Wisdom. But at the same time, the prophets were far from considering, together with the Buddha, this life as evil, a painful haze; unlike the metaphysicians of Hellas, they did not teach that the Creator and the world are an inseparable whole.
They knew that God, no matter how great He is, is bound by bonds of love with His creation, that man is His chosen one, to whom He reveals Himself.
The most incomprehensible thing about the prophets is the mystery of their inspiration. They did not build hypotheses, did not create speculative systems; God proclaimed His will directly through them. The speech of the prophets usually began with the words: "Thus says Yahweh." The Spirit of the Lord took possession of them with subduing power, and people heeded their voice as the voice of Heaven. This miracle shocked the prophets themselves. Sometimes it was even difficult for them to grasp with their minds everything that was revealed.
The prophets clearly recognized themselves as tools, heralds and messengers of the Most High. But at the same time, they were not like pagan soothsayers, like the Pythians, who spoke while in a state of unconscious trance. In the experience of the biblical seers, the enlightened human spirit stood before the Existing One, who revealed Himself as a Personality. God spoke to the world and waited for an answer from him. Thus, in the prophets, the unity of the creature with the Creator was realized, the Covenant was realized, which was the basis of the faith of Israel.
The prophets not only experienced a meeting with God in the depths of their being, but saw His hand in the life of nations. This was a revelation unique among other religions.
“The eternal law, which the Greeks saw in the harmonious development and movement of matter,” writes the English thinker Christopher Dawson, “for the Jews was realized in the vicissitudes of human history. While the philosophers of India and Greece pondered the illusory nature or eternity of cosmic processes, the prophets of Israel affirmed the moral purpose of history and explained the transient events of their time in their relation to the divine will.
Observing the unchanging rhythms of nature: sunrises and sunsets, the change of seasons and the movement of the planets, most of the ancient philosophers came to the idea of ​​the cyclical nature of being. Everything, they believed, rushes in a circle, everything that happened once will happen again, and nothing can be radically changed. Being born, dying and arising again, the Universe and man are doomed to an eternal cycle. In contrast to this view, the Bible teaches about a creation that strives upward, towards perfection. And although evil forces also grow along with good, in the end they will be defeated, and a free path to the Kingdom of God will be opened to the world. In other words, the prophets were the first to discover the direction and meaning of history.
Thanks to the prophets, the teachings of Moses acquired the features of a world religion (that is, a universal religion, as opposed to the old purely national cults.). According to Pascal, the only expression of biblical faith "should be the love of God, and God condemns everything else." This love required not so much church ceremonies as humanity, kindness and truth. Therefore, in the preaching of the prophets, the idea of ​​social justice occupied such a large place.
No matter how different the teachers of Israel were in their character, temperament and social status, they were all united by their uncompromising attitude towards apostates, tyrants and hypocrites who hoped to “appease” the Creator with gifts and sacrifices.
Here is the fiery Elijah (c. 850 BC), the defender of the persecuted and the destitute, who without hesitation throws a reproach in the face of the king himself.
Here is the shepherd Amos (c. 770), a man of the people who does not even want to call himself a prophet; but he cannot be silent when the Lord commanded him to go through the cities and proclaim the Day of Judgment. Let the Israelis not hope for their chosenness. Only those who follow the law of God's righteousness will be worthy of it.

Are they not like the sons of the Ethiopians
for me, you children of Israel? says Yahweh. -
Did I not bring Israel out of Egypt,
like the Philistines from Crete
and the Syrians from Cyrus?

Here is the Levite Hosea (c. 750), lamenting the spiritual degeneration of the northern kingdom. He proclaims that love between people is dearer to the God of all magnificent rituals. “I want mercy, not sacrifice,” says the Lord through the prophet.
Here is Isaiah, a noble from Jerusalem, an influential adviser to the king (c. 730). He cannot be deceived by the ostentatious splendor of the court; the crowds in the court of the House of the Lord do not rejoice. No incense and prayers can replace purity of heart and righteous deeds.

Why do I need your multitude of sacrifices? -
Yahweh says...
When you come before me,
who is asking you to do this?
Enough to trample My yards,
and bring no more unnecessary gifts...
Remove your evil deeds from my eyes,
stop doing evil
learn to do good
Seek the truth, hold back the rapists
protect the orphan, stand up for the widow.

Prophets are often called social utopians. But in fact they did not propose any political reforms. If Plato developed a draft regime with the community of property and government control over all spheres of life, and the philosopher Yambul dreamed of the City of the Sun, where everyone would be equal, then the prophets put faith and moral tasks of man in the first place. They knew that external changes alone were not enough, that harmony in the world was possible only as a result of harmony between the will of God and the will of people.
But that is precisely why the prophets were not going to put up with the plagues of society. Their passionate protest was dictated by faith in the high destiny of man. They spoke of the "Day of the Lord" when the reign of evil among men would end. The spiritual gaze of Isaiah was presented with the appearance of the Anointed One, through whom Jehovah would establish His Kingdom. Then all nations will know the eternal truth, will leave idols and criminal deeds. God will "wipe away every tear" and Eden will be restored to the earth again. The prophet Jeremiah (c. 630) associated the end of the old world with the New Testament, which will no longer be inscribed on stone tablets, but in the souls of people.
The eschatological aspirations of the prophets sharpened in them a sense of responsibility for their people. He was given a revelation, and therefore his sins are doubly criminal. He is entrusted with the mission to lead mankind to God, but if the elect are unworthy, the heavenly cover will leave them. Gentiles will come from distant countries to destroy the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
The dire predictions soon came true. In 772, the northern monarchy of the Jews was swept off the face of the earth by Assyria, and in 586 the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar II stormed Jerusalem, burned the temple and drove the bulk of the Jews to Babylon.
It seemed that such a catastrophe could lead to the complete disappearance of Israel and its religion. But this did not happen. The leaven of the prophets was so strong that even far from their homeland the Jews continued to recognize themselves as the people of God. The test deepened in them a feeling of repentance, and since then pagan temptations have ceased to beckon them, as before. The prophets who lived among the exiles - Ezekiel (c. 580) and Isaiah II (c. 550) - continued the work of their predecessors. They preached in houses of worship, held discussions, wrote books. Under their influence, Judaism gradually turned into a close-knit Community - the Church of the Old Testament.
Half a century later, “captivity on the rivers of Babylon” ended, Chaldea was captured by the Persians. In 538, King Cyrus, the founder of the greatest power of the East, allowed all foreigners resettled in Babylon to return to their homeland. Encouraged by the speeches of the preachers, many Jews went to the land of their fathers. But the bold dreams of enthusiasts, who imagined that the days of the Messiah would come immediately, were dashed against an unsightly reality. Instead of the former Israel, a small principality was formed, subject to Persia, which included only Jerusalem and its suburbs. The fortress of David lay in ruins, the newcomers endured hardship.
The time of the prophets has passed; now it was necessary to learn to live according to their precepts, but no one had the strength, energy, or confidence in the future. When the priest Ezra (Ezra) arrived from Babylon around the year 400, he found the temple somehow rebuilt and the people in a state of complete apathy.
Ezra brought with him the full text of the Law of God, called the Torah, or the Pentateuch of Moses. The Torah grew out of the Ten Commandments and has been supplemented over the centuries. The priests wrote down the oral traditions and statutes of the time of Moses, and also included liturgical rules in the book. Henceforth, it was to serve as the religious, moral, and civil code of Israel.
Fearing the influence of pagan neighbors, Ezra and his successors the scribes conceived to separate the Jews from the whole world. Strict observance of the Sabbath, food prohibitions and other customs pursued one goal - the protection of the Community.
At first glance, it seems that the legalists have buried the heritage of the prophets under a pile of petty prescriptions. However, as time has shown, their drastic isolation measures were justified. It was thanks to their powerful armor that the religion of the Bible emerged unscathed from the battle that took place in Palestine under the Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes.
Greece by this time had long ceased to be an island of democracy. It was destroyed by the party struggle, wars and strife. Everywhere the people gravitated towards a strong centralized government. Therefore, when in the IV century BC. Alexander the Great proclaimed himself a monarch, he only brought to a logical end a process that had already begun a hundred years before him.
In order to give the royal power the highest authority, Alexander ranked himself among the host of the gods. So did his heirs, and among them was Antiochus Epiphanes (175-163). This king, who seriously imagined himself a superman, wanted to solder the peoples subject to him, planting among them a single civilization of Hellenism, its style, tastes, and religion. Antiochus' enterprise met no obstacles anywhere, and only the faith of Israel became the stone on which he stumbled.
Ordinary clergy, scribes and the people at first offered him only passive resistance, but when the king defiled the Temple, setting up an altar to Zeus there, and began to introduce polytheism through terror, an uprising broke out against him. It quickly escalated into a war of liberation led by Judas Maccabee, a Hasmonean general.
During the years of struggle, the prophetic word sounded again. An unknown seer, hiding under the name of Daniel, wrote a book where he condemned tyranny and religious persecution. The author portrayed the great powers in the form of greedy beasts and predicted that the hour would come when the Deliverer would appear from heaven and put an end to predatory empires. Unlike the monsters who personified the kingdoms of this world, the Messiah, according to Daniel, will be like a man, the "Son of Man." This contrast points to the fundamental upheaval that awaits the world.
The surge of inspiration worked wonders. Maccabeus inflicted a series of sensitive blows on the army of Antiochus, liberated Jerusalem from enemies and threw out the "abomination" from the Temple, as the Jews called the pagan altar. When Maccabeus died in battle, his brothers continued his work. In 140, Simon the Hasmoneans was crowned and became king-high priest. Israel achieved independence and returned to the borders that it had under Solomon.
Communities outside the country also strengthened. These "scattering churches" served as a link between Judea and the rest of the world. Through their work, the Bible was first translated into Greek. By the time of the Nativity of Christ, out of 4 million Jews, almost 3 million lived in foreign lands. Subsequently, the existence of their hearths, scattered everywhere, will render no small service to the apostles of Christianity.
The Hasmonean dynasty, however, did not live up to the expectations of the people. The new kings soon turned into ordinary despots who did not want to reckon with the Law of God. The arbitrariness of the authorities caused the alienation of the zealots of the faith from the reigning house. In addition, according to tradition, only the descendants of David were considered legitimate monarchs. Because of this, the Hasmoneans were simply tolerated as temporary rulers.
The soul of the opposition to the court was a group of pious people who were called "separate" or Pharisees. At first they tried to overthrow the dynasty, but in 88 their rebellion was ruthlessly crushed. Hundreds of Pharisees were crucified on crosses by King Alexander Jannai.
After the death of Yannai, the position of the Pharisees was strengthened. But gradually they moved away from politics, devoting themselves entirely to religious activities. Many of the Pharisees became interpreters of the Law and teachers, rabbis. In schools and synagogues, they carried out difficult but necessary work: they strengthened the foundations of faith and morality in people. Unshakable devotion to God, strong family foundations, humanity, love for freedom and justice - all this was instilled in the people by the best representatives of the hypocrisy, among whom the meek sage Hillel, who arrived in Jerusalem around 40 BC, stood out in particular. In his opinion, the essence of the Law lies in the golden rule: do not do to others what you do not wish for yourself, and Hillel considered everything else to be only a “commentary”.
There was also another direction in legalism. Hillel's rival, Shammai, became its leader. If the first willingly introduced foreigners to the faith, then the second contemptuously drove them away from him. Shammai attached great importance to the so-called "traditions of the elders." His disciples multiplied the number of ritual prescriptions and liked to flaunt their piety.
The Pharisees enjoyed great respect among the people. But the Sadducees - the priestly aristocracy associated with the court - were hostile to them and did not share their views. Unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees believed that everything ends for a person with death. They recognized only the Pentateuch, and looked upon the writings of the prophets as secondary. These rich and arrogant people did not trust the predictions about the Messiah and focused only on earthly politics.
In parallel with the Pharisaic brotherhood, about 160, a semi-monastic order of the "Sons of the Light" or Essenes arose in Palestine. Not wanting to have anything to do with the sinful world, the Essenes chose a solitary life in the wilderness. Around the year 140, their leader, whom they called the Master of Righteousness, founded a colony on the shores of the Dead Sea at Qumran. There, away from the bustle, the Essenes worked together, spending their free time in ritual meals, prayers and reading the Bible. Their communities, totaling up to 4,000 people (a significant number for a small country), flocked to all kinds of dreamers, as well as disappointed and tired people. Most of the Essenes were celibate, although some maintained a family lifestyle.
Confident in the imminent appearance of Christ, the "Sons of Light" were preparing to adequately meet His coming. They had no doubt that on the Day of Judgment, all but them would perish.
Attacks by sectarians against the Hasmonean house led to the persecution of the Teacher of Righteousness. His admirers said that in punishment for this, the monarchy should be severely punished.
The prediction of the Essenes was fulfilled half a century after the death of their leader. In 63, Palestine was occupied by the troops of Pompey. He annexed it to the empire and left Hyrcanus II only a shadow of supreme power. And in the year 40, the Roman Senate granted the title of king of Judea to the Idumean commander Herod, who, after a three-year civil war, ascended the throne of David.
Meanwhile, the Jews of the “dispersion” continued to actively assimilate elements of Greek culture. The most educated among them sought to harmonize ancient philosophy with the Bible. In this direction, Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Herod, did especially much. He taught about the divine Force, which, following the sages of Hellas, he called the Logos, the Word.
The mystery of the Deity, Philo said, is immense and inexpressible, but when It manifests Its power and goodness, it acts through the Word. With the Word, Jehovah creates and maintains the Universe, in which He reveals Himself to mortals. Filonov's idea of ​​the Logos as an intermediary between the Creator and the cosmos helped subsequently to expound the Gospel in the language of philosophers.
The rapprochement of the Jews with the Hellenistic world led to the fact that many pagans became interested in their religion. The denial of idolatry, healthy morality, a lively religious feeling of the Jews - brought them the first converts. The words of the prophets about the peoples who will come to the God of truth, goodness and justice have finally begun to come true. In some places the word "Jew" began to acquire a religious meaning.
In the II and especially in the I century BC. proselytes, that is, people who converted to Judaism, appeared in large numbers in different parts of the Roman Empire. Some of them were converted under the influence of books written on behalf of the Greek clairvoyant Sibyl. This name was a pseudonym used by the Jewish missionaries of Egypt. They predicted the death of the world because it gave itself into the power of idols and despots. Word was passed from mouth to mouth that someone would come out of Judea, destined to become the ruler of the nations.
But meanwhile, in reality, world domination was increasingly concentrated in the hands of the Romans.
The transformation of Rome into an empire began already around 200 BC. after his victory over the main competitor - Carthage. However, at the same time, military power turned out to be detrimental to the republican system of Italy itself. Too many lands had to be held in obedience, the army became too powerful for the democratic elements of government to survive. By promising, coercing, bribing, the dictators imperceptibly nullified most political freedoms. The Republic was strangled, and Rome was heading full sail towards sole tyranny.
After the civil wars and bloody terror of the 30s BC. Julius Caesar's nephew Octavian August established autocratic order quite easily. According to Tacitus, Augustus, “calling himself a consul and allegedly content with tribune power to protect the rights of the people, first conquered the soldiers with his generosity, the distribution of bread - the crowd, and all together - the sweet blessings of the world, and then, gaining little by little strength, began to replace a senate, magistrates, and laws."
Even Julius Caesar banned all unions and organizations, even the most harmless ones, while the regime of Augustus made constant supervision of citizens a principle. Playing a democrat, Octavian kept a vigilant eye on any possible hotbed of discontent. An extensive network of spies served this purpose well.
However, many believed that absolutism was quite a moderate price to pay for peace, stability and lasting international peace. The "Age of Augustus" was called the best period of Rome, the golden age of its culture. Under Augustus, the Capitol proudly rose above the world, inspiring respect and fear. The Roman eagle spread its wings from the Atlantic to the Middle East and from Britain to the African shores. The city on seven hills turned into a center where “all roads led”.
Brilliant military equipment, organization and discipline won the Romans the position of masters of the Mediterranean. Government officials exported untold wealth from the conquered countries. From all over they flowed to Rome: slaves, ivory and circus animals from Numidia, marble from Greece, bread from Egypt, glass and purple from Phoenicia. Commercial caravans brought carpets, fabrics and jewelry from Babylon, Arabia, India and even China. The capital has been rebuilt. It was said that Caesar accepted her brick, and left marble.
Excellent highways connected Rome with the outskirts; trade and contacts between the provinces revived. The legal equality of all who became "Roman citizens" contributed to the rapprochement of the peoples of East and West. It seemed that the dream of the Stoic philosophers about a single state, where every person is a citizen of the Universe, was close to being realized.
It is not surprising that the court poets extolled Augustus and were not stingy with panegyrics. Caesar himself encouraged flatterers and maintained his authority by all means. For this, gradually, starting from the eastern provinces, the cult of the emperor began to be created. Soon, temples of Augustus were already operating throughout the state; praises were sung to him, he was proclaimed "father of the fatherland", "soter" - the savior of nations.
The spectacle of a rising empire with a man-god at its head amazed contemporaries. They have already started talking about the “indestructible kingdom” established for centuries. However, the conquered peoples did not want to put up with this prospect. At the end of the reign of Augustus, unrest began in many provinces, where Rome was viewed as an enslaver. The Jews believed that this apocalyptic Beast would fall by the sword of the Messiah.
The conquests did not save Rome from serious internal conflicts. Land holdings and finances were increasingly concentrated in the hands of the oligarchy. The ruined peasants of Italy marched in droves to Rome, where they lived on odd jobs and handouts from the government. Long wars literally flooded the capital with slaves (there were about a million of them). Slaves rebelled many times, trying to return to their native lands, but these attempts invariably ended in reprisals. So, after the defeat of the gladiators of Spartacus, six thousand disobedient were crucified along the road from Capua to Rome.
No less profound was the spiritual crisis. Ancient beliefs and myths have become ridiculed by many. Religion was losing its significance, turning into an integral part of civic duties. Even Cicero said that the official cult is needed only to maintain order among the masses.
There were also people who were ready to go much further. The poet Lucretius saw in religion simply a harmful delusion. In his book On the Nature of Things, he resurrected the materialism of the old Greek philosophers Democritus and Epicurus. According to their doctrine, the universe is nothing but a random formation generated by the dance of atoms. Sooner or later, death awaits her. Lucretius already saw everywhere the symptoms of the world autumn, foreshadowing the end and disintegration of the world. Such ideas have spread widely not only in the West, but also in India and China.
However, the very nature of the human spirit did not allow him to reconcile himself too easily with nonsense. Even having lost faith in everything, people did not want to recognize life as an accidental burst of matter, followed by darkness.
Therefore, having become acquainted with the religions of the East, the Romans greedily reached out to them. The real conquest of the West by foreign cults began. Egyptian Isis began to pray from Britain to the Balkans, Jewish synagogues were built in Rome, temples to the Phrygian mother goddess Cybele, the Persian god Mithra. Street preachers proclaimed the truths brought from the banks of the Ganges, from Parthia and Central Asia. The Greek mysteries were revived, which promised their participants immortality and knowledge of the higher worlds. Occult teachings, astrology, magic and divination found followers in all classes of society. The pursuit of the miraculous caused the growth of superstition and quackery.
Seeing this, skeptical people were ready to give up the hope of unraveling the meaning of life altogether. In their opinion, to the question “what is truth?” the answer doesn't exist. In a word, confusion in the minds was complete. Mystical searches and lack of spirituality, the thirst for purity and moral decay could meet in one family. Often the father closed himself in stoic contempt for the vanity of the world, the mother went to the sectarians' nightly celebrations, and the son invented new types of pleasures and thrills.
A man stood at a crossroads and heard inviting voices from all sides: be indifferent to the sorrows and joys of life, plunge into calm contemplation - said the Buddhists and the Stoics; live according to nature, like all creatures, the Cynics and Epicureans taught; happiness in knowledge and reflection - the natural philosophers objected to them; purify yourself with secret rites and you will gain immortality - the mentors of the mysteries assured; be faithful to the one God and keep His law - proclaimed the religion of Israel; and the Roman eagle, looking out for prey, soared above this whirlpool of the spirit, where, as in primordial chaos, opposing principles mixed up.
From time to time, the hope revived that someone would appear who would lead the world out of the labyrinth. The poet Virgil predicted the birth of a baby, from which a new Saturn era would begin. Buddhists were waiting for Buddha Maitreya, Hindus - another incarnation of the god Vishnu, Persians - the Savior-Saoshiant, Jews - the Messiah ...
In Palestine, the atmosphere of mystical aspirations thickened every year. They hoped that the prophet Elijah was about to appear from heaven and anoint the Messenger of God. Many thought that He would be a great warrior who would crush the pagan kingdoms. Others believed in the final triumph of good over evil, light over darkness, immortality over death, believed that "God will visit His people."
Finally, when everything seemed to have already been tested, the morning dawn lit up over the dark horizon of history. In the twentieth year of the reign of Augustus, in the small village of Nazareth, the Virgin of Galilee heard the message: “You will give birth to a Son and call Him the name JESUS. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord will give him the throne of David his father; and shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom shall have no end.”

Part I
FROM BETHLEHEM TO CAPERNAUM

Chapter first.
“IN THE DAYS OF KING HEROD”
4 BC

Let us now mentally move to Judea in the last months of Herod's reign.
The inhabitants of Jerusalem, accustomed to the fact that their city was often visited by pilgrims from distant lands, probably did not pay attention to the caravan of foreigners that moved through its streets in the winter of 750 from the founding of Rome. But soon they were talked about, as it became known that the travelers were looking for the king of Judea, and not Herod at all, but another, recently born. “We saw his star rise and came to worship him,” they explained. It turned out that they were oriental magicians who discovered the sign of the great Lord in the sky. The fact that they came to Jerusalem to look for him could not surprise anyone. Everyone has heard the prophecies about the mysterious Man from Judah who was to conquer the world.
“Where is the King of the Jews who has been born?” the Magi asked, but instead of answering, frightened people hurried past. It was necessary to know at least a little about the state of affairs in Jerusalem in those years in order to understand how provocative and careless this very question seemed. But the travelers, traveling from afar, hardly guessed their mistake. They were probably completely ignorant of everything that was going on in Judea under Herod.
The life of this monarch, nicknamed the Great by flatterers, could provide the plot for several tragedies in the spirit of Macbeth. Having seized power with the support of the Romans and against the will of the people, he tried in vain to gain popularity. During the thirty-three years of his reign, outwardly brilliant, hostility towards Herod only increased.
A cruel and ambitious man, constantly tormented by passions, Herod was far from the religious problems that worried the Jews at that time. Palace intrigues and women, wars and construction absorbed him entirely. Under him, the country regained autonomy. Herod covered it with dozens of fortresses and erected many Western-style buildings in the cities. With equal zeal, he was engaged in the construction of theaters, hippodromes, sanctuaries in honor of his patron Augustus and the repair of the Jerusalem Temple. True, the latter was the subject of special concerns of the king. In his vanity, Herod wanted to outshine the ancient Solomon. He was proud of the Temple, in which he invested huge amounts of money and which he turned into one of the wonders of the world. However, even with this, he could not win the trust of his subjects.
Herod's father was an Idumean dignitary, and his mother was of Arab origin, so he had no legal rights to the crown. Like all usurpers, the tsar suffered from morbid suspiciousness, and treason seemed to him everywhere. The Hasmoneans, descendants of the dynasty he had overthrown, caused Herod's greatest fears; so he used every excuse to get rid of them.
A fatal role in the fate of the king was played by the fact that his wife Mariamne (it seems the only creature that he sincerely loved) was a princess of the Hasmonean family. The spirit of warriors who fought for the independence of the country lived in this proud and courageous beauty. She did not know how to hide her contempt for her husband, and her mother Alexandra, often interfering in their lives, aroused the alarm of the already suspicious Herod.
When Alexandra, using the influence of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, achieved the title of high priest for her seventeen-year-old son, she unwittingly pushed him to death. Herod noticed that the young man began to enjoy love in Jerusalem, and could not bear it. In 35 BC during the holidays, Mariamne's brother was drowned at night in front of the king. His end was presented as an accident, but his sister and mother understood perfectly well what really happened.
In the year 30, Herod's position was stronger than ever. After the Battle of Actia, which brought Octavian full power, the king of Judea received a reliable political landmark. The trust and support of Augustus ensured the inviolability of his throne. But the more successful Herod's diplomatic affairs were, the more unbearable life became in his own house.
By the age of 29, the family drama had reached a catastrophic point. Mariamne's hatred became so obvious that the king suspected her of involvement in the conspiracy. And one day, instigated by relatives, Herod in a fit of rage pronounced a sentence on the one that was dearest to him. Obedient judges quickly agreed with the will of the king.
Mariamne went to the execution without asking for mercy, and behaved with amazing dignity. The mother, in fear for her fate, publicly reviled her. This scene plunged into a shudder all the witnesses of the last minutes of the queen.
Herod barely survived the fateful day. When it was all over, he almost lost his mind. He was haunted by the image of the murdered woman, he endlessly called Mariamne by name, shouted to bring her to him, drank himself unconscious, spent nights in orgies, arranged frantic races, but the ghosts did not leave him. The health of the king was so undermined that it seemed that he was on the verge of death.
Nevertheless, Herod recovered and, with redoubled energy, continued the bacchanalia of murders. He executed Alexandra, executed his sister's husband and many other relatives and courtiers.
The sons of Mariamne, Alexander and Aristobulus, who arrived from Rome after a long absence, Herod at first received cordially, but soon they aroused distrust in him. False letters, denunciations, testimonies torn from servants under torture - everything was put into play in a disgusting game, which ended with the fact that both princes were hanged in Samaria.
The last years of Herod's life were especially dark. Although the Herodian party saw in him an ideal monarch, almost a Messiah, he knew that the people's hatred of him only increased. These sentiments were supported in the country by the Pharisees, who boycotted any undertakings of the king. Many of them were executed for predicting the imminent decline of criminal rule.
It is easy to imagine the dismay of the seventy-year-old king when he learned that some eastern ambassadors were inquiring in the city about the "born King of the Jews." Who is this next contender for the throne? What forces are behind him?... The most unpleasant news for Herod was that he heard about this next conspiracy for the first time.
Having met with strangers, Herod found out that the speech, apparently, was about the Child, Who is considered the future Messiah. The tsar had dealt with such encroachments on his power more than once and understood that speed and decisiveness were needed here. He began to find out from the priests where the birth of the Messiah was expected, and when they called him Bethlehem, he sent the Magi there, asking them to provide detailed information about the newly-appeared King of the Jews. The last thing Herod cared about was the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. The confused mind of the old man made plans for a new massacre.
Bethlehem was located near the capital. When the strangers arrived in the town, they had long known about the mysterious Baby who had been born in the sheep shelter. Local shepherds - the first to see Him - spoke of extraordinary signs that led them to the cave.
The carpenter Joseph and Mary, the parents of the Child, were from Galilee; they appeared in Bethlehem a year and a half ago during the census conducted in connection with the oath to Augustus.
It was said that when the Mother came with the Child to Jerusalem to perform cleansing rites and initiation of the firstborn, a great future was predicted for Her Son. The perspicacious elder Simeon, having taken the Child from the hands of the young Mother, thanked God and said that now he could die in peace, for he had seen the Salvation that God had “prepared for the enlightenment of the Gentiles and the glory of Israel.” The righteous man blessed the astonished parents and added, turning to Mary: “Here he lies for the fall and the uprising of many in Israel, and as a sign that is disputed, but the sword will go through your very soul.”

Went to the mountain country

This prophecy was heard by many in the Temple. Those who expected the "comfort of Israel" passed it from mouth to mouth. It came, of course, to Bethlehem. Therefore, the Magi could easily find Joseph and Mary. Entering their house, they laid down their gifts at the feet of the Child and, bowing to Him, departed...
Herod waited in vain for news: the magicians preferred to go to their homeland in a different way, bypassing Jerusalem.

Joseph took the baby and mother at night.

Convinced that his plan had failed, the king decided to put an end to the perceived danger at once. A detachment of soldiers was sent to Bethlehem with orders to kill all babies under two years of age there.
To what extent the order was carried out is unknown. Herod undoubtedly gave it in deep secrecy. Even Josephus, who wrote about those times, does not mention the Bethlehem tragedy. However, in his eyes, she was too insignificant in comparison with the countless atrocities of Herod.

Went to Egypt

Be that as it may, the One whom the murderers were looking for was already far from the city. The Galilean family went into hiding shortly after the departure of the Magi. Joseph knew that it was wiser to completely leave the borders of Herod's possessions, and went to Egypt - one of the nearest centers where the Jews of the "dispersion" lived.
Thus, we see that from the very first days the world met the Messiah with hatred and threats. But it wasn't the whole world. Those who believed and waited, who were pure in heart and full of hope, met Christ differently. The Bethlehem shepherds, the elder Simeon and the wise men of the East recognized Him as the coming King.
In the spring of that year, Herod was bedridden by a serious illness. He continued to be tormented by fears, he continually listened to informers, changed his will several times. The king was haunted by the thought that the people were looking forward to his end. Upon learning that some young men, incited by the rabbis, had smashed the gilded eagle, the emblem of Rome, on the Temple, he ordered them to be immediately arrested and judged with all severity. Despite the illness, Herod found the strength to even be present at the trial. The accused were sentenced to be burned at the stake, which caused an uproar in Jerusalem.

And was there

The dying king was taken to Jericho, where they tried to heal with water. There was a moment when the pains almost led Herod to commit suicide; they barely managed to save him. The noise and cries of the servants reached the eldest son of the king, who was in custody, he decided that his father had died, and asked the jailer to release him. But the guard reported this to Herod, and he, in a rage, gave the order to immediately kill the prince. And five days later, death overtook the monarch himself.
His agony was terrible, he poured curses, raved about new executions. They say that he ordered to cut a group of noble hostages in order to somehow deprive the people of joy and make them shed tears. The day of Herod's death later became a national holiday for the Jews.
The king's family gave him a magnificent funeral. The purple-clad body was carried on a golden litter. Behind them, accompanied by the guards, were his sons: Archelaus, Antipas, Philip and others, who were born from the numerous wives of Herod. But the cries of hired mourners did not have time to stop, as the struggle for power between the heirs began. According to the will, the Jordanian region and Galilee went to Antipas, the lands to the north of them - to Philip, and the throne of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria - to Archelaus. However, to approve the partition, it was necessary to go to Rome. Before the departure of the royal family, riots broke out in the city; the people demanded that the accomplices of Herod's crimes be punished. Archelaus rejected all petitions and left, entrusting Jerusalem to the Roman command, which brutally cracked down on the rebels. Nevertheless, the country continued to rage, and delegates went to the emperor with a request for the complete elimination of the hated dynasty.
Augustus approved Herod's will. Each of his three sons received his share of the inheritance. But Archelaus, contrary to his expectations, returned home without a royal title. Caesar gave him only the title of "ethnarch", the ruler of the people, although he promised that he would make him king later if he proved his loyalty to the senate.

Chapter two.
NAZARETH
3 BC - 27 AD

When the news of Herod's death reached Egypt, the carpenter Joseph, hoping that the danger had passed, began to gather for his homeland. But he was afraid of persecution by Archelaus and did not return to Bethlehem. He preferred to move to the North, to the small town of Nazareth, where he had previously lived with Mary.
In those days, Galilee was a densely populated region, and its geographical position made it open to all the winds of the world. “Here were near Phoenicia, Syria, Arabia, Babylon and Egypt. The islands of the Gentiles and all the glorious countries of Europe were almost visible beyond the shining waters of the Western Sea. The banners of Rome fluttered on the plain... Pharaohs and Ptolemies, emirs and arsacids, judges and consuls - all fought for the possession of this beautiful region. Here the spears of the Amalekites glittered, the earth shook under the chariots of Sesostris, the Macedonian phalanxes marched along it, the blows of wide Roman swords were heard here, the cries of the crusaders were intended to be heard here, the artillery of England and France rattled. It seemed that Europe and Asia, Judaism and paganism, barbarism and civilization, the Old and New Testaments, the history of the past and the hopes of the future came into collision on this plain of Jezreel.
However, Nazareth itself stood aloof from these great historical roads; in the evangelical era it was considered a provincial village. There was even a saying: “Can there be anything good from Nazareth?” And as if in order to refute all human assessments, it was this poor village that became the “fatherland” of Christ; he spent the greater part of his life. For almost 30 years He walked along its rocky streets and climbed the paths to the surrounding hills. Few knew about the actual place of His birth, but even those who heard about it called Him Hanotsri, the Nazarene.

Returned to Nazareth

If we could find ourselves in Nazareth of those years, we would see about a hundred white houses with flat roofs, scattered on a mountain framed by vineyards and olive groves. From the gently sloping hills, a picturesque panorama opens up, on which, probably, the gaze of Jesus rested more than once: blue mountain ranges, green valleys, sown fields.
Much has changed since then, but the nature of Galilee has remained almost the same as two thousand years ago. Travelers unanimously claim that Nazareth and its environs are a unique corner of the holy land, it is called “mountain rose” and “earthly paradise”. The air of heights is pure and transparent. After the winter rains, the slopes of Nazareth turn into a garden; they are covered with a variety of flowers of the most delicate shades: lilies, mountain tulips, anemones. Jesus loved flowers. He said that even the decorations of King Solomon cannot be compared with them.
In the spring, the fields of Nazareth resound with the trilling of larks, the cooing of turtledoves is carried far away, flocks of pink pelicans swim in the thick blue of the sky. Birds, like flowers, became in the speeches of Christ the image of a soul that placed its hope in God. He cited them as an example of vain and caring people.

In Nazareth

Galileans - healthy, strong, spontaneous people - for the most part were engaged in agriculture. They grew grapes, fig trees, olive trees, grazed goats and sheep in the meadows, cultivated the fields. In the mornings, the Nazarene women walked with jugs to the spring, which still supplies the district with water. The Virgin Mary went to him. The well still bears her name.
How did she live in Nazareth? How did Jesus live? Apocryphal legends tell many details about these years. But we cannot consider them reliable, if only because they are in sharp contradiction with the gospel spirit. Matthew and Luke, referring to this period of the life of Christ, preferred restrained laconism and spoke only about what they knew well.
Only two facts reported by the apocrypha seem to be reliable. They claim that Joseph died when Jesus was nineteen years old. Legends, on the other hand, usually tend to give symbolic numbers (3, 7, 12, 40 belonged to their category.). Jesus was called “the Son of Mary” during His public ministry, which means that Joseph was no longer alive. According to another story, Jesus, as a teenager, was tending sheep. The intonations that permeate His parables about the shepherds indirectly confirm this. In any case, the Nazarene Servant constantly saw people carefully guarding their flocks.
He also saw the vine-growers tying up the vines, the sowers in the spring fields, the reapers with sickles cutting the ears. Later, all these pictures served as images for His parables. They take us to the world of a quiet Galilean village that surrounded Jesus from a young age.
On Saturdays, Joseph's family came to the Nazareth prayer house, the synagogue, where the people listened to the Holy Scriptures and the conversations of the mentors. The reader recited the doxology, and all those present echoed him. Jesus loved these expressions of sincere faith, and later in His sermon echoes of the prayers He heard in Nazareth from a young age will sound more than once.

But it would be wrong to paint the life of Galilee as a serene idyll. And there passions boiled, and there they dreamed of freedom. The people were under double and even triple oppression: the publicans squeezed imperial taxes out of it, Jerusalem took its tithe, and the local landowners oppressed the peasants. People, however, believed that sooner or later justice would prevail. The books of the prophets that were read in the synagogues, and the apocalyptic writings that went from hand to hand, gave hope for the imminent end of the old world.
When Herod died, a rebellion swept through Galilee. It was headed by Judas Gavlonite, the leader of the party of Zealots, "zealots". Religious anarchists, Judas and his like-minded Pharisee Zadok rejected any authority over the people of God, except for the authority of the Creator Himself.
Crowds of desperate Galileans, inspired by the theocratic idea, formed a whole army and took the city of Sepphoris, where the arsenal was located, with a fight. The legionnaires of Quintilius Varus barely succeeded in putting down the rebellion. Hundreds of rebels were crucified.
In the 6th year, Archelaus, who inherited the vices, but not the state talents of Herod, was deposed and sent into exile. The high priest of Jerusalem began to manage his lands, and the general control over the region was transferred to the procurator Coponius. As under Pompey, it was included in the Syrian province of Rome. Antipas and Philip, although they retained the puppet power of the tetrarchs, found themselves even more dependent on the empire.
Immediately after the deposition of Archelaus, the governor of Syria, Quirinius, began a census throughout Palestine in order to establish the amount of tax. Judas Gaulonite, taking advantage of this, again raised Galilee against the Romans, but was soon killed in battle. However, his death could not extinguish the spirit of militant messianism. The ruler of Galilee, Herod Antipas, a man who valued his peace more than anything in the world, lost it very often. Every time a new leader appeared, calling the people to arms, the Galileans immediately rushed after him, hoping that at a critical moment angels would descend from heaven and crush the Roman eagle with them. “These fighters,” writes Flavius, “can never be reproached for lack of courage.” Not without reason, sixty years later, when the army of Vespasian marched through Galilee, she had to storm almost every village.
The house of Jesus must have known about the revolt of Judas, since Sepphoris was near Nazareth. Perhaps some of the partisans appeared there, and the Son of Mary saw them. He Himself will also speak of the freedom and dominion of God, but between Him and the people who have chosen the path of violence, an abyss will lie. A spiritual upheaval was being prepared in Nazareth, the meaning of which would remain incomprehensible to the Zealots.

The authors of the apocrypha did not skimp on describing the miracles with which Jesus allegedly struck everyone in childhood. But it is clear from the Gospels that at that time He showed no superiority over other people and, on the contrary, seemed to hide His secret from strangers. Only once did He let his parents know that he did not belong to them, but to another, higher world. This happened on Easter days, probably not long before the Galilean revolt.
Like all devout Jews, Joseph went every year to Jerusalem for the feast. Pilgrimage was not a duty for women, but Mary, who loved the Temple, always visited the holy city. When Her Son came of age in the Church, She took Him with Her.
In those days, motley lines of people stretched along the roads leading to the capital, and the singing of psalms sounded over the valleys. Thousands of pilgrims arrived in Jerusalem, the guards hardly maintained order. The square in front of the Temple was filled with crowds of people, sacrifices were constantly made, and in the evening families gathered in houses for a festive meal.
At the end of the celebrations, Joseph and Mary set off on their return journey. They walked along with relatives and neighbors, and therefore at first they were not disturbed that Jesus was not with them. When they realized that He had remained in the city, they hurried to Jerusalem in confusion. The times were turbulent, and Mary's heart sank in fear.

Began to search

In the crowded city, the Son was not easy to find. Joseph and Mary walked the streets for a long time until they came to one of the galleries that surrounded the Temple. There, rabbis and scribes usually spent time in theological discussions and exposition of the Law. Among them, Mother saw Jesus. He sat listening to the speeches of the scientists and asking them questions. The connoisseurs of the Scriptures were amazed at the “reason and answers” ​​of the obscure Galilean Servant, who did not study in their schools...
“My child,” Mary exclaimed, “why did You do this to us? Here is Your father and I are looking for You with pain.
- Why were you looking for me? Jesus answered. Did you not know that I must be in the domain of my Father?
He seemed to suddenly become distant and mysterious, and His words caused confusion in the parents. They didn't understand what He meant. However, Jesus immediately got up and followed them. For the only time, an unearthly beam flashed from behind a cloud and disappeared. He is again an ordinary Child, like other children.

Found in the temple among the teachers

After the incident in Jerusalem, Jesus, according to the evangelist, lived "in obedience" to his parents, "prospering in wisdom and stature and in love with God and people." Mary “kept in her heart” this first sign of a fulfilling prophecy.
Jesus did not go to theological school like his peers who had a religious calling. He became a carpenter and a bricklayer, and after the death of Joseph fed the Mother with the labors of His hands (The Word. . . . means both a carpenter and a bricklayer. Compare the abundance of images borrowed from the work of the builder in the speeches and parables of Christ (Mt 7.21; 16.18 ; 21:42; Luke 14:28; Jn 2:19).
Evangelist Luke says that those around him loved Jesus; but for them He was only a rural youth, although, perhaps, somewhat strange, often immersed in some of His own thoughts, unknown to anyone. Knowing Him closely, encountering Jesus almost every day, the inhabitants of Nazareth did not notice anything supernatural in Him. When He began to preach the kingdom of God, it took them by surprise and plunged them into genuine astonishment. Apparently, He did not have trusted friends among fellow countrymen. None of them, except for two or three women, followed Jesus.
The unbelief of the Nazarenes amazed Christ Himself. According to Him, they confirmed the proverb: "There is no prophet in his own country."
Mary and Her Son had many relatives in the town: Mary's sister with her family, cousins ​​of Jesus. However, these people, for the most part, remained spiritually far from Him. Their cramped world was limited to their street, home, work. Later, when they learned about the preaching and work of Jesus in Capernaum, His brothers were alarmed and thought that He was mad.
The spiritual loneliness of Jesus is also reflected in His words not recorded in the Gospel: “Those who are close to Me did not understand Me.” The only close being was only Mother.
Evangelists talk little about Her; but even if they had not said a single word about Mary, this would not have diminished the greatness of the Mother of the Messiah. He grew up before Her eyes, She gave Him the first motherly lessons, She was the only witness of the miracle taking place in Him.
It was revealed to Mary that Her Son is the Anointed of the Lord, but it is difficult for us now to understand how much spiritual strength was needed to maintain faith in this; because we are looking at it from a different perspective. If we imagine the everyday Nazarene life, we can guess that between the Annunciation and the Resurrection, Mary went a long way of trials.

carpenter's son

François Mauriac, a subtle connoisseur of the human soul, made an attempt to see this path. “The child became a youth, an adult. He was not great, He was not called the Son of the Most High; He had no throne, but only a stool by the fire in a poor hut. The mother might have doubted, but here is the testimony of Luke: “Mary kept everything in her heart” ... She kept the prophecies in her heart and did not tell anyone about them, perhaps even her Son.
The formation of any personality, and especially an extraordinary one, is always a mystery, all the more it is not given to us to penetrate into the mystery of the soul of Jesus. Can we know what He was thinking about while working in a small workshop, what He was praying for? One thing only seems indisputable: He was free from the conflicts that torment a person from childhood; demonic elements had no power over Him. If He knew the inner tragedy, then only loneliness, compassion, pain from contact with the world of evil gave birth to it, and not the torment of sin and the struggle with dark instincts. Everything that is known about the character of Jesus testifies to this.

Filled with wisdom

Even such a scholar as hostile to Christianity as David Strauss, after long reflections on the Gospel, admitted that the harmony of the spirit of Jesus was not the result of an internal crisis, but the result of a natural disclosure of the forces inherent in Him. “All characters,” Strauss wrote, “cleansed by struggle and strong shocks, for example, Paul, Augustine, Luther, have retained indelible traces of such a struggle, their image breathes something harsh, sharp, gloomy. There is nothing like this in Jesus. He immediately appears before us as a perfect nature, obeying only its own law, recognizing and asserting itself in its consciousness, having no need to transform and start a new life.
There was no sense of sinfulness in Him, which is inherent in every saint, there was nothing defective. Even though He often remained misunderstood and alone, this did not darken the enlightenment of His spirit; Jesus was constantly with the One He called His Father.
Probably, during his free hours, Jesus, as well as later, during his preaching years, liked to go to solitary places, where a heavenly voice sounded in Him in the midst of silence. There, on the hills of Nazareth, the future of the world was imperceptibly prepared...
Who could have known about it at the time? Roman politicians did not suspect that the day would come when their descendants would kneel before the Carpenter from the far eastern province.
Great and small events succeeded each other. The Germans defeated the legions in the Teutoburg Forest; rebellions flared up alternately on the Danube and the Rhine, in Gaul and Thrace. Augustus died, identifying himself with the host of gods, and the gloomy and suspicious Tiberius became his heir. Ovid, Titus Livius, Hillel died. Pliny the Elder is born; The philosopher Seneca returned to Rome from Egypt. The fifth procurator, Pontius Pilate, was appointed to Judea.
In Nazareth, outwardly, everything seemed to proceed without change. However, the long preparatory period of Jesus' life was drawing to a close. He was about thirty years old when, full of spiritual and bodily strength, He was only waiting for a sign to throw the first seeds of the Good News into the world.
And the sign was given.

Chapter three.
FORERUNNER. JESUS ​​IN THE DESERT
27 y.

Once a group of people, consisting of clergy and scribes, went out of the gates of Jerusalem and set off along the road leading to the banks of the Jordan. They were prompted to undertake the journey by a rumor about the young hermit John. In a short time, he became known throughout the country. The embassy was instructed to find out what the claims of this man are, what he teaches and whether he is a dangerous rebel of the people.
John called himself "the voice of one crying" (ie the voice of a herald, messenger.), which in itself spoke volumes.
Five centuries ago, when the days of exile ended and the Jews were able to return from Babylon, the great teacher of the faith, Isaiah II, composed a hymn about Theophany. It describes the Easter procession through the barren desert, which blooms before the face of the Lord, turning into a garden. Ahead - herald. He calls to clear the way for the Walking One.
Since then messianic hopes have been associated with this vision. It was expected that the forerunner of the Redeemer would be the prophet Elijah himself, who would again be sent to earth.
The Essene monks who lived near the Dead Sea assured that the role of heralds would fall to their lot. But it seemed to them that the world was too deeply mired in iniquity, and only the “Sons of Light” were worthy to meet the Messiah. The inhabitants of Qumran looked upon themselves as the only chosen ones. The history of the world, according to the Essenes, failed, and all but them are doomed. They lived outside the walls of their villages, punctually observing rituals and believing that only with them would the New Covenant predicted by the prophet Jeremiah be concluded (see Prologue).
Of course, even among the sectarians there were people who were concerned about the fate of the “sons of darkness”. Not each of them could rejoice at the death of the world or calmly reconcile with it. One of the Qumran theologians wrote: “Do not all peoples hate Krivda?.. Isn’t the voice of Truth heard from the mouths of all peoples?” But right then and there he bitterly admitted that in reality no one follows the truth of God. And if so, then the sinners have nothing to count on. Saints must remain on guard. What does it matter to them if the wicked get what they deserve?
John's sermon must have thrown the Essenes into confusion. They had nothing to reproach him with, and even more so they could not rank the hermit among the “sons of darkness”. John led the life of an ascetic, even more strict than the people of Qumran. He dressed in a rough shepherd's sackcloth made of camel hair, kept Nazirite vows, that is, did not cut his hair and did not drink wine. His food consisted of sun-dried locusts and wild honey. However, this hermit did not share the cold complacency of the Essenes, did not turn away from the world, but began to preach "to all the people of Israel."

John came from the priestly class. He lost his parents early and was raised by strangers. It is highly probable that he was adopted by none other than the Essenes, who often adopted orphans for their upbringing. But when John was thirty years old, God called him to leave the wilderness. It was revealed to him that he was given the mission to become "the voice of one crying," the forerunner of the Redeemer.
From the desert, John came to the adjacent Jordan Valley, where he began his sermon. “Repent,” said the prophet, “for the Kingdom of Heaven is near!” His words fell on prepared soil and immediately found a wide response. Crowds of people from the surrounding towns and villages went to the river. There were scribes and soldiers, officials and peasants. The impression from the speeches and the very appearance of the prophet was enormous. He spoke of the Judgment of the world, and it seemed that everything around John was breathing with a premonition of the imminence of great events.
As a symbol of entry into the messianic era, John chose the rite of immersion in the waters of the Jordan, the river, which since ancient times was considered the boundary of the Holy Land. Just as water washes the body, so repentance purifies the soul. When a pagan joined the Old Testament church, they performed tevil, ablution, on him. The prophet demanded this from the Jews themselves as a sign that they were born for a new life. Therefore, John was called “Hamatvil”, the Baptist (the word “tevila” in Greek means immersion, washing; in Russian it is usually translated as baptism).
Many Israelites were offended that they were offered to go through ablution as if they were new converts from other faiths. Does not belonging to the people of God sanctify in itself? But the Baptist did not hesitate to declare such a view to be a delusion. When he saw the scribes on the shore, he spoke to them sharply and sternly: “Spawn of vipers! Who told you to flee from future wrath? And do not think to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father,” for I tell you that God is able to raise up children of Abraham from these stones.” It is not birth that makes sons of the Covenant, but faithfulness to the commandments of the Lord.
John reproached those who thought that one rite of tevila was already enough for the forgiveness of sins for frivolity. He demanded a reassessment of all life, sincere repentance. Before baptism, people "confessed their sins." But even this was not enough. Real results of inner change were needed. “Create,” the prophet said, “fruit worthy of repentance!.. Already the ax lies at the root of the trees; Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Baptized from him

What did John want? Did he call on the people to flee from the world and lock themselves up in the monastery walls? This would sound quite natural in the mouth of an ascetic. But the Baptist wanted more: that people, remaining where they live, remained faithful to the word of God.
According to Josephus Flavius, John taught the people "to lead a clean way of life, to be fair to each other and reverent towards the Eternal." By emphasizing the importance of the ethical standards of the Law, the Baptist was following the tradition of the ancient prophets. Speaking little about rituals, he put the moral duty of a person in the first place: “He who has two shirts, let him share with the poor, whoever has food, let him do the same.” The Prophet did not suggest that the soldiers abandon their service and said that it was more important for them to avoid violence and slander. To everyone's amazement, he did not even condemn the despised trade of tax collectors - publicans, but only demanded that they not extort more than they were supposed to (By collecting the imperial tax, the publicans usually profited at the expense of the population).
At the same time, in relation to the powerful of this world, John behaved so independently that he soon aroused discontent. According to tradition, the Baptist once visited Jerusalem and there spoke out against the members of the Council. When asked who he was and where he came from, John said: "I am a man, and I lived where the Spirit of God led me, feeding me with roots and tree shoots." To the threat to deal with him if he did not stop embarrassing the crowd, John replied: “It is you who need to stop doing your base deeds and cling to the Lord your God.” Then an Essenes named Simon, who appeared in the assembly, contemptuously remarked: “We read the sacred books every day, and now you have come out of the forest like a beast, and you dare to teach us and seduce people with your rebellious speeches.” After that, the Baptist never came to the capital again.

John usually lived near Betania, or Bethavara, a river crossing, where he baptized the people who came to him. Soon a community formed around him, to which John gave his rules and prayers. By name we know only two of the disciples of the Baptist - Andrew of Bethsaida and the young man John, the son of Zebedee. Both were fishermen and came from the shores of the Sea of ​​Galilee.
How did the Johnites look at the teacher? Most likely, they saw in him an eschatological Prophet, whose coming was expected by many. But some have formed the conviction that the Baptist himself is the promised Messiah.
John's influence increased daily. In his speeches, he began to mention Herod Antipas, who belonged to the Jordanian region. As a result, writes Flavius, the tetrarch "began to fear that John's power over the masses would lead to some kind of unrest."
The Sanhedrin was also alarmed, and that is why priests were sent to the Jordan with authority from him.
- Who are you? Isn't it the Messiah? they asked the Baptist.
“I am not the Messiah,” he answered.
- What? Are you Elijah?
- I'm not Elijah.
- Prophet?
- Not.
“Then who are you to give us an answer to those who sent us?” What do you say about yourself?
- I am the voice of one crying: “In the wilderness make straight the way for the Lord,” as the prophet Isaiah said.
- What do you baptize, - they asked him, - if you are not the Messiah, and not Elijah, and not the Prophet?
And then they heard the answer, full of humility and faith, which clearly identified the calling of John as the Forerunner of Christ:
- I baptize with water, but in the midst of you stands the One Whom you do not know, Who is following me, Who has become ahead of me, Whom I am not worthy to untie the strap of His shoes ... He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His shovel is in His hand, and He will cleanse His threshing floor and gather His wheat into barns, and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Everyone understood what that meant. The world must pass through the fire of God's truth, but John is only a harbinger of a cleansing thunderstorm.
The Messiah has been talked about for a long time, but only a Jordanian teacher proclaimed that the days of His coming had finally come. Listening to the Forerunner, the people were constantly “in expectation”. Many knew that the Deliverer would long hide unrecognized, so the words of John: “He stands among you” made hearts beat faster.
At that very moment, the Man from Nazareth appeared among the crowd on the shore.
His arrival hardly attracted attention, especially since He, along with others, was preparing to be baptized by John. However, when He approached the water, everyone was struck by the strange words of the prophet addressed to the Galilean: "I need to be baptized by You."

Was in the desert with the beasts

Did John know even before, or did he only now feel that before him was not an ordinary person, but Someone greater than himself? Jesus' answer: “Let it be now, for this is how it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” - he did not explain anything to those around him. Did He mean to say that “we” people need to start with repentance? Would you like to give an example? Or looked at baptism as an act that marked the beginning of His mission? In any case, for John, these words had a certain meaning, and he agreed to perform the ceremony.
It was a symbolic meeting. The hermit in a sackcloth, with a sun-blackened, emaciated face, with a lion's mane of hair, embodied the thorny path of pre-Christian religion, and a new Revelation was brought by a Man Who, outwardly, seemed to be no different from any commoner from Galilee.
While Jesus was standing in the river praying, something mysterious happened. Subsequently, John told his disciples: “I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and He abode on Him. And I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water, He said to me: “On whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, He is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I saw and testified that He is the Son of God.”

After being baptized, Jesus immediately left Betania and went deep into the wilderness south of the Jordan. There, in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, among the bare, lifeless hills, where the silence was broken only by the weeping of jackals and the cries of birds of prey, He spent more than a month in fasting. According to the evangelists, in those days, on the threshold of His ministry, He was "tempted by the devil."
Did Jesus have a vision, as artists usually like to portray, did any of the inhabitants of the desert try to lead Him onto a false path, or did everything happen in the soul of Christ invisibly? No one could tell about this except Jesus Himself. But He told the disciples only the essence of what was happening. Satan offered the Messiah three of his own ways to conquer the World. The first was to win over the masses with the promise of earthly goods. Feed them, “make stones into bread”, and they will follow You anywhere, said the tempter. But Jesus refused to resort to such a lure: “Man does not live by bread alone...”
Another time the Nazarene stood on a high mountain. At His feet lay the ashen teeth of the rocks, behind which the “kingdoms of this world” were guessed. Somewhere in the distance, invincible Roman legions were moving, ships were sailing on the sea, crowds of people were agitated. What governs them, what reigns over the world? Is it not the power of gold, is it not the power of the sword, is it not the element of selfishness, cruelty and violence? Caesar only commands the peoples because he recognized the dominion of the dark principles in man. “I will give you all this power,” said Satan, “and their glory, because it is given to me, and I give it to whom I want.” Become like the rulers of empires, and people will be at Your feet. The Jewish Zealots were waiting for such a Messiah-warrior. However, Jesus did not yield to the temptation of the sword; He did not come to follow in the footsteps of the oppressors. "Depart from me, Satan," was His answer, "it is written: worship the Lord thy God, and serve Him alone."
From the desert Jesus went to Jerusalem. But even there the spirit of evil did not depart from Him. “Throw yourself down,” he suggested, when Christ stood on one of the high temple grounds; for the crowd, seeing a man who fell on the stones and remained unharmed, will surely consider Him a great sorcerer. But the way of the screaming miracle, which was followed by both false mystics and admirers of “technical miracles”, could not be accepted by Jesus. He will always try to hide his power, avoiding spiritual violence against people.
The gospels say that the defeated Satan departed from Christ "until the time". In other words, the temptations were not limited to these critical days of His life.

Returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit

Returning to Galilee, Jesus again stopped for a while at Betania. When John saw Him, he said to the people around him, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." The word "Lamb" was reminiscent of the prophets who were persecuted and killed, and in the Book of Isaiah the Servant of the Lord was called the Lamb, Whose torment will be performed for the atonement of the sins of mankind.
The Baptist repeated his testimony in the circle of close disciples, after which Andrew and John began to seek a meeting with Jesus. One day, when they saw Him, they timidly followed Him, not knowing how to start a conversation. Jesus turned around and asked:
- What do you want?
- Rabbi, where do you live? they asked, a little confused.
- Come and see.
They came with Him to the house where He was staying and stayed with Jesus all day. We do not know what they talked about, but the next day Andrew found his brother Simon and enthusiastically declared: “We have found the Messiah...”

teacher where do you live

A startling message immediately spread among the Galileans who had come to the Jordan. Some hesitated. Everything was very different from what had been predicted. One of Andrei's countrymen, Nathanael, shook his head incredulously: Messiah from Nazareth? But he was answered simply: "Come and see." Nathanael agreed, and the very first words of the Nazarene pierced his soul. The hint that revealed the foresight of Jesus dispelled all doubts.
- Rabbi, You are the Son of God, You are the King of Israel! exclaimed Nathanael.
“Truly, truly, I say to you,” Jesus said in response, “you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.
He did not utter the word "Messiah", but the expression "Son of Man" was clear to them; it meant that the new Teacher is the One Whom everyone has been looking forward to for a long time.

Getting up early in the morning

Most likely, these simple-hearted people decided that the Tsar they found was hiding only for the time being, but the hour would come, and brave people would rally around Him, the powers of heaven would elevate Him to the throne, and they, who recognized Christ, would gain glory in the Messianic Kingdom. .
So, Jesus came to the North not alone, but accompanied by followers.

Chapter Four.
GALILEE. FIRST STUDENTS
Spring 27

At first it might seem that the preaching of Christ was only a continuation of the mission of John the Baptist. Both spoke of the nearness of the Kingdom of God, both called the people to repentance and accepted water baptism as a rite. Nevertheless, some difference between the two teachers became noticeable immediately. If John waited for the audience to gather to him, then Jesus himself went to the people. He went around cities and villages; on Saturdays His speech was heard in prayer houses, and on the rest of the days - somewhere on a hill or by the sea in the open air. Sometimes the crowd was so large that Jesus got into a boat and from there spoke to the people on the shore.
Living in Galilee, the Teacher invariably got up early and often met the sunrise on solitary peaks. There the disciples found Him and asked Him to continue conversations with those who came. The day of Jesus was filled with hard work: until dark, the sick followed Him, waiting for relief from their ailments, believers eagerly hung on His words, skeptics asked ridiculous questions or entered into disputes with Him, scribes demanded clarification of difficult passages of the Bible. At times, Jesus and His disciples had no time to eat. However, the Gospels only twice say that the Teacher was very tired. Ordinarily we see Him tireless and full of energy. "My food," He said, "to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to do His work."

We should not be surprised that there are no images of Christ made by His contemporaries. After all, there are no reliable portraits of either Buddha, or Zarathustra, or Pythagoras, or most other religious reformers, and in Judea it was generally not customary to portray people.
The early Christians did not retain the memory of the outward features of Jesus; first of all, the spiritual image of the Son of Man was dear to them. “If we knew Christ according to the flesh,” said the Apostle Paul, “now we don’t know.”
The earliest frescoes, where the face of Jesus is presented as it was finally established in church art, date back to the 2nd or even 3rd century. It is difficult to say to what extent this image is connected with the oral tradition. But in any case, the Teacher, who made long journeys under the sultry sun of Palestine, whose hands knew hard physical labor, hardly resembled the Christ of the Italian masters. He dressed not in an ancient toga, but in the simple clothes of the Galileans - a long striped chiton and an upper cape; His head was probably always covered with a white handkerchief with a woolen bandage.
In Russian painting of the 19th century, Polenov's appearance of Christ is the most authentic, but his paintings do not convey the spiritual power that emanated from the Son of Man.
This is what the evangelists captured. In their stories, you can feel the conquering influence of Jesus on a wide variety of people. He almost instantly took possession of the hearts of His future apostles. The temple guards sent to arrest the Nazarene failed to obey the order, shocked by His preaching. There was something about Him that made even enemies speak respectfully to Him. The scribes called Him Rabbi, the Instructor. With Pilate, one look and a few words of Jesus aroused secret respect against his will.

Some exciting mystery, inexplicable attraction created around Him an atmosphere of love, joy, and faith. But often the disciples were seized next to Jesus by a sacred awe, almost fear, as from proximity to the Incomprehensible. At the same time, there was nothing priestly, pompous in Him. He did not consider it below His dignity to come to a wedding or to share a meal with publicans in the house of Matthew, to visit the Pharisee Simon, Lazarus. Least of all He looked like a detached ascetic or a gloomy teacher. Saints said about Him: “Here is a man who loves to eat and drink wine.”
It is said that one medieval monk drove past a picturesque lake without noticing it. That's not how Jesus is. Even the little things of life do not escape His sight; among people He is at home.
The evangelists paint Christ as profoundly human. Tears were seen in His eyes, they saw how He mourns, is surprised, rejoices, hugs children, admires flowers. His speech breathes condescension to the weaknesses of man, but He never softens His demands. He can speak with gentle kindness, or he can be strict, even harsh. Sometimes bitter irony flashes in His words (“they strain out a mosquito and swallow a camel”). Usually meek and patient, Jesus is merciless to bigots; He expels merchants from the temple, stigmatizes Herod Antipas and the lawyers, and reproaches the disciples for lack of faith. He is calm and restrained, sometimes he is seized with sacred anger. However, inner discord is alien to Him. Jesus always remains Himself. Except for a few tragic moments, the clarity of spirit never leaves Christ. Being in the midst of life, He at the same time, as it were, abides in another world, in unity with the Father. Close people saw in Him a Man who wants only one thing: "to do the will of Him who sent Him."
Christ is far from painful exaltation, from frenzied fanaticism, characteristic of many ascetics and founders of religions. Enlightened sobriety is one of the main traits of His character. When He speaks about extraordinary things, when He calls for difficult accomplishments and courage, He does it without false pathos and anguish. He could easily talk to people at the well or at the festive table, and He could utter the words that shocked everyone: “I am the Bread of Life.” He speaks of trials and struggles, and He brings light everywhere, blessing and transforming life.
Writers have never been able to create a convincing image of a hero if his portrait was not set off by flaws. Evangelicals are an exception, not because they were unsurpassed masters of the word, but because they portrayed an unsurpassed Person.
One cannot but agree with Rousseau, who asserted that it was impossible to invent the gospel story. According to Goethe, “all four Gospels are authentic, since all four reflect that spiritual height, the source of which was the person of Christ and which is more divine than anything else on earth.”

In contrast to the hermits of Qumran, Jesus did not turn away from the world, did not hide the treasures of the spirit from it, but generously gave them to people. “When,” He said, “they light a lamp, they do not put it under a vessel, but on a candlestick, and it shines for everyone in the house.” The Word of God must be “preached on the rooftops”—that is His will.
By that time, the Hebrew language had become a literary language. For conversations, they usually used the Aramaic dialect. It was him that Christ used when talking with the people. This is evidenced by Aramaic words and expressions preserved in the New Testament.
In His sermon, Jesus used the traditional forms of sacred biblical poetry. Often His words sounded like a majestic recitative, reminiscent of the hymns of the ancient prophets. In addition, He followed the methods of the scribes: he expressed himself in aphorisms, posed questions, and did not neglect logical arguments. Jesus especially loved examples from everyday life - parables. They most fully imprinted His teaching.
Parables were known in Israel for a long time, but Jesus made them the main way of expressing His thoughts. He did not appeal to one intellect, but sought to touch the whole being of man. Drawing familiar pictures of nature and life before people, Christ often left the listeners themselves to draw conclusions from His stories. Thus, avoiding abstract words about human brotherhood, He cites an incident on the Jericho road, when a Jew who suffered from robbers received help from a non-Christian Samaritan. Such stories sank into the soul and turned out to be more effective than any reasoning.

By the Sea of ​​Galilee

The coast of the Sea of ​​Galilee, where Jesus came, subsequently suffered greatly from wars; Only relatively recently has this region begun to acquire its former appearance. In gospel times, Gennesaret was distinguished, according to Flavius, “by amazing nature and beauty.” Orchards, palm trees and vineyards lined the blue waters. Behind the fences grew acacias, oleanders, myrtle bushes with white flowers. Harvested during all months. The lake gave a plentiful catch. Day and night its surface was dotted with fishing boats.
There is a deep meaning in the fact that the preaching of the gospel turned out to be closely connected with this country. The news of the Kingdom of God was heard for the first time not in stuffy, dusty capitals, but along the shores of an azure lake, among verdant groves and hills, reminding us that the beauty of the earth is a reflection of the eternal beauty of Heaven.
Along Gennesaret stretched a series of small seaside towns, of which Jesus chose Capernaum. Evangelists even call Capernaum “His city”. There, next to the synagogue built by a Roman proselyte, He lived in the house of Simon, brother of Andrew; from there Jesus went to preach, heading along the coast to Bethsaida, Chorazin, Magdala, from there he went on holidays to Jerusalem and returned there. In Capernaum, people witnessed His first healings and saw how with one word He stopped the convulsions of a possessed man who was shouting: “Leave it! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazarene? You have come to destroy us! I know You, Who You are, Holy One of God!..”

Settled in Capernaum seaside

The relatives of Jesus, having learned about His sermon and miracles, decided that the Son of Mary "has lost his temper." They hastened to Capernaum, desiring to take Jesus by force back to Nazareth; but they never managed to get into the house, which was literally besieged by the people.
From then on, it was already painful for Mary to remain among the Nazarenes, who looked at Jesus as a madman. It has been suggested that she moved for a time to Cana, where some people, probably relatives, gave her shelter.
Once, when a wedding was being celebrated in their family, Jesus and his disciples were invited there, and Mother was able to see Him again.
In the midst of a modest celebration, to the great chagrin and shame of the hosts, the wine ran out. Obviously, all the shops were already closed, and there was nothing to treat the audience. Mary, noticing this, turned to the Son: "They have no wine."
What help did she hope for? Or just waiting for words of encouragement? It seems incomprehensible and the answer of Jesus, uttered as if with a sigh: “What should I do with You? My Hour has not yet come” - this is how you can roughly convey the meaning of His words. Nevertheless, Mary realized that He was still ready to help in some way, and told the servants: "Do whatever He tells you." Jesus ordered to pour water into large stone vessels intended for ablutions, and, having drawn from them, carry it to the manager of the feast. The servants exactly carried out the strange order, and when the manager tasted the drink, he was amazed and said to the groom: “Good wine is always served first, but you have saved it until now ...”
So the manifestation of Christ's power over nature began not with frightening signs, but at the festive table, to the sounds of wedding songs. He used it so that the day of joy would not be darkened, as if by chance. After all, He came to give people joy, fullness and “excess” of life.

In Cana of Galilee

The Galilean fishermen were deeply affected by what happened at Cana. Evangelist John says that from that moment they truly believed in Jesus. And when one day, finding them on the shore, He called them to follow Him, they left their nets without hesitation and from now on belonged entirely to the Teacher alone.
The newly formed community, which a few years later began to be called "Nazarene", in contrast to the orders of the Buddha or St. Francis, was not mendicant. She had the means and was even able to help the poor. The money came from the disciples and belonged to the whole brotherhood. This principle was later adopted by the Jerusalem Church.
Probably all of the first followers of Jesus were young. Seniority belonged to a fisherman from Bethsaida - Simon bar-Jone (i.e., the son of Jonah (in some manuscripts, "the son of John")). His name is at the beginning of every list of apostles. When the Master asked the disciples about something, Simon usually answered for others. Christ gave him the nickname Cephas, a stone, which in Greek sounds like Peter. The meaning of this name Jesus explained to His disciple later. Impetuous temperament was combined in Simon with timidity. But he, more than the rest of the disciples, was attached to the Mentor, and this love helped Peter overcome his characteristic cowardice.

Simon and Andrew

Simon lived in Capernaum with his brother, wife and her mother. Jesus constantly enjoyed their hospitality and Peter's boat. Simon's house became His home for a long time.
Peter was brought to the Master by his brother Andrew, about whom we know as little as we know about James, son of the fisherman Zebedee. But the other son of Zebedee, John, the youngest of the apostles, is described in the Gospels more fully. He probably resembled his mother Salome, an energetic, sincere believer who later also joined Jesus. Listening to the sermons of the Baptist, John became convinced of the nearness of the Kingdom of the Messiah. A young man "unlearned and simple", he, however, was apparently familiar with the teachings of the Essenes, which deepened his apocalyptic mood. He wanted to see in Jesus a thunderer who would strike His enemies with lightning. John and James secretly dreamed of taking the first places at the throne of Christ. Jesus called both brothers Benegeres, "sons of the storm." Ardent John became His favorite disciple.

James and John

There was a customs house at Capernaum near the shore. Visiting her, Jesus met there the publican Levi, nicknamed Matthew, and said to him: “Follow me.” Matthew not only immediately joined the Nazarene Teacher, but also brought other publicans to Him. Later, this man was probably the first to write down the words of Christ.

Levi Matthew

In addition to the four fishermen of Gennesaret and Matthew, the inner circle of Jesus' followers included Nathanael bar-Tolomei (Greek: Bartholomew) from Cana, his friend Philip, a resident of Bethsaida, who knew the Greek language better than others, Simon Zealot, who left the party of violent extremists for the sake of Christ, the fisherman Thomas (Thomas (aram.), or Didim (Greek), i.e. Gemini, is most likely a nickname. According to legend, the name of the apostle was Judas.), as well as Judas Thaddeus and Jacob Alfeev. All of them came from Galilee, only Judas bar-Simon, a native of the city of Keriot, was a southerner. To the latter Jesus entrusted the custody of the money of His community. Thus, perhaps, He wanted to emphasize His trust in Judas.
The name of this man has long become a symbol of baseness and treachery. However, it is doubtful that Christ wished to draw close to Himself a moral monster, a being morally hopeless. Probably, Judas' ideas about the work of the Teacher were wrong, but in this he differed little from Peter and the other apostles. It was difficult for all of them to overcome the illusions that were firmly rooted in their minds. Many of the disciples turned away from Jesus when it became clear that He was not what they imagined the Messiah to be. The drama of Judas was also connected with the loss of faith in the Master. But disappointment gave birth to a feeling of anger in him and pushed him to a treacherous step. Perhaps, in this way, he wanted to avenge his ambitious plans that had been destroyed. In any case, to believe that Judas was guided only by greed is to oversimplify the gospel tragedy.
All evangelists claim that these people, whom Jesus brought closer to Himself, at first poorly understood Himself and His purposes. Sometimes it was difficult for them to catch even a simple thought of the Master. This, of course, should have upset Jesus, but He patiently brought up the disciples and rejoiced every time something was clear to them. “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,” Jesus exclaimed at such moments, “that You hid this from the wise and prudent and revealed it to babies!” If the Good News had been delivered to the “wise men” first, there would have been a danger that its essence would remain obscured. This happened a hundred years later, when Eastern occultists adopted the new faith and intertwined Christianity with Gnostic theosophy. In true purity, the gospel was able to be preserved precisely by simpletons, alien to pride and “leadership”, not poisoned by dry casuistry and metaphysical theories, people who introduced the minimum of their own into the teachings of Jesus. Personality, thought, the will of the Lord were for them the only and most precious treasure.
Jesus loved this spiritual family and prioritized His relationship with them over blood relationship. When, during a large gathering of people, the Teacher was informed that His Mother and brothers were waiting outside the door, He pointed to the disciples: “Here are My Mother and My brothers...”

Gradually, the rumor about the Galilean Mentor and Healer spread throughout the region. Crowds constantly followed Jesus. As soon as He left to be alone, the disciples found Him: "Everyone is looking for You." And then Jesus again and again went to those who were waiting for Him.
But there were also in this ascetic life rare days, or rather, hours of rest. When you think about them, you involuntarily imagine an evening on the banks of Gennesaret. The sun sets behind the city. The massive silhouette of the synagogue stands out sharply against the background of the sunset. The wind slightly stirs the reeds and tree branches. To the east are purple hills. The singing of the fishermen returning home can be heard from afar.
Jesus sits on the stones of the shore, His eyes are turned to the calm surface of the water. Simon and other students appear. They silently stop, afraid to disturb the Teacher. And He sits motionless, immersed in prayer, illuminated by a quiet evening light. Do the disciples understand, do they guess, looking at Jesus at that moment, that in Him that Higher One, which creates and moves the Universe, will be revealed to them? ..
Short southern twilight, and now the stars light up over the sea. Everyone goes to Simon's house. The room is lit by the flickering fire of an earthen lamp; The teacher and students gathered at the table. The women serve a modest dinner. Jesus says a prayer of thanksgiving and breaks bread. He speaks of the Kingdom, for the sake of which one must boldly and decisively leave everything; the one who “takes up the plow and turns back” is unfit for the work of God.
Simon probably has many questions, but he is shy, although he is ready to follow his Lord to the ends of the earth. John's eyes sparkle; visions of the universal Judgment and the image of the Son of Man, crowned with the crown of David, flash through his mind...
Jesus continues to speak.
Night descends over Capernaum.

Chapter five.
GOOD NEWS

The Teaching of Christ is Good, or Joyful, News. So He Himself called him: Besora in Aramaic, in Greek the Gospel.
He brought to the world not new philosophical doctrines, not projects of social reforms, and not knowledge of the mysteries of the other world. He fundamentally changed the very attitude of people to God, revealing to them that His face, which before was only vaguely guessed. The Good News of Jesus speaks of man's higher calling and the joy that unity with the Creator gives him.
The inexhaustible richness of the Gospel is not easy to outline in brief, so we will focus only on the main points.

Heavenly Father and Sonship

The Old Testament most often spoke of the relationship between God and the people. The gospel puts forward the relationship between God and the soul.
Jesus' sermon is addressed not to the "masses", not to the faceless anthill, but to the individual. In the crowd, the spiritual level of people is reduced, they are at the mercy of herd instincts. That is why Christ attaches such importance to individual destinies. In any person there is a whole world, infinitely valuable in the eyes of God.
If Jesus used the word “flock,” it sounded very different in His mouth than it does today. For His listeners, it was associated with an object of love and constant care: the sheep were looked upon almost as members of the family. “The good shepherd,” Jesus said, “calls every sheep by name” and is ready to “lay down his life for it.”
When the scribes wondered why the Master associates with people of dubious reputation, He answered them with a parable:
“Which of you, having a hundred sheep and having lost one of them, does not leave ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until he finds her? And having found, he takes her on his shoulders, rejoicing; and, having come to his house, he calls friends and neighbors, and says to them: “Rejoice with me, because I found my lost sheep.” I tell you that in this way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous who do not need repentance. Or what woman who has ten drachmas, if she loses one drachma, does not light a lamp, and does not sweep the house, and does not search diligently until she finds it? And having found it, she calls her friends and neighbors and says: “Rejoice with me, because I found the drachma that I lost.” Thus, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

Speaking of Being, Jesus meant “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” that is, the God who revealed himself in the religious consciousness of the Old Testament; and, like the biblical prophets, the gospel of Christ teaches not so much about God "in Himself" as about God addressed to the world and man.
Of all the names by which the Creator is called in Scripture, Jesus preferred the word Father. In His prayers, it sounded like Abba. This is how children addressed their fathers in Aramaic.
This choice is deeply significant.
The “Father” in world religions is often referred to as the supreme Beginning. But usually He was presented as a despotic and powerful ruler. Such a view, which bears the impress of people's fear of existence and of earthly rulers, even affected the thinking of the Old Testament. When a Jew uttered the word “Father”, as a rule, he associated it with the concept of a harsh Lord and Protector of the whole people.
Only Jesus speaks of the Father, whom every human soul can have if they so desire. The gospel brings to people the gift of divine sonship. Those who receive it will fulfill the promises of Christ. They learn that one can speak with the Creator of the Universe one on one, as with “Abba”, as with a loving Father Who is waiting for reciprocal love.
The love of God does not impose itself, it protects human freedom. The Lord is like the owner of the house, who invites everyone to his feast and for whom the guests are a great joy. Christ expressed this idea even more clearly in the parable of the self-willed son.
The young man demanded from his father the share of the inheritance due to him and left for a foreign country. When parting with him, the father did not utter a single word of reproach. He did not want forced love and therefore did not hold back his son. When the young man squandered everything he had and returned back poor, hoping to become at least the last servant in the house, his father not only accepted him, but also arranged a feast in honor of the return of the prodigal son.
This caused envy and annoyance of the older brother.
“Here I have been serving you for so many years,” he said, “and I have never violated your commandments, and you have never given me a goat to have fun with my friends. And when your son came, having eaten away your property with harlots, you slaughtered a fatted calf for him.
“My child,” replied the father, “you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours, but you should have rejoiced and rejoiced that this brother of yours was dead and came to life, disappeared and was found.
Far from God there is no true life; leaving Him, a person reaps the bitter fruits of sin, but the Lord is always ready to accept the repentant - such is the meaning of the story. Heavenly will in it is symbolized not by a demanding master, a formidable king or a strict judge, but by a person who respects the freedom of another, a father who loves and forgives. This image most closely corresponds to the revelation of Christ about God. Just as a father patiently waited for his son, sitting at the threshold, so the Lord is looking for the free love of man.

They brought the children

One day the women brought children to Jesus to be blessed by Him. The disciples, fearing to tire Him, did not allow them to enter the house. But the Teacher said, "Let the children go, do not prevent them from coming to Me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." And when the disciples asked Christ who was the greatest in the Kingdom of God, He called the child, placed him among them and, embracing him, said: “Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” The openness and trustfulness of a child's soul is an image of a person's trust in his Divine Father (the Hebrew word emuna (faith) itself does not mean confidence in some abstract truth, but trust in God, fidelity to Him. From the same root, the word amen, right.). That's why Jesus loved the childish word "Abba".
“Sent,” says Apostle Paul, “God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit, crying out: Abba, Father! So you are no longer a slave, but a son.” The one who has known the happiness of divine sonship opens the world, as it were, anew. He broke free from the deadly grip of chance. The Lord is close to him and knows his every step, "all the hairs on his head are numbered."
Trust must be unlimited; it excludes "serving two masters". If a person is absorbed in the pursuit of vanity, then he gives his heart to the power of the idol of Mammon (as wealth was called in Aramaic). “What does it profit,” Jesus said, “to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” .
Having handed itself over to the Father, the soul overcomes care - not the daily care that is necessary, but a painful, obsessive, mind-clouding concern.
If the Father cares even for small birds, if he bestowed wondrous beauty on flowers, then will He really forget about His children? After all, they are dearer to Him than all creation.

So don't worry and don't say, "What shall we eat?"
or: “What shall we drink?” or: “what to wear?”,
for all these things the Gentiles seek;
your heavenly Father knows
that you need it all.

Living close to the Father casts out fear and uncertainty. By praying, the children of God open their thoughts, hopes and sorrows to Him. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.”
If, as the parable of Christ says, even a heartless judge could not refuse the poor widow who persistently asked him, then will the loving Father refuse those who turn to Him with a prayer? In prayer, it is important to be sure that a person will be heard.

Is there a person between you
from whom his son asks for bread,
and he will give him a stone?
Or ask the fish
and he will give him a snake?
So if you, being evil,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more your Father who is in heaven,
will give good to those who ask Him.

The pagans believed that the gods themselves needed offerings. This idea was deeply alien to the Old Testament. All nature belongs to the Creator. The most precious gift to Him is the human heart. Rites only make sense when they express love for the Creator. Therefore, Jesus did not reject the custom of offering sacrifices on the altar. He even pointed out that this should not be done without reconciling with his brother. However, it is noteworthy that the evangelists nowhere say that Christ Himself participated in the sacrifices. The temple for Him was first of all a “house of prayer”.
But neither the temple action, nor even joint prayer can replace communion with God in private, a secret conversation with the Father.
God does not need a formal tribute of worship, respectable religiosity, subject to custom. Jesus warns:

When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites
who like to pray in synagogues
and standing on street corners
to show people...
You, when you pray
enter into your inner peace;
and shut your door
pray to your Father,
Which is in secret;
and your Father who sees in secret,
will reward you.
When you pray, do not talk like pagans;
for they think that in their verbosity they will be heard.
So don't be like them
for your Father knows
what you need.

If we ask anything from God, it is only because we confess before Him everything that lies on our hearts.
Jesus teaches to pray in simple words, with love and trust:

Our Father who is in heaven! We are your children, and you have our homeland.
May your name be hallowed. Let reverence for your sacred secret be in us.
May Your kingdom come, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are waiting for You to reign in all Your creation, so that Your plan will be fulfilled and You alone become our King and Lord.
Give us our daily bread today. Support our life now, for we believe that You will take care of tomorrow.
And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors. The filial debt that we so badly pay to You is reciprocal love. Teach us to love and forgive one another as You love and forgive us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Protect us from evil coming from outside and from ourselves.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Note that the first place in this prayer is not human desires, but the will of the Lord. Turning to Him, people should not seek only their own. The Son is always ready to rely on the Father in everything.
The words “Thy kingdom come” indicate that it has not yet come in full. Christ directly says that in this “age” demonic forces rule on earth. Satan is still "the prince of this world."
Christ did not explain where the evil came from, and therefore considered sufficient what was revealed in the Old Testament. Man is called not so much to think about evil as to fight against it. In the Gospel, the problem of evil is a practical problem, a vital task set before those who seek agreement with God's plan.

commandment of love

Evil, with which a person comes into contact most closely, lives in himself: the will to dominate, suppress and violence, on the one hand, and blind rebellion, seeking self-affirmation and boundless scope for instincts, on the other. These demons slumber at the bottom of the soul, ready to break out at any moment. They are nourished by the feeling of their "I" as the only center of value. The dissolution of the “I” in the elements of society, it would seem, limits the rebellion of the individual, but at the same time it levels out, erases the personality. The way out of the impasse was given in the biblical commandment: "Love your neighbor as yourself." She calls for a struggle against animal egocentric principles, for the recognition of the value of another “I”, for a struggle that should create a higher person, a “new creation”. Only love can defeat Satan.
Let much in the world around man and in himself rise up against the commandment of love; people will find the power to fulfill it in Him Who Himself is Love, Who revealed Himself in the Gospel of Jesus as a merciful Father.
Genuine faith is inseparable from humanity. People who forget this are like builders who built a house without a foundation, right on the sand. Such a building is doomed to collapse at the first storm.
As the basis of morality, Jesus preserved the precepts of the Decalogue. “If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments,” He said to the rich young man. In addition, He approved of Hillel's principle: "Do not do to another what is not pleasing to yourself," but gave this saying a shade of greater activity and effectiveness. “In everything you want people to do to you, do the same to them.”
The gospel is far from negative moralism with its formal scheme of "virtue" which boils down to nothing but prohibitions. Blessed Augustine wrote: "Love God, and then do as you like," that is, the attitude towards people should flow organically from faith. He who knows the Father cannot but love His creation. Moreover, Jesus directly says: "What you did to one of the least of My brothers, you did to Me." He will judge not by the "beliefs" of people, but by their deeds. He who serves his neighbor serves God, even if he does not realize it.

And what should the disciples of Christ do if they encounter the misdeeds of other people?
Many Jewish teachers spoke out against the sin of judgment. Jesus wholeheartedly approves of this.
Expecting forgiveness from the Lord, you need to learn to forgive yourself. Will that person act well who, having received forgiveness from the king of a large debt, himself turns out to be a ruthless creditor and throws his comrade into a debtor's prison?
When we see the weaknesses of our neighbor, we should not pass judgment on him, but sympathize, remembering our own sinfulness. “Judge not,” Jesus warns, “lest you also be judged, for by what judgment you judge, and by what measure you measure, so shall it be measured to you. Why do you look at the mote in your brother's eye, but do not notice the beam in your eye? .
The Pharisees used to look down on "ignorant in the Law." The word "am-haaretz", a hillbilly, was among them a synonym for the wicked. They wanted nothing to do with such a person. It was impossible to pray together with him, to sit down at the table and even to feed him in case of need. “The ignoramus is not afraid of sin, the am-khaar cannot be righteous,” the scientists said. Jesus was the exact opposite in this respect. He rather preferred to deal with ordinary people. Moreover, all the outcasts, all the pariahs of society found in Him a friend and intercessor. Publicans, who were not recognized as people, and street women were often among those who surrounded Him. This shocked the respectable scribes, who boasted of their righteousness. Hearing their complaints, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Go and learn what it means: "I want mercy, not sacrifice." I came to call not the righteous, but sinners.”

Who among you is without sin?

Christ put sincere repentance above the tranquility of those who considered themselves pleasing to God. One day He told about two people praying in the temple. One - a pious Pharisee - thanked God that he was "not like other people", often fasts, donates to the Temple and is unlike "this publican". And the publican stood in the distance, not daring to raise his eyes, beating his chest and lamentingly repeating: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” “I tell you,” Jesus concluded the parable, “this one came to his house justified, not that one. For everyone who lifts himself up will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be lifted up.”
However, repentance should not be limited to words. No wonder John the Baptist spoke of the “fruits of repentance.” Again, Jesus gives an example from everyday life: “A man had two children, and he went up to the first one and said, “My child, go work in the vineyard today.” He answered: “I am going, sir,” and did not go. And, going to the second, he said the same. And he answered: “I don’t want to,” and then he repented and went. Which of the two carried out the will of the father? .
When Jesus visited Matthew's house, where his companions, the publicans, had gathered, it caused an outburst of indignation. Reproaches fell on the Teacher. How can He share a meal with such persons? However, Jesus once again reminded that every soul deserves care and compassion. Those who forget this are like the older brother from the parable of the prodigal son, who did not rejoice at the return of the wanderer.
By drawing sinners closer to Himself, Christ wanted to awaken in them repentance and a thirst for a new life. Often, His kindness and trust performed genuine miracles.
Once the Master was passing through Jericho. At the gates of the city He was met by a multitude of people. Everyone wanted Jesus to stay in their house. One of the Jericho men, named Zacchaeus, “chief of the publicans,” tried to squeeze through the crowd, hoping to at least look at the Teacher with one eye, but his small stature prevented him. Then, forgetting about decency, he ran ahead and climbed a tree, by which the Lord was supposed to pass.
Jesus actually approached this place and, looking up, noticed a little man sitting on a fig tree. “Zacchaeus,” Jesus said suddenly, “come down quickly! Today I need to be with you.”
Beside himself with joy, the publican ran home to meet the Lord, and those around him began to grumble: “He stayed with such a sinful person!”
But the Master's step had an effect.
“Lord,” said Zacchaeus, meeting Him, “half of what I have, I give to the poor, and if I unjustly forced something from someone, I will compensate four times.
“Now salvation has come to this house,” answered Christ, “because he, too, is the son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost.
In Capernaum, a certain Pharisee Simon invited Jesus to his place. During dinner, a woman entered the room, known in the area for her dissolute lifestyle. In her hands was an alabaster vessel with precious incense; standing silently near the Teacher, she wept, then fell at His feet, irrigating them with myrrh and wiping them with her loose hair. Did she hear Jesus' words about forgiveness of sinners? Did you want to thank Him for mercy to the fallen? But this scene unpleasantly struck the host. "If He were a prophet," the Pharisee thought squeamishly, "he would know what sort of woman touches Him." Meanwhile, Jesus penetrated his thoughts.
- Simon, I have something to tell you.
- Tell me, Teacher.
- A certain creditor had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Since they had nothing to pay, he forgave them both. Which of them will love him more?
- I believe that the one to whom he forgave more.
“You judged correctly,” Jesus answered and explained why he brought this parable. He pointed out the difference between Simon, who considered himself blameless and for whom the conversation with Jesus was only an argument, and a woman who was aware of her fall. She reached out to the One Who can forgive her and save her from her former life.
When Christ directly addressed the harlot with the words: “Your sins are forgiven,” everyone present was even more indignant. The strange Prophet asked them a new riddle. Can anyone but God forgive sins? Where does this Nazarene have the right to speak with such authority?
But they would have been more indignant if they had heard Jesus interpret the sacred precepts of the Law.
old and new
Many generations of Jewish theologians have tried to accurately determine the number of commandments contained in the Torah, and some of them believed that there are commandments that express the very foundation of faith. Therefore, one of the scribes decided to get the opinion of Jesus and thereby get a clear idea of ​​the views of the Galilean Instructor.
“Master,” he asked, “what is the first commandment of all?”
- The first is, - answered Christ, - “Listen, Israel! The Lord our God is one God, and love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” And here's the second one: "Love your neighbor as yourself." There is no other commandment greater than these. These two commandments hold the Law and the Prophets (“The Law and the Prophets” is a synonym for the Old Testament.).
“Excellent, Teacher,” the scribe had to agree. - Truly You said that He is one and there is no other besides Him; and love Him with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself, more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.
Answering the scribe, Christ determined His attitude to the ancient Mosaic Law, and from His words it becomes clear why He wanted to keep it. When it came to Scripture, Jesus was direct:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets;
I came not to abolish, but to fulfill.
For truly I say to you:
until heaven and earth pass,
not one iota or not one tittle will pass in the Law,
until it all comes true...
If your righteousness will not
more than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Thus, Christ taught about the Bible as a divine Revelation and recognized the need for a living church tradition that would reveal its meaning. That's why He told the people about the Pharisees: "Whatever they tell you, do it." But if the scribes often added hundreds of petty rules to the Law, then Jesus returned the Old Testament to its sources, to the Ten Commandments of Sinai, to the authentic Mosaic heritage preserved by the prophets. Moreover, He was also careful about external prescriptions, not wanting to tempt “these little ones” and break with tradition. “No one,” Jesus remarked, “having drunk the old (wine), will not want the young, for he says: the old is better.” Nevertheless, in interpreting the Torah, He shifted the center of gravity from the sphere of ceremonies to the sphere of spiritual and moral. Moreover, He deepened and supplemented the ethical requirements of the Law.
If the Law forbade murder, then Jesus calls to expel hatred from the heart - the root of the crime. If the Law condemned the violation of fidelity in marriage, then Jesus speaks of the danger of vicious feelings. If the Law required the observance of an oath, then Jesus generally considers it superfluous:

May your word be
“yes - yes”, “no - no”,
and what is beyond this is from the evil one.

In pagan codes, punishment was often more severe than the crime itself. The Old Testament laid the foundation for the law of justice: "An eye for an eye - a tooth for a tooth." Jesus separates criminal law from morality, where different principles apply. It is natural for people to hate their enemies, but the children of God must overcome evil with good. They should fight vindictive feelings. Moreover, they should wish well to their offenders. This is the highest feat and a manifestation of the true strength of the spirit, assimilation to the Creator Himself.

Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may become sons of your Father who is in heaven,
because He raises His sun over the evil and the good
and it rains on the righteous and the unrighteous.
For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have?
Do not the publicans do the same?
And if you greet only your brothers,
what are you doing special?
Don't the pagans do the same thing?
So be perfect
how perfect your heavenly Father is.

Putting forward the spiritual essence of the Law to the first place, Christ returned the original meaning to the prescription of the Sabbath.
A person of our day cannot always appreciate the significance of this commandment. Having become accustomed to the established days of rest, we forget what the Sabbath was for the ancients. She did not allow daily worries to overwhelm the soul, providing time for prayer and reflection; she gave a break in work to everyone: both free and slaves, and even domestic animals.
However, there was also a flip side. Many devout people, preserving the holiness of the "seventh day", began to attach an exaggerated importance to it.
During the Maccabean War, a group of rebels preferred to die "without throwing a stone" than to fight on the Sabbath, and were completely exterminated. Then the inspirer of the struggle for the faith, the priest Mattathias, decided to act differently. “We will fight on Saturday,” he said. And among the Pharisees more than once there were voices of protest against the exaggeration of the laws of rest. “The Sabbath is given to you, and not you to the Sabbath,” said one of them. And yet, the statutory prohibitions continued to grow, obscuring the purpose of God's blessed gift. Pedants literally paralyzed life on Saturday. The Essenes were especially zealous. They believed, for example, that if a person or animal fell into a pit on Saturday, they could only be pulled out the next day.
Christ saw in such views a distortion of the spirit of the Mosaic commandment. “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,” He said.
Once on Saturday, the disciples of Jesus, hungry, began to pluck the ears, grind them and eat the grains. The Pharisees considered this a form of threshing and asked, “Why do your disciples break the Sabbath?” Then the Teacher reminded them that David, when he was left without food with his retinue, took sacrificial bread, and after all, only priests were supposed to eat them. The king did the right thing, because human need is more important than ritual prohibitions.
Several times Jesus performed healings on the Sabbath and thus provoked protests from the lawyers. They began to closely follow Him in order to publicly rebuke Him for disrespect for the Law. In vain did He refer to the fact that some important rites on the Sabbath are not cancelled, in vain did He explain to them that helping people is always God's work. He asked the Pharisees, “Which of you whose son or ox falls into a well will not pull him up on the Sabbath day?” . They could not find convincing objections, but stood their ground.
Sometimes Jesus deliberately challenged theologians. A man with a paralyzed hand came to the synagogue, hoping to receive healing from the Master.