| The second preparatory Sunday of Great Lent is termed the «Sunday of the Prodigal Son.» In the touching parable of the Prodigal Son read during Liturgy, the Holy Church teaches us to rely on the mercy of God, provided we have sincerely repented of our sins. On this Sunday and the succeeding two Sundays, during the Polyeleos at the All-night Vigil, Psalm 136 is chanted: By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and we wept when we remembered Sion... This psalm describes the suffering of the Jews during the Babylonian captivity and their longing for their fatherland. The words of this psalm teach us about our spiritual captivity, the captivity to sin, and that we should aspire towards our spiritual fatherland, the Heavenly Kingdom. The final words of this psalm scandalize many with reference to Blessed shall be he who shall seize and dash thine infants (those of the Babylonians) against the rock! Of course, the literal meaning of these words is brutal and unacceptable for the Christian, for the Lord Himself taught us to love and bless our enemies and to worship God in spirit and truth. These words gain a pure and lofty significance with a Christian and spiritual nature, for they mean, «Blessed is he who has a firm resolve to break, on the rock of faith, the newly forming evil thoughts and desires (as it were in their infant state) before they mature into evil deeds and habits.» The third preparatory Sunday before Great Lent is called «Meat-fare Sunday,» because after this Sunday, of non-fasting foods, one is allowed to eat cheese, milk, butter, and eggs, but no meat or poultry. This Sunday is also termed the «The Sunday of the Last Judgement,» as the Gospel passage concerning the Dread Judgement is read, describing the final reward or punishment awaiting us, and thereby awakening the sinner to repentance. In the hymns on Cheese-fare Sunday, the fall into sin of Adam and Eve is recalled, which resulted from lack of self-control and fasting, with their salvific fruits. |
| 4 . That God knows long before every detail of the future, is, apart from Scripture, from the very conception of God clear to him who understands the power and excellence of the Divine understanding. If, however, we must prove this from the Scriptures, the prophecies are full of suitable illustrations; and, according to Susanna, God knows all things before they be: for she thus speaks, «O everlasting God, that knowest the secrets, and knowest all things before they be, Thou knowest that they have borne false witness against me». 539 And in the third Book of the Kings even the name of a future king, and his acts, were thus prophetically described many years before the events took place. «And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he went up unto the altar which is in Bethel, which he made for the calves which he made». 540 Then, a little farther on, «And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel: and Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense. And he cried against the altar by the word of the Lord, and said, O altar, altar! thus saith the Lord, Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he sacrifice the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men " s bones shall they burn upon thee. And he gave a sign the same clay, saying, This is the sign which the Lord hath spoken: Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the fat that is upon it shall be poured out». 541 And, a little farther on, it is shown that «the altar also was rent, and the fat poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the Word of the Lord». 542 5 . And in Isaiah, who lived long before the Babylonish Captivity, there is this prophecy concerning Cyrus by name, Cyrus king of the Persians, who lived some time after the Captivity, and assisted in the building of the Temple in the days of Esdras. |
| Even in the pagan world there were preserved – even though in a distorted form – traditions concerning the origin and originally blessed condition of mankind (the Golden Age), concerning the fall of our first ancestors in Paradise, concerning the Flood as a consequence of man’s corruption, and-most important of all – the tradition of a coming Redeemer of the human race and the expectation of His coming, as may be seen in the works of Plato, Plutarch, Virgil, Ovid, Strabo, and likewise in the history of the religions of the ancient world (for example, the prediction of the sibyls (The sybils were pagan seeresses whose oracles and predictions were highly regarded in pagan Rome. These oracles referred for the most part to the destiny of peoples, kingdoms, and rulers, and some of them hinted at the coming of Christ.), of which we read in Cicero and Virgil). The pagans found themselves in contact with the chosen people by means of mutual visits, sea voyages, wars, the captivities of the Jews (especially the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities), and trade, and thanks to the dispersion of the Jews into the various countries of the three parts of the old world towards the end of the Old Testament period. Under these conditions, the light of faith in the One God and hope in a Redeemer could be spread to other peoples also. Over two centuries prior to Christ’s Nativity, a translation of the sacred books of the Hebrews had been made into Greek, and many pagan scholars, writers, and educated people in general made use of it; there are various testimonies of this, particularly among the ancient Christian writers. From the Sacred Scripture we know that apart from the chosen people there were other people also who had preserved faith in the One God, and were on the way to the acceptance of piety. We learn of this in the account of Melchisedek in the book of Genesis ( Gen. 14:18 ), in the history of Job, in the account of the father-in-law of Moses, Jethro of Midian (Exodus 18), in the account of Balaam, who prophecied concerning the Messiah: “I shall see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not nigh” ( Num. 24:17 ), and in the repentance of the Ninevites after the preaching of Jonah. |
| He foretold that the Saviour would suffer and die for our sins. «But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed...He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth» ( Is. 53:5–7 ). Isaiah also prophesied that the Saviour would be crucified with evildoers , and would be buried not with them, but in the tomb of a rich man. Through faith in Christ the Saviour, people would save themselves from eternal damnation. For the clarity of his predictions about Christ the Saviour, the Prophet Isaiah is called «the Old Testament Evangelist.» At that time Isaiah was ardently exposing the wrongdoing of the Jewish King, Manasseh. The impious King placed altars to pagan idols in Solomon? Temple. However, at the end of Manasseh? life, after being taken captive and put in prison, he repented and asked God? forgiveness. Under the influence of their impious King, the Jewish people began to completely forget the true God. The Jews even stopped celebrating the Passover and other feasts established by Moses. The holy Prophet Isaiah endured a martyr? death. For exposing the wrongdoing of King Manasseh, he was sawed in two. Note: See II Kings, chaps. 16 and 18–23; II Chronicles, chaps. 28–35; Book of Isaiah and other prophets. The Fall of the Judean Kingdom . The Prophet Jeremiah. For a long time the Lord endured the sins of the Jewish people and awaited their repentance, but the people did not reform themselves. Through the Prophet Jeremiah God clearly foretold that for their evil deeds, the Jewish people would be subjugated and led into captivity by the Babylonians and that the Jews would be in captivity for seventy years . At first, the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar ( Jer. 37:1 ) subjugated the Jewish King, but he preserved Jerusalem and did not destroy all the Jewish kingdom. |
| The Prophet Daniel. The Prophet Daniel was descended from the royal family. While still a young boy, he was taken prisoner to a Babylonian prison. In prison, by the will of King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel was chosen with several other imprisoned youths of the children of Israel to serve in the King? palace. The King ordered that they be brought up in the palace, taught in various fields of knowledge and in the language of the Chaldeans. The King appointed them a daily provision of food from his own table. Among those chosen besides Daniel were Ananias, Azarias, and Misael . Daniel and his three friends firmly kept faith in the true God. They did not wish to eat the King? meat in order to avoid being defiled by anything forbidden by the Law of Moses. They begged the prince of eunuchs to give them only bread and vegetables. The prince would not agree for fear they would lose weight, and the King would decapitate him. But Daniel asked him to do as they asked for ten days. When ten days had passed, Daniel and his friends not only did not lose weight, but they appeared fatter, more healthy and fairer than all the other children. After this they were not required to eat the King? food. For such strict observance of the Law, for their fasting and piety, God rewarded these young boys with great ability and success in their studies. In tests, they proved to be more intelligent and better than the others, and they were given positions in the King? palace. To Daniel, God gave the gift of interpreting dreams, as He had once to Joseph. The rise of the Hebrew youths benefited the Jews in captivity. The piety of the youths served to defend the Jews from oppression and to better their life in captivity. Furthermore, through them the pagans were able to come to a knowledge of the true God and to glorify Him. One day Nebuchadnezzar had an unusual dream, but when he awoke in the morning, he could not remember it. This dream greatly distressed the King. He convened all his wise men and magicians and ordered them to recall this dream and explain it. But they were not able do it and said, «There is not a man upon the earth that can recall the dream for the king» ( Dan. 2:10 ). Nebuchadnezzar was infuriated and wanted to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. |
| Ancient tradition tells us that after the Babylonian captivity, the Jews refrained out of reverential awe from uttering the name Yahweh, the One Who Is. Only the high priest could do so, and this once a year on the day of Yom Kippur, when he went into the Holy of Holies to offer incense. If an ordinary person or even a priest wanted to say something about God, he substituted other names for Yahweh, usually the name Adonai (the Lord). In script the Jews indicated the word «God» by the sacred tetragrammaton YHWH. The ancient Jews knew well that there was no name or word in human language that could convey the essence of God. In refraining from pronouncing the name of God, the Jews showed that it is possible to be at one with God not so much through words and descriptions, but through a reverential and trembling silence. THE DIVINE NAMES «How can we speak of the Divine names? How can we do this if the Transcendent surpasses all discourse and all knowledge..? How can we enter upon this undertaking if the Godhead is superior to being and is unspeakable and unnameable?», says Dionysius the Areopagite. At the same time, God, being totally transcendent, is present in the created world and revealed through it. All creation longs for God, and more especially, we humans crave for knowledge of Him. Therefore God is to be praised both «by every name» and «as the Nameless One». Nameless in His essence, God is variously named by humanity when He reveals Himself to us. Some of the names attributed to God emphasize His superiority over the visible world; His power, dominion and kingly dignity. The name Lord (Greek, Kyrios) signifies the supreme dominion of God not only over His chosen people, but also over the whole world. The name of Almighty (Greek, Pantokrator) signifies that God holds all things in His hand; He upholds the world and its order. The names Holy, «Holy Place», Holiness, Sanctification, Good and Goodness indicate that God not only contains within Himself the whole plenitude of goodness and holiness, but He also pours out this goodness onto all of His creatures, sanctifying them. |
| And it foretells the mercy of God upon His People, as well as the gentiles, in the time of His redemption in the messianic age. The famous vision of the prophet in chapter six is included in the eucharistic prayers of the Orthodox Church. Of central importance in Isaiah are the prophecies in the first part of the book, especially chapters six to twelve, concerning the coming of the Messiah-King; and the prophecies at the end of the book, about the salvation of all creation in the suffering servant of the Lord. The entire book of Isaiah is read in the Church during Great Lent, and many selections are read at the vigils of the great feasts of the Church. In the New Testament scriptures there are innumerable quotations of the prophecy of Isaiah made in reference to John the Baptist, and most especially to Christ Himself. The book of Jeremiah covers the period of the seventh century before Christ and, like Isaiah, prophecies the Lord’s wrath upon His sinful people. Jeremiah, a most reluctant prophet, suffered greatly at the hands of the people and was constantly persecuted for his proclamation of the Word of the Lord. The book is referred to many times in the New Testament. The messianic prophecies of salvation in Jeremiah are often read in the festal services of the Church. The books of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah from the apocrypha go together with this prophetic book in the Orthodox version of the Bible. The book of Ezekiel, who was a priest as well as a prophet, is dated at the time of the Babylonian Captivity. Once again, the prophet is directly concerned with God’s righteous anger over the sins of His People, making specific reference to the presence – and the departure – of the Lord’s glory in the Jerusalem Temple. Ezekiel, however, like all of the prophets, is not without hope in the mercy of God. The moving passage about God’s resurrection of the “dry bones” of dead Israel through the breathing in of His Holy Spirit is read over the tomb of Christ at the Great Saturday service of the Orthodox Church. |
| For to pray is not proper to God, nor to the sharer of the Throne. Seest thou then that He came to this(2) from no other cause than their unbelief? Observe at least that the action beareth witness to His authority. What is it which they counsel to do?(8) They wish to stir up the people, as though they themselves would be in danger on suspicion of establishing a kingdom. " For if, " saith one of them, " the Romans learn(9) that this Man is leading the multitudes, they will suspect us,(10) and will come and destroy our city. " Wherefore, tell me? Did He teach revolt? Did He not permit you to give tribute to Cæsar? Did not ye wish to make Him a king, and He fly from you? Did He not follow n a mean and unpretending(12) life, having neither house nor anything else of the kind? They therefore said this, not from any such expectation, but from malice. Yet it so fell out contrary to their expectation, and the Romans took their nation and city when they had slain Christ. For the things done by Him were beyond all suspicion. For He who healed the sick, and taught the most excellent way of life, and commanded men to obey their rulers, was not establishing but undoing a tyranny. " But, " saith some one, " we conjecture from former (impostors). " But they taught revolt, He the contrary. Seest thou that the words were but a pretense? For what action of the kind did He exhibit? Did He lead about with Him(13) pompous(14) guards? had He a train of chariots? Did He not seek the deserts? But they, that they may not seem to be speaking from their own ill feeling,(15) say that all the city is in danger, that the common weal is being plotted against, and that they have to fear the worst. These were not the causes of your captivity, but things contrary to them; both of this last, and of the Babylonish, and of that under Antiochus which followed: it was not that there were worshipers among you, but that there were among you those who did unjustly, and excited God to wrath, this caused you to be given up into bondage. But such a thing is envy, allowing men to see nothing which they ought to see, when it has once for all blinded the soul. Did He not teach men to be meek? Did He not bid them when smitten on the right cheek to turn the other also? Did He not bid them when injured to bear it? to show greater readi ness to endure evil, than others have to inflict it? Are these, tell me, the signs of one establishing a tyranny, and not rather of one pulling a tyranny down? |
| In what consists this “fullness of time” which was ordained for the work of redemption? In the verses which precede the quoted words of the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians, the Apostle speaks of the time before the coming of the Saviour as being “when we were children” ( Gal. 4:3 ). Thus, he calls the period of the Old Testament “childhood,” the time of upbringing, the guidance of children under the law of Moses; while the coming of the Saviour is the end of “childhood.” We can understand the significance of this preparatory period if we are guided by the parable of the Prodigal Son. The father sorrowed over the departure from his house of his beloved son. However, not violating the dignity and freedom of his son, he waited until the son, having experienced the bitterness of evil and recalled the goodness of life in his father’s house, himself became homesick for the father’s house and opened his soul for the father’s love. Thus it was with the human race also. “My soul thirsteth after Thee like a waterless land” ( Ps. 142:6 ) could have been said by the best part of mankind; it had become a “thirsty land,” having tasted to the dregs the bitterness of estrangement from God. The Lord did not abandon men, did not turn utterly away, but from the moment of the fall into sin led them toward the future salvation. 1. Having cut off the criminality of the original mankind by means of the Flood, the Lord chose first from the descendants of Noah, who had been saved from the Flood, a single race for the preservation of piety and faith in the one true God, and likewise of faith in the coming Saviour. This was the race of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and then the whole Hebrew people. In His care for His chosen people, God led them out of slavery, preserved them in the desert, settled them in a land flowing with milk and honey; He made covenants: the covenant of circumcision and the covenant of the law of Sinai; He sent them judges, prophets, warned them, chastisedthem, and again had mercy, leading them out of the Babylonian captivity; and finally, from their midst He prepared a chosen one, who became the Mother of the Son of God. |
| On the translations: LXX has with babyloni unambiguously a dative (”for Babylon”). Only Vulgata has, to be sure, in Babylone, “in Babylon”, thus King James Version “at Babylon”, and so probably also the New World Translation. – Letter JenniJonsson, October 1, 2003. (Emphasis added.) Thus, as Jeremiah 29:10 they cannot refer to the period of the desolation of Jerusalem and its temple, or even to the period of the Jewish exile at Babylon. Rather, like Jeremiah 25:10–12 is the period of Babylonian supremacy. This is also the conclusion arrived at by scholars who have carefully examined the text. Some typical comments are cited in the accompanying box. Jeremiah 25:10–12 of the seventy years. The next two texts to be discussed, Daniel 9:2 references to Jeremiah’s prophecy. Neither of them pretends to be a thorough discussion of the prophecy nor gives a detailed application of the period. Every attempt to find an application of the seventyyear period, therefore, must proceed from the prophecy, not from the references to it. It is only the prophecy that gives specific details on the seventy years, as follows, (1) that they refer to “these nations,” (2) that they were to be a period of servitude for these nations, (3) that they refer to the period of Babylonian supremacy, and (4) that this period would be fulfilled when the king of Babylon was punished. Such detailed information is missing in the latter references to the prophecy by Daniel and Ezra. The discussion of these references, then, should always be done in the light of what the prophecy actually is about. The seventy years «for Babylon» «The sense of the Hebrew original might even be rendered thus: ‘After seventy years of (the rule of) Babylon are accomplished etc.’ The seventy years counted here evidently refer to Babylon and not to the Judeans or to their captivity. They mean seventy years of Babylonian rule, the end of which will see the redemption of the exiles» – Dr. Avigdor On, «The seventy years of Babylon,» Vetus Testamentum, Vol. VI (1956), p. 305. |
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