| If, as we have argued above, «the Father " s house» alludes to the temple, some might draw a connection between that house and the «place prepared.» The temple was sometimes spoken of as a place that had been prepared, as the building «which will be revealed, with me, that was already prepared from the moment I decided to create Paradise.» 8413 Whether or not we accept McNamarás contention that «preparing a resting place» for God was a regular expression for God " s sanctuary in this period, 8414 the idea of preparing a place for the disciples in God " s house might connote the places the priests would have in the eschatological temple ( Ezek 45:4–5 ; cf. 40:45–46; 42:13; 44:16); and in the Fourth Gospel, the eschatological temple is clearly in Jesus himself. 8415 Since the temple would naturally be viewed as a dwelling of the deity 8416 and the hope of Israel was God " s covenant-dwelling among them (Rev 21:3, 22), 8417 the point of the text would not have been difficult to grasp. In Scripture, God had promised to dwell among his covenant people ( Lev 26:12 ; Ezek 37:26–28 ); in the new covenant, God would put his laws in their hearts ( Jer 31:33 ). Nevertheless, it remains uncertain whether John intends a deliberate allusion to the temple with «prepared.» Other texts speak of eschatological places God prepared for his people (Matt 20:23; 25:34; Heb 11:16), and most significantly, Revelation employs John " s language for the present period of suffering and divine protection between the first and second coming, without reference to the temple (Rev 12:6). 8418 The language of «preparing» was also appropriate for «preparing a house " –for instance, getting things there in order or meeting someone important (Tob 11:3); it so functions in the passion tradition familiar from Mark ( Mark 14:15 ). One may read 14:2, with many versions, as a question: «If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?» Reading the line as a question allows one to take the τι into account. 8419 Others read the line as a statement rather than a question because Jesus had nowhere promised to prepare a place for them earlier in this Gospel and John is too thorough in foreshadowing to have likely omitted the explicit source for a reference here. 8420 If Jesus» «going» to prepare a place for them (14:2–3) meant going to the Father by death (13:33,36; 14:12,28; 16:5,7,10,17, 28), then presumably the preparation was completed on the cross, probably when Jesus declared, «It is finished» (19:30). 2E. Future or Realized Eschatology? (14:2–3) |
| Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments: and let no flower of the spring pass by us: Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered…Let none of us go without his part of our voluptuousness … Let us oppress the poor righteous man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient gray hairs of the aged. Let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth. (Wisdom 2:1, 6ff) In this mindset, death is seen as good: Ungodly men with their works and words called [death] to them. . . they thought to have it their friend … and made a covenant with it (Wisdom 1:16) Today we have a “culture of death.” It solves many problems, such as unwanted children and old folks who have become a burden. Ironically we describe it as a “blessing” when it puts an end to suffering and what seems to be a hopeless situation. But suffering is the work of death in the first place; it is an earlier stage of the same enemy. Death is at work in us from birth, hastening us to destruction. No matter what his age or condition, for a human being, created in the image of God, to cease to live should always be seen as incomprehensible, an outrage, an insult and a tragedy. This is well expressed in the hymns of St. John of Damascus, sung at every Orthodox funeral: I weep and I wail when I think upon death, and behold our beauty, fashioned after the image of God, lying in the tomb disfigured, dishonoured, bereft of form. O marvel! What is this mystery which doth befall us? Why have we been given over unto corruption, and why have we been wedded unto death? If we see the reality and evil of death, we can see what Good News is the Resurrection, that Christ took our flesh and blood that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. (Heb. 2:14-15) When the disciples encounter the risen Lord they have an experience already of the age to come, when God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. (Rev. 21:4 ) |
| PARADISE The place of rest for the departed in Christ. The original Paradise, seen in Gen. 2:8-14, will be restored in its fullness following the Second Coming of Christ. See Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 12:4; 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 2:7; 21:1. PARADOX That which is true, but not conventionally logical: for example, that a virgin could bear a Son and yet remain a virgin, as did Mary; or that God can be One, yet three Persons. The Christian faith is full of paradoxes, because our intellect is not sufficient to comprehend the mind of God (see Is. 55:8, 9). PASCHA Greek for " Passover. " Originally Pascha designated the Jewish Passover; now, it is the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ. Christ is the Lamb of God whose sacrifice delivers the faithful from death, as the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb delivered the ancient Jews from slavery and death in Egypt (Ex. 12; 13; 1 Cor. 5:7, 8). PASSION (1) A term used to describe the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. (2) Holy Week is often called Passion Week, describing Christ’s struggle and suffering in (3) Passions are human appetites or urges—such as hunger, the desire for pleasure and sexual drives—which become a source of sin when not controlled or directed by submission to the will of God (Rom. 1:26; 7:5; Gal. 5:24; Col. 3:5). PEACE (Heb. shalom) Tranquillity, harmony with God, self, and other people made possible through Christ, who unites human beings to God and to each other. See Rom. 14:17; Gal. 5:22; Eph. 2:13-16; Phil. 4:6, 7. PENTECOST Originally an OT harvest festival celebrated fifty days following the In time, Pentecost became the commemoration of the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Pentecost took on a new meaning with the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles at Pentecost. Through the Sacrament of Chrismation, Orthodox Christians experience their own personal Pentecost. Every Divine Liturgy becomes a Pentecost through the descent of the Holy Spirit on the faithful and the gifts (the bread and wine), transforming them into the Body and Blood of Christ. See Ex. 23:14-17; Lev. 23:15-21; Acts 2:1-41. |
| Patrologia Graeca, Vol. 91 col. 465c On temptations and the passions Nothing created by God is evil. It is not food that is evil but gluttony, not the begetting of children but unchastity, not material things but avarice, not esteem but self-esteem. It is only the misuse of things that is evil, not the things themselves. As man I deliberately transgressed the divine commandment, when the devil, enticing me with the hope of divinity (cf. Gen. 3:5), dragged me down from my natural stability into the realm of sensual pleasure; and he was proud to have thus brought death into existence, for he delights in the corruption of human nature. Because of this, God became perfect man, taking on everything that belongs to human nature except sin (cf. Heb. 4:15); and indeed sin is not part of human nature, In this way, by enticing the insatiable serpent with the bait of the flesh. He provoked him to open his mouth and swallow it. This flesh proved poison to him, destroying him utterly by the power of the Divinity within it; but to human nature it proved a remedy restoring it to its original grace by that same power of the Divinity within it. For just as the devil poured out his venom of sin on the tree of knowledge and corrupted human nature once it had tasted it, so when he wished to devour the flesh of the Master he was himself destroyed by the power of the Divinity within it. Various Texts on Theology, the Divine Economy, and Virtue and Vice 1.11, The Philokalia: The Complete Text (Vol. 2) The demons attack the person who has attained the summits of prayer in order to prevent his conceptual images of sensible things from being free from passion; they attack the gnostic so that he will dally with impassioned thoughts; and they attack the person who has not advanced beyond the practice of the virtues so as to persuade him to sin through his actions. They contend with all men by every possible means in order to separate them from God. Four Hundred Texts on Love 2.90 Let yourself die while striving, rather than living in laziness. For those who die while trying to keep the commandments are just as much martyrs as those who died for Christ’s sake. |
| Since then the human person is not moved naturally, as it was fashioned to do, around the unmoved, that is its own beginning (I mean God), but contrary to nature is voluntarily moved in ignorance around those things that are beneath it, to which it has been divinely subjected, and since it has abused the natural power of uniting what is divided, that was given to it at its generation, so as to separate what is united, therefore ‘natures have been instituted afresh’, and in a paradoxical way beyond nature that 1308D which is completely unmoved by nature is moved immovably around that which by nature is moved, and God becomes a human being, in order to save lost humanity. Through himself he has, in accordance with nature, united the fragments of the universal nature of the all, manifesting the universal logoi that have come forth for the particulars, by which the union of the divided naturally comes about, and thus he fulfils the great purpose of God the Father, to recapitulate everything both in heaven and earth in himself ( Eph. 1:10 ), in whom everything has been created (Col. 1:16). Indeed being in himself the universal union of all, he has started with our division and become the perfect 1309A human being, having from us, on our account, and in accordance with our nature, everything that we are and lacking nothing, apart from sin (Heb. 4:15), and having no need of the natural intercourse of marriage. In this way he showed, I think, that there was perhaps another way, foreknown by God, for human beings to increase, if the first human being had kept the commandment and not cast himself down to an animal state by abusing his own proper powers. Thus God-made-man has done away with the difference and division of nature into male and female, which human nature in no way needed for generation, as some hold, and without which it would perhaps have been possible. 11 There was no necessity for these things to have lasted forever. For in Christ Jesus, says the divine Apostle, 1309B there is neither male nor female ( Gal. 3:28 ). |
| Thus it is that the cross of wrath has been transformed into a cross of love; the cross which had barred the way into Paradise, becomes a ladder into heaven. The cross, sprung from the dead tree of the knowledge of good and evil, washed in divine Blood, is regenerated into the tree of life. The Son of God takes upon Himself our nature, and “through sufferings, makes perfect” in Himself “the Captain of our salvation; He is in all points tempted, and succours them that are tempted;” moves onward with the cross, and “brings His followers unto glory” (Heb 2:20, 18; 4:15). Who shall measure this universal cross borne by the Captain of our Salvation? Who shall tell its weight? Who shall number the various multitudes of crosses of which it is formed, like the sea of drops of water? It was not from Jerusalem to Golgotha alone that this cross was borne with the help of Simon the Cyrenian; it was borne from Gethsemane to Jerusalem, and to Gethsemane from Bethlehem itself. The whole life of Jesus was one cross, and no one put forth his hand to this burden except to make it more burdensome. “He hath trodden the winepress” of the wrath of God “alone, and of the people there was none with Him” (Is 63:3). Divinity unites with humanity, eternity with time, perfection with that which is limited, the uncreated with its own creation, the self-existing with nothingness; what an immeasurable, what an incomprehensible cross is formed of this union! The God-Man, Whose descent upon earth is glorified by the heavens, reveals Himself here in the most helpless age of humanity; in the smallest town of the smallest kingdom of the earth, there is no home, no cradle for Him, and, except His humble parents, none but a few shepherds take any interest in His birth. They number unto the Eternal One eight days of this new life, and then subject Him to the bloody law of circumcision. The Lord of the temple is “brought into the temple to be presented unto the Lord;” and He Who came to redeem the world, is redeemed “by a pair of turtle doves” (Lk 2:22, 24). |
| “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother .?.?. that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth” ( Eph 6.1–3 , Ex 20.12 ). There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers .?.?. If one curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in utter darkness ( Prov 30.11, 22.20 ). For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall be put to death; he who has cursed his father or his mother, his blood is upon him ( Lev 20.9 ). Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord (Col 3.20). Saint John Chrysostom says that those who cannot honor, love and respect their parents can certainly not serve God, for He is the “Father of all” ( Eph 4.6 ), the One “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” ( Eph 3.15 ). The true father loves and disciplines his child as God loves and disciplines His people (cf. Heb 12.3–11). He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it ( Prov 13.24; 22.6,15; 23.13 ). The love of the father for children is expressed in loving discipline without hypocrisy. The best teacher is one’s own example. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up with discipline and instruction in the Lord ( Eph 6.4 ). Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged (Col 3.21). Like the pastors of churches, the fathers of families must be “temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome and no lover of money” ( 1Tim 3.2 ). He must be an example for his children “in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” ( 1Tim 4.12 ). Like the father in Christ ’s parable, the human father must always be ready to receive home with joy his prodigal children. The wives and mothers of families must be fully devoted to their husbands and children. They must be the very embodiment of all of the fruits of the Holy Spirit as those who give life, both physical and spiritual. |
| “Trust in the living God, Who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe” ( 1Tim. 4:10 ). 2. In addition to the broad significance of the salvation of the world here indicated, the death of Christ and His subsequent descent into hades (1 Peter 3:19–20, 4:6; Eph. 4:8–10 ) signify in a narrower sense the deliverance from hades of the souls of the reposed first ancestors, prophets, and righteous ones of the pre Christian world; and thus they express the special significance of the Cross of the Lord for the Old Testament world, a significance which comes from the death of Christ accomplished upon it: “for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament” (Heb. 9:15). In accordance with this, our Orthodox hymns for Sunday also sing of the mystical truth of the victory over hades and the deliverance of souls from it: “Today Adam dances for joy and Eve rejoices, and with them the prophets and Patriarchs unceasingly sing of the divine triumph of Thy power” (Sunday Kontakion, Tone Three). 3. The deliverance from hades testifies also to the lifting of the curses which were placed in the Old Testament: a) the curses in the third chapter of the book of Genesis, which were joined to the deprivation of life in Paradise of Adam and Eve and their descendants; and then b) the curses placed by Moses, in the book of Deuteronomy (ch. 28), for the stubborn non fulfillment of the laws given through him. The personal rebirth and new life in Christ. The transition from the idea of the general economy of God to the call for the personal salvation of men is clearly expressed in the following words of Apostle Paul: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation . . . We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God” ( 2Cor. 5:19–20 ). The personal salvation of man is expressed in Sacred Scripture usually in the same terminology, in the same words, as is the salvation of the world in the broad sense of the word “justification,” “redemption,” “reconciliation”), as we see in the text we have cited above. |
| In other words, what is at the core of the Christian understanding of Pascha is something quite different from what may be viewed as the Jewish roots of Pascha. The Christian Pascha is not a memorial or a celebration of a past event, albeit meaningful and transformative in the lives of those who keep its memory. In the Christian Pascha, it is the Christian who is the protagonist through Christ (“… it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me…” [Gal 2:20]) , and both the Sacrifice and the Resurrection of the Son of God become the very essence of a Christian’s life. Pascha becomes the mode of Christian life rather than a singular transformative event whose effect merely lasts or is reflected. Apostle Paul refers to this mode as the “newness of life” (Rom 6:4). But it is not just the Resurrection—the Sacrifice too becomes the mode of life: the path to the Resurrection always lies through death on the cross. “I die every day!” Paul exclaims (1 Cor. 15:31). Quite apart from any moralistic or behavioral applications of this belief, for Orthodoxy the act of salvation is primarily a Sacrament, and as such, it finds its highest expression and incarnation in the Eucharist through the communion of God and His people within His Body: “…for the purpose of all Christian liturgy is to express in a ritual moment that which should be the basic stance of every moment of our lives” (Taft 52). The Jesus of Orthodoxy is not the historical Jesus, Who failed to complete His social justice agenda because of getting arrested by the representatives of organized religion supported by the imperial Roman temple-state. The Jesus of Orthodoxy is the One Who said: “It is finished” (John 19:30). Taft argues that this very understanding of Christ belonged to the Apostolic Church: So the Jesus of the Apostolic Church is not the historical Jesus of the past, but the Heavenly Priest interceding for us constantly before the throne of the Father (Rom 8:34, Heb 9:11-28), and actively directing the life of his Church (Apoc 1:17-3:22 and passim). |
| Спрашивается: мог ли господин обрезать раба против его воли? Маймонид (Decircumcis. L.I, с. 6) в разрешение сего полагает, что раб должен был или принять обрезание, или, в случае несогласия на сие, быть продан иному господину. Завет Мой на теле вашем будет заветом вечным. Завет называется здесь вечным так же, как вечным называется иногда закон, то есть под условием воли законодателя и известного состояния подзаконных. Отсечется душа та от народа своего. Отсечение необрезанных, по различным мнениям иудейских и христианских толкователей, означает лишение жизни вечной, преждевременную смерть, бесчадие, смерть по суду гражданскому, отлучение. Одни подвергают сему осуждению родителей, которые не обрезывают своих сынов; а другие – сих самых сынов, если они, при- шедши в возраст, не исполнят опущенного родителями. Отсечение души от народа своего, по употреблению сего выражения в Св. Писании, знаменует наказание Божественное (Лев. XVI. 10. XX. 5.6. XXIII. 29. 30). Действительно, иногда Бог видимо изъявлял гнев свой за небрежение о законе обрезания, как случилось с Моисеем ( Ucx. IV. 24–26 ). Впрочем, с понятием нарушения завета всего ближе соединяется отлучение от общества верующих и лишение прав на обетования завета. В обычаях иудеев было, что и те, которые получили обрезание, но после восьмого дня, уже не равнялись с обрезанными в восьмой день ( Флn. III. 5 . Orig. Contra Gels. L. V). От сего, может быть, мнения произошло, что семьдесят толковников после слов, который не обрежет края плоти своея, в переводе своем прибавили: в день осъмый. Обетование Саре 15.Бог сказал также Аврааму: Сару, жену твою, не называй Сарою; но да будет имя ей Сарра. 16. Я благословлю ее и дам тебе от нее сына; благословлю ее, и произойдут от нее народы, и цари народов произойдут от нее. По еврейскому произношению первое имя супруги Авраамовой есть Сарай ( ), а второе ( ). Первое, по толкованию Иеронима (Trad. Heb.), знаменует: госпожа моя, то есть госпожа одного только дома; второе – госпожа вообще. Но соответственнее с именем Авраама имя Сарры разложить можно так: Сарафгамон, то есть госпожа множества. Недоумение Авраама |
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