Teaching about the soul and the afterlife. Jesus Christ in the Trans-Jordan region

The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is one of the most important in Christianity. Studying the question of the posthumous fate of the human soul is an important task for modern Orthodox theology. The immortality of the soul is associated with the question of the salvation of man, which, in turn, constitutes the main goal of the existence of Christian theology. For Christianity, the accumulation of knowledge for its own sake is alien. Orthodox theology is a fully practical science aimed at a better understanding of the relationship between God and man.

Man is called to serve God using all his capabilities. Comprehension of the divinely revealed truth should take place using all available information, including scientific information. It is necessary to develop a Christian teaching about the immortality of the soul and its posthumous fate in the light of modern scientific discoveries that do not contradict the patristic teaching on this issue, but confirm it.

The relevance of the question of the immortality of the soul is associated with an unprecedented revival of the interest of the masses in this topic. It is on this basis that the Orthodox Church can conduct a dialogue with non-Orthodox researchers, as well as carry out a mission.

To this end, it is necessary to review the available scientific data: evidence of the posthumous experience of people who were in a state close to death; opinions of resuscitators who observe people on the brink of life in their work, etc. It is necessary to compare these data with patristic testimonies and non-Christian teachings about the soul.

It should be noted that the urgent need to develop some concrete attitude of Christianity to non-Christian evidence of the immortality of the soul has arisen recently in connection with the rapid development of resuscitation medicine. Until recently, evidence of posthumous experience was extremely rare. Consequently, there is a certain gap in the development of this teaching. But this gap makes it possible to use the teaching of the Holy Fathers, which was fully formed by the 5th century, as a theological basis.

The topic of immortality is directly related to the search for the meaning of life. The main difficulty in understanding the meaning of life is the presence of suffering and death in the world. It is human mortality that makes many come to the conclusion that existence is meaningless. For some philosophers, the meaninglessness of life is a kind of theorem, the proof of which is based on human mortality. The anti-Christian orientation of this philosophy is also obvious. First, because the testimony of Holy Scripture and Tradition is rejected. Secondly, the logical conclusion of these thoughts is the conclusion about the need for suicide. This topic is well developed in the work of E.N. Trubetskoy "The Meaning of Life". Human life without a higher goal that goes beyond the limits of earthly existence seems to be a series of suffering and nonsense. E.N. Trubetskoy, analyzing the nature of evil, comes to the conclusion that it does not exist independently, but as a perversion of good. Continuing this thought, one can come to the conclusion that the temporary - imperfect - cannot exist by itself, but only as a perversion of the absolute - perfect. Those. the temporary is a perversion of the absolute only when it claims to be self-sufficient, while in essence it is an immeasurably small part of the eternal. From this it follows that eternal life is possible only in God.

Personal immortality is a Christian revelation. For non-Christian cultures and beliefs, it is one of the stumbling blocks in the way of understanding Christianity. So, the Old Testament speaks very little and allegorically about the posthumous existence. The understanding of eternal life is available to only a few. It is foreseen by the prophets, but they do not speak about it openly, since the people are not ready to accept their testimonies. Moreover, the prophets directly associate the resurrection in eternity with the coming of the Messiah, that is, the posthumous state of the Old Testament man was different from the Christian one.

Many heretical and sectarian currents build their teachings about the soul on the letter of the Old Testament, denying eternal life. Some of them see the substantiation of the difference in the Jewish and Christian understanding of the fate of the human soul in the deviation of the Christian Church from the true teaching. Thus, modern man receives the same temptations in the study of Christianity as the era of the assimilation of the New Testament by the Hellenic world. It is all the more important to cover this problem from the position of the teachings of the Orthodox Church.

Fr. Seraphim (Rose) in his book Soul After Death. Medical research data from the posthumous experience of Fr. Seraphim compares not only with Orthodox teaching, but also with evidence of occult practices, which makes the work more comprehensive and objective.

Father Seraphim compares the approach of Orthodox teaching, science and other religions to the issue of the immortality of the soul.

It should be noted that there is no single work that contains the entire Orthodox teaching on the immortality of the soul. Many Christian authors have devoted to this issue either parts of their works, or whole works that do not claim to be a full presentation of the doctrine. Therefore, the patristic writing will always be involved in specific issues.

The doctrine of life after death is contained in almost all religions and beliefs. But the fullness of truth is revealed only in Christianity. In the Old Testament religion, the doctrine of immortality is contained only in secret. The main duties of a person before God do not go beyond the framework of human life on earth. However, even in the Old Testament, one can see the progress of humanity's preparation for the acceptance of the fullness of truth in Christ. So, in the Pentateuch of Moses, the earthly prosperity of a person is directly dependent on the fulfillment of the commandments, therefore, the consequence of their violation is earthly trouble. Already by the time of the prophets and kings, the concepts of spiritual purity, prayer for the purity of the heart, etc. appeared. Gradually comes the understanding that man is not limited by earthly life. However, this understanding was not available to everyone, but only to the best representatives of the Jewish people.

With the coming of Jesus Christ, the emphasis of spiritual life changes dramatically. There is a call to repentance in connection with the approach of the Kingdom of Heaven, and not with the aim of earthly prosperity. The Lord Himself says that the law of Moses was given to the Jewish people because of their hardness of heart. The fullness of truth is revealed only in the Christian Church. For Christianity, the earthly component of human life is valuable only to the extent that it contributes to the acquisition of the Kingdom of Heaven. An understanding of the temporality and transience of everything earthly appears. The true goal of a Christian is to enter the Kingdom and abide with Christ in eternity. However, understanding the gospel does not come instantly. During the first centuries of Christianity, there were theological disputes, dogmatic definitions were being refined. The Christian doctrine of the immortality of the soul is gradually being formed. However, still ap. Paul points out the incompleteness of human comprehension of the revealed truth. If now we see fortuitously, then we will see directly.

The main thing in understanding the Christian doctrine of immortality is that death is not a natural phenomenon for a person. Man was created immortal. His immortality was not absolute, but in the Divine plan it had to become such. Of course, divine revelation is the main evidence of this. But this is confirmed by human existence itself. People have never perceived death as some kind of physiological regularity. In all religions and cults, there is a belief in the posthumous existence of a person. This may be due to the memory of peoples about the true ancient religion, when people communicated with God directly. But such beliefs are also confirmed by the testimonies of contemporaries who have experienced a state close to death. It seems interesting that these evidences, differing in details, coincide in the main.

So, what can be distinguished in common in the stories of people about the posthumous experience.

First, it is the continuation of the existence of human consciousness after death. In almost all cases, immediately after death, no qualitative changes occur in the human consciousness. Many people did not even understand what happened to them, believing that they were still alive. The view of one's own body from the side was surprising for many. Such an experience is definitely not a vision caused by the physiological characteristics of brain dying. "There is amazing objective evidence that a person is really out of the body at this moment - sometimes people are able to retell conversations or give exact details of events that took place even in neighboring rooms or even further away, while they were dead."

However, the unchanged consciousness does not remain in this world for long. Many people talk about their meeting with representatives of the other world. In different cases, these are either previously deceased loved ones, or spirit creatures. In the latter case, there is a correspondence of spiritual creatures to the religious and cultural beliefs of the deceased. Thus, Hindus who survived clinical death describe a meeting with Hindu gods, while Europeans talk about a meeting with Christ or with angels. In this regard, the question arises about the degree of reality and reliability of such meetings. In the case of a meeting with deceased relatives, we can talk about the universality of the phenomenon. Such a meeting takes place regardless of the religion of the person. Whereas the nature of spiritual beings can be different. The testimony of Holy Scripture unambiguously classifies the pagan gods as demons. Therefore, the meetings of Hindus with the gods of the Hindu pantheon from the Orthodox point of view can be qualified as a meeting with demons. But one cannot assume that all evidence of a meeting with angels reflects objective reality. It is known from the Scriptures that Satan can also take the form of an Angel of Light (2 Cor. 11:14). Based on this, we can conclude that meetings of this kind take place in the airy kingdom of fallen spirits, described in Christian literature. This is all the more objective evidence, since people who had a similar experience might not have heard anything about the Orthodox teaching about airborne ordeals.

An integral part of the posthumous experience is the vision of another world. It should be noted that it occurs outside of connection with a person's confessional affiliation and regardless of the degree of his religiosity. The practical side of the vision may vary, though. Depending on the religious affiliation of the person, the elements of the vision may change. If Christians see another world, which they define as paradise, then Hindus see Buddhist temples, etc.

It is this part of the posthumous experience that has the greatest contradictions with Christian doctrine about death. According to the testimony of people who have had a posthumous experience, death is something pleasant. In such descriptions, there is absolutely no Christian attitude towards death as the beginning of a private judgment over a person. In the described cases, people have positive memories of the posthumous experience, regardless of their lifestyle and sinfulness. To understand the nature of this difference, you need to analyze what the emotions received in the process of dying are. Are they a reflection of objective reality, demonic temptation, or just part of the physiological process of dying. To do this, you need to separate the immediate visions described by eyewitnesses and the emotions caused by them.

According to the latest research in the field of thanatology, positive emotions, close to euphoria, are evoked by the action of an electrode on the human brain, as a result of which there is an artificial inhibition of its individual parts, similar to that which occurs at the time of death. Proceeding from this, the emotional attitude of a person to his posthumous experience cannot be recognized as objective, because in the described case, similar emotions are achieved in a normal, and not a dying state. Only hypotheses can be made regarding the very visions of the other world. The lack of objectivity of human assessments of posthumous experience is also evidenced by the fact that this assessment is obviously directly related to the humanist-liberal development of modern civilization.

The extremely positive emotions given out by the posthumous state are not consistent with the patristic experience. The testimonies of a person's encounter with death, described in patristic literature, indicate that death is terrible for any person. The more so different are the deaths of the righteous and the sinner. It is not only a transition to a better world, but also the beginning of a private judgment, a time when it is necessary to give an account of the life lived. Almost all patristic descriptions of the posthumous state of people speak of the passing of the soul of the newly departed air ordeals. This is the main difference between the Orthodox teaching on the soul after death and modern teaching, developed on the basis of occult tendencies and correspondingly interpreted evidence of posthumous experience.

The doctrine of airborne ordeals, private judgment, the possibility of the soul's transition not only to heaven, but also to hell for the carriers of modern culture seem rather obscurantism than a reflection of objective reality.

According to psychologists, the fear of death is the greatest in a person's life. Mortality itself leaves a certain tragedy mark on any life. Therefore, any person is forced to think about the question: "and then what?" The answer to the question about death is given according to the same rules as to the question about the meaning of life. European civilization is doing everything possible to make life as comfortable and free as possible. No matter how trite it may seem, but even after death, a person cannot deny himself a certain comfort. But here there is a contradiction not only with the Orthodox certificate of the posthumous state, but also with the evidence of the main world religions. One way or another, the doctrine of posthumous retribution is found everywhere. It is this fact that caused a massive turn from traditional religions towards various occult practices and teachings that promise heaven without unnecessary effort.

The representatives of the new paradigm either reject the evidence of posthumous retribution altogether, or speak of their illusory nature. The last statement is based, among other things, on the teachings of various pseudo-Hindu movements. It should be noted that information obtained from such sources is taken out of context and selectively. Thus, rejecting the doctrine of retribution based on pseudo-Hindu literature, a person may at the same time not believe in reincarnation and believe in paradise. As a result, a completely new understanding of the immortality of the soul is created, which is a conglomerate of various beliefs.

A source that deserves a separate analysis is the Tibetan Book of the Dead. This is an early Buddhist text that describes the state of a person's soul immediately after death, which must be read to the deceased in order to help him navigate in another world. The soul goes through three successive posthumous states of "bardo", after which it falls to a new incarnation. The main emphasis is made on the fact that all posthumous visions of a person are illusory and symbolic, but do not reflect objective reality. However, there is also a theory of retribution. Firstly, the main goal of the chain of rebirth is liberation from the wheel of samsara (being in this world) and the transition to nirvana, which can be achieved by a certain austerity. Secondly, incarnation is possible in one of the six worlds, depending on the merits of the deceased.

Despite the fundamental difference in the interpretation of posthumous visions, they also have some similarities with the posthumous experiences of Europeans and descriptions in patristic literature. So, for example, in the first posthumous state, a person sees light, i.e. the supreme god with whom you should associate yourself. Then he immediately goes into nirvana.

An analysis of the evidence of occult practices also proves the similarity of individual posthumous experiences, regardless of a person's beliefs and religious affiliation. However, the main emphasis should be on the interpretation of occult experience. Those. it is required to evaluate from an Orthodox point of view what exactly a person sees with the help of occult practices. The answer to this question is unambiguous - some people have the ability to see the world of fallen spirits. Descriptions of mediumistic experiments in the 19th-20th centuries completely coincide with the descriptions of the heavenly world of fallen spirits in patristic literature.

The mediumistic experiences themselves can be divided into two groups. The first group includes spontaneous and, as a rule, short-term visions of the phenomena of the other world. The second - long travels in another world, when a person sees deceased relatives and spiritual beings, whom he is trying to interpret in one way or another.

From examples of posthumous experience taken from various sources and occult teachings about the soul, it is clear that the contradictions between them and the Orthodox teaching on the immortality of the soul are, as a rule, imaginary. The main contradictions arise in connection with different interpretations of certain phenomena. But with a deep study of patristic literature, one can understand that new scientific data do not contradict the testimony of the fathers. However, modern researchers of posthumous experience allow for subjectivity in their work. To some extent, they form a new doctrine of the posthumous fate of the soul, relying on the ideals of Western civilization, the ideals of a consumer society.

The Orthodox Church possesses a treasure of patristic writing, therefore it can comprehend new scientific data in the light of sacred tradition and testify to the world of its teaching. It is on this basis that Orthodox theology should build the modern teaching about the immortality of the soul. Dealing with new scientific data, the modern theologian only receives additional argumentation of ideas expressed long before the birth of a full-fledged science.

a term denoting participation in the eternal Divine being; endless existence, life as endless duration; concept that expresses religion. and religious and philosophical ideas about the highest goal of human existence, about his final paths, about posthumous existence. In Christianity, V. f. there is life in the Kingdom of Heaven, a full-bodied spiritual-bodily participation of the human person in the Divine being.

Pre-Christian ideas about V.

Most famous religions. traditions of antiquity (ancient Egyptian, ancient Iran., Vedic, Mediterranean) earthly existence was perceived only as a preparation of man for the transition to the afterlife. V.'s concept. was associated with the idea of ​​a posthumous judgment and the concept of 2 afterlife ways of a person - blessed or mournful - depending on his compliance with the ideals and adherence to the prescriptions of a given religion. The belief in the immortality of the soul and in the inevitability of the judgment was combined with the hope for the future. resurrection of tel. In the religions of Mesopotamia, on the other hand, the idea of ​​living in the middle of the river appears as a pessimistic view of the afterlife of the human soul as a "bad infinity" - a hopeless stay in the underground kingdom of shadows. Recent views are related to religions. degradation caused by the ever greater distortion of "the true faith inherent in humanity from the beginning" (Florensky P.A. it is replaced either by its folklore and mythological surrogates (belief in reincarnation, ideas about the posthumous transition into the world of spirits and the possibility of subjugating it with the help of magic in shamanism, etc.), or by its actual denial (as, for example, in Buddhism).

One of the earliest dated religious monuments. lit-ry - a corpus of texts from the pyramid of King Unas (mid-XXIV century BC) - definitely testifies to the belief of the ancient Egyptians in the Eastern life. (Piankoff A. The Pyramid of Unas. Princeton, 1968). Despite the idea of ​​the inevitability of a posthumous trial, ancient egypt. the idea of ​​death is optimistic: the reward for the righteous, eternal bliss, is incomparably greater than the punishment for the villains by non-existence (Badge, p. 111). For ancient egypt. The monument “Praise of Death” is characterized by an almost complete absence of fear of the posthumous reality: “Of those who are born into the world in a multitude of innumerable, no one will settle in Egypt: in the city of Eternity, everyone is prepared for a shelter. How long will the time of the earthly host last? Time flashes like a dream, and “welcome” - they will say to a stranger in the sunset fields ”(Praise of Death // Poetry and Prose of the Ancient East. M., 1973. S. 102). According to the views of the ancient Egyptians, the afterlife is the supermundane world, and not the underground, as in later religions. beliefs of Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean. It is described in very light colors, and this concerns not only external well-being, but also the moral state of the inhabitants. “The City of Eternity” is presented in the image of “a just, blessed country, where fear has no place, a resting place, whose residents disgust strife, where there is nothing to fear their neighbors, for there is no enmity in this land” (Ibid.). The surviving examples of the ritual art of the ancient Egyptians are just as optimistic in their mood: images in pyramids representing scenes of posthumous life are life-affirming pictures of seething activity (Frankfort G. et al. On the eve of philosophy: Spiritual searches of ancient man. M., 1984. S. 96-97). The most important position of ancient Egypt. religion was the belief in the subsequent bodily resurrection of man: to V. zh. not only the souls of people are intended, but also their bodies, which will be restored. The funeral ritual, tombs and grave utensils, funeral temples, the art of embalming testify to the firm hope of the ancient Egyptians for the restoration of the whole person - soul and body - after death (Zubov, pp. 44-45).

The surviving lit. the monuments of ancient religions of Mesopotamia contrast sharply with ancient Egypt. The ideas about the posthumous life of a person in them are extremely pessimistic. The place of the afterlife ("a foreign country" - in Sumerian beliefs, "a country of no return" - in Babylonian) is a gloomy, joyless picture of a painful semi-existence. The same bitter fate awaits both the righteous and the bad. All rewards and punishments have already been received in earthly life, but after death, people move “to the house of darkness, the dwelling of Irkalla, / to the house from which one who has entered never leaves, / To the path by which one cannot go back, / To the house where those who live are deprived of light, / Where their food is dust and their food is clay, / And they are dressed like birds, with the clothes of wings, / And they do not see the light, but live in darkness, / And the bars and doors are covered with dust ”(Epic of Gilgamesh 7 // Epic about Gilgamesh. M., 1961). The souls of the dead languish here without any hope of resurrection or new birth. The path to the blissful immortality of the gods is closed for man. However, in the “country of no return” there are different gradations of suffering: “Those who had large families, who fell in battle, those who have lived their lives with dignity, are treated better than others. But all the same, any clear moral and ethical principles, apparently, are not valid in the infernal world ”(Jacobsen, p. 239).

The views on the posthumous fate of man, found in the beliefs of the early Indo-Aryans, are vague and contradictory. They did not have a special teaching about the afterlife, nevertheless they were convinced that death does not mean the end: “After the night, there is day; after death - life. Beings, once having arisen, will never end their existence ”(Radhakrishnan. Vol. 1. P. 92). After death, a person goes to the kingdom of Yama, where the soul is clothed in a shining spiritual veil. It is unclear exactly when and how the original, more optimistic eschatology of the Indo-Aryans began to undergo changes, but gradually the idea of ​​the different paths of the ancestors (heaven and hell) is changing the view, according to which a person after death is doomed to a hopeless gloomy existence. The image of Yama takes on the features of a formidable and merciless lord of revenge, his kingdom turns from a shining country of the setting sun into a place of underground imprisonment. “The soul parted from the body - urvan - lingered on the ground for three days before descending into the underworld of the dead, in which Yima (in Sanskrit - Yama) ruled ... In the kingdom of Yima, souls lived like shadows and depended on their descendants who continued to dwell on earth ”(Boyes, p. 23). In Zoroastrianism, there is the idea of ​​the blessed V. Zh., Which is achieved through the union of the soul with the resurrected body (Ibid. P. 39), as well as the idea of ​​different ways: only the righteous receive eternal bliss; sinners await eternal torment in the underworld (Cancer I.V. Myths of Ancient and Early Medieval Iran (Zoroastrianism). St. Petersburg; M., 1998. S. 296-301, 357-367).

In dr. India relig. representations in general and V.'s understanding. in particular, at the turn of the II-I millennium BC, they were subject to radical changes. Originally, during the Vedic period, the idea of ​​blissful eternity after death was an integral part of Indian religion. A person lives on earth only once. The path of the dead is a path without return, a path to Heaven, to the gods and to those who paved it (Atharva Veda XVIII 4 // Atharva Veda: Izbr. M., 1995). The posthumous existence seemed to the ancient Indians to be eternal and integral: not only the spirit (atman), but also the body participates in it. A number of Vedic texts, and most importantly, a funeral rite testify that a person hoped to find after death a stay in the divine world - "on the other side of the sun" - in a resurrected, as if reborn, his own body, cleansed of the flaws of sin (Ibid; Rig Veda X / / Rigveda: Mandalas IX-X. M., 1999). Later, the idea of ​​2 paths became more widespread. In addition to the blissful eternity awaiting those who worship the righteous gods, there is a place of punishment, a dark abyss, irrevocably absorbing the wicked (Radhakrishnan. T. 1. S. 93-94).

The founder of Buddhism, Buddha Gautama (6th century BC), adopted the general orientation and pessimistic nature of Brahminical philosophy, but at the same time rejected its basic principle “You are That,” expressing the idea of ​​identity and fusion of atman and brahman. Both were declared by the Buddha to be illusions. In his opinion, the words about union with Brahma are the words of fools. The desire for heavenly bliss was openly recognized in early Buddhism as the greatest evil, for any desire binds to an illusory reality, and the desire for eternal bliss is the strongest. The ultimate goal of a person in Buddhism is dissolution in nirvana (literally - extinction), which is achieved through a passive state of non-action, unwillingness, insensibility, through complete intellectual and emotional static, through the awareness of total emptiness, into which a ghostly individual dissolves, through "Intense self-denial" (Konze E. Buddhist meditation: pious exercises, mindfulness, trance, wisdom. M., 1993. S. 13).

In the context of Buddhist teachings, that is, the question of V. zh. a person and even about his further reincarnations seems absurd, because a person, according to this view, is not integrity in any of the usual senses, but the sum of 5 layers of skandhas, which do not reincarnate, but form a series of sequences regulated by the law of karma, erroneously perceived by the profane consciousness as something really existing: “There are only skandhas, which remain for a short time, and there is nothing but them. The disappearance of the skandhas is called death ”(Ibid. P. 116).

The religion of the ancient Greeks, formed under the influence of eudemonic civilization, resolves the question of V. zh. a person negatively: "All hopes and expectations, hopes and desires in Homer's world outlook are focused on well-being in this earthly life" (Kulakovsky, p. 21). The life of the body is temporary, but real. Only in the body can human life be carefree, only earthly blessings are genuine. Therefore, even the bliss of the gods themselves is portrayed in an extremely naturalistic way. The posthumous existence of the human soul is nevertheless recognized, but this existence is gloomy, languid, on the verge of non-existence. The soul is nothing more than a shadow (Homer. Od. XXIV 6). Eternal bliss - Olympus - for the gods. The posthumous fate of people is Hades, “where the dead are only shadows of the departed, deprived of feeling, lifelessly hovering” (Ibid. XI 488). However, apparently, the initial views of the ancient Greeks on the posthumous fate of man were different, more optimistic. This is evidenced, in particular, by Homer's mention of the Champs Elysees, "where the light-hearted days of man pass" (Ibid. IV 561).

In ancient philosophy, philosophy of life is predominantly the life of the mind in the immutability of being, outside the past and the future, but with complete belonging to the indivisible present. Man and his destiny were considered to be included in the eternal cyclical development, which inevitably returns to its starting point. Instead of the idea of ​​a full-fledged V. here the abstract idea of ​​eternal return was affirmed. Everything in the world is ruled by the impersonal law of necessity, blind fate, fate. The essence of this view, shared by the majority of ancient philosophers, was precisely expressed by Aristotle: “That which exists by virtue of necessity, at the same time, always exists, for what is necessary exists cannot but exist. Therefore, if it exists, it is necessary, then it is eternal, and if it is eternal, then it is necessary ... So, if the emergence of something is absolutely necessary, it occurs in a circle and returns to the starting point ... So, there is an unconditional need in motion in a circle and in arising in a circle "(Arist. De generat. et corrupt. 338a 1-15). Plato in Timaeus compares V. zh. over time, a cut, imitating eternity, incessantly runs in a circle (Plat. Tim. 37e - 38a). The idea of ​​the cycle is one of the central ones in Stoicism. The final state of the world for the thinkers of this school is identical to the initial one. After the completion of the next cosmic cycle, everything starts all over again: "restoration", "development", "completion". The next period coincides to the smallest details with the previous one. Cosmic cycles replace each other endlessly (Stolyarov A.A. Standing and Stoicism. M., 1995. S. 114-115). The idea of ​​the eternal circulation of life was also shared by other philosophical schools of antiquity up to Neoplatonism. The cosmology of the Neoplatonists presupposes the movement of all things in a circle: “In space, eternal life takes place in the form of the falling of matter from its higher spheres to its lower and its reverse ascent” (Losev A.F. History of antique aesthetics: Late Hellenism. M., 2000. S. 226).

However, if for philosophical discourse this consistent idea seemed the most convincing, then for everyday consciousness and religions. feelings, she looked frightening, because, remaining hostage to the universal eternal circulation, a person lost hope for his own V. g. Fear of death, horror bud. nothingness, absolute predetermination of fate forced the ancient Greeks to seek a way out of this worldview dead end. As a result, the search led to the development of various forms of the idea of ​​metempsychosis, which, as a kind of semblance of "earthly eternity," was perceived here with great enthusiasm. If in India this idea was extremely pessimistic, in the religions of the Mediterranean it acquired a positive life-affirming charge.

Mentions of the transmigration of souls are found in the burial inscriptions of the southern Italian orphic, in Ovid (Ovid. Met. XV 98-142), Virgil (Vergil. Aen. VI 730-751), etc. Pythagoras, Plato and their followers recognized the possibility of reincarnation. Plato saw a higher goal human existence in the final disincarnation: the soul is called to leave the body, this dungeon, in order to return to the eternal and perfect world of ideas, from which it once fell. However, Aristotle and his closest students, following tradition. ancient Greek. opinion, they did not see any hope for a person beyond the threshold of death: “Behind him, for the deceased, nothing is either good or bad” (Arist. EN. 1115a 26). According to Plotinus, after death, every person becomes the creature whose character was most consistent with his aspirations in this life: whoever lived with his mind worthy of a man will be reborn as a philosopher; who lived only by sensory perception - to animals; whoever was inactive - a plant, etc. (Plot. Enn. III 4. 2). At the same time, Plotinus believed that each in a new birth would have to experience what he inflicted on others: the rapist would be born a woman and would be raped, the murderer would be in the bud. life as a victim, etc. (Ibid. III 2.13).

In the neo-Platonic philosophy, life is impersonal dissolution in the One, pantheistic fusion with the Divine, complete and perfect identification with him. The ideal of the Neoplatonists is unity with the Mind and through it with the beginning of being - the One. C. f. is acquired by the human soul through its ascent in the reverse order of the emanatic outflow of the One (One - Mind - Soul - other forms of being; the whole set of existential processes is expressed by the triad "stay" - "procession" - "return").

Representation about V. in the Old Testament and in Judaism

In the OT, the idea of ​​V. expressed vaguely. The idea of ​​a posthumous fate is limited only to conjectures and hints (see, for example: Ecclesiastes 12. 7). “With sorrow I will descend ... into the underworld” (Genesis 37. 35); “My days run faster than a shuttle and end without hope” (Job 7: 6; cf. Psalm 102: 15-16) - the main dying motive of the biblical books. In some cases, pessimistic motives characteristic of the thanatology of the peoples of Mesopotamia, akin to the ancient Jews, sound in them: “There is one thing for everything and everyone: one fate for the righteous and the wicked, good and [evil], pure and unclean, offering sacrifice and not offering sacrifice ; to both the virtuous and the sinner; both one who swears and one who fears an oath ... The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and there is no more reward for them, because their memory is forgotten, and their love and their hatred and their jealousy have already disappeared, and they no longer have a part for ever in anything that is done under the sun ”(Eccl. 9.2-6). Every person - both righteous and sinful - will face the same unenviable fate after death: his body disintegrates and turns to dust (Job 14:10); the soul descends into the underworld (Sheol) - the kingdom of darkness and shadows (Job 10:21), the land of silence (Ps 93.17), the land of oblivion (Ps 87.13), an imageless, twilight place, in which nothing can be seen (Job 10.22); there the soul is in an unconscious state (Ps 6.6), in a state of heavy and meaningless sleep (Job 14:12). Sometimes the view of the Old Testament authors on the posthumous fate of a person is so hopeless that even the very existence of the soul as a separate substance is questioned by them (Ps 145.4; Eccl. 12.7).

Understatement about the secret of V. and such pessimistic ideas about the existence of a person beyond the grave are compensated for in the OT by the ideal of earthly prosperity. The reward for righteousness is wealth, health, longevity, multiplication of the family (Gen. 22.17; 26. 3-4). All the promises of God are contained within the earthly limits - in the life of the righteous person or in the life of his descendants (Gen. 17.8). In most cases, these promises are called eternal. V. g., I.e., according to the Old Testament views, is endless generic well-being in the conditions of the given world (Gen. 26.4; 48.4; Ex. 32.13).

Such at first glance, strange for a God-revealed religion, is an understatement in the concept of V. zh. is explained primarily by the fact that, according to the Divine plan, the faith of Dr. Israel had to concentrate on waiting for the coming Messiah. If the role of the OT was reduced to Ch. arr. in order to be a preparatory step for the coming of the Savior of the world (cf. Gal 3:24), it is natural that messianic eschatology and the hopes associated with it were to be at the center of religions. consciousness of the Old Testament people, displacing from it all personal hopes for K.-L. private retribution after the coffin. Dr. Israel had to firmly believe only that the Messiah promised by God would come sooner or later and His coming would radically change the fate of mankind - the desired prosperity would come. The nature of this prosperity is spoken of very vaguely, which allowed the majority of Jews to reinterpret the prophecies about the coming of the Messiah and present His Kingdom as a national-political triumph of Israel.

However, in the books of the Prophets there are already expressions that allow us to conclude that the dead do not just sleep in eternal sleep, but in some way realize their existence and experience certain states (Eze 32. 18-32; Is 14. 9-11; 66 . 24). In a number of texts, Old Testament prophets associate the coming of the Messiah with the general resurrection of the dead and judgment: "Your dead will revive, your dead bodies will rise!" (Isa 26.19); “And many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, others to eternal reproach and shame” (Dan 12.2). But the literal interpretation of these prophecies became generally accepted only in the New Testament Church. In Old Testament times, they were considered by Ch. arr. in the context of national history. For example, the prophecy from the book of Ezekiel about the bones gathering together (37. 11-14) was understood as a prediction about the coming unification of scattered Israel (see: Uspensky N. D. Anaphora // BT. 1975. Sat 13, p. 57) ...

Only in the later books of the OT did the idea of ​​the posthumous existence of man, the belief in the resurrection of the dead and V. zh. expressed quite clearly. The Book of Wisdom of Solomon directly says: “Those who are wicked said within themselves: our life is short and sorrowful, and there is no salvation for a person from death, and they do not know who has liberated from hell. ... So they speculated and were mistaken; for ... they did not know the mysteries of God, did not expect reward for holiness, and did not consider blameless souls worthy of reward. God created man to be incorruptible and made him the image of His eternal existence "(Prem 2. 1-5, 21-24; see also: Prem 3. 1-4; 2 Makk 7. 9, 14; 12. 43; 3 Ezd 2.23).

Nevertheless, the general eschatological views of the Old Testament Jews remained blurred, which often led to intense disputes between different religions. currents within pre-New Testament Judaism. So, 2 largest rabbinic schools of that time - Hillel and Shamai - for 3 years had a debate on the topic "Was man created in vain?" and in the end they agreed that it would be better for a person not to be born (Eisenberg J., Gross B. A Bible ouverte. P., 1978. P. 101-102). At the time of Jesus Christ, among the Jewish scribes, in particular between the Pharisees and Sadducees, there was a dispute about the posthumous retribution, V. f., The resurrection of the dead. The Pharisees believed in bud. resurrection, the Sadducees denied it (Mt 22.23; Mk 12.18; Lk 20.27).

During the period from the time of the persecution of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Maccabean revolt (167-165 BC) until the Bar Cochba revolt and the final destruction of Jerusalem (132-135 AD), eschatological expectations in Heb. people reach their climax. These expectations were associated with the coming of the Messiah, who would have to establish his eternal Kingdom (cf. Acts 1. 6), which was understood by the majority of Jews as the Kingdom of the earth. At that time, there was a rapid development of the Jewish apocalyptic apocryphal literature (Books of Enoch, Psalms of Solomon, Book of Jubilees, Ascension of Moses, Apocalypse of Ezra, Apocalypse of Baruch, Testament of the 12 Patriarchs) (see articles Apocalyptic, Apocrypha). In the Jewish apocalypticism, for the first time, the idea of ​​chiliasm - a thousand-year earthly kingdom, at the end of which a new aeon will come - was clearly sounded. The image of the Messiah, which, as it seems at first glance, occupies a central place here, in fact serves only as a means, an instrument for establishing the world domination of the chosen people, which, in particular, is confirmed by the complete uncertainty of this image itself. In some cases, this is a personal Messiah, in others, a collective one - the personification of the entire Jewish people, sometimes he is a mortal man, an earthly king, sometimes an immortal, super-worldly being, but in all cases the Messiah's task is reduced to the liberation of the Israeli people and the establishment of the earthly kingdom with Jerusalem as world capital. In addition, the Messiah is a connecting link that transfers the world from the current eon to the new one. He not only frees the Jewish people, punishes their enemies and establishes a thousand-year rule, but is also present at the resurrection of the dead, acts as a judge at the Last Judgment and opens the life of the bud. century (Bulgakov, p. 81). The latter does not have any clear spiritual criteria, therefore, it is either completely shaded by the image of the messianic kingdom preceding it, or is represented in the same materialistic lines, but with the participation of the entire resurrected and united Israel.

After the coming into the world of Jesus Christ in Judaism, there was a final division into 2 parts - the chosen "remnant", which became the beginning of Christ. The Church, and the national community headed by the Sanhedrin, the edges, having rejected the true Messiah, thereby lost the spiritual status of God's chosen people (cf. Acts 13:46). The understatement in the question of the venerable life, inherent in the Old Testament Scripture, turned into Judaism in numerous borrowings from paganism, in particular, from Gnostic philosophy and mysticism. So, by the turn of the 1st-2nd centuries. According to R. Kh., the first references in the Jewish literature to the idea of ​​reincarnation are made. Heb. the historian Flavius ​​Josephus, describing the views of the Pharisees of his time, notes: “Souls, in their opinion, are immortal; but only the souls of the good are transferred after their death to other bodies, and the souls of the wicked are doomed to eternal torment ”(Ios. Flav. De bel. II 163; Russian translation 8. 14). In the medieval. period, the idea of ​​the transmigration of souls becomes key in Kabbalah. In modern times, it is becoming widespread in other Jewish movements and schools: “After death, the bodies of the souls return to their Source and pass into other bodies in order to correct what they spoiled in the past incarnation” (Gordon J. Garden of Eden. M. , 1996.S. 26). However, unlike ind. In karmic philosophy, reincarnation in Judaism does not serve as a means for final disincarnation and complete merging with the Absolute, but is woven into the context of the main provision of Judaism - the idea of ​​the eternal reign of Israel.

The doctrine of V. in the New Testament

The purpose of the coming into the world of the Son of God, as well as of all the economy of our salvation, was that “whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:15). The gospel of Jesus Christ filled the Old Testament eschatology with the ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is viewed as a fundamentally different, spiritual reality (Matthew 22.30; Luke 20:35), which reveals itself within the person himself (Luke 17.21) as V. f., I.e. e. communion with the Holy Spirit, given to the Church (cf. 1 John 1.2). V. zh.- a gift of God (Rom. 6:23), participation in His existence (2 Pet. 1. 4), a cut was lost to mankind in the primordial Adam, who voluntarily fell under the power of death, and returned in the incarnate Son of God, who conquered death by the Cross and the Resurrection. In the risen Christ, as in the beginning, all creation is reborn and resurrected: “And as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). Despite the understatement of the OT thanatology, the New Testament teaching about Christ's descent into hell clearly testifies that with the death of the bodies, the souls of the dead are not destroyed and do not completely lose consciousness, for they were capable of hearing the Savior's sermon and accepting it (cf. Matthew 12.40; Acts 2 . 27-31; 1 Peter 3.19; 4.16; Rom 10.7; Eph 4. 9).

Gift of V. is perceived by people already here on earth, through faith in the Son of God (John 3. 36; 5:24) and Baptism (John 3. 5). In a conversation with a Samaritan woman, Christ speaks of living water, that is, of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which in those who receive it becomes “a source of water flowing into eternal life” (John 4:14). Join V. can be both living and deceased. According to Patriarch Sergius (Stragorodsky), V. zh. “It is not conditioned by the resurrection from the dead, it is earlier than it, and as if it even conditions it by itself:“ He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I (as if by virtue of this) will raise him up on the last day ”(Jn 6.54). On the other hand, “no murderer has eternal life dwelling in him” (1 John 3:15), that is, not only does he not have a firm hope of receiving eternal life in the next century, but does not directly have eternal life here on earth, as their spiritual wealth "( Sergius (Stragorodsky), Archbishop 1898.S. 113-114).

Divine gift received in Baptism V. f. must not only be preserved, but also multiplied (cf. Mt 25: 14-27). It requires dynamic perception and constant development, “warming up” (2 Tim 1. 6) from the side of the person himself. This process is carried out through the observance of the commandments (Mt 19:17), selfless following of Christ (Mt 19:29), who is "the way, truth and life" (John 14. 6), constancy in virtue (Rom 2. 7) and eucharistic communion with Christ's flesh and blood (John 6.54). However, full familiarization with V. will become possible only after the general resurrection (John 6.40; 2 Cor. 5.1), when God renews all creation, makes it incorruptible and eternal (Rev 21.5).

In a new transformed state (1 Cor. 15.51-53), a person will be able to contemplate God directly (Rev 22.4), “as He is” (1 Jn 3. 2). Knowledge of God, constantly increasing union with God and becoming like Him, will become the source of infinite bliss for man, the content of his eternal being: “This is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ sent by You” (John 17.3). This combination does not imply a spiritualistic disincarnation or pantheistic dissolution in the Divine, on the contrary, a person will not lose either his personal principle or spiritual-bodily integrity. Thus, God's purpose for creation will be finally fulfilled.

The New Testament Revelation does not consider eternal blissful life as a reality, to which a person is unconditionally predetermined. C. f. has its antipode - eternal death - a state of endless stay in the darkness of eternal darkness (2 Pet. 2. 17). Along with the image of Heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21.2) - the eternal abode of the righteous - the Apocalypse draws the image of a lake of fire - a place of torment for the devil and sinners (Rev 21.8; see also: Mt 18.8; 25.41; Mk 9. 43 -44). At the Last Judgment, the spiritual division of mankind will take place: the righteous will go into eternal life, and the sinners into eternal torment (Matthew 25:46). However, the reason for this division is rooted not in the will of the good God, "Who wants all people to be saved and attain the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2.4), but in the free desire of the sinners themselves: "The judgment is that the light came in peace; but people loved darkness more than light, because their deeds were evil ”(John 3:19). Eternal torment, that is, is a statement of the spiritual state into which a person voluntarily brought himself during his earthly life (Gal 6.8).

Teaching of the Church about V. zh.

New Testament understanding of V. g. was revealed by the fathers and teachers of the Church in polemics with two opposing heretical tendencies - the chiliasm of the Judaizers (Ebionites) and the Hellenistic spiritualism manifested in Origen's anthropology and eschatology. On the one hand, it was necessary to cut off naturalistic sensory ideas about the Kingdom of Heaven, on the other hand, to defend the idea of ​​a universal bodily resurrection.

The temptation of chiliasm, to-Roma under the influence of Heb. apocryphal apocalyptic to one degree or another succumbed to many. christ. authors of the 2nd-3rd centuries (Hieromartyrs Polycarp of Smyrna, Papias of Hierapolis, Justin the Philosopher, Irenaeus of Lyons, Hippolytus of Rome, Methodius of Patarsky, as well as Tertullian), was overcome fairly quickly. In the East, chiliasm was exposed through the efforts of St. Dionysius the Great, Patriarch of Alexandria and was condemned at a Council convened by him in 255. The changed historical conditions also played an important role in overcoming chiliasm: the legalization of Christianity significantly eased the tension of apocalyptic expectations. In the 2nd floor. IV century chiliasm was already perceived as an out-of-church view: St. Ephraim the Syrian and St. Gregory the Theologian. In the West, belief in the millennial kingdom persisted for several. longer, ch. arr. among the Montanists or in spiritually close church circles. In the end. IV- early. V century, thanks to the controversy and educational works of St. Augustine, chiliasm disappears from western christ. consciousness up to modern times. Generally accepted in Zap. The Church becomes the Augustinian teaching, according to which the "millennial kingdom" of the Apocalypse (Rev. 20. 1-6) is an allegorically understood Catholic Church in its historical perspective - from the time of Pentecost to the Second Coming (Aug. De civ. Dei. XX).

At the same time, church thought also overcame Hellenistic tendencies. Already in the Epistles to Ap. Paul was rejected by the temptation of disembodiment: "For we do not want to put off, but to put on, so that the mortal may be swallowed up by life" (2 Cor. 5.4). The preaching of the resurrection of bodies became one of the main motives in the writings of early Christian apologists: "We are awaiting spring for our body" (Min. Fel. Octavius. 34). To justify this hope, the early Christ. the authors pointed to the spiritual and bodily integrity of a person. A soul without a body, they noted, is not a whole person, but only a fragment of him, incapable of full-fledged existence. “God endowed independent being and life not with the nature of the soul in itself and not with the nature of the body taken separately, but rather with people consisting of soul and body, so that with the same parts that they consist of when they are born and live, the end of this life reached a common end ”(Athenag. De resurrect. 13, 15).

However, to completely overcome Hellenistic spiritualism, preaching was not enough: the dialectical refinement of Platonic philosophy had to be opposed to the intellectual weight of Christ. arguments. Origen's attempt was extremely unsuccessful in this respect. Formulating the eschatology of the Church in the categories of the Greek. thought, he was unable to overcome the basic principle of the identity of "beginning" and "end" in ancient cosmology, although he tried to synthesize it with Christ. idea of ​​creation. The concept of the eternal cycle of being, invariably ending with the return of all that exists to its original unity, remained a basic premise in Origen's eschatology. With this view, human history and, as a consequence, the atoning Sacrifice that took place in it, lose their uniqueness and ontological significance. The resurrection of the dead, aspired by Christians, becomes in Origenism only a preparatory fragment before the final and complete disincarnation - the apocatastasis of all intelligent creature into a primary purely spiritual state.

Church thought in the person of St. Athanasius the Great, Cappadocians, bl. Augustine, author of the Areopagiticus and St. Maxima the Confessor contrasted the Hellenic idea of ​​eternal circulation with a strictly biblical linear view of history. History, following the “principle of progressive aspiration” laid down in it by the Creator, moves from its “beginning” to the “end”, from the embryonic primordial perfection to the all-perfect completeness of the Kingdom of God, when the world will pass into a qualitatively different, transformed state. History is not accidental in relation to V. f., It is not opposed to it. On the contrary, it is a necessary condition for humanity to enter Divine eternity. According to Fr. Georgy Florovsky, history is “the process of becoming a creature that grows into eternity” (On the Resurrection of the Dead. P. 441). This dynamic linearity is a mandatory principle not only of the existence of humanity as a whole, but also of every human person. A person must freely fulfill his ascent into eternity by following the Divine "pioneer" Jesus Christ. Bearing in mind the Hellenic cosmology, in a cut there is no room for human freedom, but there is only one inevitable predetermination, bl. Augustine wrote: "Let us follow Christ - the straight path and turn away from the vain circular labyrinth" (Aug. De civ. Dei. XII 20).

The story will end when the gathering of the body of the church is complete. Fullness of the Body is the goal and fulfillment of history (Ioan. Chrysost. In Eph. III 1.23). “When humanity reaches its fullness,” wrote St. Gregory of Nyssa, - then this flowing movement of nature will certainly stop, having reached the necessary limit, and the place of this life will be taken by another kind of state, separated from the present, proceeding in destruction and birth "(Greg. Nyss. Dial. De anima et resurrect. // PG 46. ​​Col. 128). The general resurrection will be the final victory over death and decay, over the fluidity and changeability of the temporal world that frightened the ancient Greeks. But this will not be a simple return to the "beginning", but the final renewal. Christ. belief in the inevitability of the end of this world does not mean its essential destruction. The new creation - “behold, I create everything new” (Rev. 21. 5) - does not abolish the first creation, perfect “in the beginning” (Gen. 1. 1), but transforms it, raises it into a new incorruptible, deified state.

However, according to the patristic view, the venerable life is not just the other world, acquired exclusively in Bud. perspective, but the reality of the Divine being, to which one can join already in earthly conditions. For this reason, the doctrine of V. zh. was not considered by the Church Fathers separately, as an independent section of theology, but was included in Christology, soteriology and asceticism as an integral aspect of the central patristic doctrine - the deification of man in Christ. Human nature, spiritually dead in Adam, was revived and renewed by the Holy Spirit in Christ. In the Church he founded, the grace of regeneration has become an inalienable gift. Christ made us, as St. Athanasius the Great, "spirit receivers" (Athanas. Alex. Or. Contr. Arian. I 46).

The introduction to the venerable life, carried out through the baptismal birth from above, is only its first stage. In Baptism, incorruption is acquired by man only potentially, “in a state of possibility” (Maximus Conf. Quaest. Ad Thalas. 6). “Potentiality” in Greek. fathers means not the absence of something that should appear in the future, but a real presence, which, however, requires certain conditions for manifestation. In this sense, the gift of baptism, given in Baptism, is inalienable, however, in addition to the objective presence of baptismal grace, its incessant subjective assimilation, acquisition is also required. Being born again is not a single act, but a dynamic process. “The changing must be constantly born: in a perverted nature you will not notice anything always identical in everything” (Greg. Nyss. De vita Moysis). One of the antinomies of Christianity: on the one hand, the Church proclaims the eternal Kingdom of the Most Holy. Trinity open and accessible, with others - calls for an unceasing effort to gain it (“Strive to acquire consciously the Kingdom of Heaven within you, that is, the grace of the Holy Spirit” - Sym. N. Theol. Catech. 34; Russian translation: Word 89 ). In the synergistic combination of two wills - the Divine, giving grace, and the human, receiving it - the gift of V. g. is transformed in a Christian from a state of possibility into a state of reality (Maximus Conf. Quaest. ad Thalas. 6). The ascetic efforts of the Christian are supported by the sacraments. Baptism gives birth to a person in Eastern life, the Eucharist is “the medicine of immortality”, “the antidote so as not to die” (Ign. Eph. XX 2) - in him this life supports and nurtures.

At the end of earthly history, the Kingdom of God, which previously dwelt in secret in the souls of the saints, will be manifested with glory and power in all visible creation. All nature will be restored in its original God-established plans. The resurrected humanity will be able to participate in the eternal glory of the Divine not only with their souls, but also with their own spiritualized bodies, freed from corruption that mixed with them through the Fall (1 Cor. 15:44). "The life to come destroys and destroys not the body, but the corruption and death that have adhered to it" (Ioan. Chrysost. De resurrect. 6). Together with human nature, the whole world will be transformed. All creature will receive everlasting and inviolability, will become incorruptible. But about the nature or forms of this transformation Christ. Revelation is silent, apophatically raising the human mind from sensory ideas to spiritual contemplation: “Scripture has not interpreted to us that the essence of things of the future century ... future benefits are incomprehensible and have no resemblance to the benefits of the local” (Isaac Syr. Sermo 2).

However, the Holy. Scripture clearly says: God will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28). All created nature - both spiritual and material - will manifest only God, the contemplation of which will become the content of human existence. According to the most common patristic definition, V. there is constant and ineffable rest in God (Aug. De civ. Dei. XI 8), union with Him. In this unity, the relationship "I - Thou" is not abolished, on the contrary, they acquire perfect completeness. Venerable John Damascene emphasizes that in Bud. century the righteous will be glorified together with the Son of God, forever "looking at Him and forever being seen by Him" ​​(Ioan. Damasc. De fide orth. IV 27). Although man is called to become god as much as God became man (Greg. Nazianz. Or. 29.19), the essential difference between the two will remain radical. Man will not be deprived "by grace of anything that is inherent in God" (Maximus Conf. Quaest. Ad Thalas. Proem. 14), but God in his essence will always remain inaccessible, transcendental.

C. f. has no end or change. However, this does not mean that the saved humanity will remain in static motionless peace. The state of the deified creature is striving for God (Mandzaridis, p. 123), the endless process of becoming God-like (Areop. CH. IV 2). On the other hand, God Himself will give Himself to His creatures immeasurably, “generously and without envy,” so that the sons of Bud. the ages will grow incessantly, “receiving grace from grace, and unceasingly advancing in the joyous path of ascent” (Greg. Pal. Triad. II 2. 11). That is, “the actual infinity of Divine being determines the dynamic (potential) infinity of the human path” (Florovsky. Eastern Fathers of the IV century, pp. 129-130). At the same time, the distance between the creature and the Creator will be, incessantly shrinking, always remain infinite.

Although at the end of earthly history, all mankind will inevitably rise and all people, regardless of their will, will be restored for the V. zh., Nevertheless, only the arbiters will become gods by grace (Nicol. Cabas. De vita in Christo. II 91-98). Resolving this paradox, St. Maximus the Confessor developed the theme of two-fold union with God: union through internal free consent and union against the will, from the outside, "outside of grace." Some will be deified by the action of Divine energies, internally appropriated by their being, while others will be in a state of external contact with God with internal separation from Him. Everyone - both good and evil - will be embraced by the same Divine love, but unrepentant sinners will not be able to experience the bliss of this love; for them, adoring the fire of the Holy Spirit will be an external flame, bringing only unbearable torment (Lossky, p. 134).

Lit .: Sergiy (Stragorodsky), archbishop. (later Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia). Orthodox teaching about salvation. Kaz., 1898, 1991r; he is. Eternal life as the highest good // A&O. 1999. No. 2 (20). S. 147-172; No. 3 (21). S. 130-145; Kulakovsky Yu. A . Death and immortality as seen by the ancient Greeks. K., 1899; Bulgakov S. N. Two hail. M., 1911. T. 2.S. 51-127; Radhakrishnan S. Indian philosophy. M., 1956-1957. 2 t .; Lossky V. N. Essay on the mystical theology of the Eastern Church. Dogmatic theology... M., 1991.S. 148-188, 285-287; Trubetskoy N. WITH . Religions of India and Christianity // Lit. studies. M., 1991. Nov.-Dec. S. 131-144; Zubov, A. B. Victory over the "last enemy" // BV. 1993. No. 1. Issue. 2.S. 40-53; Boyes M. Zoroastrians: Beliefs and Customs. SPb., 1994; Budge W. The Journey of the Soul in the Realm of the Dead: The Egyptian Book of the Dead. M., 1995; Jacobsen T. Treasures of Darkness: A History of the Mesopotamian Religion. M., 1995; Meyendorf I., prot. Three eschatologies // he is. Orthodoxy in modern times. the world. Klin, 2002.S. 299-303; Florovsky G. V . On the resurrection of the dead // he is. Dogma and history. M., 1998.S. 415-443; Mandzaridis G. The deification of man according to the teachings of St. Gregory Palamy: Per. from Greek. Serg. P., 2003.

A. A. Zaitsev

After the feast of the Renewal of the Temple, the Lord leaves Judea and goes beyond the Jordan. Here, in the Trans-Jordan region, He will spend three months before Easter, then to return to Jerusalem for the last time. The Evangelist Luke in detail, in six chapters (from 13th to 18th), describes the stay of Jesus Christ in the Jordan region. This final period of the Savior's life is especially significant. The Lord tirelessly preaches, revealing the meaning of His teachings, and does great and glorious deeds in multitudes. One of the parables has a special place in the gospel story. This is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus:

“A certain man was rich, dressed in purple and fine linen, and feasted brilliantly every day. There was also a certain beggar named Lazarus, who lay at his gate in scabs, and wanted to be nourished with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, and the dogs, when they came, licked his scabs. The beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, saw Abraham and Lazarus in his bosom afar off, and cried out, said: Father Abraham! Have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said: child! remember that you have already received your good in your life, and Lazarus - evil; now he is comforted here, and you are suffering; and besides all this, a great gulf is established between us and you, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor do they pass from there to us. Then he said: I beg you, father, send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers; let him testify to them that they also do not come to this place of torment. Abraham said to him: They have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them. But he said: No, father Abraham, but if one comes to them from the dead, they will repent. Then Abraham said to him: if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then if someone is raised from the dead, they will not believe (Luke 16. 19-31).

The language of the Bible is especially imaginative. Within the framework of our earthly concepts, it is impossible to reflect the realities of the other world. And therefore, the metaphor, allegory and parable often used in the Holy Scriptures are the most appropriate form of narration about spiritual realities that are beyond the sensory experience of a person. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus has a very special character, for it reveals the mystery of the afterlife and sets out religious truths that are extremely important for our salvation.

The first of them is that with the termination of the physical existence of a person, with his death, the life of his self-conscious and unique personality is not interrupted, his individual spiritual nature does not disappear into oblivion. For there is a kind of supersensible reality, mysterious and incomprehensible to the mind, which takes a person into its bosom after his death.

Another truth is that this alien reality is differentiated, heterogeneous. It consists, as it were, of two worlds: from the world of good, called paradise, and from the world of evil, known to us under the name of hell. After physical death, a human person inherits either one or the other world, in strict accordance with the state of the soul of each of us. There can be no injustice, hypocrisy or deceit in our acquisition of a posthumous fate: "You are weighed in the scales," according to the prophet (Dan. 5:27), and a good soul is rewarded with a transition to the world of grace and light that is natural to it, and an evil soul finds a posthumous retribution in joining the destructive world of evil.

We also learn from the parable that these worlds are not completely isolated from each other, they are, as it were, visible to one another, but mutually impenetrable. You cannot go from one world to another, although there is an opportunity to contemplate it. Some semblance of this can be seen in our earthly life: a person who is in prison is in a world of unfreedom, who is not able to leave of his own free will, but from his prison the prisoner can contemplate the world of free people, inaccessible to him.

Being in the world of evil is associated with great suffering. In order to convey the feeling of their torment, the Savior resorts to a very bright and strong image of fire. The rich man from the parable, scorched by the fiery heat, is tormented by thirst. He asks Lazarus to ease his ordeals and, having soaked his fingers in water, brought him a little moisture and coolness. This, of course, is an image, a symbol, a metaphor that helps to reveal a very important spiritual truth: beyond the boundaries of the earthly physical world, in the eternity of otherness, a sinful person will be in suffering, the image of which is the fire of hell. In our everyday life, to express a high degree of certain experiences, we often resort to metaphors containing the image of fire: "burn out of shame", "burn out with impatience", "flame of passion", "fire of desire." It is amazing that the fire from the Lord's parable about the afterlife and the fire of "passions and lusts" of this world reveal an undoubted kinship.

It often happens that a person's needs and desires cannot be realized in his life, and then there is an internal conflict, discord, contradiction with oneself, which psychologists call frustration. As a result, the negative tension of a person's inner life increases, which, in turn, can lead to a clash between the personality and the world, objectively preventing its self-realization. The greatest drama of posthumous retribution lies in the fact that, unlike earthly life, in the afterlife such tension can never be resolved in any way, constituting the essence of the inescapable torment of a sinful soul.

One or the other of the two worlds beyond the grave, namely the world of good or the world of evil, as already mentioned, is inherited by a person in accordance with his spiritual state. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the painful state of the soul is precisely expressed, contemplating the beautiful world of good, but even during its lifetime doomed itself to a painful vegetation in the dark world of evil.

In the perspective of eternal life, there is no place for injustice and untruth that darkened the earthly path of man. Here, in our temporary life, it was possible to deceive, mislead, present deeds and events in one way or another. It is not uncommon for a person, being inherently sinful, evil and dishonest, to take advantage of gullible and kind people, hypocritically presenting himself as not what he really was. And sometimes it takes years for the deception to finally dissipate and become apparent. The other world, awaiting all of us, does not know this: an unkind and sinful person inherits in eternity that which corresponds to the true state of his soul. He departs to the abodes of evil with their fire burning and inescapable painful suffering, and a kind-hearted and non-spiteful person inherits the heavenly abodes, transferring the grace of his soul to eternity and becoming an accomplice in the immortal life in the bosom of Abraham.

It is not accidental in the Lord's parable that the personification of two types of personality, two varieties of the path of life and two variants of the afterlife retribution in the images of a rich man and a beggar is not accidental. Why is it so? After all, wealth in itself is not a sin, and the Lord does not condemn the rich man for being rich, for the presence or absence of money in a person is morally neutral. But in the Gospel narrative, one can clearly trace the assertion of a certain internal connection between the presence of wealth and the possibility of the death of the soul. Let us remember: “How difficult it is for those who have riches to enter the Kingdom of God! For it is more convenient for a camel to pass through the ears of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God ”(Luke 18:24-25).

Why do earthly riches act as an obstacle to the inheritance of Heavenly treasures? Because wealth is associated with an abundance of temptations. Indeed, a wealthy person can afford, if not all, then certainly a lot of what he wants. But a person's desires are often dictated not only by his needs for the necessary and sufficient, but also by his instincts and passions, which are extremely difficult to restrain and control. And if a rich person yields to the power of instincts and passions, then in his life there are no external restraining factors. You need to be a very strong and strong-willed person, spiritually hardened person, in order, being rich, to avoid the temptations of wealth. On the contrary, a poor person is objectively placed in conditions under which he often simply does not have the opportunity to indulge his passions and temptations. This constraint by external circumstances to a certain extent protects a person from sin, although, of course, it cannot be the guarantor of his salvation.

“I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house,” says the unfortunate rich man about the happy beggar, referring to Abraham, “for I have five brothers; let him testify to them that they also do not come to this place of torment. And Abraham answers him: if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, then if someone is raised from the dead, they will not believe (Luke 16. 27-28, 31).

What a great truth lies in these simple words! Indeed, people who are distraught with the imaginary omnipotence of wealth, who have the main goal of life to acquire earthly treasures, all imaginable and inconceivable material goods in the name of satisfying their passions - these people will not hear not only the word of Abraham and Moses, but will not believe the resurrected dead man, if he will come to reason with them.

Therefore, the word of God, conveyed to us through the centuries by the holy Gospel, is so vital for our salvation, from the pages of which the truth of earthly existence is revealed in the perspective of eternal life.

In the era of the Middle Kingdom, the most characteristic idea of ​​the Egyptian funeral cult took shape - the idea of ​​the judgment of the souls of the dead. This idea is not yet in the Pyramid Texts, but it already exists in the monuments of the Middle Kingdom. Osiris himself was considered the judge of souls, and his assistants were the gods of 42 nomes, as well as the gods Anubis, Thoth and the hellish monster devouring condemned souls. At this last judgment, the heart of the deceased is weighed and, depending on the good and bad deeds he performed during his lifetime, the fate of his soul is determined. Here we have before us the belief in the afterlife retribution, which contradicts more early idea about the posthumous life as a simple continuation of the earthly.

The ideas of the Egyptians about the posthumous misadventures of the soul, about the trial over it, about the dangers that threaten it and about the means to get rid of them are set forth in detail in the so-called Book of the Dead. This is an extensive (over 180 chapters) collection of magical funeral formulas. The oldest of these formulas go back to the Pyramid Texts (5th and 6th dynasties), they were then written on the walls of the tombs of the pharaohs: in the transitional time, these texts were written on the sarcophagi of nobles, and later these ever-growing burial texts began to be written on papyri and put them on the chest of the mummy of the deceased. This is how this famous Book of the Dead was compiled with a very contradictory content. Some chapters contain appeals on behalf of the deceased to various deities with a request for protection from various dangers; sometimes the deceased directly calls himself the names of these deities. Particularly interesting in this respect is the 17th chapter, where the deceased says about himself: “I am Atum, being one. I am Ra at his first ascent, I am the great, who created himself ... ", etc. In other chapters, on the contrary, the idea of ​​the afterlife retribution for earthly affairs, the idea associated with the concept of moral responsibility, is clearly expressed. Such is the especially famous 125th chapter, in which the deceased, as if already before the judgment of Osiris, is justified, denying various sins and bad deeds.

I did not harm people.

I did not harm the livestock.

I have not committed a sin in the place of Truth ...

I have not done wrong ...

I did not blaspheme ...

I did not raise my hand to the weak.

I didn’t do anything vile before the gods ...

I was not the cause of the disease.

I was not the cause of the tears.

I didn't kill.

I did not order to kill.

I didn't hurt anyone.

I have not depleted the supplies in the temples.

I did not spoil the bread of the gods.

I did not appropriate the bread of the dead.

I did not use foul language ...

I did not take milk from the lips of children ...

I did not add the bird of the gods to the sidki.

I did not fish in their ponds.

I did not stop the water at the time of it.

I did not block the running water.

I did not extinguish the sacrificial fire at its hour ...

I did not obstruct God in his exit.

I am clean, I am clean. I am clean!

Subsequently, it was the Egyptian religious teaching about the terrible afterlife judgment that influenced the development of the same teaching in Christianity. However, this idea of ​​posthumous retribution for good and evil deeds was far from dominant in Egyptian beliefs. Still, the idea of ​​the possibility of ensuring the well-being of the soul in the next world by purely magical means prevailed. One of these means was the use of the text of the Book of the Dead itself, including the same 125th chapter, a text to which magical meaning was attributed in itself. In addition, along with the Book of the Dead, other witchcraft objects (the so-called ushabti) ​​were placed on the chest of the mummy and around it, which were supposed to insure the soul of the deceased from all dangers. Some formulas of the Book of the Dead were intended to give the soul of the deceased the ability to transform into different animals; others are ward spells. Magical ideas in the cycle of the Egyptians' funeral beliefs still prevailed over religious and moral ideas.

Orthodox teaching on the posthumous life. It must be said that interest in the Orthodox teaching about the afterlife and the posthumous fate of the soul has always been and not only among church people. Below we present small reflections of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco concerning the afterlife of the human soul. You will learn about what the soul experiences in the first days after death, you will learn the Orthodox view of the ordeal, why commemoration on the 40th day is so important and why alms are so important for the soul of the deceased.

"I tea the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the century to come." (From the Creed)
Our grief for our dying loved ones would be boundless and inconsolable if the Lord had not given us eternal life. Our life would be pointless if it ended in death. What use would then be of virtue and good deeds? Then those who say: "We will eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die" would be right. But man was created for immortality, and Christ by His resurrection opened the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven, eternal bliss for those who believed in Him and lived righteously. Our earthly life is a preparation for the future life, and this preparation ends with death. “Men are supposed to die one day, and then judgment” (Hebrews 9: 27).

But the soul continues to live, without stopping its existence for a single moment. When seeing with bodily eyes ceases, spiritual vision begins.

The first two days after death.

During the first two days, the soul enjoys relative freedom and can visit the places on earth that are dear to it, but on the third day it moves to other spheres.

Macarius of Alexandria said: “When on the third day there is an offering in the church, the soul of the deceased receives from the Angel guarding it relief in sorrow, which it feels from separation from the body, it receives because praise and offerings in the Church of God have been accomplished for her, from which in it gives birth to good hope. For the soul is allowed in the first two days to walk on earth wherever it wants, together with the Angels who are with it. Therefore, the soul that loves the body sometimes wanders near the house in which it was separated from the body, sometimes near the coffin in which the body is laid, and thus spends two days, like a bird looking for its nest. And the virtuous soul walks to those places in which it used to create the truth. On the third day, the One who rose from the dead commands every Christian soul to ascend to heaven to worship the God of all. ”(Christian reading, August 1831).

The third day. Ordeals.

At this time (on the third day), the soul passes through legions of evil spirits who block its path and accuse it of various sins, in which they themselves have involved it. According to various revelations,

There are twenty such obstacles, the so-called "ordeals", at each of which one or another sin is tortured; after going through one ordeal, the soul comes to the next, and only after passing everything successfully, it can continue its path.

Forty days.

Then, having successfully passed through ordeals and worshiping God, the soul for another 37 days visits the heavenly abodes and hellish abysses, not yet knowing where it will remain, and only on the fortieth day a place is assigned to it until the resurrection of the dead.

Commemoration of the departed.

How often you can see in cemeteries that on the days of commemoration of the dead, their relatives arrange feasts right on the graves or next to them, which you cannot call anything other than pagan feasts. And what a blasphemy! - the remains of vodka or wine are poured directly onto the graves of relatives or they leave glasses of vodka, food on the graves of the dead ...

“What is going on in our cemeteries! - exclaims our contemporary, the famous elder Archimandrite John (Krestyankin). - On the graves where there are crosses! " “The Day of Remembrance of the Departed,” Father John continues, “is truly a dark day for our departed! Instead of prayer, instead of candles and incense, real pagan feasts are celebrated on the graves on this day. And our deceased in the next world burn with the fire of sorrow and pity, like the gospel rich man who asked the Lord to tell his brothers, still alive, what awaits them after death. If any of you celebrated these funeral feasts and collected a table at the grave, go to the cemetery and ask forgiveness from your deceased relatives for the terrible suffering that you brought them with your ignorance, and never again do this on a holy day when the Church is praying according to your notes. about the repose of our deceased loved ones, do not make this day the most painful for them. And ask the Lord for forgiveness for your foolishness. " (Based on the book of Archimandrite John (Krestyankin) "The Experience of Building Confession")

The Church, according to our petitions, prays for repose, for the salvation of the souls of the dead Orthodox both at memorial services, and at parastases, and at the proskomedia, and during the Liturgy ...

In addition to prayer for the departed - church and home - another effective way of remembering them and alleviating the fate beyond the grave is charity that we perform in their memory or on their behalf.

Alms.

Alms is our feasible donation of some earthly blessings to people in need of it, or to our poor fellows. Such actions are of great help to dead sinners (there are no sinless people).

“Prayer and alms belong to deeds of mercy, to deeds of charity ... Prayer for the deceased with alms, in his name, propitiously propitiates the Lord Jesus Christ, who rejoices in deeds of mercy, performed as if on behalf of the deceased himself.

Alms belongs to the deceased. The custom of giving alms to the poor during the burial of the deceased dates back to ancient times, the meaning of charity was known in the Old Testament.

The tradition of almsgiving for the lost also spread to Christendom, where it received a high appointment, and brought the beggar a great reward in heaven - eternal bliss. "Blessed are the merciful, for they will have mercy" (Matthew 5: 7) and "be merciful as your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36) - these are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself about the power and power of alms and about salvation, which she delivers to her doer, as a reliable means to receive the Kingdom of Heaven. " (Based on the book "The Afterlife", the work of the monk Mitrofan).

Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco