The Apocalypse (or in translation from Greek - Revelation) of St. John the Theologian is the only prophetic book of the New Testament. It predicts the future destinies of mankind, the end of the world and the beginning of eternal life, and therefore, naturally, is placed at the end of Holy Scripture.
The Apocalypse is a mysterious and difficult to understand book, but at the same time it is the mysterious nature of this book that attracts the eyes of both believing Christians and simply inquisitive thinkers trying to unravel the meaning and significance of the visions described in it. There are a huge number of books about the Apocalypse, among which there are many works with all sorts of nonsense, in particular this applies to modern sectarian literature.
Despite the difficulty of understanding this book, the spiritually enlightened fathers and teachers of the Church have always regarded it with great reverence as a book inspired by God. Thus, Saint Dionysius of Alexandria writes: “The darkness of this book does not prevent me from being surprised at it. And if I do not understand everything in it, then only by my inability. more by faith than by reason, I find them only surpassing my understanding. " Blessed Jerome speaks in the same way about the Apocalypse: "It contains as many secrets as words. But what am I saying? Any praise for this book will be below her dignity."
During divine services the Apocalypse is not read because in ancient times the reading of the Holy Scriptures during divine services was always accompanied by an explanation of it, and the Apocalypse is very difficult to explain.
book author
The author of the apocalypse calls himself John (Rev. 1: 1, 4 and 9; 22: 8). According to the common opinion of the holy fathers of the Church, this was the Apostle John, the beloved disciple of Christ, who received the distinctive name "Theologian" for the height of his teaching about God the Word. Its authorship is confirmed both by the data in the Apocalypse itself, and by many other internal and external signs. The Gospel and three Epistles of the Council also belong to the inspired pen of the Apostle John the Theologian. The author of the Apocalypse says that he was on the island of Patmos "for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Rev. 1: 9). From church history it is known that of the apostles only St. John the Theologian was imprisoned on this island.
The proof of the authorship of the Apocalypse ap. John the Theologian is the similarity of this book with his Gospel and the Epistles, not only in spirit, but also in syllable, and, especially, in some characteristic expressions. So, for example, the apostolic preaching is called here "testimony" (Rev. 1: 2, 9; 20: 4; see: John 1: 7; 3:11; 21:24; 1 John 5: 9-11) ... The Lord Jesus Christ is called the "Word" (Rev. 19:13; see: John 1: 1, 14 and 1 John 1: 1) and the "Lamb" (Rev. 5: 6 and 17:14; see: John 1:36). The prophetic words of Zechariah: "and they will look upon Him, whom they pierced" (12:10), both in the Gospel and in the Apocalypse are quoted in the same way according to the Greek translation of the "Seventy Interpreters" (Rev. 1: 7 and John 19:37). Some differences between the language of the Apocalypse and other books of the Apostle John are explained both by the difference in content and by the circumstances of the origin of the writings of the holy Apostle. Saint John, a Jew by birth, although he was fluent in the Greek language, being imprisoned far from the living spoken Greek, naturally imposed the influence of his native language on the Apocalypse. For the open-minded reader of the Apocalypse, it is obvious that all its content bears the imprint of the great spirit of the Apostle of love and contemplation.
All ancient and later patristic testimonies are recognized as the author of the Apocalypse of St. John the Theologian. His disciple Saint Papias of Hieropolis calls the writer of the Apocalypse "Elder John," as the apostle himself calls himself in his epistles (2 John 1: 1 and 3 John 1: 1). Also important is the testimony of Saint Justin Martyr, who lived in Ephesus even before his conversion to Christianity, where the Apostle John had lived for a long time before him. Many holy fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries cite passages from the Apocalypse as from a divinely inspired book belonging to the pen of St. John the Theologian. One of them was Saint Hippolytus, Pope of Rome, who wrote an apology for the Apocalypse, a disciple of Irenaeus of Lyons. Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and Origen also acknowledge the holy Apostle John as the author of the Apocalypse. The later Church Fathers are equally convinced of this: the Monk Ephraim the Syrian, Epiphanius, Basil the Great, Ilarius, Athanasius the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Didim, Ambrose of Mediolan, Blessed Augustine and Blessed Jerome. Canon 33 of the Carthaginian Council, attributing the Apocalypse to Saint John the Theologian, places it among the other canonical books of Holy Scripture. Especially valuable is the testimony of Saint Irenaeus of Lyons regarding the author's belonging of the Apocalypse to Saint John the Theologian, since Saint Irenaeus was a disciple of Saint Polycarp of Smyrna, who in turn was a disciple of Saint John the Theologian, leading the Church of Smyrna under his apostolic leadership.
Time, place and purpose of writing the Apocalypse
The ancient tradition dates the writing of the Apocalypse to the end of the 1st century. For example, Saint Irenaeus writes: "The Apocalypse appeared not long before this and almost in our time, at the end of the reign of Domitian." The historian Eusebius (the beginning of the 4th century reports that contemporary pagan writers mention the exile of the Apostle John to Patmos for testifying to the Divine Word, referring this event to the 15th year of the reign of Domitian. (Reigned 81-96 years after Christmas Christ).
Thus, the Apocalypse was written at the end of the first century, when each of the seven churches of Asia Minor, to which St. John turns, already had its own history and, in one way or another, a definite direction of religious life. Christianity with them was no longer in the first stage of purity and truth, and false Christianity was already trying to compete with the true one. Obviously, the work of the Apostle Paul, who preached for a long time in Ephesus, was a matter of the distant past.
Church writers of the first 3 centuries also agree in indicating the place of writing of the Apocalypse, which they recognize the island of Patmos, mentioned by the Apostle himself, as the place where he received revelations (Rev. 1: 9). Patmos is located in the Aegean Sea, south of the city of Ephesus and was a place of exile in ancient times.
In the first lines of the Apocalypse, Saint John indicates the purpose of writing the revelation: to predict the fate of the Church of Christ and the whole world. The mission of the Church of Christ was to revive the world through Christian preaching, to plant true faith in God in the souls of people, to teach them to live righteously, to show them the way to the Kingdom of Heaven. But not all people accepted Christian preaching favorably. Already in the first days after Pentecost, the Church faced enmity and conscious resistance to Christianity - first from the Jewish priests and scribes, then from the unbelieving Jews and pagans.
Already in the first year of Christianity, the bloody persecution of the preachers of the Gospel began. Gradually, this persecution began to take on an organized and systematic form. Jerusalem was the first center of the struggle against Christianity. Starting in the middle of the first century, Rome, led by the emperor Nero (reigned in 54-68 after the birth of Christ), joined the hostile camp. Persecution began in Rome, where many Christians shed their blood, including the chief apostles Peter and Paul. Since the end of the first century, the persecution of Christians has intensified. Emperor Domitian orders the systematic persecution of Christians, first in Asia Minor, and then in other parts of the Roman Empire. The Apostle John the Theologian, summoned to Rome and thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, remained unharmed. Domitian exiles the Apostle John to the island of Patmos, where the Apostle receives a revelation about the fate of the Church and the whole world. With short interruptions, the bloody persecution of the Church continued until 313, when Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan on freedom of religion.
In view of the beginning of the persecution, the Apostle John writes the Apocalypse to Christians in order to comfort them, instruct and strengthen them. He reveals the secret intentions of the enemies of the Church, whom he personifies in the beast that came out of the sea (as a representative of a hostile secular power) and in the beast that came out of the earth - a false prophet, as a representative of a hostile pseudo-religious power. He also discovers the main leader of the struggle against the Church - the devil, this ancient dragon, who groups the godless forces of mankind and directs them against the Church. But the suffering of believers is not in vain: through faithfulness to Christ and patience, they receive a well-deserved reward in Heaven. At the time determined by God, forces hostile to the Church will be judged and punished. After the Last Judgment and the punishment of the wicked, eternal blissful life will begin.
The purpose of writing the Apocalypse is to depict the forthcoming struggle of the Church with the forces of evil; show the methods by which the devil, with the assistance of his servants, fights against good and truth; provide guidance to believers on how to overcome temptation; depict the death of the enemies of the Church and the final victory of Christ over evil.
Content, plan and symbolism of the Apocalypse
The Apocalypse has always attracted the attention of Christians, especially at a time when various calamities and temptations began to excite social and church life with greater force. Meanwhile, the imagery and mystery of this book makes it very difficult to understand, and therefore for careless interpreters there is always a risk of going beyond the boundaries of truth to unrealizable hopes and beliefs. So, for example, the literal understanding of the images of this book gave rise and now continues to give a reason for the false teaching about the so-called "chiliasm" - the millennial kingdom of Christ on earth. The horrors of persecution experienced by Christians in the first century and interpreted in the light of the Apocalypse gave some reason to believe that the "last times" had come and the second coming of Christ was near. This opinion arose already in the first century.
Over the past 20 centuries, many interpretations of the Apocalypse of the most diverse nature have appeared. All these interpreters can be divided into four categories. Some of them attribute the visions and symbols of the Apocalypse to the "last times" - the end of the world, the appearance of the Antichrist and the Second Coming of Christ. Others give the Apocalypse a purely historical significance and limit its vision to historical events of the first century: persecution of Christians by pagan emperors. Still others try to find the realization of apocalyptic predictions in the historical events of their time. In their opinion, for example, the Pope is the Antichrist and all apocalyptic calamities are proclaimed, in fact, for the Roman Church, etc. The fourth, finally, see in the Apocalypse only an allegory, believing that the visions described in it have not so much prophetic as moral meaning. As we will see below, these points of view on the Apocalypse do not exclude, but complement each other.
The Apocalypse can only be correctly understood in the context of the entire Holy Scriptures. A feature of many prophetic visions - both Old Testament and New Testament - is the principle of combining several historical events in one vision. In other words, spiritually related events, separated from one another by many centuries and even millennia, merge into one prophetic picture that combines events from different historical eras.
An example of such a synthesis of events is the Savior's prophetic conversation about the end of the world. In it, the Lord speaks simultaneously about the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place 35 years after His crucifixion, and about the time before His second coming. (Matt. 24th chapter; Mr. 13th chapter; Luke 21st chapter. The reason for such a combination of events is that the first illustrates and explains the second.
Often, Old Testament predictions speak simultaneously of a beneficial change in human society in the New Testament time and of a new life in the Kingdom of Heaven. In this case, the first serves as the beginning of the second (Isa. (Isaiah) 4: 2-6; Isa. 11: 1-10; Is. 26, 60 and 65; Jer. (Jeremiah) 23: 5-6; Jer. 33: 6-11; Hab. (Habakkuk) 2:14; Sof. (Zephaniah) 3: 9-20). Old Testament prophecies about the destruction of Chaldean Babylon speak at the same time about the destruction of the kingdom of Antichrist (Isa. 13-14 and 21 ch.; Jer. 50-51 ch.). There are many similar examples of the merging of events in one prediction. This method of combining events on the basis of their internal unity is used in order to help a believer understand the essence of events on the basis of what he already knows, leaving aside secondary and non-explanatory historical details.
As we will see below, the Apocalypse consists of a series of multi-layered compositional visions. The seer shows the future in the perspective of the past and the present. So, for example, the multi-headed beast in 13-19 chap. - this is the Antichrist himself and his predecessors: Antiochus Epiphanes, so vividly described by the prophet Daniel and in the first two Maccabean books, - these are the Roman emperors Nero and Domitian, who persecuted the apostles of Christ, as well as the subsequent enemies of the Church.
Two witnesses of Christ in the 11th chap. - these are the denunciators of the antichrist (Enoch and Elijah), and their prototypes are the apostles Peter and Paul, as well as all the preachers of the Gospel who carry out their mission in a world hostile to Christianity. The false prophet in the 13th chapter is the personification of all those who plant false religions (Gnosticism, heresies, Mohammedanism, materialism, Hinduism, etc.), among which the most prominent representative will be the false prophet of the time of Antichrist. To understand why the Apostle John united various events and different people in one image, one must take into account that he wrote the Apocalypse not only for his contemporaries, but for Christians of all times, who were to endure similar persecution and sorrow. The Apostle John reveals common methods of deception, and also shows the sure way to avoid them in order to be faithful to Christ until death.
Likewise, the judgment of God, about which the Apocalypse speaks repeatedly, is the Last Judgment of God and all the private judgments of God over individual countries and people. This includes the trial of all mankind under Noah, and the trial of the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah under Abraham, and the trial of Egypt under Moses, and the two-time trial of Judah (six centuries before Christ and again in the seventies of our era), and the trial over ancient Nineveh, Babylon, over the Roman Empire, over Byzantium and, more recently, over Russia. The reasons that caused God's righteous punishment were always the same: people's unbelief and lawlessness.
There is a certain timelessness in the Apocalypse. It follows from the fact that the Apostle John contemplated the fate of mankind not from an earthly, but from a heavenly perspective, where the Spirit of God led him. In an ideal world, the flow of time stops at the throne of the Almighty, and the present, the past and the future appear at the same time before the spiritual gaze. Obviously, therefore, the author of the Apocalypse describes some future events as past, and the past as present. For example, the war of angels in Heaven and the overthrow of the devil from there are events that happened even before the creation of the world, described by the Apostle John, as if they happened at the dawn of Christianity (Rev. Ch. 12). The resurrection of the martyrs and their reign in Heaven, which covers the entire New Testament era, is placed by them after the trial of the Antichrist and the false prophet (Rev. 20 ch.). Thus, the viewer does not tell about the chronological sequence of events, but reveals the essence of that great war between good and evil, which is going on simultaneously on several fronts and covers both the material and the angelic world.
There is no doubt that some of the predictions of the Apocalypse have already come true (for example, regarding the fate of the seven churches of Asia Minor). The fulfilled predictions should help us understand the remaining ones that have yet to be fulfilled. However, when applying the visions of the Apocalypse to certain specific events, it must be borne in mind that such visions contain elements of different eras. Only with the end of the fate of the world and the punishment of the last enemies of God, all the details of the apocalyptic visions will be realized.
The Apocalypse was written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The correct understanding of it is most of all hindered by the departure of people from the faith and a truly Christian life, which always leads to a dullness, if not a complete loss of spiritual sight. The complete devotion of modern man to sinful passions is the reason that some modern interpreters of the Apocalypse want to see in it only one allegory, and even the Second Coming of Christ itself is taught to understand allegorically. Historical events and faces of our time convince us that to see only one allegory in the Apocalypse means to be spiritually blind, so much of what is happening now resembles terrible images and visions of the Apocalypse.
The method of presenting the Apocalypse is shown in the table attached here. As can be seen from it, the apostle simultaneously reveals to the reader several spheres of being. To the highest sphere belongs the Angelic world, the Church triumphant in Heaven, and the Church persecuted on earth. This sphere of good is headed and directed by the Lord Jesus Christ - the Son of God and the Savior of people. Below is the sphere of evil: the unbelieving world, sinners, false teachers, conscious fighters against God and demons. They are led by a dragon - a fallen angel. Throughout the entire existence of mankind, these spheres have been at war with each other. The Apostle John in his visions gradually reveals to the reader the different sides of the war between good and evil and reveals the process of spiritual self-determination in people, as a result of which some of them take the side of good, others - on the side of evil. During the development of the world conflict, the Judgment of God is constantly performed on individuals and nations. Before the end of the world, evil will increase excessively, and the earthly Church will become extremely weakened. Then the Lord Jesus Christ will come to earth, all people will be resurrected, and the Last Judgment of God will be over the world. The devil and his supporters will be condemned to eternal torment, while for the righteous, eternal, blessed life in Paradise will begin.
On sequential reading, the Apocalypse can be divided into the following parts.
An introductory picture of the Lord Jesus Christ who appeared, commanding John to write down the Revelation to the seven churches of Asia Minor (1st chapter).
Letters to the 7 churches of Asia Minor (chapters 2 and 3), in which, simultaneously with the instructions to these churches, the fate of the Church of Christ is traced - from the apostolic age to the end of the world.
The vision of God sitting on the throne, the Lamb and heavenly worship (chapters 4 and 5). This worship is complemented by visions in the chapters that follow.
The disclosure of the fate of mankind begins with the 6th chapter. The opening by the Lamb-Christ of the seven seals of the mysterious book serves as the beginning of the description of the different phases of the war between good and evil, between the Church and the devil. This war, which begins in the human soul, spreads to all aspects of human life, intensifies and becomes more and more terrible (up to the 20th chapter).
The voices of the seven angelic trumpets (chapters 7-10) announce the initial calamities that must befall people for their unbelief and sins. Damage to nature and the appearance of evil forces in the world are described. Before the onset of disasters, believers receive a blessed seal on their foreheads, which keeps them from moral evil and from the fate of the wicked.
The vision of the seven signs (chapters 11-14) shows humanity divided into two opposing and irreconcilable camps - good and evil. The good forces are concentrated in the Church of Christ, represented here in the form of the Woman, clothed in the sun (12th chapter), and the evil - in the kingdom of the beast-antichrist. The beast that came out of the sea is a symbol of evil secular power, and the beast that came out of the earth is a symbol of decayed religious power. In this part of the Apocalypse, for the first time, a conscious, extra-worldly evil creature is clearly revealed - the dragon-devil, who organizes and directs the war against the Church. The two witnesses of Christ here symbolize the preachers of the Gospel who fight with the beast.
The visions of the seven bowls (chapters 15-17) paint a grim picture of worldwide moral decay. The war against the Church becomes extremely tense (Armageddon) (Rev. 16:16), the trials become unbearably difficult. The image of Babylon the harlot depicts mankind apostate from God, concentrated in the capital of the kingdom of the antichrist beast. Evil power extends its influence to all areas of the life of sinful humanity, after which God's judgment over the powers of evil begins (here God's judgment over Babylon is described in general terms, as an introduction).
The following chapters (18-19) describe the judgment of Babylon in detail. It also shows the death of the perpetrators of evil among people - the Antichrist and the false prophet - representatives of both civil and heretical anti-Christian authorities.
Chapter 20 summarizes spiritual warfare and world history. She talks about the double defeat of the devil and the reign of the martyrs. Having suffered physically, they won spiritually and are already blissful in Heaven. It covers the entire period of the Church's existence, starting from the apostolic times. Gog and Magog personify the totality of all the theomachic forces, earthly and hell, who fought against the Church (Jerusalem) throughout Christian history. They are destroyed by the second coming of Christ. Finally, the devil is also subjected to eternal punishment, this ancient serpent, which laid the foundation for all iniquities, untruths and suffering in the Universe. The end of the 20th chapter tells about the general resurrection of the dead, the Last Judgment and the punishment of the wicked. This short description summarizes the Last Judgment of humanity and the fallen angels and summarizes the drama of the universal war between good and evil.
The final two chapters (21-22) describe the new Heaven, the new Earth, and the blissful life of the saved. These are the brightest and most joyful chapters in the Bible.
Each new section of the Apocalypse usually begins with the words: "And I saw ..." - and ends with a description of the judgment of God. This description marks the end of the previous topic and the beginning of a new one. Between the main departments of the Apocalypse, the viewer sometimes inserts intermediate pictures that serve as a link between them. The table given here clearly shows the plan and sections of the Apocalypse. For the sake of compactness, we have combined the intermediate pictures together with the main ones. Going horizontally according to the given table, we see how the following areas are gradually revealed with greater completeness: Heavenly world; Church persecuted on earth; sinful and theomachous world; the underworld; war between them and the judgment of God.
Meaning of symbols and numbers. Symbols and allegories enable the viewer to talk about the essence of world events at a high level of generalization, so he makes wide use of them. So, for example, the eyes symbolize knowledge, many eyes - perfect knowledge. The horn is a symbol of power, power. Long robe denotes the priesthood; a crown is a royal dignity; whiteness - purity, purity; the city of Jerusalem, the temple and Israel - symbolize the Church. Numbers also have a symbolic meaning: three - symbolizes the Trinity, four - a symbol of peace and world order; seven means completeness and perfection; twelve - the people of God, the fullness of the Church (numbers derived from 12 have the same meaning, like 24 and 144,000). One third means some relatively small part. Three and a half years is a time of persecution. The number 666 will be specifically mentioned later in this brochure.
New Testament events are often depicted against the backdrop of homogeneous Old Testament events. For example, the calamities of the Church are described against the background of the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt, the temptation under the prophet Balaam, the persecution by the Queen Jezebel and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans; the salvation of believers from the devil is depicted against the background of the salvation of the Israelites from Pharaoh under the prophet Moses; the godless power is represented in the form of Babylon and Egypt; the punishment of the atheist forces is depicted in the language of 10 Egyptian executions; the devil is identified with the serpent that seduced Adam and Eve; future heavenly bliss is depicted in the form of the Garden of Eden and the tree of life.
The main task of the author of the Apocalypse is to show how evil forces act, who organizes and directs them in the struggle against the Church; instruct and strengthen believers in faithfulness to Christ; show the complete defeat of the devil and his servants and the beginning of paradise bliss.
With all the symbolism and mystery of the Apocalypse, religious truths are revealed in it very clearly. So, for example, the Apocalypse points to the devil as the culprit of all the temptations and calamities of mankind. The tools with which he tries to destroy people are always the same: disbelief, disobedience to God, pride, sinful desires, lies, fear, doubts, etc. Despite all his cunning and experience, the devil is not able to destroy people who are devoted to God with all their hearts, because God protects them by His grace. The devil enslaves himself more and more apostates and sinners and pushes them into all sorts of abominations and crimes. He directs them against the Church and with their help produces violence and starts wars in the world. The Apocalypse clearly shows that in the end the devil and his servants will be defeated and punished, the righteousness of Christ will triumph, and a blessed life will come in the renewed world, which will not end.
Having thus made a cursory review of the content and symbolism of the Apocalypse, let us now dwell on some of its most important parts.
Letters to the Seven Churches (Ch. 2-3)
Seven churches - Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea - were located in the southwestern part of Asia Minor (now Turkey). They were founded by the apostle Paul in the 40s of the first century. After his martyrdom in Rome around the year 67, the Apostle John the Theologian took charge of these churches, who cared for them for about forty years. Having found himself in captivity on the island of Patmos, the Apostle John wrote letters to these churches from there in order to prepare Christians for the impending persecution. The letters are addressed to the "angels" of these churches, i.e. bishops.
A careful study of the epistles to the seven churches of Asia Minor suggests that the destinies of the Church of Christ are inscribed in them, from the apostolic age to the time of the end of the world. At the same time, the forthcoming path of the New Testament Church, this "New Israel," is depicted against the background of the most important events in the life of Old Testament Israel, starting with the Fall in Paradise and ending with the time of the Pharisees and Sadducees under the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle John uses Old Testament events as prototypes for the fate of the New Testament Church. Thus, three elements are intertwined in the letters to the seven churches:
b) a new, deeper interpretation of the Old Testament history; and
c) the future destinies of the Church.
The combination of these three elements in the letters to the seven churches is summarized in the table attached here.
Notes: The Ephesian church was the most populous, and had metropolitan status in relation to neighboring churches in Asia Minor. In the 431st year, the 3rd Ecumenical Council took place in Ephesus. Gradually, the lamp of Christianity in the Ephesian church went out, as the apostle John predicted. Pergamum was the political center of the western part of Asia Minor. It was dominated by paganism, with a lavish cult of deified pagan emperors. On a mountain near Pergamum, a pagan monument-altar, referred to in the Apocalypse as "the throne of Satan" (Rev. 2:13), stood majestically. The Nicolaites are ancient Gnostic heretics. Gnosticism was a dangerous temptation for the Church in the first centuries of Christianity. A fertile ground for the development of Gnostic ideas was the syncretic culture that arose in the empire of Alexander the Great, uniting East and West. The religious attitude of the East, with its belief in the eternal struggle between good and evil, spirit and matter, body and soul, light and darkness, in combination with the speculative method of Greek philosophy, gave rise to various Gnostic systems, which were characterized by the idea of the emanational origin of the world from the Absolute and about the multitude of intermediate levels of creation that connect the world with the Absolute. Naturally, with the spread of Christianity in the Hellenistic environment, there was a danger of its presentation in Gnostic terms and the transformation of Christian piety into one of the religious-philosophical Gnostic systems. Jesus Christ was perceived by the Gnostics as one of the mediators (eons) between the Absolute and the world.
One of the first disseminators of Gnosticism among Christians was someone named Nicholas - hence the name "Nicolaitans" in the Apocalypse. (It is believed that this was Nicholas, who, among the other six chosen men, was ordained by the apostles to the deacon's degree, see: Acts 6: 5). By distorting the Christian faith, the Gnostics encouraged moral licentiousness. Several Gnostic sects flourished in Asia Minor beginning in the middle of the first century. The apostles Peter, Paul and Jude warned Christians not to fall into the snares of these heretic lewd people. Prominent representatives of Gnosticism were the heretics Valentine, Marcion, and Basilides, who were opposed by the apostolic men and the early Church Fathers.
The ancient Gnostic sects have long disappeared, but Gnosticism as a fusion of heterogeneous philosophical and religious schools still exists in our time in Theosophy, Kabbalah, Freemasonry, modern Hinduism, yoga and other cults.
A vision of heavenly worship (chap. 4-5)
The Apostle John received revelation on the "Day of the Lord," that is, on Sunday. It should be assumed that, according to the apostolic custom, on this day he performed "the breaking of bread," i.e. Divine Liturgy and received Communion, therefore he "was in the Spirit," that is experienced a special inspired state, (Rev. 1:10).
And so, the first thing that he deserves to see is, as it were, the continuation of the divine service he performed - the heavenly Liturgy. The Apostle John describes this service in the 4th and 5th chapters of the Apocalypse. The Orthodox person recognizes here the familiar features of the Sunday Liturgy and the most important accessories of the altar: a throne, a seven-branched candlestick, a censer with smoking incense, a golden cup, etc. (These objects, shown to Moses on Mount Sinai, were also used in the Old Testament temple). The slain Lamb seen by the Apostle in the middle of the throne reminds the believer of the Communion, under the guise of bread lying on the throne; the souls of those killed for the word of God under the heavenly throne - an antimension with particles of the relics of the holy martyrs sewn into it; elders in light robes and with golden crowns on their heads - a host of clergymen who celebrate the Divine Liturgy in conciliarity. It is noteworthy here that even the exclamations and prayers themselves heard by the Apostle in Heaven express the essence of the prayers that the clergymen and singers say during the main part of the Liturgy - the Eucharistic Canon. The making of the righteous their garments by the "Blood of the Lamb" is reminiscent of the sacrament of Communion, through which believers sanctify their souls.
Thus, the apostle begins to reveal the fate of mankind with a description of the heavenly Liturgy, thereby emphasizing the spiritual significance of this Divine service and the need for the prayers of the saints for us.
Notes. The words "Lion from the tribe of Judah" refer to the Lord Jesus Christ and recall the prophecy of the patriarch Jacob about the Messiah (Gen. 49: 9-10), "The Seven Spirits of God" - the fullness of the grace-filled gifts of the Holy Spirit, (see: Isa. 11: 2 and Zech. 4th ch.). Many eyes - symbolize omniscience. The twenty-four elders correspond to the twenty-four priestly orders established by King David for serving in the temple - two intercessors for each tribe of New Israel (1 Chron. 24: 1-18). The four mysterious animals that surround the throne are like the animals seen by the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1: 5-19). They seem to be the beings closest to God. These faces - a man, a lion, a calf and an eagle - are taken by the Church as the emblems of the four Evangelists.
In the further description of the mountain world, there are many incomprehensible to us. From the Apocalypse we learn that the angelic world is immensely great. Disembodied spirits - angels, like people, are endowed by the Creator with reason and free will, but their spiritual abilities are many times superior to ours. Angels are completely devoted to God and serve Him by prayer and the fulfillment of His will. For example, they raise the prayers of the saints to the throne of God (Rev. 8: 3-4), help the righteous in achieving salvation (Rev. 7: 2-3; 14: 6-10; 19: 9), sympathize with the suffering and persecuted (Rev. 8:13; 12:12), according to the command of God, sinners are punished (Rev. 8: 7; 9:15; 15: 1; 16: 1). They are endowed with power and have power over nature and its elements (Rev. 10: 1; 18: 1). They wage war with the devil and his demons (Rev. 12: 7-10; 19: 17-21; 20: 1-3), take part in the judgment of the enemies of God (Rev. 19: 4).
The doctrine of the Apocalypse about the angelic world fundamentally subverts the doctrine of the ancient Gnostics, who recognized intermediate beings (eons) between the Absolute and the material world, who completely independently and independently of Him rule the world.
Among the saints whom the Apostle John sees in Heaven, there are two groups, or "faces:" these are martyrs and virgins. Historically, martyrdom is the first kind of holiness, and therefore the apostle begins with martyrs (6: 9-11). He sees their souls under the heavenly altar, which symbolizes the redemptive significance of their suffering and death, with which they participate in the sufferings of Christ and, as it were, complement them. The blood of the martyrs is likened to the blood of the Old Testament sacrifices, which flowed down under the altar of the Jerusalem temple. The history of Christianity testifies that the sufferings of the ancient martyrs served to the moral renewal of the decrepit pagan world. The ancient writer Tertulian wrote that the blood of the martyrs serves as a seed for new Christians. The persecution of believers will either subside or intensify during the further existence of the Church, and therefore it was revealed to the secret viewer that the new martyrs would have to supplement the number of the former.
Later, the Apostle John sees in Heaven a huge number of people whom no one could count - from all tribes, and tribes, and peoples, and languages; they stood in white robes with palm branches in their hands (Rev. 7: 9-17). What this innumerable host of the righteous has in common is that "they came from great tribulation." For all people, the path to Paradise is the same - through sorrow. Christ is the first Sufferer who took upon Himself the sins of the world as the Lamb of God. Palm branches are a symbol of victory over the devil.
In a special vision, the seer describes virgins, i.e. people who have given up the pleasures of marriage for the sake of the whole service of Christ. (Voluntary "eunuchs" for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, see about this: Matt. 19:12; Rev. 14: 1-5. In the Church, this feat was often carried out in monasticism). The Seer sees on the foreheads (forehead) of virgins written "the name of the Father," which indicates their moral beauty, reflecting the perfection of the Creator. The “new song,” which they sing and which no one can repeat, is an expression of the spiritual height that they have reached through the exploits of fasting, prayer and chastity. This purity is beyond the reach of the people of the worldly way of life.
The song of Moses, sung by the righteous in the next vision (Rev. 15: 2-8), recalls the thanksgiving hymn that the Israelites sang when, having crossed the Red Sea, they were saved from Egyptian slavery (Ex. 15 ch.). Likewise, New Testament Israel is saved from the power and influence of the devil, passing into a grace-filled life through the sacrament of baptism. In subsequent visions, the seer describes the saints several times. The "fine linen" (precious linen garment) in which they are clothed is a symbol of their righteousness. In the 19th chapter of the Apocalypse, the marriage song of the saved speaks of the approaching "marriage" between the Lamb and the saints, i.e. about the onset of the closest communion between God and the righteous, (Rev. 19: 1-9; 21: 3-4). The book of Revelation ends with a description of the blessed life of the saved nations (Rev. 21: 24-27; 22: 12-14 and 17). These are the brightest and most joyful pages in the Bible, showing the triumphant Church in the Kingdom of glory.
Thus, as the fate of the world is revealed in the Apocalypse, the Apostle John gradually directs the spiritual gaze of believers to the Kingdom of Heaven - to the ultimate goal of earthly wandering. He seems to be forced and reluctant to speak about the dark events in the sinful world.
Removal of seven seals. The Vision of the Four Horsemen (Chapter 6)
The vision of the seven seals is the introduction to the subsequent revelations of the Apocalypse. The opening of the first four seals reveals the four horsemen who symbolize the four factors that characterize the entire history of mankind. The first two factors are the cause, the second two are the effect. The crowned rider on a white horse "came out to conquer." He personifies those good beginnings, natural and gracious, which the Creator put into a person: the image of God, moral purity and innocence, striving for goodness and perfection, the ability to believe and love, and individual "talents" with which a person is born, as well as gracious gifts Of the Holy Spirit, which he receives in the Church. According to the Creator's thought, these good principles should have “overcome,” that is, determine the happy future of humanity. But man, already in Eden, succumbed to the temptation of the tempter. Nature, damaged by sin, passed on to his descendants; therefore, people are prone to sin from an early age. From repeated sins, evil inclinations are further intensified in them. So a person, instead of spiritually growing and improving, falls under the destructive action of his own passions, indulges in various sinful desires, begins to envy and enmity. All crimes in the world (violence, wars and all kinds of disasters) arise from internal discord in a person.
The destructive action of passions is symbolized by the red horse and rider who took the world away from people. Yielding to his erratic sinful desires, a person squanders the talents given to him by God, becomes poor physically and spiritually. In public life, however, enmity and wars lead to the weakening and decay of society, to the loss of its spiritual and material resources. This internal and external impoverishment of humanity is symbolized by a black horse with a rider holding a measure (or scales) in his hand. Finally, the complete loss of God's gifts leads to spiritual death, and the ultimate consequence of enmity and wars is the death of people and the disintegration of society. This sad fate of people is symbolized by the pale horse.
The four apocalyptic horsemen outline the history of mankind in the most general terms. First - the blissful life in Eden of our ancestors, called to "reign" over nature (white horse), then - their fall (red horse), after which the life of their descendants was filled with various calamities and mutual destruction (black and pale horses). Apocalyptic horses also symbolize the life of individual states with their periods of prosperity and decline. Here is the life path of each person - with his childish purity, naivety, great potential, which are darkened by a stormy youth, when a person wastes his strength, health and eventually dies. Here is the history of the Church: the spiritual fervor of Christians in apostolic times and the efforts of the Church to renew human society; the emergence of heresies and schisms in the Church itself, and the persecution of the Church by pagan society. The church is weakening, goes to the catacombs, and some local churches disappear altogether.
Thus, the vision of the four horsemen summarizes the factors that characterize the life of sinful humanity. Subsequent chapters of the Apocalypse will develop this topic deeper. But by removing the fifth seal, the seer also shows the bright side of human misery. Christians, having suffered physically, have overcome spiritually; now they are in Paradise! (Rev. 6: 9-11) Their feat brings them an eternal reward, and they reign with Christ, as described in the 20th chapter. Moving to more detailed description the calamities of the Church and the strengthening of the atheist forces are marked by the lifting of the seventh seal.
Seven pipes. The imprinting of the chosen ones. The beginning of disasters and the defeat of nature (7-11 chap.)
Angelic trumpets foreshadow calamities for humanity, both physical and spiritual. But before the beginning of the disasters, the Apostle John sees an angel laying a seal on the foreheads of the sons of New Israel (Rev. 7: 1-8). "Israel" is the New Testament Church here. The imprinting symbolizes the chosenness and grace-filled patronage. This vision is reminiscent of the sacrament of Confirmation, during which the "seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit is imposed on the forehead of the newly baptized." It also reminds us of the sign of the cross, the ones who are protected by which "resist the enemy." People who are not protected by the blessed seal are harmed by the "locust" that came out of the abyss, that is, from the devilish power, (Rev. 9: 4). The prophet Ezekiel describes a similar imprinting of the righteous citizens of ancient Jerusalem before it was taken by the Chaldean hordes. Then, as well as now, the mysterious seal was placed in order to save the righteous from the fate of the wicked (Ezek. 9: 4). When the 12 tribes (tribes) of Israel are enumerated by name, the tribe of Dan is deliberately omitted. Some see this as an indication of the origin of the Antichrist from this tribe. The basis for this opinion is the mysterious words of the patriarch Jacob regarding the future of Dan's descendants: "a serpent on the road, a viper on the way" (Gen. 49:17).
Thus, this vision serves as an introduction to the subsequent description of the persecution of the Church. Measurement of the temple of God in the 11th chap. has the same meaning as the sealing of the sons of Israel: the preservation of the children of the Church from evil. The Temple of God, like the Wife clothed in the sun, and the city of Jerusalem are different symbols of the Church of Christ. The main idea of these visions is that the Church is holy and dear to God. God allows persecution for the sake of moral improvement of believers, but protects them from enslavement to evil and from the same fate with the fighters against God.
Before the opening of the seventh seal, there is silence "as if for half an hour," (Rev. 8: 1). It is the silence before the storm that will stir the world in the time of Antichrist. (The modern process of disarmament as a result of the collapse of communism is not a break that is given to people to turn to God?). Before the onset of disasters, the Apostle John sees the saints fervently praying for mercy on people (Rev. 8: 3-5).
Disasters in nature. Following this, the trumpet sounds of each of the seven angels are heard, after which various disasters begin. First, a third of the vegetation perishes, then a third of fish and other sea creatures, followed by the poisoning of rivers and water sources. The fall of hail and fire, a flaming mountain and a luminous star to the ground, apparently, allegorically indicates the enormous dimensions of these disasters. Is this not a prediction of global pollution and destruction of nature, which is observed today? If so, then the ecological catastrophe foreshadows the coming of the Antichrist. More and more defiling the image of God in themselves, people cease to appreciate and love His wonderful world. With their waste they pollute lakes, rivers and seas; spilled oil affects huge coastal spaces; destroy forests and jungles, exterminate many species of animals, fish and birds. From the poisoning of nature, both the guilty themselves and the innocent victims of their cruel greed fall ill and die. The words: "The name of the third star is wormwood ... And many of the people died from the waters, because they became bitter" remind of the Chernobyl disaster, because "Chernobyl" means wormwood. But what does the defeat of the third part of the sun and stars and their eclipse mean? (Rev. 8:12). Obviously, here we are talking about air pollution to such a state where sunlight and starlight, reaching the earth, seems less bright. (For example, due to air pollution, the sky in Los Angeles usually looks dirty brown in color, while at night there are almost no stars above the city, except for the brightest).
The story of the locust (the fifth trumpet, (Rev. 9: 1-11)), which came out of the abyss, speaks of the strengthening of demonic power among people. It is headed by "Apollyon," which means "destroyer" - the devil. As people lose the grace of God with their unbelief and sins, the spiritual emptiness that forms in them is more and more filled with demonic power, which torments them with doubts and various passions.
Apocalyptic wars. The trumpet of the sixth angel sets in motion a huge army across the Euphrates River, from which a third of the people perish (Rev. 9: 13-21). In the biblical view, the Euphrates River marks the line behind which the nations hostile to God are concentrated, threatening Jerusalem with war and extermination. For the Roman Empire, the Euphrates River served as a bulwark against the attack of the eastern peoples. The ninth chapter of the Apocalypse is written against the backdrop of the cruel and bloody Judeo-Roman war of 66-70 AD, which is still fresh in the memory of the Apostle John. This war had three phases (Rev. 8:13). The first phase of the war, in which Gasius Florus led the Roman forces, lasted five months, from May to September 66 (five locust months, Rev. 9: 5 and 10). Soon the second phase of the war began, from October to November 66, in which the Syrian governor Cestius led four Roman legions (four angels at the Euphrates River, Rev. 9:14). This phase of the war was especially devastating for the Jews. The third phase of the war, led by Flavian, lasted three and a half years - from April 67th to September 70th, and ended with the destruction of Jerusalem, the burning of the temple and the scattering of the captured Jews across the Roman Empire. This bloody Roman-Jewish war became a prototype of the terrible wars of the last times, which the Savior pointed out in His conversation on the Mount of Olives (Matt. 24: 7).
The attributes of the infernal locust and the Euphrates horde can be recognized as modern weapons of mass destruction - tanks, cannons, bombers and nuclear missiles. Further chapters of the Apocalypse describe all the intensifying wars of the end times (Rev. 11: 7; 16: 12-16; 17:14; 19: 11-19 and 20: 7-8). The words "the river Euphrates has dried up, so that the path of the kings from the rising of the sun" (Rev. 16:12) may be ready to indicate the "yellow danger." It should be borne in mind that the description of apocalyptic wars has the features of real wars, but ultimately refers to spiritual war, and proper names and numbers have an allegorical meaning. This is how the Apostle Paul explains: "Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spirits of wickedness in high places" (Eph. 6:12). The name Armageddon is composed of two words: "Ar" (in Hebrew - plain) and "Megiddo" (area in the north of the Holy Land, near Mount Carmel, where in ancient times Barak defeated the army of Sisera, and the prophet Elijah destroyed more than five hundred priests of Baal), ( Rev. 16:16 & 17:14; Judges 4: 2-16; 1 Kings 18:40). In the light of these biblical events, Armageddon symbolizes the defeat of the God-fighting forces by Christ. The names Gog and Magog in ch. 20 recall the prophecy of Ezekiel about the invasion of Jerusalem of countless hordes under the leadership of Gog from the land of Magog (in the south of the Caspian Sea), (Ezekiel 38-39; Rev. 20: 7-8). Ezekiel dates this prophecy to messianic times. In the Apocalypse, the besieging of the "camp of saints and the city of the beloved" (ie the Church) by the hordes of Gog and Magog and the extermination of these hordes by heavenly fire must be understood in the sense of the complete defeat of the atheist forces, human and demonic, by the Second Coming of Christ.
As for the physical calamities and punishments of sinners, often mentioned in the Apocalypse, the viewer himself explains that God allows them to be admonished in order to bring sinners to repentance (Rev. 9:21). But the apostle notes with sorrow that people do not heed the call of God, they continue to sin and serve demons. They, as if "biting the bit," rush to their own destruction.
A vision of two witnesses (11: 2-12). The 10th and 11th chapters are intermediate between the visions of the 7 trumpets and the 7 signs. In the two witnesses of God, some holy fathers see the Old Testament righteous Enoch and Elijah (Or Moses and Elijah). It is known that Enoch and Elijah were taken alive to Heaven (Gen. 5:24; 4 Kings 2:11), and before the end of the world they will come to earth to expose the falsity of Antichrist and call people to faithfulness to God. The executions that these witnesses will bring on people resemble the miracles performed by the prophets Moses and Elijah (Ex. 7-12 chap.; 1 Kings 17: 1; 4 Kings 1:10). For the Apostle John, the prototypes of the two apocalyptic witnesses could have been the apostles Peter and Paul, who had recently suffered in Rome from Nero. Apparently, the two witnesses in the Apocalypse also symbolize other witnesses of Christ, spreading the Gospel in a hostile pagan world and often stamping their sermon with a martyr's death. The words "Sodom and Egypt, where our Lord was crucified" (Rev. 11: 8), indicate the city of Jerusalem, in which the Lord Jesus Christ suffered, many prophets and early Christians. (Some suggest that during the time of the Antichrist, Jerusalem will become the capital of the world state. However, they provide an economic justification for this opinion).
Seven signs (12-14 chap.). Church and kingdom of the beast
The further, the clearer the viewer reveals to the readers the division of humanity into two opposite camps - the Church and the kingdom of the beast. In previous chapters, the apostle John began to introduce readers to the Church, talking about the sealed, the Jerusalem temple, and the two witnesses, and in chapter 12 he shows the Church in all her heavenly glory. At the same time, he identifies her main enemy - the devil-dragon. The vision of the Woman, clothed in the sun, and the dragon makes it obvious that the war between good and evil goes beyond the material world and extends to the world of angels. The Apostle shows that in the world of disembodied spirits there is a conscious evil being who, with desperate persistence, is waging a war against God's faithful angels and people. This war of good and evil, permeating the entire existence of mankind, began in the angelic world before the creation of the material world. As we have already said, the viewer describes this war in different parts of the Apocalypse, not in its chronological sequence, but in different fragments, or phases.
The vision of the Woman reminds the reader of God's promise to Adam and Eve about the Messiah (the Seed of the Woman), who will erase the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). One would think that in the 12th chapter the Wife refers to the Virgin Mary. However, from the further narrative, which speaks of other descendants of the Wife (Christians), it is clear that here the Wife must mean the Church. The woman's sunshine symbolizes the moral perfection of the saints and the grace-filled illumination of the Church with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The twelve stars symbolize the twelve tribes of New Israel - i.e. the totality of Christian nations. The torment of the Wife during childbirth symbolizes the exploits, hardships and sufferings of the servants of the Church (prophets, apostles and their successors), suffered by them when spreading the Gospel in the world and when establishing Christian virtues among their spiritual children. ("My children, for whom I am again in the throes of birth, until Christ is portrayed in you," - said the Apostle Paul to Galatian Christians (Gal. 4:19)).
The firstborn of the Wife, "Who was to rule all nations with an iron rod," is the Lord Jesus Christ (Ps. 2: 9; Rev. 12: 5 and 19:15). He is the New Adam who has become the head of the Church. The "rapture" of the Infant, obviously, indicates the ascension of Christ to Heaven, where He sat down "at the right hand of the Father" and since then rules the destinies of the world.
"The dragon with his tail pulled away from Heaven a third of the stars and threw them to the ground," (Rev. 12: 4). By these stars, the interpreters understand the angels whom the proud Devil-Dennitsa rebelled against God, as a result of which a war took place in Heaven. (This was the first revolution in the universe!). Archangel Michael took the floor at the head of the good angels. The angels who rebelled against God were defeated and could not stay in Heaven. Having fallen away from God, they turned from good angels to demons (demons). Their underworld kingdom, called the abyss or hell, became a place of darkness and suffering. According to the holy fathers, the war described here by the Apostle John took place in the angelic world even before the creation of the material world. It is cited here in order to explain to the reader that the dragon, which will persecute the Church in further visions of the Apocalypse, is the fallen Dennitsa - the primordial enemy of God.
So, having been defeated in Heaven, the dragon with all its fury takes up arms against the Woman-Church. His weapons are many different temptations, which he casts on the Woman like a stormy river. But she saves herself from temptation by fleeing into the desert, that is, by voluntary abandonment of the benefits and comforts of life, with which the dragon tries to captivate her. The two wings of the Wife are prayer and fasting, by which Christians are spiritualized and made inaccessible to the dragon, crawling on the earth like a serpent (Gen. 3:14; Mark 9:29). (It should be remembered that from the first centuries many zealous Christians had literally moved into the desert, leaving noisy cities full of temptations. Christians have no idea. ”Monasticism flourished in the East in the 4-7 centuries, when in the desert places of Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Asia Minor many monasteries were formed, numbering hundreds and thousands of monks and nuns. From the Middle East monasticism spread to Athos, and from there - to Russia, where in pre-revolutionary times there were more than a thousand monasteries and sketes).
Note. The expression "time, times and half a time" - 1260 days or 42 months (Rev. 12: 6-15) - corresponds to three and a half years and symbolically denotes a period of persecution. The Savior's public ministry lasted three and a half years. For about the same time, the persecution of believers continued under King Antiochus Epiphanes, emperors Nero and Domitian. At the same time, the numbers in the Apocalypse should be understood allegorically (see above).
The beast that came out of the sea, and the beast that came out of the land. From. Chapters 13-14
Most of the holy fathers understand the Antichrist as the "beast from the sea", and the false prophet by the "beast from the earth". The sea symbolizes the unbelieving mass of people, always agitated and overwhelmed by passions. From the further narration about the beast and from the parallel narration of the prophet Daniel (Dan. 7-8 chap.). it should be concluded that the "beast" is the entire theomachous empire of the antichrist. In appearance, the dragon-devil and the beast that came out of the sea, to which the dragon transferred its power, are similar to each other. Their external attributes speak of their dexterity, cruelty and moral ugliness. The heads and horns of the beast symbolize the godless states that make up the anti-Christian empire, as well as their rulers ("kings"). The message about the fatal wound of one of the heads of the beast and about its healing is mysterious. In due time, the events themselves will shed light on the meaning of these words. The historical basis for this allegory could be the conviction of many contemporaries of the Apostle John that the slain Nero came to life and that he would soon return with the Parthian troops (located across the Euphrates River (Rev. 9:14 and 16:12)) to take revenge on his enemies. There may be here an indication of the partial defeat of the theomachy paganism by the Christian faith and the revival of paganism during the period of general apostasy from Christianity. Others see here an indication of the defeat of God-fighting Judaism in the 70s of our era. "They are not Jews, but a congregation of Satan," the Lord said to John (Rev. 2: 9; 3: 9). (Read more about this in our brochure "Christian Doctrine of the End of the World").
Note. There are similarities between the beast of the Apocalypse and the four beasts of the prophet Daniel, who personified the four ancient pagan empires (Dan. 7th chapter). The fourth beast belonged to the Roman Empire, and the tenth horn of the last beast meant the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes - the prototype of the coming Antichrist, whom the archangel Gabriel called "despicable" (Dan. 11:21). The characteristics and deeds of the apocalyptic beast also have much in common with the tenth horn of the prophet Daniel, (Dan. 7: 8-12; 20-25; 8: 10-26; 11: 21-45). The first two Maccabean books serve as a vivid illustration of the times before the end of the world.
Then the viewer describes the beast that came out of the earth, which he later calls the false prophet. The earth here symbolizes the complete absence of spirituality in the teaching of the false prophet: everything is saturated with materialism and pleasing sin-loving flesh. The false prophet deceives people with false miracles and makes them worship the first beast. "He had two horns like a lamb, and spoke like a dragon" (Rev. 13:11), - that is, he looked meek and peaceful, but his speeches were filled with flattery and lies.
As in the 11th chapter, two witnesses symbolize all the servants of Christ, so, obviously, the two beasts of the 13th chapter. symbolize the totality of all haters of Christianity. The beast from the sea is a symbol of civil godless power, and the beast from the earth is the totality of false teachers and any perverted church power. (In other words, the Antichrist will come from a civilian environment, under the guise of a civil leader, preached and praised by false prophets or false prophets who have betrayed their religious beliefs).
Just as during the time of the Savior's earthly life, both these powers, civil and religious, in the person of Pilate and the Jewish high priests united in condemning Christ to be crucified, so throughout the history of mankind, these two powers often unite in the struggle against faith and for the persecution of believers. As already mentioned, the Apocalypse describes not only the distant future, but also constantly repeating - for different peoples at one time. And the Antichrist is also his own for all, appearing during the time of anarchy, when "the one who is holding back is taken." Examples: the prophet Balaam and the Moabite king; Queen Jezebel and her priests; false prophets and princes before the destruction of Israel and later Jews, "apostates from the holy covenant" and king Antiochus Epiphanes (Dan. 8:23; 1 Mac. and 2 Mac. 9 chap.), adherents of the Mosaic law and Roman rulers in apostolic times. In New Testament times, heretical false teachers weakened the Church by their schisms and thereby contributed to the conquering successes of the Arabs and Turks, who flooded and ruined the Orthodox East; Russian free-thinkers and populists prepared the ground for the revolution; modern false teachers seduce unstable Christians into various sects and cults. All of them are false prophets who contribute to the success of the godless forces. The apocalypse vividly reveals the mutual support between the dragon-devil and both beasts. Here, each of them has their own selfish calculations: the devil longs to worship himself, the Antichrist seeks power, and the false prophet seeks his material gain. The Church, calling people to faith in God and to the strengthening of virtues, serves as a hindrance to them, and they jointly fight against it.
Inscription of the Beast
(Rev. 13: 16-17; 14: 9-11; 15: 2; 19:20; 20: 4). In the language of the Holy Scriptures, to wear a seal (or mark) on oneself means belonging or subordination to someone. We have already said that the seal (or the name of God) on the foreheads of believers means their God's chosenness and, therefore, God's protection over them, (Rev. 3:12; 7: 2-3; 9: 4; 14: 1; 22: 4). The activities of the false prophet, described in the 13th chapter of the Apocalypse, convinces that the kingdom of the beast will be of a religious and political nature. By creating an alliance of different states, it will simultaneously plant new religion instead of the Christian faith. Therefore, submitting to the Antichrist (allegorically, to take the seal of the beast on your forehead or on your right hand) will be tantamount to renouncing Christ, which will entail the deprivation of the Kingdom of Heaven. (The symbolism of the seal is drawn from the custom of antiquity, when warriors burned the names of their leaders on their hands or on their foreheads, and slaves - voluntarily or forcibly - took the seal of the name of their master. Pagans, devoted to some deity, often wore a tattoo of this deity) ...
The possibility is not excluded that in the time of the Antichrist an improved computer registration will be introduced, similar to modern bank cards. The improvement will consist in the fact that the invisible computer code will be printed not on a plastic card, as it is now, but directly on the human body. This code, read by an electronic or magnetic "eye", will be transmitted to a central computer, which will store all information about the person, personal and financial. Thus, the establishment of personal codes directly in public will replace the need for money, passports, visas, tickets, checks, credit cards and other personal documents. Thanks to the individual coding, all monetary transactions - receiving salaries and paying off debts - can be carried out directly in the computer. In the absence of money, the robber will have nothing to take from the person. The state, in principle, will be able to control crime more easily, since the movements of people will be known to it thanks to the central computer. It seems that in such a positive aspect this personal coding system will be proposed. In practice, it will also be used for religious and political control over people, when “no one will be allowed to buy or sell except for the one who has this mark” (Rev. 13:17).
Of course, the thought expressed here about stamping codes on humans is speculation. The point is not in electromagnetic signs, but in fidelity or betrayal of Christ! Throughout the history of Christianity, pressure on believers from the anti-Christian government took various forms: making a formal sacrifice to an idol, accepting Mohammedanism, joining an atheist or anti-Christian organization. In the language of the Apocalypse, this is the acceptance of the "mark of the beast:" the acquisition of temporary advantages at the cost of renouncing Christ.
The number of the beast - 666
(Rev. 13:18). The meaning of this number is still a mystery. Obviously, it will lend itself to deciphering when the very circumstances favor it. Some interpreters in the number 666 see a decrease in the number 777, which in turn means threefold perfection, completeness. With this understanding of the symbolism of this number, the Antichrist, striving in everything to show his superiority over Christ, in fact, in everything will turn out to be imperfect. In ancient times, the calculation of a name was based on the fact that the letters of the alphabets had a numerical meaning. For example, in Greek (and in Church Slavonic) "A" was equal to 1, B = 2, G = 3, etc. A similar numerical meaning of letters exists in Latin and Hebrew. Each name could be calculated arithmetically by adding the numerical value of the letters. For example, the name Jesus, written in Greek, is 888 (possibly denoting supreme perfection). There are a huge number of proper names, which, by the sum of their letters translated into numbers, give 666. For example, the name Nero Caesar, written in Hebrew letters. In this case, if the proper name of the Antichrist was known, then it would not require special wisdom to calculate its numerical value. Maybe here it is necessary to look for a solution to the riddle on a principled plane, but it is not clear in what direction. The beast of the Apocalypse is both the Antichrist and his state. Perhaps during the time of the Antichrist, the initials will be introduced, denoting a new worldwide movement? By the will of God, the personal name of the Antichrist is for the time being hidden from idle curiosity. When the time comes, those who follow will decipher it.
Speaking image of the beast
It is difficult to understand the meaning of the words about the false prophet: “And it was given to him to put a spirit in the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast spoke and acted so that everyone who would not worship the image of the beast would be killed” (Rev. 13:15). The reason for this allegory could have been the requirement of Antiochus Epiphanes that the Jews bow to the statue of Jupiter erected by him in the Jerusalem temple. Later, the emperor Domitian demanded that all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire bow to his image. Domitian was the first emperor to demand divine veneration for himself during his lifetime and to be called "our Lord and God." Sometimes, for a greater impression, priests hid behind the statues of the emperor, who spoke from there on his behalf. Christians who did not bow to the image of Domitian were ordered to be executed, but to give gifts to those who bowed. Maybe in the prophecy of the Apocalypse we are talking about some kind of apparatus like a TV, which will transmit the image of the Antichrist and at the same time monitor how people react to it. In any case, in our time, films and television are widely used to inculcate anti-Christian ideas, to accustom people to cruelty and vulgarity. Daily indiscriminate watching TV kills the good and the holy in a person. Is the TV the forerunner of the speaking image of the beast?
Seven bowls. Strengthening the godless power. The judgment of sinners 15-17 chap.
In this part of the Apocalypse, the viewer describes the kingdom of the beast, which reached its apogee of power and control over people's lives. Apostasy from the true faith embraces almost all of humanity, and the Church reaches extreme exhaustion: "And it was given to him to wage war with the saints and to overcome them" (Rev. 13: 7). To encourage the believers who remained faithful to Christ, the Apostle John lifts their gaze to the heavenly world and shows a great crowd of righteous people who, like the Israelites who were saved from Pharaoh under Moses, sing a song of victory (Ex. 14-15 chap.).
But as the end of the power of the pharaohs came, so the days of anti-Christian rule were numbered. The next chapters (chapters 16-20). in bright strokes, they draw God's judgment over the theomists. The defeat of nature in the 16th ch. similar to the description in chapter 8, but here it reaches worldwide proportions and makes a terrifying impression. (As before, obviously, the destruction of nature is carried out by people themselves - by wars and industrial waste). The increased heat from the sun, from which people suffer, may be associated with the destruction of ozone in the stratosphere and the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. According to the Savior's prediction, in the last year before the end of the world, living conditions will become so unbearable that “if God had not shortened those days, no flesh would have been saved” (Matt. 24:22).
The description of judgment and punishment in chapters 16-20 of the Apocalypse follows the order of increasing guilt of God's enemies: first, people who have taken the mark of the beast are punished, and the capital of the anti-Christian empire is "Babylon," then the Antichrist and the false prophet, and finally the devil.
The story of the defeat of Babylon is given twice: first in general terms at the end of the 16th chapter, and in more detail in chapters 18-19. Babylon is portrayed as a harlot sitting on a beast. The name Babylon resembles Chaldean Babylon, in which in the Old Testament times the atheist power was concentrated. (Chaldean troops destroyed ancient Jerusalem in 586 BC). When describing the luxury of a "harlot," the Apostle John had in mind the wealthy Rome with its port city. But many features of apocalyptic Babylon do not apply to ancient Rome and obviously refer to the capital of the Antichrist.
Equally mysterious is the explanation of the angel at the end of chapter 17 about the "mystery of Babylon" in details relating to the Antichrist and his kingdom. These details are likely to be understood in the future when the time is right. Some allegories are taken from the description of Rome, which stood on seven hills, and its theomachous emperors. "Five kings (heads of the beast) fell" - these are the first five Roman emperors - from Julius Caesar to Claudius. The sixth head is Nero, the seventh is Vespasian. "And the beast, which was and which is not, is the eighth, and (he is) from among the seven" - this is Domitian, who revived Nero in the popular imagination. He is the antichrist of the first century. But, probably, the symbolism of the 17th chapter will receive a new explanation during the time of the last antichrist.
The trial of Babylon, the antichrist and the false prophet (ch. 18-19)
The seer in vivid and vivid colors paints a picture of the fall of the capital of the atheist state, which he calls Babylon. This description is similar to the predictions of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah about the death of Chaldean Babylon in 539 BC, (Isa. 13-14 chap.; Isa. 21: 9; Jer. 50-51 chap.). There are many similarities between the past and future centers of world evil. The punishment of the antichrist (the beast) and the false prophet is especially described. As we have already said, the "beast" is both the definite personality of the last theomachist and, at the same time, the personification of all theomachist power in general. A false prophet is the last false prophet (assistant to the antichrist), as well as the personification of any pseudo-religious and perverted church authority.
It is important to understand that in the story of the punishment of Babylon, the Antichrist, the false prophet (in ch. 17-19). and the devil (in chapter 20), the apostle John follows not a chronological, but a principled method of presentation, which we will now explain.
Taken together, Scripture teaches that the atheist kingdom will end its existence at the time of the Second Coming of Christ, and then the Antichrist and the false prophet will perish. The terrible judgment of God over the world will take place in the order of increasing guilt of the accused. (“The time for judgment to begin with the house of God. If it begins with us first, then what is the end of those who disobey the word of God?” (1 Pet. 4:17; Matt. 25: 31-46). sinners, then - the conscious enemies of God, and finally - the main culprits of all iniquity in the world - demons and the devil). In this order, the Apostle John also narrates about the judgment of the enemies of God in chapters 17-20. At the same time, the apostle precedes the judgment of each category of the guilty (apostates, antichrist, false prophet and, finally, the devil) by describing their guilt. Therefore, the impression arises that first Babylon will be destroyed, some time later the Antichrist and the false prophet will be punished, after which the kingdom of the saints will come on earth, and after a very long time the devil will come out to deceive the nations and then he will be punished by God. In reality, the Apocalypse deals with parallel events. This method of exposition of the Apostle John should be taken into account for the correct interpretation of the 20th chapter of the Apocalypse. (See: "The Failure of Chiliasm" in the pamphlet on the end of the world).
1000-year Kingdom of the Saints. Devil's judgment (chapter 20). Raising the Dead and the Last Judgment
The twenty chapter, telling about the kingdom of the saints and about the double defeat of the devil, covers the entire period of the existence of Christianity. It sums up the chapter 12 drama about the dragon's persecution of the Wife-Church. The first time the devil was struck by the death of the Savior on the cross. Then he was deprived of power over the world, “bound” and “imprisoned in the abyss” for 1000 years (ie for a very long time, Rev. 20: 3). "Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince of this world will be cast out," said the Lord before His sufferings (John 12:31). As we know from the 12th chapter. The Apocalypse and from other places of Holy Scripture, the devil even after the death of the Savior on the cross had the opportunity to tempt the believers and create intrigues for them, but he no longer had power over them. The Lord said to His disciples: "Behold, I give you the power to tread on serpents and scorpions and on all the power of the enemy" (Luke 10:19).
Only just before the end of the world, when, as a result of the mass deviation of people from the faith, the "retainer" will be taken from the environment (2 Thess. 2: 7), the devil will again prevail over sinful humanity, but for a short time. Then he will lead the last desperate struggle against the Church (Jerusalem), sending against her hordes of "Gog and Magog," but he will be defeated by Christ a second time and finally ("I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against her" (Matt. 16:18). The hordes of Gog and Magog symbolize the totality of all the godless forces, human and hell, which the devil will unite in his insane war against Christ. Thus, the ever-increasing struggle with the Church throughout history ends in the 20th chapter of the Apocalypse with the complete defeat of the devil and his servants. Chapter 1 summarizes the spiritual side of this struggle and shows its end.
The bright side of the persecution of believers is that, having suffered physically, they spiritually overcame the devil, because they remained faithful to Christ. From the moment of their martyrdom, they reign with Christ and "judge" the world, taking part in the fate of the Church and all mankind. (Therefore, we turn to them for help, and from this follows the Orthodox veneration of the saints (Rev. 20: 4). The Lord foretold the glorious fate of those who suffered for the faith: “He who believes in me, even if he dies, will come to life” (John 11:25) ...
The "first resurrection" in the Apocalypse is a spiritual rebirth, which begins from the moment of baptism of a believer, intensifies his Christian deeds and reaches its highest state at the moment of martyrdom for Christ's sake. The promise is related to the spiritually reborn: "The time is coming, and it has already come, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and when they hear they will come to life." The words of the 10th verse of the 20th chapter are concluding: the devil, who deceived people, "was cast into the lake of fire." Thus ends the story of the condemnation of apostates, a false prophet, antichrist and the devil.
The 20th chapter ends with a description of the Last Judgment. Before him, there must be a general resurrection of the dead - a physical one, which the apostle calls the "second" resurrection. All people will be physically resurrected - both the righteous and the sinners. After the general resurrection, "the books were opened ... and the dead were judged according to what was written in the books." Obviously, then, before the throne of the Judge, the spiritual state of each person will be revealed. All dark deeds, evil words, secret thoughts and desires - everything carefully hidden and even forgotten - will suddenly surface and become obvious to everyone. It will be a terrible sight!
As there are two resurrections, so there are two deaths. "The first death" is a state of unbelief and sin, in which people lived who did not accept the Gospel. "The second death" is the doom to eternal alienation from God. This description is very concise, since the apostle has already spoken about the Judgment several times earlier (see: Rev. 6: 12-17; 10: 7; 11:15; 14: 14-20; 16: 17-21; 19:19 -21 and 20: 11-15). Here the apostle sums up the Last Judgment (The prophet Daniel briefly tells about this at the beginning of the 12th chapter). With this brief description, the Apostle John completes the description of the history of mankind and proceeds to describe the eternal life of the righteous.
New Heaven and New Earth. Eternal bliss (21-22 chap.)
The last two chapters of the book of the Apocalypse are the brightest and most joyful pages of the Bible. They describe the blessedness of the righteous on the renewed Earth, where God will wipe away every tear from the eyes of the sufferers, where there will be no more death, no weeping, no outcry, no sickness. Life will begin, which will not end.
So, the book of the Apocalypse was written during the intensified persecution of the Church. Its purpose is to strengthen and comfort believers in the face of the challenges ahead. It reveals the ways and tricks by which the devil and his servants try to destroy the believers; she teaches how to overcome temptations. The book of the Apocalypse calls on believers to be attentive to their state of mind, not to be afraid of suffering and death for Christ's sake. She shows the joyful life of the saints in heaven and calls to unite with them. Believers, although sometimes they have many enemies, have even more defenders in the person of angels, saints and, especially, Christ the Victor.
The book Apocalypse, brighter and more clearly than other books of the Holy Scriptures, reveals the drama of the struggle between evil and good in the history of mankind and shows more fully the triumph of Good and Life.
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All rights reserved. The book or any part of it cannot be copied, reproduced in electronic or mechanical form, in the form of a photocopy, recording in a computer memory, reproduction or in any other way, and also used in any information system without obtaining permission from the publisher. Copying, reproduction and other use of a book or part of it without the consent of the publisher is illegal and entails criminal, administrative and civil liability.
Foreword
The Apocalypse is the most mysterious book in the New Testament and the only prophetic book that talks about the future. Many generations of believing Christians, philosophers, mystics have tried to unravel the mysteries of the Apocalypse and understand the prophecy that awaits us. The Apocalypse - its symbols, quotes, mysterious sayings, images had a huge impact on the development of the entire world culture. But, unfortunately, the true meaning of symbols and phenomena is available only to those who were able to “tune in to the wave” of the apostle and evangelist John the Theologian, who wrote this prophetic book. The holy men penetrated the secrets of the Apocalypse and in very accessible words explained what an ordinary person in his daily life rhythm is not able to understand ... Fascinating reading, opening the veil of the future and revealing Divine secrets, Interpretation of the Apocalypse will acquaint the reader with the most mysterious book of the New Testament, will lead him into the world, which is accessible only to the holy ascetics.
We live in a difficult historical time, in such times people tend to worry about the future, and humanity is carefully looking into this heavenly book, this "mystical mirror of human destinies", trying to unravel the riddles of our own destinies - in the dramatic periods in which our century is so rich. the apocalyptic sense of life and history is sharpened.
The book presents the clearest, deepest and most authoritative interpretations that will be of interest to the modern reader:
Archbishop. Andrey of Caesarea. Interpretation of the Apocalypse of St. John the Evangelist;
Explanatory Bible, ed. prof. A. Lopukhina. Interpretation on the book of the Apocalypse;
Metropolitan Benjamin (Fedchenkov). About the end of the world;
Archbishop. Averky Taushev. Apocalypse or Revelation of St. John the Divine.
Apocalypse and its interpreters 1
From the foreword by Yves. Yuvacheva for publication: St. Andrew of Caesarea "Interpretation of the Apocalypse." 1909 g.
The Christians of the first centuries were expecting the fulfillment of everything that was foreseen from above just now, not today or tomorrow.
But since then the second thousand years have ended, and we all cannot say at what stage, in what period is the struggle of Christ with the devil, the struggle of light angels with dark forces.
I
There are as many mysteries in the Apocalypse of John as there are words. But even this would be too little to say about the merits of the book. Any praise will be lower.
Blessed Jerome
On the bright blue waters of the ancient sea, under the azure dome of the southern sky, among the many islands of different sizes, two mountains stand out, connected by a narrow isthmus. Tightened with a light purple cover, from a distance they seem to emerge from the depths of the sea. Something airy, fabulous is felt in the vision of these rocky mountains against a transparent background of sky and water.
The sea is called the Aegean, and the island is called Patmos.
A famous place on the globe! It was here that before the eyes of John, the writer of the Apocalypse, pictures of the peaceful life of the times to come flashed. On this island, lying between the two parts of the Old World - Europe, Asia and Africa - a divinely revealed story was written Christian Church.
On quiet, cloudless days, a magical view of the southern sky with a bewitching gentle light of the moon, with stars sparkling like precious stones, more than once opened up here in front of John. In these moments of exalted contemplation, he was carried away by the spirit into the heavenly heights, and there, in the host of angels, among the heavenly army, the secrets of the Kingdom of God were revealed to him (Matthew 13:11).
But amid such a captivating setting, how contrasting were the prophetic visions of a continuous series of terrible punishments!
However, the apostle-prophet did not write everything down and told the world: he hid from us that they spoke to him seven thunders with their voices (Rev. 10: 4) ... And what he recorded in the book constitutes an important prophecy about peoples and tribes and about many kings (Rev 10:11).
Here is a book that can simultaneously expel a river of tears from the eyes, fill the heart with mystical horror and can raise a person's thought to the throne of God, delight him to the third heaven. Scary book, but at the same time attractive! As they begin to delve into the Divine words of the Apocalypse, the mysterious curtain of the world opens slightly, something appears in the distance, beckons to itself - and suddenly such a picture will unfold that people fall from fear on their face to the ground and lie in a daze (Dan 10: 7-19).
Where did such a book come from?
From God Himself.
He gave it to Jesus Christ, and Christ sent it through His angel to John to show His servants what must be soon.
When did the Lord choose John to write the Apocalypse? Who is he?
All ancient church tradition testifies that this was the most beloved disciple of Jesus Christ, the apostle and evangelist John the Theologian. For example, in the "Dialogue" of St. Justin the Philosopher with Tryphon, there is such a positive testimony: this will be a general resurrection and judgment. " Saint Irenaeus of Smyrna also calls the writer of the Apocalypse a disciple of Jesus Christ. Theophilus of Antioch, Polycrates of Ephesus, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory the Theologian, Cyril of Jerusalem and others testify to this. Saint Andrew of Kessaria in the preface to his "Interpretation of the Apocalypse" refers to the Pope of Jerusalem (about 160), Methodius and Hippolytus (235) of Rome.
In the "History of the Church" of Eusebius, some persons are indicated (for example, Presbyter Caius and Dionysius of Alexandria) who allowed themselves to doubt the identity of the writer of the Apocalypse and John the Theologian, but their doubts are drowned in a number of positive testimonies of the ancient Church Fathers.
In our time of skepticism and revaluation of all values, voices have been heard among Western theologians denying the tradition of the Church, but it is enough to compare those verses of the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel, where Jesus Christ is called the Lamb and the Word of God, to make sure that the author of these books is one and the same person , the holy apostle John the Theologian.
The Apocalypse is replete with Hebraisms and resembles the Old Testament prophetic books. The way it should be! Because the Apocalypse, like other canonical books, is the creation of the same Holy Spirit. The writer of Revelation can tell all doubters: We are from God: he who knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us ... If anyone considers himself a prophet or spiritual, then let him understand that I am writing to you(1 John 4: 6; 1 Cor 14:37).
Saint John points out that he received the Revelation on the island of Patmos on Sunday. But which year? This is again a controversial issue for modern theologians. Their disagreement is mainly in the fact that some of the writing of the Apocalypse date back to the time before the destruction of Jerusalem, while others prove that the Apocalypse was written after the destruction of Jerusalem. The decisive voice in this matter should again be the most ancient testimony of Saint Irenaeus, who writes: "Revelation was not long before our time, but almost in our century, at the end of the reign of Domitian." If so, then the writing of the Apocalypse can be attributed to the end of the 1st century. Some researchers set the date: 95 after the birth of Christ.
II
In this book, which is called the Apocalypse, much is said in secret to give exercise to the mind of the reader, and there is little in it that, with its clarity, makes it possible to bring the rest to comprehension.
Blessed Augustine
A prophecy can only be explained when it is fulfilled.
Currently, there are many Orthodox interpreters of the Apocalypse who believe that most of the prophetic pictures have not yet been fulfilled, since they belong to the very last time (Dan 8:17, 26; 12: 9). Moreover, in the early days of Christianity it was difficult to say anything definite about the mysterious indications of Revelation. However, the era of persecution and the final triumph of Christianity under Constantine the Great in a small form paint us the whole future fate of Christianity until the final victory of Christ, before the opening of His great Kingdom. Therefore, some researchers of the Apocalypse timed his paintings to the historical events of the first four centuries of Christianity. But even the ancient interpreters (Ippolit, Irenaeus, Andrei of Kessariysky) understood that the world book should not be limited to three or four centuries.
Perhaps there are no two interpreters who would understand exactly the same apocalyptic foreshadowings of the coming events of the world or the Church, nevertheless, the interpreters may be relatively right. The law of crystallization of water is the same always and everywhere, but how differently it manifests itself on earth! Look at a graceful snowflake, a shapeless block of ice, or amazing patterns on window panes from frost. It would seem, from the outside, what a variety! In fact, we see the manifestation of the same law, the same "thought of God." In the same way, the prophetic writings are the essence of the design of God Himself, to which life responds with a number of the same nature of events, only on different scales. With two or three witnesses every word is verified (Matthew 18:16). Historical events are repeated two or three times, rising from strength to strength (Ps. 83: 8).
However, the opposite phenomenon has also been noticed: the same event is described in the holy books also two or three times. Therefore, we will not neglect any interpretation, no matter how strange and inapplicable it may seem at first glance. "Without denying the work of predecessors," writes Qliphoth, "every researcher of the Apocalypse should strive to contribute his own bit of understanding."
In Russian, there is an excellent experience in the interpretation of the Apocalypse of Archpriest Nikolai Orlov, edited by prof. A. Lopukhina. It contains all the essential that theological science has given us, and the inspired interpretations of the ancient Church Fathers are indicated. But the most popular is the "Interpretation of the Apocalypse" by St. Andrew, Archbishop of Caesarea. But at the time when he wrote it, the world had not yet experienced either the Crusades, or the development of the secular power of the popes, or the Renaissance, or the time of great discoveries and inventions, not the Reformation, or religious wars, or the French Revolution, or modern atheism. , and therefore Saint Andrew had to confine himself in many places in the interpretation of the Apocalypse to edifying and instructive commentaries or interpretations of real symbols in the spiritual sense 2
From modern interpretations, it is impossible to ignore the "Apocalypse or the Revelation of St. John the Theologian" by Archbishop Averky (Taushev).
Usually the book of the Revelation of St. John the Theologian is divided into an introduction (1: 1–8), a first part (1: 9–3: 22), a second part (4–22: 5) and a conclusion (22: 6–21).
As for the second part (from the fourth to the twenty-second chapters), it is divided differently in accordance with the method of interpretation.
Saint Andrew of Caesarea divides his entire interpretation of the Apocalypse into 24 sections, and each section into 3 articles.
III
The Apocalypse is a wonderful book; it is a treasure given by God.
Luthard
They notice that the Apocalypse is not included in the range of liturgical books. Others from this conclude that the clergy are strenuously eliminating this book.
“Accept,” says one of our contemporary “God-seekers”, “the Apocalypse, and I will immediately go over to the Orthodox Church, but you will never do this, because he denounces you ...
And we must confess that the Revelation of John the Theologian is under cover of some clergy. Some repeat the ancient adage that we barely understand the letters of the apocalyptic alphabet; others are afraid of a misinterpretation of incomprehensible pictures and images of the holy book, others do not allow the definition of times from the Apocalypse. There are those who generally do not admit anything mysterious, nothing mystical in the Christian religion. All these cautious views, perhaps appropriate in ancient times, are now slowly dissipating. The simple people themselves, reading the Bible, involuntarily stop at the pages of the Apocalypse longer. Some priests testify that the people quite often turn to them for an explanation of the incomprehensible passages of the Revelation of John the Theologian.
How can one explain such a special attention of Christians to the final book of the entire Bible - the Apocalypse? Are we really experiencing the last times appointed by God? Or do we notice that much that is indicated in Revelation allegorically, allegorically, has already been fulfilled or is being fulfilled?
The revelation of John the Evangelist 3
Bible. Synodal translation. M., Russian Bible Society, 2013(Apocalypse)
Chapter 1
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants what must be soon. And He showed it by sending it through His Angel to His servant John,
Who testified the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, and what he saw.
Blessed is he who reads and hears the words of this prophecy and keeps what is written in it; for the time is at hand.
John to the seven churches that are in Asia: grace and peace to you from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits that are before His throne,
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His blood
And to Him who made us kings and priests to His God and Father, glory and dominion forever and ever! Amen.
Behold, he is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, and those who pierced Him; and all the families of the earth will mourn before Him. Hey, amen.
I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
I John, your brother and partaker in the tribulation and in the kingdom and in the patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
A. Durer. Seven lamps. The vision of St. John
I was in the spirit on Sunday afternoon, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as though a trumpet, which said: I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last;
What you see, write in a book and send to the churches in Asia: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.
And, in the midst of seven lamps, like the Son of Man, clothed in a podir and girded with a golden girdle around the feathers.
His head and hair are white, like a white wave, like snow; and His eyes are like a flame of fire;
And His feet are like the Chalcoliban, as red-hot in a furnace, and His voice is like the sound of many waters.
He held in His right hand the seven stars, and a sword, sharp on both sides, came out of His mouth; and His face is like the sun shining in its strength.
And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He put His right hand on me and said to me: Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last
And Alive; And he was dead, and behold, he is alive forever and ever, amen; and I have the keys of hell and death.
So write down what you saw, and what is, and what will happen after this.
The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lamps is this: the seven stars are the Angels of the seven churches; and the seven lamps that you saw are seven churches.
Chapter 2
Write to the angel of the Ephesian church: thus says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of seven golden lamps:
I know your deeds, and your labor, and your patience, and the fact that you cannot bear the depraved, and I tested those who call themselves apostles, but they are not, and I found that they are liars.
You endured a lot and have patience, and you labored for My name, and did not faint.
But I have against you that you left your first love.
So remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; but if it is not so, I will soon come to you, and I will remove your lamp from its place, if you do not repent.
However, it is good in you that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches: To him who overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
And write to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna: thus says the First and Last, who was dead, and behold, he is alive:
I know your deeds, and sorrow, and poverty (though you are rich), and backbiting from those who say about themselves that they are Jews, and they are not like that, but - a satanic bunch.
Do not be afraid of anything that you have to endure. Behold, the devil will cast some of you into prison to test you, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
He who has an ear (to hear), let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches: he who overcomes will not suffer harm from the second death.
And write to the Angel of the Church of Pergamon: thus says he who has a sword sharp on both sides:
I know your deeds, and that you live where the throne of Satan is, and that you contain My name, and did not renounce my faith even in those days in which you, where Satan lives, killed my faithful witness Antipas.
But I have a little against you, because you have the teachings of Balaam held there, who taught Balak to lead the children of Israel into temptation, so that they would eat what was sacrificed to idols and commit fornication.
Likewise, you have adhered to the teachings of the Nicolaitans, which I hate.
Repent; but if not, I will soon come to you and fight with them with the sword of my mouth.
He who has an ear (to hear), let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches: To him who overcomes I will give to eat the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone and a new name written on the stone, which no one knows except the one who receives.
And write to the Angel of the Thyatira Church: thus says the Son of God, whose eyes are like a flame of fire, and his feet are like Chalcolibans:
I know your deeds and love, and service, and faith, and your patience, and the fact that your last deeds are greater than the first.
But I have a little against you, because you allow the wife of Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and mislead My servants, to commit fornication, and there is something sacrificed to idols.
I gave her time to repent of her fornication, but she did not repent.
Behold, I am throwing her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.
And I will smite her children with death, and all the churches will understand that I am the one who searches hearts and inwards; and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
But to you and others who are in Thyatira, who do not adhere to this teaching and who do not know the so-called depths of Satan, I say that I will not impose any other burden on you;
Keep only what you have until I come.
He who overcomes and keeps My works to the end, to him I will give authority over the Gentiles.
And he will rule them with a rod of iron; like earthen vessels, they will be broken, just as I received power from my Father.
And I will give him the morning star.
He who has an ear (to hear), let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Chapter 3
And write to the Angel of the Sardis Church: thus says He who has the seven spirits of God and seven stars: I know your works; you bear the name as if you are alive, but you are dead.
Stay awake and affirm other things close to death; for I do not find that your works may be perfect before My God.
Remember what you received and heard, and keep and repent. If you do not stay awake, then I will find you like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will find you.
However, you have a few people in Sardis who have not defiled their clothes, and will walk with Me in white clothes, for they are worthy.
He who overcomes will be clothed in white garments; and I will not blot out his name from the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
And write to the Angel of the Church of Philadelphia: thus says the Holy One, the True One, who has the key of David, which opens - and no one closes, closes - and no one opens:
I know your deeds; behold, I have opened the door for you, and no one can shut it; you have little strength, and you have kept my word, and have not denied my name.
Behold, I will make that out of the satanic congregation, of those who say about themselves that they are Jews, but they are not such, but lie, - behold, I will do what they will come and bow before your feet, and will know that I loved you.
And as you have preserved the word of My patience, then I will also save you from the time of temptation, which will come to the whole universe to test those who live on earth.
Behold, I am coming soon; keep what you have, so that no one may take your crown.
He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will never go out again; and I will write on it the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from heaven from my God, and my new name.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
And write to the Angel of the Church of Laodicea: thus says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God:
I know your deeds; you are neither cold nor hot; oh, if you were cold, or hot!
Lukov P.N.
Apocalypse.
A look at the Revelation of John the Evangelist.
Foreword.
This book contains an attempt at a more modern interpretation of the Apocalypse, or the Revelation of John the Theologian. What caused the need for this work?
The main reasons are as follows.
The first is that the previous interpretations are largely outdated. The second reason is due to the appearance of a number of speculations on this topic, when this work was presented almost as occult-mystical literature. The third reason was associated with the spread of a number of religious sects, which often used Revelation for their own purposes, while arbitrarily interpreting its provisions solely under the teachings and directions of a particular sect.
In this edition, I decided how to return it to its former religious meaning. But at the same time, this is not a theological work. Here, the approach is applied precisely to Christian philosophy, which had its development in the 19th and 20th centuries within the framework of the teachings of the Orthodox Church.
However, when compiling this work, theological works were used, including those of other Christian trends. The author of this work, in turn, considers himself to be the Orthodox faith, and therefore the content of this book almost does not contradict its teachings.
Someone can reproach me for the fact that I often used here the interpretation of Archbishop Averky. But I want to say that he had collected a very extensive material on the interpretation of Revelation, and therefore it would obviously be impractical not to use it. However, at the same time, the author revised a lot of other literature on this issue, and therefore managed to go beyond the interpretation of Averky alone.
The Appendix of this book contains an article on the essence of scientific atheism, the topics of which largely overlap with the content of Revelation. The author tried to give an objective assessment of this teaching, despite the fact that he himself does not share it. But it is also impossible not to recognize its existence. At the same time, a Christian view of it is presented here, but without frankly extreme assessments and approaches. Here more attention is paid not to the opposition of this teaching to religious views, but to their parallel development, as it were, realizing a look at each other, as it were, from the outside.
“He who has an ear, let him hear,
What the Spirit says to the churches. "
(Revelation 3.22)
The path to understanding Revelation.
The Apocalypse, or in translation from the Greek language - the Revelation, recorded by John the Theologian, is the only prophetic book of the New Testament, and is, as it were, the logical conclusion of the entire circle of sacred books. The Apocalypse is very difficult to understand and interpret, as a result of which, according to the Orthodox church charter, it is not allowed to be read during a divine service. Moreover, during the first three centuries of the Christian era, the Apocalypse was not openly promulgated by the Church. Some holy fathers explain this by the fact that during the persecution of the Church, Christians hid this book from the Romans, whose dominion the Apocalypse predicted an imminent and inevitable end. It is possible that it was also hidden in order to keep it intact and intact from heretics - Manichaeans, Gnostics and other false teachers who distorted the holy books at that time.
This book has been considered sacred since ancient times. The Apocalypse and its author are mentioned or referred to as a holy book by such early writers as Justin the Philosopher, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyprian. But, nevertheless, it is precisely its mysterious nature that attracts the eyes of both Christians and simply inquisitive thinkers throughout the entire New Testament history of mankind. By the end of the 19th century, the number of interpretative works on the Apocalypse had reached 90. Let's give credit to the authors of these books, since many of them were still of a certain value. Over time, these interpretations for the most part became outdated, and subsequently a new work was compiled by Archbishop Averkiy, who was able to generalize the data of his predecessors to present a new, more interpretation of Revelation. But this work no longer meets modern requirements. An interesting interpretation of some passages of the Apocalypse is given by a minister of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Professor R.N. Volkoslavsky. But these data also need significant adjustments. Archpriest Father Alexander Men has his own interpretation. A valuable interpretation also belongs to Archpriest Father Sergius Bulgakov.
But first, I must point out that in order to properly understand Revelation, at least two important aspects must be understood.
The first aspect is the special construction of the Apocalypse. About the Old Testament they say that it is revealed in the New, and the New Testament, on the contrary, is hidden in the Old. The opposite is true with the Apocalypse. This Revelation is hidden in the New Testament, and is revealed in the Old. The decoding of many signs and symbols of the Apocalypse can be found in the Old Testament. All the books of the New Testament have a direct connection with the Old, while the Apocalypse carries out a kind of "feedback", thereby making the Bible a single and complete book. Without Revelation, it would have looked unfinished. No wonder the Russian philosopher N. Berdyaev called the Apocalypse "the third testament", deservedly attaching such exceptional importance to it.
The second aspect is that the Apocalypse contains the spirit of its time. Some of the verses of Revelation were based on the events that took place at that time, which made the content of the Apocalypse much more understandable to a contemporary of John the Theologian than to subsequent generations. Therefore, for a modern understanding of Revelation, it is also necessary to have an idea of the events of that historical period. Well, the modern reader, in addition, would be useful to familiarize himself with the writings of the Church Fathers on this topic, which would greatly facilitate the understanding of many passages of Revelation.
The very content of the Apocalypse is multifaceted. Not only historical and religious prophecies are recorded here. After all, the immediate task of the prophet was not so much to predict the future, but to convey its moral meaning to people. Therefore, there are not only predictions about some distant future, but also close to the era of John, and at the same time, information is given about the fulfillment of some of the prophecies of the Old Testament. Hence, there were different approaches to interpretation. Some attribute all the visions and symbols of the Apocalypse to the "last times" - the end of the world, the appearance of the Antichrist and the second coming of Christ, others give the Apocalypse a purely historical significance, referring all visions to the events of the first century A.D. Still others try to find the fulfillment of the predictions of the Apocalypse in the historical events of a later time. Still others, finally, see here only an allegory, believing that the visions described in it have not so much prophetic as moral meaning. The allegory is introduced only to enhance the impression in order to capture the imagination of the readers. Averky in his book combined all four directions, thus composing the most complete interpretation. I adhere to the same point of view, but I consider it necessary to make some adjustments to this interpretation. I will not cite the text of the Apocalypse here, but will limit myself to only short theses from its content. There will also be few quotations from the Old and New Testaments, with the exception of the third book of Ezra, which is not in every edition of the Bible, but only references to them. Let the reader understand for himself that it is impossible to understand Revelation by reading only one interpretation of it. To do this, it is necessary to familiarize yourself not only with the text of the Apocalypse itself, but also with the texts of the Old Testament associated with it. We need active work with the Bible, because only such an approach can give positive results for its correct understanding.
Before starting my own presentation, I consider it necessary to make some preliminary explanations.
John the Theologian very often uses numbers: 7 churches, 10 kings, 42 months, 1000 years, etc. Often, many of them are taken literally. I am inclined to believe that this understanding is wrong. Later in the text I will give their interpretation, but I will explain the meaning of the three numbers in advance.
Number 7 is a symbol of completeness in the Old Testament. In 7 days, including a day of rest, the world was created. 7 spirits of God are also named there - the spirit of the fear of God, the spirit of knowledge, the spirit of power, the spirit of light, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of the Lord (the gift of piety and inspiration) (Is.66, 22). The number 10 means a certain predetermined certainty, which is the basis for something. This, This is, for example, 10 biblical commandments, which formed the basis of all Holy Scripture. There is this number in the parables of Jesus Christ - "About ten virgins" (Mat.25.1), "About ten Drachmas" (Luke 15.8). The number 12 is a symbol of universality. These are the 12 tribes of Israel, whose descendants were to settle throughout the earth, these are the 12 apostles of Christ, called to carry the teaching throughout the world. The meaning of these three numbers will allow the reader to better understand in the future many of the allegorical expressions of the Apocalypse.
Like other interpreters, I also do not pretend to be the ultimate truth here and I believe that the content of Revelation will only gradually, over time, become more understandable, as events come and the prophecies outlined in it are fulfilled. Many commentators have already pointed out the fulfillment of some of them, and I will cite them below. However, I will not argue that such examples are the fulfillment of precisely these prophecies, and at the same time I will not deny their possible coincidence, since I have no categorical grounds both in the first and in the second case. I can definitely say only one thing: these data directly confirm that the content of Revelation is not any fantasy.
As a basis for the interpretation given below, I have taken the work of Archbishop Averky, and the reader will find here many similarities with this work. But there are also many differences.
First. Averkiy, in my opinion, misinterpreted the meaning of a number of visions, which will be discussed below.
Second. When composing the narrative, I avoided, if possible, a number of formidable expressions that Averky often uses, thus presenting the Apocalypse as a kind of formidable book, at a time when many theologians and philosophers see in it more of a book of hope.
Third. Averky does not have a sufficient connection with the historical period when the Apocalypse was drawn up.
Fourth. Averky's work is nevertheless more instructive than explanatory, while I chose the explanatory principle as dominant.
An attentive reader, I think, will understand that the cruel scenes of Revelation are not at all the main and central ones in him, that there is much more kindness and hope in him, and for this it has already been awarded a completely calm attitude towards him. Let the reader not be confused by the fact that I quite often use such phrases as “probably”, “apparently”, “most likely”. The approximate nature of the explanation of the content of the Apocalypse is given in order to avoid the categorical nature of its interpretation, to prevent absolute identity between the text of Revelation and its comments, to shield the truth contained in it from the truth, possibly another, albeit very close, thereby preserving the purity and a certain mystery of this book ...
The Apocalypse contains 22 chapters, 404 verses. Averky conventionally divided it into eleven sections, and I - into ten. This approach is quite acceptable, because the Apocalypse, like other books of the Bible, was subsequently divided into chapters and verses for the convenience of working on the text of the Holy Scripture, as well as for easy reference to a particular verse from its content.
Introduction.
The first eight verses of the Apocalypse constitute John's appeal to Christians and have the form of a preface. The first three verses speak of the purpose of the Apocalypse and form an introduction, and the remaining five are John's greeting to the Christian churches, made in the name of Jesus Christ.
First, we will consider the text of this appeal, and then move on to its direct interpretation.
The revelation was compiled in an era when Christianity was already spread throughout the Roman Empire and had already experienced the horrors of the persecution of the pagan emperors. Many Christians were tortured in the arena of the Colosseum, the Apostle Peter was crucified upside down, the Apostle Paul was beheaded. Most of Christ's gospel companions were no longer alive. Others, like the evangelist Luke, lived out their days in dungeons. Of all the close disciples of Christ, only the Apostle John remained. Although he was in exile on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea, he nevertheless continued to maintain contact with several Asian (Asia Minor) churches. Apparently, therefore, the Revelation was not accidentally given precisely through John, who in fact was assigned a very important mission - to show what awaits the young Christian church, and with it the whole world in the future. This, perhaps, is another feature of the Apocalypse. If in the Gospels Jesus speaks directly only to the Apostles and other people around him, then here already to His numerous followers, to His Church, which did not exist during His earthly life. There are no longer twelve apostles, not a handful of people, but an organization of much larger scale and significance. These are no longer the lost “sheep of the house of Israel,” and therefore Jesus addresses them as mature disciples without detailed admonitions and teachings, as if preparing them for an imminent exam.
The first words of the Apocalypse also tell us about the so-called double dimension of the narrative, that is, that these prophecies refer to both far and near times. The words “which should be soon” (Rev.1,1) indicate the near time, and the expression “for the time is near” (Rev.1,3) refer to later days. This is the opinion, for example, of Father Sergiy Bulgakov.
At the very beginning of the story, it is said that Revelation does not belong to John, but to God, and that the fulfillment of the prophecies will begin in the near future. This beginning is typical for all the books of John, including the Gospel, and the Apocalypse was no exception.
Next, John addresses the seven churches in Asia. Remembering the meaning of the number 7, this should be understood as an appeal to all Christians. Therefore, it is not at all necessary, as is sometimes interpreted, that John was in charge of the affairs of only seven churches. No, there were many more, but seven of them may have been taken for illustrative purposes only. John then glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ in a tradition that is common to virtually all apostles. Here Jesus first calls Himself Alpha and Omega, the first and last letter of the Greek alphabet. This is not found in any other book of the Bible. The meaning of such a turn is clear - the beginning and the end, and means that the Lord embraces everything. The prophet Isaiah is similarly said: "I am the first Lord, and in the latter I am the same" (Is.41.4). But that's why exactly the Greek letters are used, opinions differ. Some theologians say that the Lord named Himself that way to show that He is also God and the Gentiles, as at that time, in particular, most Greeks were. Others argue that since the Apocalypse was originally written in Greek, Greek letters were also used. Still others believe that the Apocalypse was first written in Aramaic, the native language of John, and the translator used the Greek letters to make the meaning of the verse more understandable. We have the right to accept any point of view, since the essence of the verse is not so much in the letters, but in their meaning.
In verses from the 9th to the 20th of Chapter 1, the first mysterious allegorical picture appears before us. It looks like this.
On Sunday, John hears an unusual voice: “I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last” (Rev. 1.10). He orders a book to be written and sent it to the seven churches of Asia. John turns around and sees a barely conceivable image: seven lamps, in the midst of which is the Son of Man, clothed in a podir (ancient clothing) and girded with a golden belt. “His feet are like a Chalcoliban, and His voice is like the sound of many waters” (Rev. 1.15) In his right hand he holds seven stars, and a sword, sharp on both sides, comes out of his mouth. His face shines like the sun. His head and hair are white, and his eyes are like a fiery flame.
John does not recognize Christ in this form and falls in fear at His feet. But Jesus calms John and makes it clear to him that He is the One, Whose apostle was John. At the same time, the Lord partially reveals the secret of the manifested image: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lamps are the churches themselves.
Theologians explained the rest of the symbols of this image. Jesus was dressed in a podir, that is, the long robe of the high priests, and was girded like a king with a golden belt. These features simultaneously indicate the high priestly and royal dignity of the One who appeared. The whiteness of the hair is a sign of the wisdom of spiritual purity, indicating a similar quality in Christian teaching. A fiery gaze indicates that nothing is hidden from Him. Chalcolivan is a precious metal alloy that symbolizes both human and divine nature in Jesus Christ. A loud voice speaks of the mighty energy of the Lord, of His spiritual strength. The angels of the seven churches are spiritual shepherds, and the seven churches represent the Christian world. Sharp on both sides, the sword symbolizes the all-pervading power of the word emanating from His mouth. The radiant face is the ineffable glory of the Lord, which affirms that His teaching is the light of truth.
Near and far.
Chapters two and three provide an assessment and instruction for each of the seven churches. These assessments contain praise for their Christian life and faith, censure of their shortcomings, exhortations and consolations, threats and promises. At the same time, these instructions apply to the entire Church in general throughout its entire existence. This situation is inherent in the entire text of Revelation, when the prophecies of a near time simultaneously include a distant time. R.N. Volkoslavsky, for example, sees here an indication of seven periods in the life of the entire Christian Church from the apostolic time to the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world. What are these statements based on? First of all, on the fact that the messages are addressed primarily to specific churches and instructions are set forth concerning directly to these churches. This is a near forecast. A distant forecast is that the Epistles to the Churches are given in a strictly defined order, constituting a sequence of historical periods, unambiguously indicating that Revelation also applies to future generations of Christians.
The churches are listed in the following order: Ephesian, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardinian, Philadelphia, Laodicean.
The Ephesian church boasts for its first deeds - for work, patience, resistance to false teachers - Nicolaints. But at the same time, she is condemned for forsaking her first love: "... I will remove your lamp from its place, if you do not repent" (Rev. 2: 5). The Nicolaints mentioned here represent the followers of the Antiochian proselyte (converted from the pagans) Nicholas, who was among the first deacons of Jerusalem (Acts 6.5), who fell away from the true faith. Subsequently, the Ephesian church was unable to overcome the apostasy that the Apostle Paul had warned her about (Eph. 5: 15-18), which is why her "lamp" was really "moved". From a magnificent world center, Ephesus soon turned into nothing. From the former magnificent city, only a pile of ruins and a small Muslim village remain.
Such was the Ephesian period of the Church, which covered the time of the life and work of the apostles of Christ, that is, 100 A.D. This was a period of rapid spread of the gospel message. The Church at that time was still free from heresy and false teachings, but by the end of this period this situation began to change not for the better, and the love of Christians for the Church began to grow cold. As a result, many communities subsequently fell into decay and eventually ceased to exist.
The church of Smyrna, which consisted of the poor, but spiritually rich, is predicted of sorrow and persecution from the Jews, whom the Lord calls "the gathering of Satan." This church has a lot to endure, "have tribulation for ten days." Here, apparently, we are talking about ten persecutions, which subsequently endured the Christian Church. He who overcomes, that is, who has endured all persecution, is promised a "crown of life" or the inheritance of eternal blessings. The prediction came true. The Smyrna Church in our time remains a significant city and has the dignity of an Orthodox metropolis.
At the same time, the Smyrna Church denotes the second - Smyrna - period, the era of persecution of the Church, of which, it is believed, there were also ten. This period lasted, according to Volkoslavsky, from 100 to 313. The last persecution took place under the Roman emperor Diocletian during these years.
The Pergamon church boasts that it contains the name of the Lord and did not renounce faith in Him, although it was planted among a city extremely corrupted by paganism, as indicated by the figurative expression: "You live where the throne of Satan is." At the same time, this church is reprimanded for the fact that some there adhere to the teachings of Balaam, who taught Balak to lead the Israelites into temptation (Num.24.10; 31.16), and for the fact that some adhere to the false doctrine of the Nicolaints. Pergamum, called Bergamo, and the Christian church in it have survived to this day, although almost nothing has remained of its former splendor.
The position of the Pergamon Church corresponds directly to the Pergamon period - the shortest - from 313 to 325. In 313, with the accession of Emperor Constantine, the Milan Edict of Tolerance was adopted, recognizing the equality of religious trends. For Christians, this meant the end of persecution, which ensured a new growth of the Church, which was then still in the midst of paganism.
The Thyatira church boasts of its faith, love, and patience. But at the same time, she is reprimanded for allowing a certain false prophetess Jezebel in her bosom to commit lawlessness and corrupt people. The name Jezebel is used here, apparently, in a figurative sense. It is known that Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Sidon, entered into a marriage with Ahab, king of Israel, carried him into idolatry and caused the moral fall of the Israelites (3 Kings 21,15-16). Further, the reproof is followed by a threat: “and I will reward each of you according to your deeds” (Rev. 2:23). However, further words are encouraging: "He who overcomes and keeps My works to the end, to him I will give authority over the Gentiles ... and I will give him the morning star" (Rev. 2: 26-28).
Such inconsistency of the Thyatira Church directly corresponds to the ambiguity of the Thyatira period of the Christian Church itself - the longest, lasting almost twelve centuries, from 325 to the middle of the 16th century.
In 325, under Emperor Constantine, Christianity in Byzantium became the state religion. On the one hand, this has played a huge positive role. The overcoming of paganism began, and at the same time the establishment and spread of a new culture, which saved the ancient world from further decline. This was the era of the real flourishing of Christianity, which had a significant impact on the entire course of history. It was the time of the seven Ecumenical Councils, which formalized the full formation of the Christian Church, the victory over a number of heresies, and the time of the widespread spread of Christianity among other nations.
But on the other hand, Christianity became artificially adapted to the kingdom of Caesar of its time, which turned out to be many negative consequences. Instead of an admonishing struggle through the Word of the Lord, as the apostles taught, Christianity fell upon paganism with cruel pogroms. Human sin, misunderstanding of human religious freedom, led to the first split of the Church into Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic). This was the time of the brutal crusades and the dark inquisition. The rapid development of Christianity was accompanied by terrible perversions of the true faith, for which there can be no justification.
The Sardinian church is given a more reproachful than comforting message: this church contains only the name of a living faith, but in fact it is spiritually dead. At the same time, it is argued that there are several people who “have not defiled their clothes and will walk with Me in white clothes, for they are worthy” (Rev. 3: 4). This prophecy also came true. Sardis from a large and wealthy city turned into a poor Turkish village of Sard, in which only a small Christian community has survived.
The Sardian period of the Christian Church, which lasted from the middle of the 16th century to the end of the 19th century, is characterized in a similar way. The inconsistency of this period is to some extent similar to the previous one, but in a slightly different sequence - this was a certain way out of the impasse that befell Christianity. The era of humanism begins. In art, for example, this was reflected as the Renaissance, which glorified such names as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael. This period is also characterized by many scientific discoveries that predetermined a new upsurge of socio-economic development. For Christianity, this was also a new page in history. The period of the Reformation began, led by the doctor of theology Martin Luther and the Swiss priest John Calvin, who thus founded the Protestant movement.
Today we can talk and argue about the ramification and fragmentation of Protestant trends, but the beginning of the Reformation played a significant positive role here. Many negative aspects of the Catholic Church have been exposed and overcome. So, the Bible, for example, was published by Catholics only in Latin, which made it inaccessible to many ordinary people. Therefore, in protest, the English humanist John Wyclif translated the Bible into his native English, and the founder of the Reformation, Martin Luther, into German. By this, undoubtedly, they did a really great job, enabling millions of people to read the Holy Scriptures.
But at the same time, the Inquisition was still raging. So, in 1612, under pressure from the Catholic Church, the great Galileo Galilei renounced his teachings. August 24, 1572, on the night of the feast of St. Bartholomew, there is an unprecedented massacre between Catholics and Protestants, which claimed several thousand lives. In England, King Henry VIII breaks with the Catholic Church and appoints himself head of the new Anglican Church, accompanying his "innovation" with the massacre of priests and the execution of many people close to the court. In Russia, Tsar John IV (the Terrible), trying to strengthen his power, also carries out violence over the country and over the Church. In the 17th century, the reforms of Patriarch Nikon turned into new persecutions, which led to a split in Russian Orthodoxy and the formation of the Old Believers. At the beginning of the 18th century, Peter I carried out radical transformations in Russia, which also turned into considerable violence against the Russian soul and the Russian Church.
However, the light that broke through eventually made itself felt. In the 19th century, the Inquisition was abolished, and separate persecutions against science and gentiles ceased. However, harmony does not come this time either. Persecutions and schisms have done their dirty work. A gradual departure from religion began. It was during this period that such a direction of philosophy as materialism became widespread. The end of feudalism and the development of bourgeois relations almost literally replaced the worship of the Lord with the worship of the "golden calf" - wealth, which led to new distortions of the Christian faith. So the Sardian period ends in an ambiguous and contradictory way.
On the other hand, a lot of comforting and praiseworthy things have been written in the Church of Philadelphia. Despite its weakness, this church did not renounce the name of Jesus, for which the Lord promises to keep it from temptation, will come to all countries “to test those living on earth” (Rev. 3,12). These words are a figurative indication of the firmness of the faith of the Philadelphians, which no false teachers could break. The prediction came true: at present, Christianity is in Philadelphia in the most flourishing state, surpassing all other cities of Asia Minor. A large Christian population has survived here, with its own bishop and 25 churches.
As for the Philadelphian period of the Christian Church, it can only be the period of the 20th century and, obviously, some subsequent centuries. This is the penultimate period in the life of the Church - the modern era, characterized by a stormy revolutionary upsurge, which also turned into new persecutions against the Church and the massive spread of atheism. Under these conditions, the Church really had little strength, but was able to preserve herself and her faith. At the same time, it was the era of a whole scientific revolution, accompanied by such discoveries that were able to turn over many of our ideas about the world. These are, for example, the molecular and nuclear theory of N. Bohr, Joliot and Marie Curie, the quantum theory of M. Planck, the space theory of K.E. Tsiolkovsky. Subsequently, these discoveries allowed mankind to master nuclear energy, begin space exploration, create quantum generators - lasers. The material, it would seem, began to prevail over the spiritual. However, in the second half of the 20th century, people, like the biblical Ecclesiastes, over time begin to understand that material wealth alone is "vanity of vanities." A person's attitude to religion begins to change again, accompanied by the return of many to the bosom of the Church, the beginning of a new religious revival. The changes also affected the Church itself. In 1965, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch of Constantinople Athenagoras solemnly canceled the mutual curses pronounced by the representatives of both churches in the 11th century. In 1971, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Pimen removed the curse from the Old Believers imposed by Patriarch Nikon in the 17th century. It is possible that the Philadelphia prophecy of the Apocalypse is coming true here too.
The Laodicean church, the last church, has many accusatory writings. The Lord does not utter a single kind word about her. He reproaches her that she is neither cold nor hot. Despite the questionable confidence of the Laodiceans in their moral perfection, the Lord calls them miserable, wretched, poor, blind and naked. Therefore, the Lord advises them to buy from Him, not to receive for free, but to earn at the cost of labor and deeds "gold purified by fire," that is, spiritual wealth, "white clothes", that is, the gift of goodness to others, and an eye salve so that their eyes are opened to the vanity of all the riches of this perishable world. This prophecy also came true. Laodicea, once a wealthy city, was completely destroyed and devastated by the Turks.
The last, Laodicean period in the history of the Christian Church, which should begin immediately before the end of the world, is characterized in a similar way by a difficult era characterized by indifference to religious faith.
The question arises: why should the seemingly hopeful revival of religion and the Church lead to such a fall? Alas, history already knows such examples, when an increase in the moral level led to an overestimation of oneself and one's capabilities. This, first of all, entailed a distortion of the very faith and morality. Man again began to prefer material to spiritual. Lust and spiritual blindness re-emerged, which can only lead to loss of reason. The second point is the future appearance of the Antichrist and his false prophets, who will also lead many away from the true path. It is then that the Second Coming of Christ will take place, when the cup of His wrath will be overflowing, and the Great Judgment will begin, where the Antichrist and his followers will be condemned and defeated, and this will conclude our historical process.
The mystery of history.
Here we have to partially reveal the secret of history, which was briefly mentioned above. The very secret that was hidden in the Apocalypse itself was literally sealed with seven seals. And the beginning of this mystery is revealed in the fourth chapter of Revelation.
This chapter begins with the following vision. Foreground: Seated on a throne with a rainbow shining around him. There are also twenty-four thrones, on which twenty-four elders sit. There are four animals next to him. The first of them is like a lion, the second is like a calf, the third is with a human face, and the fourth is like an eagle. Each animal has six wings and many eyes.
I think it is not difficult to understand that the One who sits on the throne is not someone, but the Lord God Himself. His distinctly prominent appearance and the attributes surrounding His throne invariably emphasize the greatness of the Lord. But about the twenty-four elders, the opinions of the interpreters differ. Averky, for example, believes that the first 12 of them are the prophets of the Old Testament, and the second 12 are the apostles of Christ. I am inclined to believe that all twenty-four elders are the prophets and righteous of the Old Testament, who before the Nativity of Christ brought the word of Truth to people, and who predicted the coming of Christ Himself. Their names are: Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Samuel, Nathan, David, Job, Ecclesiastes (possibly Solomon), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephanius , Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Four animals, according to Averky, there are four Evangelists. But I, however, do not share this point of view. The fact is that this vision is not just an allegory. Similar pictures have already appeared before Ezekiel and Daniel. There is also the One Sitting on the throne (Ezek. 1.26; Dan. 7.9), a vault or rainbow over the throne (Ezek. 1.25; Dan. 7.10), elders near the throne (Ezek. 11.1; Dan. 7.16) and four animals (Ezek. 1.5; Dan. 7.3). There is a slight difference in the description of these animals, but again, there are more similarities here. For Daniel, this is a lion, a bear, a leopard and an animal of an unknown species. Ezekiel has a lion, a calf, an unknown animal with a human face, an eagle. As you can see, in the Apocalypse and in Ezekiel there is even a complete coincidence. So who are these animals? Ezekiel gives a straightforward answer - they are cherubim (Ezekiel 10,20). But what they mean can be understood precisely from the prophet Daniel: “These four kings will rise from the earth” (Dan. 7:17). Four kings, in other words, there are four major kingdoms that should replace each other in the course of history: Media, Persian, Greek and Roman (Dan 8: 20-21). Thus, there is a direct continuity with the Old Testament.
And now He who sits on the throne holds in his hands a book, the text of which is inside, and it is sealed with seven seals. The book in the hands of the Lord is usually understood as His memory, and the seven seals speaks of the incomprehensibility or hiddenness of this memory. John sees with bitterness that no one can open this book. However, one elder comforts John: “A lion from the tribe of Judah, the root of David ... can open this book and remove its seven seals (Rev.5.5). Undoubtedly, this is about Jesus Christ. Further narration only confirms this: "Lamb, as it were slain" means that Jesus was sacrificed, and "seven horns and seven eyes" are the seven spirits of God sent to earth.
Jesus takes the book from the hands of the Seated One, after which the four animals and all twenty-four elders "fell before the Lamb." Further, already in the sixth chapter, the denouement, the climax begins.
The opening of the first four seals is accompanied by the words of each of the four animals: "go and see." After opening the first seal, a rider appears on a white horse. After the second seal was removed, he was also a rider, but on a red horse. After the third - a rider on a black horse, and after the fourth - a rider on a pale horse, and the name of this rider is death. What are these riders carrying with them? The first brings victory, the second - death ("to kill each other"), the third - robbery ("having measure in his hand"), and the fourth - despotic power ("killing by sword and hunger, and pestilence, and the beasts of the earth"). But they cannot destroy faith itself ("they will not damage oil and wine"). Here, in fact, is listed everything that brought with it the establishment of each of the four kingdoms already mentioned. We find confirmation of this in the third book of Ezra: “… are you not, the rest of the four animals, which I set to reign in My age, so that through them the end of those times would come? And the fourth of them came, defeated all the former former animals and kept everyone in great awe and the whole universe in fierce oppression, and with the most grave oppression of the subjects, and for such a long time lived on earth with treachery. " (3Ezd 11,39-40). But if in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel and Ezra there was precisely prophecy, prediction, then the Apocalypse already speaks of their fulfillment. The appearance of the horsemen just indicates that these prophecies of the Old Testament have already been fulfilled. The book of Daniel also says that the first kingdom is silver (a white horse in the Apocalypse), the second is gold (a red horse), the third is copper (a black horse), and the fourth is iron (a pale horse). As we can see, the colors of the named metals largely correspond to the suit of each of the horses. Now it is not difficult to understand why each of the four kingdoms was represented in the form of a many-faced cherub, having such an exotic appearance. After all, each of these kingdoms was also many-sided and it is impossible to give an unambiguous assessment or characteristic to any of them. This is perhaps the only place in Revelation, where in detail, although allegorically, not the future was given, but the past of those times in relation to the time of the writing of the Apocalypse. But what is the meaning of such a sequence? I think the answer can be found here as well.
Palestine, on the territory of which the states of Judea and Israel existed, is a kind of crossroads where the paths connecting the three parts of the world: Europe, Asia and Africa are connected. Because of this, it is no coincidence that it often became the object of the capture of one power or another. According to history, Palestine just fell into the power of each of the four kingdoms, which, in turn, brought her the aforementioned hardships and sufferings. The last "animal" was the Roman Empire. Then why did the rider with the name "death" become her personification? Apparently because it was the Roman Empire that ended the period of history that preceded Christ. It was the end of an old era. This, perhaps, reveals the meaning of the story that went to Christ and from Christ. The time of the appearance is the center, the connecting link common history... With the coming into the world of Christ, not just a new era began, but a kind of new history, and at the same time it was the end of its previous period, which itself symbolized the pallor of the horse of the fourth rider.
The opening of the fifth seal speaks of the very beginning of this new story. Here the prophecy already has not so much predictive as moral character. John this time sees not a mysterious picture. Before him “... the souls of those killed for the word of God and for the testimony that they had” (Rev.6: 9). Logically, a description of the events of the New Testament period should follow here. But this does not happen, since this period is actually characterized by the example of the seven churches in the previous chapters of Revelation. It speaks about the other side of this period - about the sacrifices that humanity has suffered and will continue to bear for faith in Christ. Revelation provides a clear description that a given faith is not just a conscious choice. It is also a heavy burden, the very heavy cross that must be carried with dignity through all conscious life, in spite of any difficulties or suffering. At the same time, a Christian should not forget that faith, suffering and sacrifices incurred for her are not in vain, and the Lord will never ignore the soul of those who suffered for faith in Him.
The opening of the sixth seal opens a vision of events that must begin before the end of the world - the great tribulations and the Great Judgment. Natural disasters are described here a little allegorically, but this allegory contains not so much their details as the feelings that a person will experience when these days come: "the great earthquake", "the sun became dark", "The moon became like blood", "stars fell to the ground ”,“ the sky disappeared ”,“ the mountain and the island moved out of their places ”And here comes the Judgment:“ And they say to the mountains and stones: fall on us and hide us from the face of the One sitting on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for his great anger has come, and who can resist? " (Rev. 6: 16-17). It is possible, however, that this mystery of the "seven seals" also has a double dimension, since it very much coincides with what is said in the Gospels about the coming of the "last days", which was noticed by Sergiy Bulgakov. This means that we can conditionally conclude that here we are also talking about the days of near and far at the same time.
Further, in the seventh chapter, the essence, the inner side of the Great Judgment, is revealed, which is shown in a rather interesting combination of numbers. The vision of four angels standing at the four corners of the earth suggests that the Great Judgment will affect all of humanity. However, suffering will not touch everyone and not at once: “Do no harm to the earth, the sea or the trees, until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God” (Rev. 7.3). Then the number of those sealed is called: 144,000 “of all the tribes of the children of Israel”, 12,000 from each tribe: Judah, Reuben, Gadov, Asirova, Nathaniel, Manasseh, Simeonov, Levin, Issacharov, Zabulonov, Joseph and Benjamin. The meaning of these numbers has been interpreted by various authors in different ways. But conditionally they can be divided into two types. The former referred these words only to the descendants of Israel, while the latter referred to all of humanity. I also adhere to the second kind of interpretation. First, we have already proved that the Apocalypse is not a private, but a universal message. In addition, the ecumenical number 12 known to us appears here. Secondly, Christianity by that time had already spread quite widely outside of Palestine. Third, after the appearance of Christ, the Israelites were no longer the chosen people. Therefore, I have every reason to believe that the twelve tribes of Israel means all of humanity, consisting of different peoples. The fact that 12,000 will be sealed means that the Lord does not give advantages to any people, that is, people will be sealed by no means on a national basis. Now we will write the number 12000 as follows: 12; 1000. Then the number 12 means that everyone who deserves it will be sealed, and 1000 means that there will be many of them, and not some selected few. At the same time, the total number of those captured 144,000 suggests that on the scale of all mankind, the number of those saved will not be so great. Thus, the following prophecies of the Old Testament will be fulfilled: "The Most High created this age for many, and the future one for few" (3Ezd 8,1), “Many were created, but few will be saved” (3Ezd 8,3). A figurative vision of their fulfillment was given by John in the last nine verses of chapter 7. He sees a great crowd of people from all tribes and tribes standing before the throne and before the Lamb. One of the twenty-four elders explains to John that these people “washed their clothes and bleached their clothes with the blood of the Lamb,” that is, they accepted Christ Crucified, believing that the blood of Christ was shed for their sins. “For this they are now before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple, and He who sits on the throne will dwell in them” (Rev. 7.15). Most likely, this elder is the prophet Isaiah, whose words are very similar to those spoken by him in the Old Testament (Isaiah 1, 18).
The eighth chapter begins with the opening of the seventh seal. This is followed by a short silence, which is followed by the appearance of seven angels with trumpets, as well as an eighth angel with a golden censer and lots of incense. Running a little ahead, I must say that the previous interpretations of the following picture are also not distinguished by their unity. Some also believe that these events belong to the last days of mankind, while others consider them stretched out for quite a long time, as a reminder to mankind of the inevitability of the Judgment and the end of the world. Here I refrain from supporting any side, although I do not exclude that both of them may be right. I consider it unconditional that there is a continuation of the disclosure of the thought uttered after the opening of the sixth seal. But if the essence of the end of the world and the Great Judgment was expressed there, then a certain sequence of these events is revealed here.
A short silence speaks of the mystery, the enigmatic nature of the future period, but at the same time it is also a formidable sign of an impending disaster, a kind of calm before the storm. An angel with a censer, as it were, illuminates this formidable future, showing that it is predetermined by the Almighty and is of great importance in the fate of mankind. This blessing is accompanied by what we call the spontaneous manifestations of nature: lightning, thunder, earthquakes. But, apparently, it does not bring any material harm to people, and it looks like only a formidable warning.
But here the first angel trumpets, and “there was hail and fire, mixed with blood, and fell to the ground: and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all the green grass was burnt up” (Rev.8, 7). Some theologians consider this prophecy fulfilled, but they give different examples, and some attribute this to human activities, in particular, to wars, and others - to the acts of the surrounding nature. To me personally, this is very reminiscent of the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, located in the Sunda Strait, which occurred on August 27, 1883. As a result of this eruption, the island on which this volcano was located, along with its inhabitants, died. Further, the wave generated by the explosion of Krakatoa caused many shipwrecks in the Indian Ocean.
“The second angel sounded his trumpet, and like a great mountain, blazing with fire, fell into the sea, and a third part of the sea became blood, and a third part of the animate creatures living in the sea died, and the third part of the ships perished” (Rev.8, 8-9 ).
Many also consider this prophecy fulfilled, but they refer it to a purely human activity. Some understand this as the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took place on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, and the tragedy of Nagasaki really closely resembles these prophetic words. Others understand by this the flurry of major maritime disasters that struck in the 20th century, which began with the crash of the Titanic passenger liner in 1912.
“The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a large star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of waters. The name of this star is Wormwood; and the third part of the stars became blood, and many of the people died from the waters, because they became bitter ”(Rev.8,10-11).
Interestingly, some theologians see the fulfillment of this prophecy in the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (Wormwood in Ukrainian - Chernobyl), which occurred on April 26, 1986 and subsequently caused quite extensive radioactive contamination of the area. As for the third part of the rivers and the third part of the sea, which became blood, that is, unusable (desecrated), R.N. Volkoslavsky, for example, associates this with the large pollution of the main deep rivers of the world. Rivers such as the Danube, Rhine and other major rivers of Europe are badly poisoned and turned into sewers, where all living things perish. The same fate befell the living organisms of the seas and oceans. It is already known from various reports that a third of all life in the Mediterranean has been poisoned. According to UNESCO, so many toxic substances have accumulated in the depths of the oceans that the ocean itself is slowly turning into a poisonous broth. The total extermination of more than two hundred species of animals was noted in only one century. The oceanic phytoplankton is under the threat of extinction, thanks to the vital activity of which the biological balance of the World Ocean is maintained, and therefore the entire planet. I will not categorically state whether the text of Revelation meant this, but one thing is clear - the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Apocalypse is quite real.
"The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and the third part of the Sun, and the third part of the Moon, and the third part of the stars were struck, so that the third part of them was eclipsed, and the third part of the day was not bright - just like the nights" (Rev. 8,12) ...
This prophecy undoubtedly refers to the last days and says, apparently, that a certain darkening should come on the earth, foreshadowing the imminent end of the world. Averky, for example, believes that this will be accompanied by such disasters for people as crop failures, hunger, etc. It is possible that we are also talking about the "eclipse" of the human mind, why people will no longer see what is happening around them, and the deeds of people will become detrimental to themselves.
By the trumpet voice of the fifth angel, a star fell from heaven, and “the key was given to her to the depths of the abyss: she opened the well of the abyss, and smoke came out of the well like smoke from a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the well ”(Rev.9,12). Well, it is really difficult to understand the meaning of these words, but let's not rush and move on: “From this smoke the locusts came out onto the earth, and they were given the power that earthly scorpions have. And she was told not to harm the grass of the earth, and no greenery, and no tree, but only one people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads ”(Rev. 9: 3-4). Description of this monstrous locust, which looks like a man with a head, wears crowns of counterfeit gold, women's hair, has lion teeth, a body covered with iron scales, like armor, wings that make noise and crackle, as if from a multitude of chariots rushing to war , and, finally, a tail armed with a sting, like that of scorpions - all this leads some commentators to the idea that these locusts are nothing more than an allegorical depiction of human passions. Others see it as bombing planes. I, however, do not share any of these opinions. What is characteristic of this locust, which, in addition to its frightening appearance and the desire to do harm to only one people? And the fact that she was given the right not to kill, but only to torture people for five months. The indicated time, I think, indicates a relatively short period of action of the locust. But who are the locusts themselves?
First, let's understand the allegory itself, which is a kind of figurative expression of human feelings and sensations. This means that in the center is not the human passions and sensations themselves, but the result of their perception. That is, locusts are not a feeling as such, but an object directly that evokes these feelings.
Secondly, let's think about the word itself - locust. For a zoologist, this is a large insect from the Orthoptera order, the main food of which is vegetation. But for the farmer of ancient Asia, this is the most dangerous pest. Locusts are flocking insects, and where such flocks appeared, those places became a real disaster zone. People immediately left their villages if a swarm of locusts settled there, not waiting for this insect to turn the blooming land into a bare desert. And what the locust itself does not "finish", will remain for its larvae, which outwardly resemble an adult insect, but without wings - "foot locust".
Therefore, I believe that the locust in the Apocalypse for the Christian of Asia Minor was associated with a real locust - the bearer of a terrible calamity. But this locust is already different, since it is no longer harmful to nature, but to people, but at the same time it is a disaster that the surrounding nature sends to people. In other words, locusts here mean the revenge of nature itself, which could not withstand the thoughtless treatment of it by mankind, and this revenge will match the calamity that the living locust carried to the ancient farmer. Here, too, an analogy with locusts in the book of the prophet Joel (Jol. 1: 4-6) suggests itself. The very same emblem of the locust invasion is taken, obviously, in the book of Exodus, where the locust was one of the executions sent to Egypt (Ex. 10:14).
The star that fell from the sky, which opened the "well of the abyss", apparently is that explosion, like an overflowing cup of patience of the surrounding nature, or some thoughtless step of mankind that caused this explosion. However, this raises the question: why will those who have “God's seals on their foreheads” not receive harm? Apparently, this does not mean only the protection of the Lord. Sealed, according to the teaching of Christ, will be those who collect wealth not on earth, where "moth and rust" destroys (Matthew 6: 20), but in heaven. That is, people should first of all strive for spiritual wealth, not material wealth, while locusts bring precisely material calamities. Further, the locusts “had a king over them… the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Avadon, and in Greek Apollyon ", which means" destroyer ". Some interpreters understand it as the devil. However, it is possible that this time will coincide with the arrival of the Antichrist, about whom will be discussed later.
When the trumpet of the sixth angel sounded, “four angels will be set free, prepared for an hour and a day, and a month and a year, in order to kill a third of the people” (Rev. 9:15). Then a horse army appears, the number of two darkness or 20,000 soldiers, to kill another third of the people. It is interesting that the appearance of this army is somewhat reminiscent of the previous locust phenomenon, where there is an unnatural appearance, this time, of riders “who had on themselves fiery, hyacinth and black armor; the heads of horses are like the heads of lions, and fire, smoke and brimstone come out of their mouths ”(Rev. 9:17). It is from fire, smoke and sulfur that the second third of humanity should die. It is not even reported how the rest of the third, who did not repent of murder, or sorcery, or fornication, or theft, will die, apparently making it clear that this will be said a little later.
I think it is not difficult to understand that we have before us an allegorical, in general terms, picture of the end of the world. Before starting the interpretation, I must say that the question of the end of the world is no longer new here. This is stated, in particular, in the book of Jeremiah (Jer. 4: 23-26) and Ezekiel (Ezek. 7: 2-16), and the prophecies of the latter are very reminiscent of the text of the Apocalypse. It also mentions the four ends of the earth, anger, judgment and retribution. It is possible that there is also the continuity of Revelation with the texts of the Old Testament. Then four angels mean that disasters will come from all four sides of the earth and will fall like a numerous mounted army, ready to demolish everything that gets in its way. Here, apparently, earthly cataclysms are meant, which is confirmed by the presence of fire, smoke and sulfur, which the earth should erupt from its depths, after which life on it should cease to exist. This, in essence, is what N. Berdyaev called the meaning of history. We have already said that history went to Christ and from Christ, but now we add that it went to its logical end. Since history once had its beginning, it means that it is also destined to cease its existence over time, to come to its end, that is, to its logical end.
Further, in the tenth chapter, this narration is interrupted, as it were, and, as we shall see, not by accident. First, John sees an angel descending from heaven with an open book in his hands, after which the angel rises, leaning with one foot on the sea, and the other on the ground. Then he utters a voice like the roar of a lion, after which John hears the voice of seven thunders. It is difficult to say exactly what John heard. The seven thunders, apparently, are the seven spirits of the Lord, which, apparently, revealed to John some of the secrets of Revelation. Surprised by this, John immediately wants to write down what he heard, but these seven thunders immediately stop him, and the angel, standing at the same time on the sea and on the earth, informs John about the fulfillment of the mystery of the Lord after the seventh angel trumpets.
Now it is not difficult to understand that the meaning of what has been said is that the Apostle John is, as it were, elevated to a certain rank. At the same time, it was given to John to know that which is forbidden to others. He, one might say, becomes the keeper of intimate secrets. In confirmation of this, the angel gives John an open book: “take it and eat it” (Rev. 10: 9). John fulfills the words of the angel, after which he receives the task “to prophesy again about nations and tribes, and languages, and many kings” (Rev. 10.11). Here we see what happened to Ezekiel when the Lord made him a prophet in a difficult time for his people (Ezekiel 3: 1). John also, in a difficult time for Christians, becomes a prophet in the traditions of the Old Testament. The angel, standing simultaneously on earth and on the sea, symbolized by his appearance that John can prophesy both on earth and at sea, everywhere carry the word of Truth.
Then John is given a cane, similar to a rod, with which he must measure the temple and the altar, but not touch the outer court of the temple, since the latter is given to the pagans, who will “trample the holy city for forty-two months” (Rev.11: 2). Averky here offers various interpretations, including the interpretation of St. Andrew, who believes that this temple is the Church, and the outer court is a society of unbelievers and Jews unworthy of the angelic dimension for their wickedness.
On the basis of this, it is quite possible to conclude that we are talking about the division of humanity after the arrival of the Antichrist. At the same time, that part of humanity, which is called the outer court of the temple, will go to him, when the temple itself and the altar are those who will remain with Christ. The term 42 months means the time of the activity of the Antichrist. Some interpreters saw the fulfillment of this prediction in the persecution of Diocletian, which was distinguished by the greatest cruelty and lasted from February 23, 305 to July 25, 308, that is, just about three and a half years. It is possible that this term meant a figurative expression about a small, but, at the same time, a long period of time. During the same time, or 1260 days, “two witnesses of God” will preach people to repentance and turn them away from the deception of the Antichrist, by which many fathers and teachers of the Church understand the Old Testament righteous Enoch and Elijah taken to heaven alive (Genesis 5:24; 4 Kings 2.11). However, this also begs a figurative comparison with Moses and Aaron, who, as two witnesses of the Lord, was given power over the elements of nature (Ex. 7:19). The concept of "two witnesses" can also have an allegorical meaning, implying not the number of righteous people, of which there may be more, but the fact that their testimony will be true, as the testimony of two people according to the Law of Moses is considered true (Deut. 19:15).
The fate of these witnesses will be tragic - they will have to perish in the struggle against the Antichrist, who “will leave their corpses in the streets of the great city, which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt” (Rev.11: 8). Sodom, according to the legend, became a symbol of apostasy, after the city of the same name was destroyed by the wrath of the Lord for the sin committed there (Genesis 18,20). Egypt has always been a symbol of wealth and abundance (Gen. 41, 53). Thus, Sodom and Egypt are a city of wealth and apostasy, where the Antichrist will find refuge. But the bodies of the Lord's witnesses will not remain for long in the mockery of the servants of Antichrist (three and a half days), after which the Lord must resurrect them in public and take them to heaven.
I do not presume to assert whether we are really talking about the resurrection of the dead in the same analogy, when Jesus, for example, raised Lazarus (John 11: 43-44). It is not excluded that what is meant here is that the Lord will take the souls of the lost to Himself, and in the place of those witnesses there will be new ones, thereby showing the invincibility of the Lord by the evil of Antichrist. And this testimony will not only be verbal - it will be accompanied by great upheavals for the whole kingdom of Antichrist and many sacrifices of his followers.
Following this, the trumpet voice of the seventh angel is heard, after which loud voices were heard in heaven, saying that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of the Lord (Rev. 11:15). And again before John is the throne of the Lord, before which the twenty-four elders sing a song of praise. But this is not just praise. It directly says that the trumpet voice of the seventh angel announces the second coming of Christ, the Great Judgment, the end of the earthly world and the opening of a new world - the kingdom of eternity, about the approach of which the Evangelists spoke of (eg Luke 21: 25-31), and about which is detailed in Revelation.
The origin of the antichrist.
Further, the entire narration of the Apocalypse is devoted to the disclosure of the details that followed the trumpet voice of the sixth and seventh angels and a description of the coming of the Kingdom of God. But before that, John describes an extraordinary vision, which became a kind of preface to the new part of the story. This partly reveals the goal of the entire mission of Christ and His Church - the victory over the Antichrist and the evil he does. And here we see another feature of the Apocalypse.
Since the goal of the New Testament Church is the victory over the Antichrist and his evil, then for this purpose it is necessary to know both the Antichrist himself and his deeds. Partially there is information about him in the Old Testament, in particular in the books of Isaiah and Daniel, where it is reported that the Lord threw the devil (he is the Antichrist) into the underworld spiritual existence(Isaiah 14.18; Dan 8.10). According to legend, the angel, nicknamed Lucifer or the stallion, imagined himself equal to God, which is why the Lord cursed him, and he became Satan, the devil. And so, for the struggle and victory over him, a new Church is born in heaven, the appearance of which appeared in vision to John. So, before him is “a woman clothed in the Sun, the Moon is under her feet and on her head is a crown of twelve stars” (Rev. 12: 1). Many commentators see in the "wife" the Old Testament church, which gives light (clothed with the Sun). The moon under your feet means that the new Church she is giving birth to is intended to defeat the forces of darkness, and the twelve stars here can be understood in different ways. This may be the twelve tribes of Israel who professed the religion of the Old Testament, the twelve apostles who were to found the New Testament Church on earth, born from the Church of the Old Testament, or that this New Testament Church was to represent the whole world. Further, John sees that this wife suffers from birth pangs, which apparently mean the difficulties that the Church of Christ had to overcome in establishing her in the world.
Then John sees the following sign: "a large red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his head there are seven diadems" (Rev. 12: 3). There is no doubt that the dragon is the Antichrist. He knows that the birth of a new Church brings him death, and therefore he is ready to destroy this Church in the form of a baby who is about to be born. The dragon's red color most likely speaks of its bloodthirstiness. Seven heads mean considerable spiritual strength, which lies in extreme cunning and deceit, and seven diadems or crowns indicate that he is the king of evil, his main concentration, his source. The ten horns imply, obviously, the direction of this evil against the ten commandments of the Law of God, that is, against the entire teaching of the Bible.
Many commentators believe that the image of the Antichrist is compiled by analogy with Rome. So, seven heads are seven mountains on which Rome stands, seven crowns are the seven first emperors of Rome, and the sixth and seventh emperors were John's contemporaries. The color red is given by the crimson color of the cloak worn by the Roman emperors. Ten horns mean ten kings, during the reign of which Christianity will still be a persecuted religion.
The dragon's tail, apparently, symbolizes his insidious language, with which the dragon seduces others, and which "took away from the sky a third of the stars and threw them to the ground" (Rev. 12.4), that is, led astray a part of the spiritual world and subjugated his his kingdom of evil.
And now a baby is born, a new Church is born, which is to become the Church of the nations, and which must be before the throne of the Lord. But the young Church is in no hurry to respond with evil to evil, and therefore “the wife fled into the wilderness, where a place was prepared for her from God, so that they would feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days” (Rev. 12.6). This date is already familiar to us - 42 months. Here, apparently, an unambiguous analogy is given, both with the earthly Church of Christ and with the deeds of the Antichrist. The earthly New Testament Church was also born from the earthly Old Testament, as the heavenly New Testament from the earthly Old Testament. The earthly church was also persecuted, as was His heavenly Church. But the spiritual world tore out this evil part from its midst, thereby showing that this should eventually happen on earth, where the final victory over the Antichrist should take place. Once on earth, he began to persecute the earthly church, but at first - the Old Testament, in order to prevent her baby from being born here on earth, to prevent the emergence of the earthly church of Christ. But evil could not defeat the Church of the Old Testament, since it was led by the Word through the righteous and the prophets. At first glance, there is no antichrist in the Old Testament, but upon closer examination it is not difficult to notice that he is there almost everywhere, is present in his affairs, seducing and seducing people from the true path. But God does not touch the antichrist yet, because the time of his end has not come yet. God punishes people who are unable to resist the wiles of the Antichrist, making it evidently clear that there will be no forgiveness for those who will be at the terrible Judgment before the end of the world, preferring to the Lord the servant of evil - Antichrist. But the birth of the Church of Christ itself directly testifies to the cruel defeat of the devil on earth. At the same time, it should be recalled that God does not touch the devil also because he gave people the freedom to choose between good and evil, and also to show by the example of the righteous what such a choice means, as was the case, for example, with the righteous Job (Job 1 , 20-22).
But the Church of Christ appeared, but in order to give her strength and growth, that is, to become ready and able to defeat the Antichrist, the latter was held “until the time”, although he tried from deep hell to “enter into war with others from her seed (Church - P L.), keeping the commandments of God and having the testimony of Jesus Christ "(Rev. 12:17).
Now the time of the formation of the Church seems to pass, and the Antichrist is set free. John sees his future appearance as follows. The same beast - a dragon - with seven heads and ten horns, and there are already ten diadems on the horns, and not seven, as in the previous vision. This means that this beast will be stronger than the previous one. The animal looks more like a leopard than a snake, with bear legs and a lion's mouth. Thus, in the personality of Antichrist, the properties and qualities of predatory and bloodthirsty animals are combined. The ferocity of the beast is also intensified by a seemingly fatal wound on one of the heads, which is, obviously, a trace of a long-standing struggle with the Church. But this wound has healed, that is, it no longer prevents the Antichrist from doing his dirty work, but at the same time it says that the Antichrist has already been fought and can be fought with. John writes that the earth should be amazed at the beast, so unusual will be his appearance, and this unusualness will be in the hand of the beast, since many will then worship him, except for those whose names are “written in the book of life” (Rev.13, 8).
Then John sees another beast that has “two horns like a lamb,” but speaks like a dragon himself. Further words of John testify that this beast is a false prophet, who has a meek appearance on the outside, but a dark force sits inside him - a dragon. With the help of his dark power, he can perform miracles and even great signs, which have the goal of turning humanity to the Antichrist. “And it was given to him to put in the spirit and the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would speak and act in such a way that everyone who would not worship the image of the beast would be killed” (Rev.13, 15). These words clearly indicate that the false prophet is not just a follower of the Antichrist, but also his forerunner. The beast indicated by the second will appear first to prepare the way, the ground before the arrival of the first beast, thereby providing the proper conditions for his activities, as a result of which many people must go out of the way of the Lord. Moreover, each seduced person will be given a mark - a kind of stigma - on his right hand and forehead, in contrast to the imprinted people who stand for the Lord.
I think that the type of the mark of the Antichrist here was the burned marks that were placed on slaves in ancient Rome, and by which they recognized this or that slave. The brand was usually burned on the arm and on the forehead so that it could be seen both from the front and from the side.
Extreme mystery is associated with the name of the Antichrist and the number of his name. This is what the Apocalypse says about it: “Here is wisdom. He who has intelligence, count the number of the beast, for this is a human number: his number is six hundred and sixty-six ”(Rev.13, 18). Many efforts were made to unravel the meaning and meaning of these words and the number 666 itself. Names were named as the Antichrist, starting with the Roman emperor Nero. Interestingly, if you write this number in Roman numerals, it will look like this.
Apparently, therefore, many saw in this the name of Nero (Claudius Nero Domitius), others - Dominician, still others - Diocletian, - in a word, those Roman emperors, in whose name there are letters D, CL and I. But if we admit the fact that the Apocalypse was is written in Greek, the number 666 could be written in Greek letters. It would look something like this:
Where the first letter is chi, the second is xi, the third is es. If you try to read a word made up of these letters, then, oddly enough, it becomes consonant with the name of Christ. To be honest, this prompted me to think that the Antichrist may appear under the name of Christ, and with this holy name he will try to deceive the entire Christian world. The universal scale of the antichrist's influence can be judged by the data that the first beast, according to John, comes out of the sea, and the second out of the land. This means that neither the Antichrist nor the false prophet will have any external obstacles, let alone boundaries. Discussing the name of the antichrist, Averky cites the following words of St. Andrew: "If there was a need to know his name, the Seer would have revealed it, but the grace of God did not deign that this pernicious name was written in the Divine Book." Only one thing is clear here. If the number 666 is called human, then the Antichrist and the false prophet will appear in the world not in the form of bizarre beasts, but in the guise of normal, outwardly indistinguishable people, but their inner nature will correspond to what is written about them in Revelation. But there is, however, another, no less interesting opinion that the Antichrist himself will take a name from the number 666 purely out of cynicism and hypocrisy: only because it is written in the Bible.
Great start.
This section is entirely devoted to chapter 14, which consists of two allegorical paintings, which, in turn, also have two things in common. Each picture is dedicated to the Great Judgment, and the Lord and three angels act in each, which clearly speaks of their spiritual unity.
In the first picture, the Lamb appears, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and with Him there are 144,000 sealed, meaning that the Lord will administer the Judgment not alone, but with His Church. And then the first angel appears, flying in the middle of heaven, holding in his hand "the everlasting gospel to preach the gospel to those who dwell on the earth and to every tribe and tribe, and language, and people" (Rev. 14.6), that is, the gospel prophecy of Jesus will be fulfilled Christ about the spread of His teaching on the eve of the end of the world (Mat.24, 14), and the approach of which is announced by the voice of the first angel. Thus, people are given, as it were, the last time the opportunity to repent, thereby drawing closer to the Lord and finding their salvation. “And another angel followed him, saying: Babylon is fallen, is fallen, the great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication” (Rev. 14: 8). There is no doubt that under Babylon the kingdom of Antichrist is called here, and the prophecy itself speaks of the inevitable fall of this kingdom. It should be noted that the prophecy was given in the past tense, which is characteristic not only of the Apocalypse, but of the entire Bible. The past tense is used, apparently, in order to show the confidence of the Lord, with which He gives this prophecy, so that the readers would not doubt its obligatory fulfillment. True, it should be borne in mind that in other cases the use of the past tense was required by the very specificity of translating the Bible into Russian.
The third angel announces the heavy suffering of those who did not take advantage of the Lord's last mercy for salvation, and remained faithful to the Antichrist. But the judgment is followed by the end of the world, at which both the righteous and the wicked must perish, and therefore the Lord justifies the death of the righteous and informs John the following: “Write: henceforth blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; to her, says the Spirit, they will rest from their labors, and their deeds follow them ”(Rev. 14:13).
In the second picture, the Son of Man appears as a mysterious reaper with a sickle in his hand. This view indicates that the High Court will not be a court in the traditional sense of the word. This will be a division into those who will remain with Christ in His Kingdom of Glory, and those who will be rejected by Him for serving evil. According to the Gospel, no one knows about the beginning of this Judgment except God the Father (Mat.24: 36), and therefore the Son of Man appears, as it were, waiting for a signal to begin this Judgment. And now an angel comes out of the temple and transmits this signal to Christ, Who lowers his sickle to the ground for the harvest - Judgment, which is consonant with the Gospel parable of wheat and tares (Matthew 13:30). But the sickle of the Lord is not a punishing sword. The Lord separates them only the harvest from the weeds. The punishing sickle is in other hands - in the second angel. He, in turn, is given a signal by the third angel, who came out of the altar: "Put down your sharp sickle and cut off the bunches of grapes on the ground, because the berries have ripened on it" (Rev. 14:18). And the angel lowers his sickle to the ground, cuts off the bunches of grapes and throws them "into the great winepress of God's wrath." The "great winepress" refers to the place of punishment prepared for the devil and his followers. By grape one should understand the enemies of the Church, whose iniquities have increased to the extreme.
“And the grapes were trodden down in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress even to the horse bridle, for one thousand six hundred stadia” (Rev. 14:20). Here, as it were, is meant the city of Jerusalem, behind which on the Mount of Olives there were many wine press, in which olives and grapes were pressed. The abundance of the grape harvest was determined by the fact that wine flowed onto the ground in large quantities. The hyperbolic expression used here shows that the defeat of enemies will be the most terrible, so that their blood will flow like rivers. In addition, this picture is very similar to what is written in the book of the prophet Joel about the harvest, sickles and winepress (Joel 3:13), which was obviously used for comparison. 1600 stages is a definite number, taken instead of an indefinite one, symbolizing the scale of the Great Judgment.
Since the description of the Court is given here briefly and allegorically, it is not said about who this Court will touch - those who will be caught by the end of the world, or even those who lived before these events. But remembering the parable of the wheat and the tares, and taking into account the magnitude of the events described in Revelation, we must know that the Judgment will touch all living beings both before and after. This is an axiom of the entire gospel teaching.
Great end.
Chapter 15 is the shortest in the Apocalypse and consists of only eight verses. But its meaning fully extends to the next four chapters, devoted to describing the details of the end of the world and the Great Judgment. Chapter 14, as we recall, provides a large-scale picture of recent events. Now the time has come for the sequence of what is happening.
As before, it all starts with an extraordinary vision. Seven angels appear before John, “having seven final ulcers, which ended the wrath of God,” that is, the outlines that determine the special purpose of these angels. At the same time, John sees a sea of glass mixed with fire, which should be understood as a pure and living kingdom, that is, the Kingdom of God (glass is a symbol of purity, and the fire of life). In this Kingdom are the souls of those who did not submit to the Antichrist, thereby defeating him. Seven angels emerge from this Kingdom, which are mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, clothed in royal clothes - a symbol of the highest destiny. One of the four animals before the throne of the Lord gives these angels "seven golden bowls filled with the wrath of God." The Lord blesses the great end and the Great Judgment, after which the Temple is filled with “smoke from the glory of God and from His power, and no one could enter the Temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels ended” (Rev. 15.8). “And I heard a loud voice from the Temple, saying to seven angels: go and pour out the seven bowls of God's wrath on the earth (Rev.16: 1). This verse concludes the last, possibly Laodicean period of the Christian Church, followed by dire yet necessary events, the stages of which are symbolized by these golden bowls. The emblem here is taken from the executions that struck ancient Egypt through Moses and Aaron (Ex. 9-12), and the fate of Egypt was a prototype of the defeat of the false Christian kingdom. Angels with bowls, like angels with trumpets, are, of course, an allegory that occurs more than once in the Old Testament. But events, obviously, will take place as roughly described in the book of Jeremiah: “I look at the earth - and now it is ruined and empty” (Jer. 4: 23-26). But in order not to disturb the narrative, let's leave this allegory in force.
The first angel pours out his cup on the ground, which causes massive, intractable diseases of people with the mark of antichrist.
The second angel pours the bowl into the sea, which becomes crimson, resembling the color of blood and, at the same time, unsuitable for life. As a result, the mass death of marine life begins.
The third angel pours the bowl into the rivers, and the same thing happens to them as to the sea.
The fourth angel pours a bowl on the Sun, which increases its heat, causing unbearable suffering for people. Some interpreters see this as the onset of the so-called "greenhouse effect" - warming of the earth's climate due to atmospheric pollution or due to greatly increased volcanic activity, which can disrupt the process of heat exchange between the Earth and space.
The fifth angel pours out the chalice on the throne of the Antichrist, whose kingdom becomes gloomy. By this execution, Averky means a significant decrease in the greatness and power of the Antichrist, the brilliance of which previously amazed people, and at the same time the stubborn impenitence of the worshipers of Antichrist. It is also possible that here we are talking about an angel with the Gospel in his hands, mentioned in chapter 14, giving people who have departed from God the last opportunity for repentance, as well as two witnesses (Rev. 11.3) who performed a similar mission.
The sixth angel pours a bowl into the great river Euphrates, which makes the water dry up in it, and its channel becomes passable, that is, it ceases to be a kind of border. Here the Euphrates is presented as a bulwark, which, on the one hand, prevented the Antichrist from going against the Church, and on the other hand, did not allow the Church itself to go against the Antichrist ahead of time. This emblem is taken from the position of the Roman Empire, for which the Euphrates served as a bulwark against the attacks of the Eastern peoples.
After that, from the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet, three unclean spirits come out disguised as toads. These spirits are usually understood as false teachers and other wicked who will attract the people to themselves with false miracles, thereby helping the dark deeds of the Antichrist. The dragon, the beast and the false prophet are, apparently, three faces of the same creature - the antichrist, speaking of his many faces. The Antichrist must gather all his followers in one place, which in Revelation is called Armageddon. This name is taken from the plain of Megiddo, on which King Josiah fell in the battle with the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho (4 Kings 23,29). Subsequently, this place became a household word, meaning "scattering", "murder", which indicates the future defeat and death of the Antichrist and his followers.
The seventh angel pours his bowl into the air, after which a loud voice "It is finished!" Is heard from the heavenly Temple. An unprecedented earthquake occurs, accompanied by lightning and thunders, which cannot withstand either the great city (the kingdom of the righteous), nor the pagan cities (the kingdom of the wicked), including the so-called Babylon - the dwelling place of the Antichrist. Thus, the earthly world ceases to exist in history.
Victory over evil.
We have already said that at the center of the narrative of the Apocalypse is the Antichrist and the struggle against him. In the course of the story, John repeatedly cites visions and prophecies of victory over this source of evil, but everywhere this information was brief. Now, after the seventh cup was poured out, completing the end of the visible world, a detailed disclosure of what should happen to the kingdom of Antichrist at the very moment when the seventh angel will pour out his cup begins. To understand this, John is given the following vision.
One of the angels, and most likely the one who poured out the sixth cup, led John into the wilderness, where he saw “a woman sitting on a crimson beast filled with blasphemous names, with seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was clothed in purple and purple, adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls, and held a golden cup in her hand, filled with the abomination and filth of her fornication; and on her forehead was written a name: mystery, Babylon the great, mother to harlots and abominations of the earth ”(Rev.17: 3-5).
The beast is already familiar to us - it is the Antichrist. The wife sitting on him is his kingdom. Like the antichrist, she is also dressed in red clothes, adorned with gold and stones. The fact that the wife is sitting on the antichrist has, apparently, an analogy with the house, which stands on a certain foundation. That is, the Antichrist is, as it were, the foundation, the support of his kingdom. Further, the angel reveals the meaning of some symbols of the beast: “The seven heads are seven mountains on which the wife sits, and seven kings, of which five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet arrived, and when it comes, it will not be long. And the beast, which was and which is not, is the eighth, and from the number of seven, and will go to destruction. And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received the kingdom, but will receive power with the beast, like kings, for one hour ”(Rev.17: 9-12). “And the ten horns that you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, and will ruin her, and strip her, and eat her flesh, and burn her in fire” (Rev.17.16). "The wife you saw is a great city reigning over earthly kings" (Rev.17.18).
This vision suggests itself, as we have already mentioned, a complete analogy with the fate of the Roman Empire, which is referred to here as the “Babylonian harlot,” whose decorations hint at the riches that the empire had. The cup with "abominations" spoke of the pagan way of life, which led Rome to spiritual decline. For an ancient man - a contemporary of John - such a comparison was a true deciphering of what was said. After all, the only city that was located on seven mountains or hills was precisely Rome, called in Revelation the beast on which the wife sits - a subject empire. Seven kings were also not a mystery: “five fell” are the emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero. “One is” - Caesar Galba; “The other has not yet come” - it was either Vitellius or Otto, who were fighting an internecine struggle for the throne in order to remove the weak-willed Galba. Galba did not rule for long - from July 9, 68 to January 15, 69. During this period, according to a number of researchers, this Revelation was compiled, although some believe that the Apocalypse acquired its final form in the 90s under the Dominican emperor.
After Vitellius was defeated, Galba was removed and Otto took his place. In the same years of internecine war in the east of the Roman Empire, an uprising of legions, led by a certain Lgeneron, and who is the eighth "out of seven and will go to destruction", swept through. Indeed, this uprising was brutally suppressed, and the real name of its leader remained undisclosed. This Pseudo-Generon just became the prototype of the Antichrist, about which Revelation constantly narrates. Secrecy, acting under a stranger, who once caused a shudder, a name, treachery, adventurism, the danger lurking in his actions - all these qualities are fully characteristic of the Antichrist, and therefore in that era these prophecies were perceived much stronger and more understandable than subsequent generations.
In relation to other deeds of kings, the situation is more complicated. Most likely, a certain number 10 is taken here instead of an indefinite one, implying a considerable, but quite limited power of the Antichrist. It must be assumed that this solution could only be understood by that generation of Christians who lived four centuries after the compilation of Revelation. The fact is that the indications that these ten kings will destroy the "harlot" mean the destruction of Rome by the Gothic tribes of the barbarians in 476, when the leaders of the northern tribes, united by the Germanic Odoacer, deposed the last emperor of the Western Empire, Romulus Augustulus. The blow to Rome was so strong that the powerful power in the past was no longer able to restore its power. Therefore, it is possible that the defeat of the Antichrist in the Apocalypse is identified precisely with the fall of the Roman Empire, and that the Antichrist, like Rome, will not be destined to be reborn again.
True, the question arises: what do the words mean that these ten kings "will take power with the beast"? Here, apparently, one should take into account the fact that the Roman Empire on the eve of its fall will no longer be a "beast". Christianity there will become the dominant religion, while the leaders are ready, being pagans, for a short time they will begin to trample on Christianity.
After that, John sees another angel, most likely the one who poured out the seventh cup, and who then utters a loud cry: "Babylon fell, fell, the great harlot, became a dwelling place for demons and a refuge for every unclean spirit" (Rev. 18: 2). Here we again encounter a double structure of prophecy, where both the near and the far are predicted simultaneously. The near is the fall of the Roman Empire, and the far is the defeat of the Antichrist. John does not give any sequence of events here, for they are already known: the Great Judgment, the death of the Antichrist, the end of the world.
The analogy with the fall of Rome can be seen here from the very beginning. The division into righteous and sinners is, apparently, compared with the disintegration of the Roman Empire into Western and Eastern in 395. The deposition of Romulus and the death of his supporters is associated with the defeat of the Antichrist and the condemnation of his followers by the Great Judgment. The end of the world in its scale may well be comparable to the division of Rome and the final fall of the empire 81 years after its collapse.
Chapter 18 very vividly and figuratively depicts the death of Babylon - the great harlot. This description is very close to what the prophet Jeremiah reported in chapters 50 and 51, with the only difference that there the prophet wrote about Babylon itself. Rome is called Babylon, however, not by accident. Firstly, Babylon was also a pagan city and at the same time the capital of a strong empire, which, like the Roman one, was unable to revive after its fall. Secondly, since the Revelation was compiled on the territory of the Roman Empire, it was by no means safe to write such a thing about Rome, while the real Babylon had long been in ruins. I will not go into detail on this chapter; I think that the reader will be able to understand it himself on the basis of the above judgments.
The further narration of the Apocalypse brings us, meanwhile, to a rather important part of the Gospel teaching - about the Second Coming of Christ. This event is entirely devoted to chapter 19 of Revelation. She looks meekly like this.
Once again, the Lord Himself appears before John, Sitting on the throne, beside Whom there are also twenty-four elders and four animals. Here the angel of the Lord presents to John a picture of the Second Coming, where the Lord Jesus Christ appears in the guise of a cavalry soldier, with the difference that His sword is not in a scabbard, but comes from His mouth. After that, the beast-antichrist was captured and cast down forever into the deep underworld, "a lake of fire, burning with sulfur." The sword of Christ strikes the followers of the beast and throws their corpses to be devoured by birds of prey.
Of course, the appearance of Christ is shown here allegorically, but it correctly reflects the essence that is highlighted in the Gospel, where this phenomenon is compared with the lightning emanating in the East and visible simultaneously in the West (Mat.24, 27). In other words, the Second Coming should be noticeable and solemn enough so that no one doubts it. The military garment of Christ also has a deep meaning. In the time of John, and in the centuries that followed, the cavalryman was practically irresistible for the infantryman, and only the cavalry can resist against all the cavalry. By the way, Christ in a vision is not alone, but with the "army of heaven", where everyone, like Him, is dressed in white clothes, and everyone sits on a white horse. By the "army of heaven", I think, one should understand that heavenly Church, which once overthrew the Antichrist from the spiritual world. Then comes the call: "Get together for the great supper of God." Here, obviously, we are talking about the calling of the earthly Church for the joint struggle against the Antichrist. As a result, the beast was defeated, and its followers were destroyed.
The reader here must understand one rather important point that the fight against the antichrist will not mean some kind of battle or duel. Since the sword of Christ emanates from His mouth, we are talking primarily about the spiritual defeat of the Antichrist, that in the last days of the world it will be a spiritual, ideological stratification. People will be as if divided by the sword of the Lord, and the first misfortunes and deaths will fall on those who follow the beast, and it is the beast that will be struck first. This is precisely the very fundamental difference between the future appearance of Christ and the appearance of the Antichrist. The Antichrist will have a very specific image embodied in a material body, which is unambiguously indicated in Chapter 13, and that he is encrypted with a specific number.
The appearance of Christ will be unusual, that is, directly opposite to the appearance of the Antichrist. The manifestation of the Lord simply cannot be otherwise, but only “with great power and great glory” (Luke 21:27), so that it could not be confused with any other manifestation or sign. So that none of the people who should see this, would have no doubts that it is He, the Lord, Bringing the terrible end to this material world. This will be the essence of the Second Coming and the Great Judgment. This will be the first death. Then, upon the end of the world, when all living things cease to exist in the material space, the judgment of the Great Court will come true. Whoever has remained faithful to the Lord in faith, deeds and deeds on earth will remain with the Lord in heaven, in the Kingdom of His glory. The one who opposes will be thrown, like their idol, the Antichrist, into a deep and terrible unknown. This will be the second death. It is not terrible only for those who, having experienced the first death as a result of the end of the world, will remain with Christ, where they will receive the first resurrection.
The words that the Antichrist and his followers will be thrown into the "lake of fire", that is, into hell, say that any soul, including the soul of the Antichrist, is immortal, and that life will not end with physical death. At the end of earthly life, everyone does not die, but receives a new form of existence.
The mystery of the twentieth chapter.
As I begin this section, I must say that the twentieth chapter of Revelation is perhaps the most mysterious part of this book. Many interpreters, of course, do not bypass it, but more often than not they simply briefly describe it due to its really complex interpretation. This chapter looks like this schematically.
John sees an angel descending from heaven, who seizes the dragon-Satan and fetters him, and then casts him into the abyss for a thousand years. Then a new vision appears. Souls of people who died for faith in Christ in His Kingdom. But here Satan is freed from a thousand-year captivity and appears together with the false prophet in the territory called the land of Gog and Magog. However, fire descending from heaven strikes the Antichrist and his false teachers. After that, the Son of God administers the Judgment, determining the merits of each according to his deeds. All those who follow the Antichrist, that is, "having the seal", will be thrown "into the lake of fire."
Thus, if you continue chapter 19, you get the following. After the Second Coming of Christ, Satan is thrown into the abyss, and the millennial Kingdom of Christ is established on earth, in which only his followers will live. Then the Antichrist is freed, acquires followers for himself, after which the end of the world and the Great Judgment, which determines the reward for both the supporters of the Antichrist and the followers of Christ. Followers of the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, believe that at the Second Coming there should be a great battle between Jehovah and Satan, which they also call “Armageddon,” and that Jehovah must surely win it. This teaching is called chiliasm. Its main drawback is that, firstly, it teaches about the ordinary Kingdom of Christ on earth for 1000 years, which is contrary to the Gospel (Mat.24: 29-30). Secondly, both the Judgment and the end of the world should take place almost simultaneously, as if parallel to each other, which is also confirmed by the Evangelist (Mat.24: 37-39). Then, as with the Chiliasts, they should be separated by 1000 years. Moreover, in the New Testament, Armageddon is understood as the place where the followers of the “beast” should gather before the end of the world (Rev. 16:16). Thirdly, it should be understood that a certain number 1000, as well as before, may have been taken instead of an indefinite one and simply implies a rather long period.
Based on this, we cannot accept the doctrine of chiliasm, which the Orthodox Church also does not accept. Averky here, apparently, is absolutely right, understanding by this millennial Kingdom of Christ on earth the victory of Christianity itself over paganism, which became the establishment of the Church of Christ on earth.
Based on this, Chapter 20 contains the following.
The first three verses can be conditionally viewed as a continuation of chapter 12, which tells about the appearance of the Antichrist and the beginning of the persecution of the young Christian Church (Rev. 12,17). At the beginning of the twentieth chapter, the beast is fettered until a certain period of time, in order to give an opportunity to grow stronger and establish the Church of Christ, which after this time must defeat the Antichrist and his kingdom of evil. 1000 years is a conditional, but integral period of time separating the birth of the Church of Christ on earth and the time of the Great Judgment and the end of the world. From the 4th to the 6th verse, there is a story about people who, from the very beginning of the Church's activity until the coming of the Antichrist, remained faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, suffered for their faith and died for it, having received the Kingdom of the Lord as a reward for this.
These people, even before the end of the world, received their first death and received the first resurrection. Undoubtedly, this also conventionally means the entire earthly cycle of the Christian Church, consisting, as mentioned above, of seven periods (Rev. Ch. 2-3). The 7th and 8th verses tell about the appearance of the Antichrist, his false prophet and other false teachers in the world, in order to seduce and seduce people from the true path, and in many ways he succeeds. "The Four Corners of the Land of Gog and Magog" is a symbol that is difficult to understand. His emblem is taken from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, where he predicted the invasion of northern tribes, obviously the Huns or Scythians (Ezek. 38,2-4; 36,1-2). Some interpreters, under the four corners of the earth, understood as if the whole earth, that is, the activity of the Antichrist should cover the whole world, mainly the Christian one. Others, taking the prophecy of Ezekiel as a basis, understand by these four corners a large northern territory, in which the Antichrist should appear. Some of them believe that this territory is Russia, to the scale of which these attributes are very suitable. This conclusion is also not accidental by the fact that under Tsar Ivan III in Russia, the concept of "Moscow - the third Rome" was taken as the basis for its unification. Its essence is as follows. The first Rome is the Roman Empire itself, the Second is Byzantium. The first two then fell, and the third was to establish itself in Russia. There shouldn't be a fourth. And so it happened. The Russian Church has become the largest of the Orthodox. Therefore, it is possible that it is in Russia that the Antichrist will begin to act, whose goal will be to conquer the world's largest Orthodox Church.
There is another interpretation of this. After all, if you still follow the same sequence of presentation as in Revelation itself, then 1000 years of the new Kingdom should come soon after the second coming of Christ. But, since this coming is accompanied by the end of the world described in chapter 16 of the Apocalypse, this means that these 1000 years will begin with the general resurrection of the dead, "who did not worship the beast" after the "first death." As the Evangelist says, “those who have done good will come forth into the resurrection of life, but those who have done evil - on the Sunday of condemnation” (John 5:29). “The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were over” (Rev.20: 3). But if the old world does not exist, it means that we are talking here about a completely new world. And this world will be completely different. Those who have been resurrected in him will no longer be the same as in their former life. Matthew has some indication of this: "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matthew 13:43). “Some will be like the light, others - the darkness,” as Saint Ephraim the Syrian said. From what has been said, we can conclude that the resurrected bodies of the righteous will be incorruptible and immortal, that is, spiritual, heavenly, like angels, and the bodies of the fallen will remain, as it were, in darkness. Therefore, based on the foregoing, we can say that we are talking here about a certain spiritual Kingdom, where there will be almost nothing in common with the earthly. However, according to the prophet Daniel, some will be able to see this new Kingdom even before their "death first". The end of the century will continue, according to the same Daniel, 1290 days (Dan.12.11). But some "hold out" for 1335 days, that is, a month and a half longer (Dan.12.12). It is they who must witness the birth of a new Kingdom, which must hold out for these 1000 years until the liberation and death of the Antichrist and the Great Judgment.
Beginning with the 9th and 15th verses, the final defeat and death of the Antichrist, as well as his supporters, whom he will be able to recruit "like the sand of the sea" - as if the same "Armageddon", as well as the Great Judgment, is described allegorically to determine those who are worthy of the Kingdom of the Lord, as well as those to whom the second death is predetermined. “And the dead were judged according to what was written in the books, according to their works” (Rev. 20.12). That is, those who did not rise after the first death (Rev.20: 3).
At the end of this section, I must say the following. We have already determined the meaning of history, that is, that it goes to Christ and from Christ. The twenty chapter gives us the right to add to this - and to the Antichrist, more precisely to the victory over him, the Great Judgment and the end of the world. From Chapter 12 we can determine that the course of history began with the emergence of evil and the struggle against it, and from Chapter 20 - that with the victory over evil, history ends its course, thus completing its spiritual mission. A new era opens behind it - the Age of the Kingdom of God, based on good and supreme justice. This is, in my opinion, the secret of the twentieth chapter.
Holy and eternal.
Chapter 21, as well as the first five verses of chapter 22, are, perhaps, the main denouement not only of the Apocalypse, but of the entire content of the Bible. According to the teaching of the Church, the Kingdom of the Lord can be conditionally divided into three components.
The kingdom of nature is the natural world around a person, the universe.
The kingdom of grace is the spiritual union of man with God.
The kingdom of glory is the spiritual world, the heavenly Church.
After the Great Judgment and the end of the world, the Kingdom of nature ceases to exist in its previous form and, obviously, passes into a different state, and the Kingdom of grace is united with the Kingdom of glory, thus strengthening the Kingdom of the Lord. This is where chapter 21 begins.
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the former heaven and the former earth had passed, and the sea was no longer there” (Rev. 21: 1). By the new heaven and new earth one can understand, I think, the kingdom of glory and the kingdom of grace, respectively. And now a new vision appears before John - the heavenly Jerusalem, which should be understood as the Kingdom of the Lord, which the souls of people will see after the end of the world. Of course, this vision is also allegorical, but it allows us to understand the feeling that the soul will experience at the sight of such a Kingdom. The central part of it is occupied by the One who sits on the throne, who proclaims with His voice the reunification of the Kingdom of glory with the Kingdom of grace into a single heavenly city of Jerusalem. An angel who appeared before John shows him this wonderful city. The first thing that catches your eye is the radiance of the city, as John compares it to a precious stone. The city has the shape of a square or an equilateral rectangle, which its walls represent. Each wall faces its own side of the world - north, south, west and east. The city has twelve gates, three on each side. The twelve gates are guarded by twelve angels and, in addition, on the gates are written "the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel." The wall has twelve foundations, and on them are the names of the twelve apostles of Christ. The following are the visible characteristics of the heavenly Jerusalem.
A square wall with twelve gates speaks of the fact that the Kingdom of the Lord is open from all directions of the world, and at the same time closed to those who are not worthy of it. Angels at the gate warn that the entrance to the Kingdom of the Lord is being controlled. The names of the “twelve tribes of the sons of Israel” on the gate mean that this gate is open to all nations, all Christians, regardless of their nationality. The names of the twelve apostles of Christ, inscribed on the foundations of Jerusalem, symbolize that the foundation of the heavenly city is the Church of Christ, founded by His apostles.
Next, the angel measures the wall of the city, which is one hundred and forty-four cubits high. If we remember the 144,000 sealed by Christ, that is, all those who will remain faithful to Him and follow Him into the Kingdom of the Lord, then the number 144 will also become clear here, and it will mean that there is enough room in the Kingdom of the Lord for every faithful follower of Christ.
Inside, the city resembles pure gold, and the base of the walls inside is adorned with twelve precious stones. The width of each side of the wall is 12000 stadia, where the number 12 also gives the heavenly Jerusalem the character of the universe, and the number 1000 speaks of its truly enormous size. According to the interpretation of St. Andrew, the meaning of these twelve stones corresponds to each of the apostles in the following sequence: jasper (jasper) means the Apostle Peter, sapphire - Paul, chalcedon - Andrew, smaragd - John, sardonyx - James, carnelian - Philip, beryl - Thomas, topaz - Matthew, chrysoprase - Thaddeus, hyacinth - Simone, and amethyst - Matthias. But, since the twelve apostles symbolize the Church of Christ, I believe that the precious stones symbolized precisely the eternity of the Kingdom. In other words, the Church itself is the true treasure for Christ, that is, people who are faithful to Him to the end. The decoration of the gates with pearls gives them solemnity, so that those who enter the heavenly city see its light, that entering there is a holiday, and it can never be despondency. This city has no need for a temple, since the Lord God and Jesus Christ is its Temple. The gates of the city will not be closed during the day, and there will be no night. The saved will walk in the light of the Lord and serve Him.
The emblem of the heavenly Jerusalem was, apparently, the prophecy of Isaiah about a certain heavenly city (Isaiah 54: 11-13; 60.19), and the ring of Aaron, adorned with the same twelve stones as the foundation of the heavenly city (Ex. 28, 17-20).
The reader may wonder: why, in fact, all this is needed - grave catastrophes, the terrible Great Judgment, the painful end of the world? The answer to it must be sought, perhaps, at the very beginning of the Bible, when man first sinned before God, left the firm foundation of the will of the Lord and His commandments, and deviated on the path of self-will. Such, for example, is the opinion of St. John of Kronstadt. But evil happened first in the spiritual world, and a person, while still there, was subjected to its influence, after which the Lord embodied a person in a material body and released him into the world of everyday existence - to get his bread by the sweat of his brow (Genesis 3:21). However, the Lord warned a person that he would be there for a certain time, until he returned to the earth from which he was taken, that is, back to the spiritual world (Genesis 3:19). And here in the Apocalypse the coming of this time is shown. St. John of Kronstadt wrote about this in the following way: "It was not we who approached, but the Kingdom of Heaven approached us, when we ourselves did not want and could not approach Him because of the habit of sinning." “Why did God allow the fall of man, his last creation and the crown of all creatures on earth? This question should be answered in the following way: that if a person were not allowed to fall, then he should not have been created in the image and likeness of God, not given free will, which is an integral part of the image of God, but subject to the law of necessity, like soulless creatures ” ...
Thus, a person does not just enter the Kingdom of the Lord - he returns to it as to his own home. The period that was appointed by the Lord for humanity must inevitably pass, during which a person can correct himself, that is, spiritually return to God, after which he can again get into His Kingdom. Those who do not turn to God and, therefore, cannot return to Him after the Great Judgment, will be cast down, as it says in Revelation, "into the abyss of hell."
The light of hope.
The general meaning of the ending of the Apocalypse, which includes the last 16 verses, has the form of an appeal, as if summing up its entire content. This ending looks like the signature and seal of the Lord, making Revelation not just a book of visions, but like a document given from above. Thus, the entire content of the Apocalypse is clothed in a strict form that testifies to it as a true and relevant message. This ending tells us about Revelation as a book of hope, which, despite some formidable warnings, still tells about the coming of a really happy time, about the return of a previously sinned person to God in His Kingdom, devoid of evil and other vices born to him. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen ”(Rev. 22:21).
Appendix.
On the nature of scientific atheism.
Essence.
The topic of atheism is not so much broad in itself as it is multifaceted. This term can be understood as a personal position, and worldview, and theoretical direction, and method of public policy.
The origin of atheism goes back to antiquity. You can even say how many religions exist, as long as atheism exists. Manifestations of atheistic positions are visible even among the ancient Greeks, even the term "atheism" belongs to them (a - the sign of negation, theos - God), and is translated as "godlessness". Religious development did not stand still. Some religions fell into decay, others, on the contrary, gained strength, and some of them spread to different nations and became world-wide (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism). But development was also characteristic of atheism. Although it has been considered repeatedly as an independent phenomenon, in essence it has never been. He has always remained an integral part of one or another worldview, position. However, atheism in many ways, if not in general, often shaped the essence of such a worldview, its theoretical and practical orientation. To understand this, it is necessary to dwell on the forms of atheism.
Here one should distinguish between positional and theoretical atheism. It should be noted that there is also the concept of militant atheism. But here we are dealing with an extreme form of manifestation of unbelief, capable of reaching the stage of fanaticism or extremism. But fanaticism was sometimes characteristic of religious manifestations, which, undoubtedly, was one of the subjects of attention of atheists. But here we will not touch upon the extreme forms of atheism, since our topic is to highlight the dispute between different ideas, approaches, and not their duel in the form of thought and cudgel. Therefore, the main focus of attention will be precisely moderate, mainly scientific atheism.
Positional atheism may not be associated with a specific theoretical system and represent the personal position of the bearer of this belief. But this view is always subjective. A person can call himself an atheist only because he thinks so, without relying on any arguments. The reason here is either a misunderstanding or a reluctance to touch upon the subject of religion, which is comprehended, as a rule, by faith. At the same time, a person can share superstitious, pseudoscientific views, sometimes not associated with either science or religion, believe in ghosts in the evil eye, in the existence of aliens, almost without going into their essence, and without needing any of their validity. In other words, religious ideas are not important for a given person - his mind is usually occupied with other concepts.
The situation is different when atheism takes a certain theoretical direction. Here, in contrast to positional atheism, they are no longer limited to denying the existence of God. Anything that belongs to the religious sphere can be rewarded with criticism. If we recognize that this or that religious concept has its own strict and clear outlines, then theoretical atheism also tends to a certain form and content. The atheistic vision of the world in various aspects is opposed to the religious one. But if we take into account that atheism is a part of this or that worldview, then it will be based on the same theoretical concepts on which this worldview is built.
Two types of such atheism are usually distinguished here - scientific and unscientific. The term "unscientific atheism" from the point of view of logic is not entirely apt, since the definition of a concept should not be negative. Therefore, sometimes such atheism is called pre-scientific, as if preceding scientific. Such atheism is based on certain philosophical ideas, most often of a speculative or empirical (sensory) nature. This situation could not but affect the narrowness of such a structure. Therefore, this atheism most often does not have a complete anti-religious orientation and usually opposes itself to any one religion, not taking into account the existence of other religious trends. Often, such atheism takes the form not so much of an anti-religious as of an anti-church orientation, a kind of protest against the church as a social institution. A typical example of this is the atheism of the French educator Voltaire. The wit of this thinker was directed primarily against the absolutism of the Roman Catholic Church, which occupied a rather prominent place in the life of medieval Europe. But criticizing Catholicism, Voltaire, for example, mistakenly believed that the Bible would soon become a rare book - they would stop reading it, and, consequently, publish it. Other religions did not evoke such hostility from Voltaire.
True, it cannot be said that the so-called pre-scientific atheism did not take into account various scientific studies. No, the latter were often used and sometimes quite widely. But they were not the main factor in atheistic perception and were usually auxiliary in nature. However, in scientific atheism the priorities are different. Science began to be used as the main weapon in a new atheistic direction. Scientific atheism could no longer simply rely on empirical arguments. Arms were taken to arguments based on the experimental base. However, scientific atheism would not be so if it were limited to only this. Atheism also included scientific methodology. These methods, developed for scientific research, turned out to be aimed at anti-religious activities. Criticism of certain religious concepts gave way to the creation of a fundamentally different picture of the world, in which there is no place not only for the existence of God, but also for everything that is said with it. Religion in the eyes of atheists, according to F. Engels, becomes a distorted expression of reality. It is no longer seen as a bearer of a certain spirituality, but as a relic of the past, a kind of "distorting mirror" that prevents one from seeing the objective picture of the world, a means of "stupefying" the masses. Everything that did not happen in the world and in human life was explained by natural, historical or technical causes and consequences, including even those phenomena that science was unable to explain. Developed hypotheses, guesses or arguments were used, which can be combined with the phrase "not proven by science." Since it is not known, this does not mean that it is supernatural. There is simply no evidence of this yet.
Thus, scientific atheism went not just to overcome religious consciousness, but to replace this consciousness with another, claiming to be indisputable, as the bearer of the ultimate truth. A person who adheres to the views of scientific atheism may well respect the religious feelings of others, but consider himself a bearer of higher convictions, more progressive views. A person of religious convictions will seem against this background already spiritually backward, and maybe scientifically illiterate, investing here the meaning of ideological inferiority. Since the beliefs of an atheist are based primarily on a scientific picture of the structure of the world, his views on religion will seem to him not only scientifically grounded, but also absolutely proven.
From the above, one might get the impression that scientific atheism was intended to replace religion by itself or to become some kind of progressive religion itself. But this is not the case. Atheism itself cannot be faith, since it is based on unbelief. But it can underlie another belief - in the power of science, in social, technical and humanitarian progress. This is quite natural, since a normal person necessarily believes in something, since faith is inherent in his spiritual nature. But not every faith is religious in nature. Religion is not limited only to the presence of a certain worldview. It also includes a certain way of life, conditioned by the adoption of appropriate obligations, restrictions, moral requirements, life incentives. Beliefs of a different nature, even if they have a scientific basis, do not always imply such attributes. It is always easier to believe in this way, since it is easier to substantiate this position, having with you completely scientifically reasoned arguments. However, scientific atheism itself has both strengths and weaknesses.
Strengths of atheism.
The objectivity of considering any subject requires always seeing in it a reality that exists regardless of our desire and worldview, excluding or minimizing the bias of the approach.
It has already been said above that atheism as a trend is as ancient as the religions themselves. It has always existed - both in the days of religious absolutism, where atheism was persecuted as a dangerous heresy, and in the days of the so-called state atheism, when the very freedom of religion was trampled upon. The form and content of atheism changed, but in spite of everything it existed, just as religions existed. Therefore, we can assume that atheism will exist longer, regardless of how it will be perceived in society, both in the absence of freedom of religion and in its absence. Consequently, we have the right to speak of atheism as a permanent and persistent phenomenon, a fact that must be reckoned with, to see in it a real idea, a real view, a real teaching, a real conviction. And since this is the case, then we have no right to ignore his arguments and statements, regardless of whether we agree with them or not. What, then, is the power of atheism?
In religion and atheism, the priorities of the human "I" are different. Religion puts in the first place a very specific spiritual principle, revered by one or another religious trend. There is no such thing in atheism. Most often, the priority quality is precisely the human self, if it is not given an appropriate place by certain ideological principles. It is always easier to put your “I” in the first place. The feeling of his self, conditioned by a number of instincts, involuntarily puts himself on the first row. To curb this, the necessary will is needed, but it is not manifested in everyone.
The Orthodox Church explains this as a consequence of original sin. Eastern religions also rely on primordial human imperfection. But it is always difficult to acknowledge one's own sinful nature, and atheists have always placed considerable emphasis on this. On the contrary, the recognition of oneself as a crown, a kind of perfection of evolutionary development looks much more attractive, even from a psychological point of view. Having elevated man above all creation, above all nature, atheists made him a completely independent figure with almost unlimited possibilities. A person of such a model no longer needs any heavenly patronage, since he himself becomes the creator and patron of everything.
Hence, another side of the spiritual power of atheism follows - a person can live relying solely on his own strength. This formulation of the question is not new - a similar one already exists in Buddhism. The ability of a person to achieve nirvana without resorting to God's help is a cornerstone in the soteriological teaching of this religion. It is no coincidence that Buddhism is sometimes referred to as an atheistic religion. This definition is, of course, logically incorrect. Buddhism cannot be atheistic, since it recognizes in fact the existence of at least an abstract world consciousness that determines the cycle of samsara - a sequence of rebirths caused by karmic reactions. There is nothing of the kind in atheism. For him, something else is important: a person does not need to receive anything from above. Man determines his life, his morality, his destiny. The criteria for evaluating their activities will also belong to him.
Yes, the human mind allows such actions. A person is quite capable of developing or choosing those moral norms that he can implement and control in practice. It is no secret that there are moral norms developed in the development of society, and those that appeared, one might say at the time of the emergence of such a society, without which joint life would, in principle, be impossible. The norms of morality were also developed, proceeding from certain ideological attitudes. A typical example here is the moral code of the builder of communism that took place in the USSR.
Having such arguments, atheists substantiated them not only with the possibility of replacing religious moral principles with those developed by the person himself, but also declaring the latter to be the original ones, which preceded the religious ones. But this was only about moral topics, and humanity, as a rule, is not limited to them only. In the course of its history, he developed many other norms, including legal ones, which atheists proposed to replace religious ones.
Achievements of scientific and technological progress have become a good argument in favor of atheism. The development of such areas as informatics, cybernetics, and on their basis electronic computing, computer technology, the Internet has significantly expanded the physical and spiritual capabilities of a person. He has already come to control the processes taking place both in human society and in the environment. Already now, a person can afford what decades ago could have been considered a fantasy. In a word, man has become stronger, more powerful. Such a factor could not but give rise to a feeling of the presence of unlimited possibilities of the human mind. Man, as it were, acts as a creator himself, leaving no room for the heavenly Creator. This is perhaps the strongest aspect of atheism.
The next aspect is the most ancient in atheism. It refers directly to the activities of a church or other religious institution, as a social education. The essence of the problem is that certain church leaders lived in a certain historical period and belonged to a specific social environment. Consequently, their thoughts and actions were conditioned by those ideas, perceptions, concepts and categories characteristic of the same historical and social environment. The worldview of religious figures, therefore, carried in itself, respectively, those mistakes and delusions inherent in their contemporaries. It is from here that religious fanaticism and extremism, religious persecution and repression, and other forms of religious delusion originate.
In itself, there is nothing strange in such phenomena - the ministers of religion were the same people as their contemporaries with their own merits and demerits. In this respect, kings and emperors practically did not differ from them, and even those who were often deified or paid almost divine honors to them. But they looked at the ministers of religion a little differently.
Since religion has always expressed the highest human feelings, primarily of a moral character, the servants of religion were perceived as carriers and exponents of high ideals, which in reality was not always met. Such a discrepancy often caused a well-founded protest from other people, pushing them to fair, and sometimes quite constructive criticism.
Of course, there were some exceptions. In one society or another, there have always been those on whom the severity and cruelty of their modern era did not leave its heavy stamp. Such people really were a model of holiness and carried it through their entire lives. But they were always in the minority. The majority bore those vices of their time, thereby pushing others on the path of one or another form of atheism.
Atheistic teaching also appeals to a large variety of religions, sometimes very different from each other. The illusion of many gods is striking here, which in different religions are also perceived differently, while having different forms of serving them. On this basis, it is concluded that it is impossible to withdraw the concession of the One God, due to the strong contradictions between different religions when looking at this issue.
Another object of criticism from atheism is religious books. The peculiarity of the latter is that they are written in part, as it were, in a suggestive language, where the meaning of what was said is clarified somewhere in the subtext. Some texts are written in such a way that their content still remains a mystery to the reader. Since religious texts were written in early historical times, they also bear the stamp of their time. These texts are becoming less clear to the modern reader. Explaining the meaning of such texts is not an easy task. Theologians themselves often give different interpretations to the same texts. An even more difficult task is to provide an explanation in modern language. The matter can be complicated by the fact that the religious works themselves may initially contain both various contradictions and discrepancies.
It is clear that atheists are also striving to give a clear explanation to everything. Moreover, it was the atheists who paid special attention to the above problems and tried to give their own version of the origin of religious texts, approaching this issue from a purely scientific point of view. This factor has repeatedly forced theologians to take a more balanced and reasonable approach to the consideration of religious books, which ultimately benefited the religion itself.
Of all the scientific methods used in atheism, the comparative or comparative method is most often used. Moreover, the objects of comparison are always diverse: different religions, cults, moral principles, cosmogonic and cosmological theories, forms and practical actions of religious organizations. In this case, comparisons are usually encountered of two types. The first type is the comparison of religions with each other, and the second is the comparison of religious teaching with scientific. This is explained by the fact that various ideas about the Creator, about service, about the other world, etc., are quite attractive material for comparative studies. Indeed, first of all, it is the differences between religious beliefs that emphasize their peculiarity, individuality. Moreover, there are sometimes more differences than similarities. And although this situation is quite natural - over the millennia of their existence, religions have accumulated in themselves a lot of specific things - atheists widely use it.
As for the second type of comparison, the seemingly advantageous position of atheism at first glance has many controversial places. The strength here is that scientific endeavors are virtually borderless. As one thinker put it, the limits of our knowledge are like the horizon. The closer we get to him, the further he moves away from us. Since the existence of science, a lot of discoveries have been made, including those that dealt with more or less religious topics. For example, it was science that removed the mystical halo from such an event as a solar eclipse. Many phenomena, the nature of which had not been possible to explain before, received a clear scientific interpretation. But this seems to be the end of the atheism's strength.
What is the weakness of atheism?
A conversation about the weakness of atheism should start with the fact that its teaching is based on the principle of denial. Any statements of atheistic content proceed initially from the refusal of religious understanding of the subject under study.
Science, in particular, cannot build a chain of its arguments based on some negative results obtained in the process of research. But neither these results will underlie scientific teaching, since it is based primarily on positivism, that is, on positive results. Negative results usually complement or correct positive ones.
The situation is different in atheism. Here the basis is negativism. This situation could not but affect the limitedness of the atheistic worldview. Investigating, for example, the subject of a religious miracle, the atheist strives not so much to investigate the phenomenon of the miracle itself, as to prove the absurdity, impossibility of the latter. If a scientist is interested in the reasons for this or that phenomenon, even if it has a religious content, then an atheist, first of all, seeks arguments in favor of refuting such a phenomenon, or in favor of denying its religious nature. Moreover, if a scientist and an atheist are not one and the same person, then his research will go in the first direction, while the atheist scientist will be dominated by the second. It is clear that a scientist working in the first direction can understand the problem more deeply.
The next point is that not all areas of knowledge can be covered by science. The latter can only look where it is possible to comprehend something with the human mind. The same scientific and technological progress, which showed the capabilities of the human mind, also determined how limited it is. Modern computers perform much more operations than the human brain. The world chess champions are already losing to the machine. A person grows up surrounded from all sides by various material goods, and grows together with them so much that in their absence he feels almost defenseless. It took science a long time to understand this. But any traditional religion has been claiming this for a long time. Science learned everything through experience, religion through faith. It is religion that affects the phenomena of such an order that the limited human mind is not able to comprehend, and covers only as much as it is given to him from above. Knowing a part of inaccessible being, a person, as it were, realizes how great this being is, in order to correctly assess its essence. Such confidence in the invisible is faith. Religion does not pretend to scientific confirmation of this, and here is one of the facets of scientific knowledge, which, apparently, should not be crossed, and which, of course, is not necessary. Science, having made many discoveries, is still not able to explain a number of phenomena, and sometimes even create any plausible hypothesis. This mainly concerns such phenomena as the incorruptibility of the relics of saints, the myrrh-streaming of icons, cases of healing the sick when visiting holy places, and such patients who could not be helped by scientific medicine. The reason for the impotence of science here is that all these phenomena contradict the known laws of nature, according to which science derives its explanations. And there are a lot of such examples.
The third point is in areas of knowledge where science does not always adhere to the same views. As new discoveries appear, ideas about the world around us, about its structure, and the functions of its constituent elements often change. Religious doctrine is based, as a rule, on a dogmatic basis. Dogmas are needed so that the teaching is not distorted over time, separating this teaching from others. And for science, dogmatism is not acceptable. Even the proven statements here are not dogmas, and can be considered preliminary conclusions. This position is a scientific necessity. Science can develop only when it is able to overcome its own attitudes. But if the same evidence is accepted as dogmas, then the scientific process will begin to slow down. If a religion renounces its dogmas, either its transformation into another religion, or its complete degradation, will inevitably begin.
Using science for its own purposes, atheism carries out a certain selectivity here. As the validity of their conclusions, they use only those theories and evidence that these conclusions directly or indirectly confirm. Theories that do not support the atheistic point of view are not taken into account. For this reason, sometimes changes in scientific views and perceptions are not taken into account. A typical example is the theory of evolution, which became the cornerstone of atheism. This theory turned out to be convenient in that it asserted the gradual process of the origin and development of life, as completely natural, not associated with any rational principle. Inanimate nature, as if by itself under the influence of external factors, gradually turned into living. The biblical story of the creation of the world here becomes nothing more than a beautiful fairy tale.
But evolutionism was not the only theory behind the origin of life. This direction turned out to be creationism, which stands on the positions of the theory of the creation of the world. As for the scientific argumentation in favor of one theory or another, there was more evidence in favor of creationism than that of evolutionism. Suffice it, for example, to say that archaeological excavations did not confirm Charles Darwin's theory of the origin of species. On the contrary, the presence in nature of a number of creatures with very strange and uncharacteristic features, which became a real mystery for evolutionists, spoke of their impossibility of originating naturally. Not only were there no transitional forms to them, but the assumption of the existence of such forms turned out to be impossible.
Atheism could not accept such a theory. Otherwise, it would cease to be called atheism. But, since none of these scientific directions prevailed, atheism can still hold on to the theory of evolution, but it no longer has the right to ignore the presence of another theory.
Here it is most appropriate to dwell on the notorious conflict between science and religion, which is included in almost all books on scientific atheism. An example is the conflict between some scholars and leaders of the Catholic Church during the Renaissance. At the same time, it is not taken into account that at the same time there was a struggle between two scientific directions in astronomy. One direction adhered to the geocentric system of the structure of the Universe, where the Earth was considered as its center, going back to the time of Ptolemy, and the second direction shared the views of N. Copernicus on the heliocentric system of structure, where the Sun was already considered as the center of our Universe. In addition to scientists, some church leaders were also involved in this conflict. It was then that Giordano Bruno (1600) was executed, and Galileo Galilei suffered from the same inquisition in 1612. But the first, being a Franciscan monk, did not really suffer for scientific views. He was accused directly of religious heresy. But Galileo was still persecuted for his scientific activities. But even before that, he was rejected by the same scientists-geocentrists, whose ideas were shared by the same Cardinal Belarmino, who forced Galileo to abandon his ideas, and before that executed D. Bruno. But the views of N. Copernicus were shared by Cardinal N. Kuzansky, who still lived before Galileo Galilei, whose religious beliefs did not contradict scientific ones. Even now, when the heliocentric concept can also be considered outdated, it makes no sense to oppose modern astronomical theories to religious views.
Thus, speaking of scientific influence on both religion and atheism, there is no need to affirm or deny their bias in anyone's favor. Some scientific ideas in some way support atheism, others - on the contrary, religion, and in some ways they themselves contradict each other. It is for this reason that the scientific approach cannot be considered exclusively the prerogative of atheism, since with the help of the same methods, the position of the latter can really be weakened. For example, a number of scientific studies in the eschatological field only confirm a religious approach to the question of the future of humanity and the end of the world. Therefore, the confrontation between science and religion may well be regarded as a failed myth.
The next point of weakness of atheism concerns, perhaps, its fundamental principle. Denying the existence of God, as well as everything connected with Him, atheists are unable to prove it. But as a justification for their negative assertion, they cite the argument that the existence of God is unprovable. We can only agree here that there is no direct scientific evidence here. But if you give circumstantial evidence, then the situation will no longer develop in favor of atheism.
As an indirect evidence, in the first place, one can cite ontological arguments. It is based on a causal relationship in the process of progressive development. One event, as it were, predetermines another. This or that reason, as a rule, is due to the previous reason. Such a sequence gives grounds to assume that there is a certain Root Cause, which gave rise to a further chain of causes and effects. Teleological arguments come second. According to them, the world develops in a certain sequence and in a certain direction, according to quite certain laws of development. Why is the world developing like this and not otherwise? Why are the laws of development unchanged? The answer to these questions can also be the assertion about a reasonable First, which gave rise to such development. The third proof is the moral category. In human society, the lack of moral equilibrium is quite noticeable. A person who followed an unrighteous lifestyle did not always receive a lifetime reward. The righteous did not always have the proper reward. This means that life cannot be limited only by earthly frameworks. After all, moral equilibrium must exist, and if it exists, then it inevitably goes beyond the limits of earthly existence. But how does this balance come about? The answer also lies in the presence of a certain Origin, which gave the foundation for those moral norms, without which human society even initially could not exist.
When we talked about the strengths of atheism, we were silent about the fact that a person himself is able to determine the necessary moral standards for himself. But before developing them, a person had to have a kind of norms of first morality, which served as the basis for further development in a moral direction. This cannot be explained by evolutionary development alone, and atheism can give an exhaustive answer to this.
In the process of studying religion, atheists often try to pass off wishful thinking. In part, when we touched on the issue of religious works and the reliance on scientific knowledge, this topic has already been covered. Arbitrary interpretation of religious texts or selective interpretation of scientific achievements, as a rule, leads to distorted conclusions. This usually happens in two situations:
A) the interpretation is carried out without connection with the text idea;
B) the interpretation is carried out on the basis of speculative categories.
In the first case, one or another religious statement is taken and considered, as it were, separately from the entire religious teaching. This technique is very convenient for arbitrary interpretation. This is how the biblical commandments and religious dogmas have been distorted more than once.
In the second case, the interpretation of many ambiguities is carried out by atheists, as a rule, towards a complete clarification, and regardless of how correct such argumentation is. For atheism, everything seems to be clear and understandable. By depriving religion of its aura of mystery, atheists thereby artificially simplify the very object of research. Taking such steps, atheists inevitably tread on the wrong path, and this is already the direction of a dead-end development. This approach is the weakest point in atheism.
As a result of all of the above, atheism was never able to become an alternative to religious beliefs. He failed to fully offer a person what religion can give him. Atheistic arguments turned out to be inadequate to religious teaching.
It should, however, be said that an attempt at an alternative substitution of atheism for religion, albeit unintentionally, took place. The fact is that atheism is a philosophical category, and in it, as in philosophy, there were two directions: idealistic and materialistic. The situation with materialism is simpler. Here matter is primary, and consciousness is secondary. Consciousness is a product of matter. Being completely determines consciousness. In idealism, consciousness is already in the first place, but it is presented here as in Hegel in the form of the Absolute Idea, from which, according to the laws of dialectics, development proceeded. But the materialists nevertheless saw in the Hegelian idea the concept of God. Therefore, the impression was created that some alternative to religion had been found. However, this turned out to be far from the case. The absolute idea turned out to be a rather distant and inaccessible substance that was not obliged to anyone and did not owe anything, just as no one was obliged to it. How different this turned out to be from the religious essence of the Divine. After all, God for man is not something remote once and for all. He is here, next to him, asks a person to fulfill his moral law, providing the same person with the necessary spiritual and sometimes physical support. Therefore, for a person, God is higher than any abstract, albeit Absolute, idea, and therefore there is also no alternative to religious belief here.
A little about the future of atheism.
The whole existence of atheism lies in the ongoing dispute between it and religions. Of course, this trend will continue in the future. But the crux of the matter is where this dispute will lead and how it will end. Of course, each side should have its own opinion on this matter. Atheism, in particular, has always seen itself as the winner. The end of this or that religion has been predicted by them more than once. The predictions, however, did not usually come true. But atheism has not become a thing of the past either. Yes, he sometimes gave up some of his positions, but he was never defeated. Now let's move on to the positions of religions.
Here the situation, at first glance, seems paradoxical, Religions in one form or another recognize the onset of their own decline, and even defeat. So, the Vaishnava direction of Hinduism teaches about the onset of Kali-yuga, the beginning of which coincides with the incarnation of a new avatar (image) of Vishnu on earth, and the end - with the oblivion of religious principles on earth. Buddhism, as a result of the weakening of the dharma (teaching), is waiting for the appearance of a new Buddha - Matreya. Christianity associates its defeat with the arrival of the dark forces, led by the Antichrist, and his reign up to the Great Judgment. Islam also predicts similar results. Departure from the religious rules of behavior in human life, from the norms of religious morality, oblivion of religious holiness itself, and, as a consequence, the fall of the moral foundations of life itself, the general degradation of human society - is the result of earthly existence. According to a number of religious teachings, a person will believe in the benefits of earthly life and their earthly patrons, in fact, renouncing the benefits of heavenly life, from the One to whom all these benefits belong.
So religions will decline. But what will happen to atheism? On the one hand, the weakening of religions is directed primarily in favor of atheism. On the other hand, with such a course of events, atheism itself becomes unnecessary. What is the point of opposing any, even the world's religion, when the latter falls? In such a situation, it would be logical to assume that traditional atheism would become a thing of the past. Modernization of human society must inevitably lead to different forms of perception of the surrounding reality. Various religious organizations are already considering these factors. Atheism, accordingly, also cannot stand aside. The old atheism should be replaced by a new, so-called modernist atheism. What is its essence?
In our age of quite tangible religious freedom, accompanied by the emergence and expansion of many different, and sometimes rather dubious sects, religion is becoming more like a fashion, not heavily burdened by spiritual feelings. Faith begins to resemble a certain external attribute reflecting a loyal attitude in society towards a certain process or phenomenon. To be a believer means to belong to a certain type of civilization, to share the spiritual and business values of a society, or even simply to correlate oneself with a certain social group or nationality. Ultimately, the very fact of belonging to any religion, or the absence of such belonging, ceases to have any meaning. It doesn't matter at all whether a person believes in God or not. The new atheism will not even have to look for an answer to this question. No further proof is required. Why prove something that ceases to arouse any interest? The true object of faith will be what is happening in human society itself. It is precisely such a society, according to Christian eschatology, that the Antichrist will rule. Of course, this does not mean that the society will not be religious. Most likely, it will be divided according to the principle of religious affiliation, but this division will be purely conditional. There is an assumption that this society will be rather ecumenical, that is, it will represent a kind of poly-religious formation, where belonging to traditional atheism will be considered almost bad form. But people will not understand that at this time they themselves will belong to a new, modernist atheism, for which polyreligiosity will be tantamount to the absence of proper religiosity. If a person of such an era considers himself to belong simultaneously to a number of religions, then this may mean either that he does not see much difference between these religions, or simply suffers from schizophrenia. In the first case, everything speaks for the fact that a person has lost the ability or desire to distinguish between separate religions, which by their nature simply cannot be the same, and in the second case we are dealing with medical pathology. Since the second case is outside the scope of our research, we will pay attention to the first.
Here, the very loss of the ability or desire to distinguish one religion from another clearly speaks of the loss of a person's inner feeling of the very concept of religiosity or a spiritual understanding of the very nature of religion. In other words, while simultaneously belonging to a number of religions, a person in fact will not belong to any. Therefore, the new atheism will be implicit, hidden, one might say, it will be an invisible hand pushing people towards genuine religious spirituality. People themselves will become atheists without even knowing it. The atheism that openly declares itself will only be a parody of the new atheism. But those who really try to show what true spirituality is will become despised and ultimately suffer. They will even be killed - the pseudo-religious society will deal with them in the most extreme traditions of militant atheism. But this time too, people will not see themselves as atheists. Only the new arrival of the Messiah during the days of the Great Judgment will illuminate all the hidden sides of modernist atheism. Religion itself will cease to be the same - it will no longer represent a belief in the invisible, since everything must become apparent. Then, most likely, atheism will also cease to exist. The Last Judgment is simply intended to settle their millennial dispute.
REFERENCE
1. Bible, M.P. 1976.
2. Archbishop Andrew of Caesarea. Interpretation of the Apocalypse. V century BC e.
3. Prot. Sergiy Bulgakov. Apocalypse of John. M .: "Joy and Consolation", 1991.- 352s.
4. Archbishop Averky Taushev. Apocalypse or Revelation of John the Divine. M., 1976.
5. St. John of Kronstadt. Christian philosophy. S.-P., 1902.-212s.
