The Fall of the Forefathers and its Consequences. The promise of the Savior. The Fall in Orthodoxy

Chapter 3 of Genesis is entirely devoted to the Fall and its consequences. The mythological (meaning “sacred-symbolic”) language of the ancient legend is not always understandable to contemporary people. They often talk about an apple that came from nowhere, which the wife ate - and she “tasted the fruit”; one also hears that original sin consisted of the first sexual cohabitation, which is forbidden by God, etc. Western medieval fairy tales and heresies in in relation to chapters 1-3 of the books of Genesis, they migrated to accusatory books of atheists of the 19th century. and modern jokers who make fun of things that are not even mentioned in the Bible. But the Bible contains an allegorical description of the greatest drama that happened to man at the dawn of his historical existence.

A snake suddenly appears in paradise. This image means two thoughts at once:

First, evil already existed, before and outside of man;

Secondly, the bearer of this evil, Satan, is just a creation before God, a cunning reptile.

It is noteworthy that in the entire narrative about the creation of the world and the fall of man, there is no direct mention either of the devil or of the initial fall of some of the angels who were drawn into darkness by him. Chapter 1 talks about the abyss, chapter 3 talks about the serpent. According to the Genesis Writer, the main biblical events and problems of salvation lie only on the “God - man” axis. The appearance of a serpent in the Garden of Eden is an echo of the fact that beyond the borders of paradise there is the not yet transformed, “formless” earth, the universe, and beyond its borders there is the same darkness of non-existence. The serpent is the “partisan” of the abyss in paradise. Crawling up to his wife, he cannot penetrate her soul and therefore tries to attract attention to himself: “Did God really say: do not eat from any tree in paradise?” What is typical here is a call to doubt the truth of God (is it real?) and His goodness (prevents us from tasting). Verily, the serpent tempts the wife with logic! She answers him, recalling the commandment she heard from Adam, that only the fruits of that tree should not be eaten by people, lest they die. But for the snake, who already knows all this, what is really important is that his wife managed to hear him and is talking to him. In the next phrase, he already fully reveals himself as a spirit of slander against God: “No, you will not die; but God knows that on the day that you eat of them (the fruits), your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil (i.e. everything in the world). The wife’s fall occurred already at the moment when she did not object to these words. A certain creature of God refutes God and continues to exist calmly, which means one can live like this! She begins to look at God in a new way , He is insincere, He is hiding something. But it turns out that you can also look at the world around you from a different, non-God’s point of view, and not die. And she looks at the terrible tree differently: it is “good for food, pleasant for the eyes and is desirable, because it gives knowledge." These are the very three components of original sin, which the holy Apostle John the Theologian calls “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride,” and the ascetic fathers call voluptuousness, love of money and love of glory. What does the serpent promise to man? ? - “You will be like gods.” But didn’t God set the same task for man? “I said: you are gods,” the Psalmist exclaims on behalf of the Creator. And in the New Testament the Lord says even more specifically: “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” - this is the very “likeness” to God. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, developing this thought, boldly say about Christ: “God became Man, so that man could become God.” But the devil’s deception is contained in the word “as” - “like gods.” God calls man to become “a god with God,” a son of God, a partaker of Him. And the serpent seduces with the opportunity to be “a god without God,” his own god, because man has potential power.

Thus, eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which led a person to spiritual catastrophe, means knowing the world outside of God and organizing one’s life in it without God. The spiritual tendency, in which a person strives to place himself at the center of the universe and subjugate all its spiritual and material forces, is called magism in theology. And this trend throughout subsequent history is opposed to the religious trend, in which a person, having placed God at the center of his life and sacrificially serving him, strives to restore lost intimacy (the term “religion” can be interpreted as “reunion”, renewal of unity).

The wife "took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave it to her husband, and he ate. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and... they made aprons for themselves." And before that, “they were both naked, Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed.” Adam tastes the same as his wife, because love is not yet broken, they are like undivided Siamese twins. So, they thought that they were gods, but they found out that they were naked. "Nudity" has a very specific meaning. This is a feeling of one’s own smallness, insignificance, insecurity: just a worm, just dust, just a grain of sand on the outskirts of the worlds. To become aware of one's nakedness is to lose one's sense of grace. Before the fall, man does not know about this nakedness and is not afraid, does not know about sin and is not ashamed, but fallen man is familiar with the states of shame and gracelessness. Making “belts” for yourself is a pathetic attempt to cover up “nakedness” and compensate for spiritual loss. The same is said in (3, 8): “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise during the cool of the day, the nearness of the Lord for the author, who lived in the sultry climate of Palestine, is described as a welcome coolness; and Adam and his wife hid from sight Lord God between the trees of paradise." This could be the “tree of science”, “tree of art”, etc.; This is how an attempt is expressed to drown out the ever-growing spiritual anxiety. “And the Lord God called to Adam, and said to him: Adam, where are you?” It’s amazing, it’s not the man of God, but God who seeks the man! The serpent acts brazenly, deceives, seduces, paralyzes the will of the one who promises freedom and does not retreat until he achieves his goal. The Creator, having given man life and peace, giving commandments and warning about danger, requires a trusting relationship and does not control every step of a person, and when the latter makes a mistake, he does not reproach, does not threaten, but fatherly asks: where are you, where are you going, think that you are losing. “He said: I heard Your voice in paradise, and I was afraid. The voice of God was a melody of bliss, and now it is the source of fear - this is where the specific horror of multi-armed deities appears in ancient religions, because I am naked (false repentance, is it really necessary to be afraid of this , to be ashamed), and hid himself. And God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you not eaten from the tree from which I forbade you to eat?” A direct question requires a direct answer. If Adam had said: yes, this is so, forgive me, then the story would have gone less dramatically. But the first man went through the sinful path to the end. "Adam said: The wife whom You gave me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate." To him, as the Rev. says in one of his sermons. Simeon the New Theologian should have answered his Creator this way: “O Master, I have truly sinned, breaking your commandment. .. Have mercy on me, God, and forgive me." Adam outwardly speaks the truth, but in fact, instead of repentance, he responds with ingratitude and double accusations: the wife who seduced him - this is how marital unity collapses; God, who gave her - this is how Adam first reaches to Satanism. The wife, in response to a similar question from God, refers to the serpent: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (3, 9-14). “Oh, petrified insensibility! And you, Eve, after you agreed to talk with the serpent, preferred... the commandments of the Lord to his advice and considered it (the serpent) more true than the commandment of God!..” - the Monk Simeon exclaims sadly.

From the last scene we see that both Adam and his wife were to blame for the Fall (Adam behaved much worse in the end), and when it is said that sin entered us through his wife, it is not her particular guilt that is meant, but the mechanism of penetration of original depravity . Due to the fact that ideally “Adam and his wife” are a full-fledged person (the name Eve appears after the Fall and signifies the beginning of disunity), some commentators allegorically interpret Adam as the mind and Eve as the heart of man; That. original sin first struck the sensitive side of the soul, and then the rational side (“outside of God, the mind becomes like an animal and demons” - St. Gregory Palamas).

Generally speaking, in the Bible and Christianity, Adam is not only the first man or the first humanity. The word Adam also means “man in general,” “human genotype.” The Holy Apostle Paul contrasts the Western Christian formulation - “all sin because of Adam’s guilt” with the “genetic” view: “in him (in Adam) all sinned" (Rom. 5:12). That is, we sin “in Adam,” “together with Adam,” “like Adam.” We are all the first, or old Adam. The concept of original sin describes the general depravity of the human race, its fallenness, potential sinfulness; the Fathers of the Church call this “comfortableness to sin.” (But this complacency does not mean the fatal inevitability of committing a sin.)

The further narrative of chapter 3 concerns the curse of the serpent, the condemnation of people and their expulsion from paradise. But what is called exile is the result of the loss of paradise in the spiritual sense, which has already occurred through the fault of man. Disobedience, unrepentance and rejection of God after the Fall led to the fact that the previous life with God was destroyed. Fallen man cannot be in heaven by definition, and not because of the wrath of God.

In (3, 14-15) the Divine curse of the serpent-devil sounds before the whole world. He will crawl on his belly (evil creeps, touches base passions) and always feeds on dust (Adam is spiritualized “dust,” but the food of the devil is completely unspiritual, internally dead people). Some Church Fathers, out of an abundance of love, expressed the opinion that even demons could be saved, but apparently Lucifer, having seduced man, not only transferred the Fall to another level, not only significantly deepened the distortion of the wonderful Divine plan, but also excommunicated himself from the precarious possibility of salvation, those. turned out to be truly cursed. And further: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, ... between your seed and ... her seed; it (in the original - “He”) will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.” Indeed, from now on one of the main tasks of spiritual life will be the struggle of man (the seed of the woman) with all sorts of manifestations of evil (the seed of the serpent) - a struggle to the death. Prophets and righteous people of all times will try to destroy evil (strike the serpent's head), but the devil will successfully find their weak points (cf. "Achilles' heel"). The main “fifth” will, of course, be the mortality and defenselessness of the righteous, and evil will often triumph. But one day the One who will destroy the root of evil will appear (in Slavic this sounds specifically: “the seed of the woman will erase the head of the serpent”). Such a message primarily reflects the ancient hope of humanity for salvation from the power of evil and sin. But in such obvious images (“He,” “the seed of the woman,” “he will strike the head”) the Church could not help but see the first prophecy about Jesus Christ in biblical history. It’s amazing: even before God determines the punishment of Adam and Eve for what they did in paradise, He already pronounces His first Gospel, containing the promise of inevitable salvation! But for God this means giving up the Son on the cross.

The wife's pregnancy is now sorrowful and childbirth painful;

In marriage there is inequality: the husband will dominate the wife;

Impurity and lust entered into love;

The earth (nature) is now “cursed” for man, sick, hostile to him (St. Apostle Paul says that all creation is collectively tormented because of man...);

The “robes of skin” given by God (3, 21) can speak either of a certain immunity or of the coarsening of a person due to a changed climate; labor from a blessed task becomes a painful necessity for obtaining food. The most terrible consequence of original sin is death. It is described at first simply as the cause of life's nonsense: a person, by the sweat of his brow, obtains bread growing from the earth, so that this bread, becoming part of the aging person himself, returns him to the earth from which he was (materially) formed: "earth thou art, and thou shalt return to the earth" (St. John of Damascus, from the requiem service). But verses (3:22-24) explain this topic further: “And the Lord God said: Behold, Adam has become as one of Us... and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life... and began to live forever. And the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden... and set... Cherubim and a flaming sword (revolving) to guard the way to the tree of life." So, after the Fall, physical immortality became impossible. But this, it turns out, is not the whim of the Creator (atheistic commentators here liked to speculate about God’s envy). Death is not only tragic. If a person who had once chosen evil remained immortal, then this, especially because of man’s weakness in the face of the active pressure and deception of the devil, would inevitably lead to the emergence of a totally rabid world, where people would suffer hopelessly and endlessly, i.e. to victory the depths above God's creation. Death becomes that natural limit that limits in time any evil phenomenon, which is no longer omnipotent, but for the person himself means the most important life milestone. Physical death does not mean the end of existence, but is a symbol and warning about the “second death” - spiritual. If the first death is a temporary separation of soul and body, then the second means the eternal separation of the soul and God. Death turns out to be the final argument in favor of faith and repentance. Truly, “death has been established with grace” (St. John Chrysostom).

Sins, illnesses, suffering - all these are consequences of mortality. The Fathers of the Church say that after the Fall the very nature of man changed. In particular, the actions of the mind, will and feelings, as well as body and soul among themselves, have lost their former harmonious unity. In this regard, asceticism speaks of the emergence of mental and physical passions - deep-seated painful complexes.

Purpose of the lesson – consider the biblical account of the fall of our ancestors and its consequences.

Tasks:

1. Give listeners information about the emergence of evil in the created world.
2. Consider the temptation of the first people, the essence of their fall and the changes that happened to them.
3. Consider God's conversation with people after the Fall as a sermon of repentance.
4. Consider the punishment of the first parents, the consequences of the Fall, the curse of the serpent and the promise of the Savior.
5. Consider the interpretations of leather garments presented in exegetical literature.
6. Consider the salutary value of the expulsion of the first people from paradise and the appearance of mortality.
7. Give information about the location of heaven.

Lesson plan:

1. Conduct a homework check, either by recalling together with the students the content of the material covered, or by inviting them to take a test.
2. Reveal the content of the lesson.
3. Conduct a discussion-survey based on test questions.
4. Assign homework: read chapters 4-6 of the Holy Scripture, memorize: read chapters 4-6 of the Holy Scripture, familiarize yourself with the proposed literature and sources, memorize: the promise of God about the Savior of the world (Gen. 3, 15).

Sources:

1. John Chrysostom, St. http://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Ioann_Zlatoust/tolk_01/16 http://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Ioann_Zlatoust/tolk_01/17
2. Gregory Palamas, St. http://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Grigorij_Palama/homilia/6 (date of access: 10/27/2015).
3. Simeon the New Theologian, St. http://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Simeon_Novyj_Bogoslov/slovo/45(access date: 10/27/2015).
4. Ephraim the Syrian, St. http://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Efrem_Sirin/tolkovanie-na-knigu-bytija/3 (date of access: 10/27/2015).

Basic educational literature:

2. Egorov G., Hierarch. http://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Biblia/svjashennoe-pisanie-vethogo-zaveta/2#note18_return(access date: 10/27/2015).
3. Lopukhin A.P. http://www.paraklit.org/sv.otcy/Lopuhin_Bibleiskaja_istorija.htm#_Toc245117993 (access date: 10/27/2015).

Additional literature:

1. Vladimir Vasilik, deacon. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/jurnal/60583.htm(access date: 10/27/2015).

Key concepts:

• devil;
• Dennitsa;
• temptation;
• fall from grace;
• leather garments (robes);
• First Gospel, the promise of the Savior;
• Seed of the woman;
• death.

Test questions:

Illustrations:

Video materials:

1. Korepanov K. The Fall

1. The emergence of evil in the created world

In the book of the Wisdom of Solomon there is this expression: “Death entered the world through the envy of the devil”(Wis.2:24). The appearance of evil preceded the appearance of man, namely, the falling away of Dennitsa and those angels who followed him. The Lord Jesus Christ says in the Gospel that “the devil is a murderer from time immemorial” (John 8:44), as the holy fathers explain, because he sees a person raised by God there, and even above what he had before and from which he fell . Therefore, in the very first temptation that comes upon a person, we see the action of the devil. Revelation does not tell us how long the blissful life of the first people in paradise lasted. But this state already aroused the evil envy of the devil, who, having lost it himself, looked with hatred at the bliss of others. After the fall of the devil, envy and thirst for evil became characteristics of his being. All goodness, peace, order, innocence, obedience became hateful to him, therefore, from the very first day of man’s appearance, the devil strives to dissolve man’s grace-filled union with God and drag man along with him into eternal destruction.

2. The Fall

And so, in paradise the tempter appeared - in the form of a serpent, who "he was more cunning than all the beasts of the field"(Gen. 3:1). An evil and insidious spirit, having entered the serpent, approached the wife and said to her: “Is it true that God said: You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?”(Gen. 3:1). The serpent approaches not Adam, but Eve because, apparently, she received the commandment not directly from God, but through Adam. It must be said that what is described here has become typical of any temptation by evil. The process itself and its stages are very clearly depicted. It all starts with a question. The serpent does not come and say, “Taste of the tree,” because this is clearly evil and a clear departure from the commandment. He says: “Is it true that God forbade you to eat the fruit?” That is, he doesn’t seem to know. And in upholding the truth, Eve does a little more than she should. She says: “We can eat the fruits of the trees, only the fruits of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God said, do not eat them or touch them, lest you die. And the serpent said to the woman: No, you will not die."(Gen.3:2-4). There was no talk of touching. The confusion is already starting. This is a common satanic trick. At first, he does not lead a person directly to evil, but always mixes a small drop of untruth with some truth. Why, by the way, should one refrain from all kinds of lies; Well, just think, I lied a little there, it’s not scary. It's actually scary. This is exactly that small drop that paves the way for a much larger lie. After this, a larger lie follows, because the serpent says: “No, you will not die, but God knows that on the day you eat of them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.”(Gen.3:4-5). Here, again, the truth, but in different proportions, is mixed with untruth. Indeed, man was created to be a god. Being a creature by nature, he is called by grace to deification. Indeed, God knows that they will be like Him. They will be like God, but not like gods. The devil introduces polytheism.

Man was created to be a god. But for this, a certain path is indicated in communication and love with God. But here the serpent offers a different path. It turns out that you can become God without God, without love, without faith, through some action, through some tree, through something that is not God. All occultists are still engaged in such attempts.

Sin is lawlessness. The law of God is the law of love. And the sin of Adam and Eve is the sin of disobedience, but it is also the sin of apostasy from love. In order to tear a person away from God, the devil offers him in his heart a false image of God, and therefore an idol. And, having accepted this idol in the heart instead of God, a person falls away. The serpent represents God as deceitful and jealously defending some of His interests, His capabilities and hiding them from man.

Under the influence of the serpent’s words, the woman looked at the forbidden tree differently than before, and it seemed pleasant to her eyes, and the fruits were especially attractive due to the mysterious property of giving knowledge of good and evil and the opportunity to become a god without God. This external impression decided the outcome of the internal struggle, and the woman “ she took of its fruit and ate, and gave it also to her husband, and he ate"(Gen. 3.6) .

3. Changes in Man After the Fall

The greatest revolution in the history of mankind and the whole world has taken place - people violated the commandment of God and thereby sinned. Those who were supposed to serve as the pure source and beginning of the entire human race poisoned themselves with sin and tasted the fruits of death. Having lost their purity, they saw their nakedness and made aprons for themselves from leaves. They were now afraid to appear before God, to whom they had previously strived with great joy.

4. Offer of repentance

There is no other way to restore a person other than the path of repentance. Horror seized Adam and his wife, and they hid from the Lord in the trees of paradise. But the loving Lord called Adam to Himself: « [Adam,]where are you?"(Gen.3.9). The Lord did not ask about where Adam was, but about what state he was in. With this He called Adam to repentance. But sin had already darkened man, and the calling voice of God aroused in Adam only a desire to justify himself. Adam answered the Lord with trepidation from the thicket of trees: “ I heard Your voice in paradise and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself."(Gen. 3.10) . – « Who told you that you are naked? have you not eaten from the tree from which I forbade you to eat?"(Gen. 3.11). The question was posed directly, but the sinner was unable to answer it just as directly. He gave an evasive answer: “ The wife whom You gave me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate"(Gen. 3.12). Adam placed the blame on his wife and even on God Himself, who gave him this wife. Then the Lord turned to his wife: “ What did you do?“But the wife followed Adam’s example and did not admit her guilt: “ The serpent seduced me and I ate"(Gen. 3.13). The wife told the truth, but the fact that they both tried to justify themselves before the Lord was a lie. By rejecting the possibility of repentance, man made it impossible for himself to further communicate with God.

5. Punishment. Consequences of the Fall

The Lord pronounced His righteous judgment. The serpent was cursed before all the animals. He is destined for the miserable life of a reptile on his own belly and feeding on the dust of the earth. The wife is condemned to severe suffering and illness when giving birth to children. Addressing Adam, the Lord said that for his disobedience the land that feeds him would be cursed. " It will produce thorns and thistles for you... by the sweat of your brow you will eat bread until you return to the ground from which you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will return."(Gen. 3.18–19).

The consequences of the Fall of the first people were catastrophic both for man and for the whole world. In sin, people distanced themselves from God and turned to the evil one, and now it is impossible for them to communicate with God as it was before. Having turned away from the Source of life - God, Adam and Eve immediately died spiritually. Physical death did not immediately strike them (by the grace of God, who wanted to bring their first parents to repentance, Adam then lived for 930 years), but at the same time, along with sin, corruption entered people: sin - the tool of the evil one - gradually became aging destroys their bodies, which ultimately led the ancestors to physical death. Sin damaged not only the body, but also the entire nature of primordial man - that original harmony was disrupted in him, when the body was subordinate to the soul, and the soul to the spirit, which was in communion with God. As soon as the first people departed from God, the human spirit, having lost all guidelines, turned to spiritual experiences, and the soul was carried away by bodily desires and gave birth to passions.

Just as harmony was disrupted in a person, so it happened throughout the world. According to Ap. Paul, after the Fall " all creation has submitted to vanity"and since then has been waiting for liberation from corruption (Rom. 8.20–21). After all, if before the Fall all nature (both the elements and animals) was subordinate to the first people and without labor on the part of man gave him food, then after the Fall man no longer feels like the king of nature. The land has become less fertile, and people need to make great efforts to provide themselves with food. Natural disasters began to threaten people's lives from all sides. And even among the animals to which Adam once gave names, predators appeared that pose a danger to both other animals and humans. It is possible that animals also began to die only after the Fall, as many holy fathers say (St. John Chrysostom, St. Simeon the New Theologian, etc.).

But not only our first parents tasted the fruits of the Fall. Having become the ancestors of all people, Adam and Eve conveyed to humanity their nature, distorted by sin. Since then, all people have become corruptible and mortal, and, most importantly, everyone has found themselves under the power of Satan, under the power of sin. Sinfulness became, as it were, a property of man, so that people could not help but sin, even if someone wanted to. Usually they say about this state that all humanity inherited from Adam original sin. Here, original sin does not mean that the personal sin of the first people was passed on to the descendants of Adam (after all, the descendants did not personally commit it), but rather that it was the sinfulness of human nature with all the ensuing consequences (corruption, death, etc.) that was passed on from the first parents to all people. .). The first people, following the devil, seemed to sow the seed of sin into human nature, and in every new person born this seed began to germinate and bear the fruits of personal sins, so that every person became a sinner.

But the merciful Lord did not leave the primitive people (and all their descendants) without consolation. He then gave them a promise that was supposed to support them in the days of subsequent trials and tribulations of a sinful life. Speaking His judgment to the snake, the Lord said: “ and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it(translated as seventy - He) he will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel"(Gen. 3.15). This promise about the “seed of the Woman” is the first promise about the Savior of the world and is often called the “First Gospel”, which is not accidental, because These brief words speak prophetically of how the Lord intends to save fallen humanity. The fact that this will be a Divine action is clear from the words “ I'll put the enmity to rest“- a person weakened by sin cannot independently rebel against the slavery of the evil one, and here the intervention of God is required. At the same time, the Lord acts through the weakest part of humanity - through woman. Just as the conspiracy of the wife with the serpent led to the fall of people, so the enmity of the wife and the serpent will lead to their restoration, which mysteriously shows the most important role of the Most Holy Theotokos in our salvation. The use of the strange phrase “seed of the woman” indicates the unmarried conception of the Blessed Virgin. The use of the pronoun “He” instead of “it” in the LXX translation indicates that even before the birth of Christ, many Jews understood this place as indicating not so much the offspring of the wife as a whole, but rather a single person, the Messiah-Savior, who will crush the head of the serpent - the devil and will save people from his dominion. The serpent can only bite His “heel,” which prophetically indicates the Savior’s suffering on the Cross.

6. Leather clothes

Leather clothing, according to the interpretation of the holy fathers, is the mortality that human nature received after the fall. Smch. Methodius of Olympus emphasizes that “skin garments are not the essence of the body, but a mortal accessory.” As a result of this state of human nature, he became subject to suffering and illness, and his mode of existence changed. “In addition to foolish skin,” in the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa, a person perceived: “sexual union, conception, birth, defilement, feeding from the breast, and then food and throwing it out of the body, gradual growth, adulthood, old age, illness and death.”

In addition, leather clothes became a veil separating man from the spiritual world - God and angelic forces. Free communication with them after the Fall became impossible. This protection of a person from communication with the spiritual world is apparently beneficial for him, because many descriptions of a person’s meetings with both angels and demons found in literature testify that such an overt collision of a person with the spiritual world happens to him difficult to bear. Therefore, a person is covered with such an impenetrable cover.

The literal interpretation of leather clothes is that the first sacrifice was made after the expulsion from paradise, which Adam was taught by God Himself, and these clothes were made from the skins of sacrificial animals.

7. Expulsion from Paradise

After the people were clothed in leather garments, the Lord expelled them from paradise: “ And he placed a cherubim and a flaming sword that turned around at the east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life."(Gen. 3.24), of which they, through their sin, have now become unworthy. The person is no longer allowed to see him, “ lest he stretch out his hand, and also take from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"(Gen. 3.22). The Lord does not want a person, having tasted the fruits of the tree of life, to remain eternally in sin, because the bodily immortality of a person would only confirm his spiritual death. And this shows that the bodily death of a person is not only a punishment for sin, but also a good deed of God towards people.

8. The meaning of death

It is also worth dwelling on the question of the meaning of punishment: is a person’s mortality a punishment or a benefit for the person himself? There is no doubt that it is both, but punishment not in the sense of God’s vengeful desire to do bad things to man for being disobedient, but as a kind of logical consequence of what man himself has created. That is, we can say that if a person jumped out of a window and broke his legs and arms, he is punished for this, but he himself is the author of this punishment. Since man is not original, and he cannot exist outside of communion with God, death also places a certain limit on the possibility of developing in evil.

On the other hand, death, as is known from practical experience, is a very important instructive factor for a person; often only in the face of death is he able to think about the eternal.

And thirdly, death, which was a punishment for man, was also a source of salvation for him subsequently, since through the death of the Savior man was restored, and the lost communion with God became possible for him.

9. The location of paradise

With the expulsion of people from paradise, among them, among the labors and hardships of a sinful life, the very memory of its exact location was erased over time; among different peoples we encounter the most vague legends, vaguely pointing to the east as the place of a primitive blissful state. A more precise indication is found in the Bible, but it is also so unclear to us given the current appearance of the earth that it is also impossible to determine with geographic accuracy the location of Eden, in which paradise was located. Here is the biblical instruction: “And the Lord God planted a paradise in Eden, in the east. A river came out of Eden to water Paradise; and then divided into four rivers. The name of one is Pison; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and onyx stone. The name of the second river is Tikhon (Geon): it flows around the entire land of Kush. The name of the third river is Khiddekel (Tigris); it flows before Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates” (Gen. 2:8-14). From this description, first of all, it is clear that Eden is a vast country in the east, in which paradise was located, as a smaller room intended for the habitation of the first people. Then the name of the third and fourth rivers clearly indicates that this Edenic country was in some neighborhood with Mesopotamia. But this is the extent of the geographical indications that are understandable to us. The first two rivers (Pison and Tikhon) now have nothing corresponding to themselves either in geographical location or in name, and therefore they gave rise to the most arbitrary guesses and rapprochements. Some saw them as the Ganges and the Nile, others as Phasis (Rion) and Araks, originating in the hills of Armenia, others as the Syr-Darya and Amu-Darya, and so on ad infinitum. But all these guesses are not of serious significance and are based on arbitrary approximations. Further defining the geographical location of these rivers are the lands of Havilah and Cush. But the first of them is as mysterious as the river that irrigates it, and one can only guess, judging by its metal and mineral wealth, that this is some part of Arabia or India, which in ancient times served as the main sources of gold and precious stones. The name of another country, Kush, is somewhat more specific. This term in the Bible usually refers to the countries lying south of Palestine, and the “Cushites,” as the descendants of Ham, from his son Cush or Cush, are found throughout the entire space from the Persian Gulf to southern Egypt. From all this we can only conclude one thing: that Eden was indeed in some neighborhood with Mesopotamia, as indicated by the legends of all the most ancient peoples, but it is impossible to determine its exact location. Since that time, the earth's surface has undergone so many upheavals (especially during the flood) that not only could the direction of the rivers change, but their very connection with each other could be broken, or even the very existence of some of them could cease. As a result of this, science is just as blocked from accessing the exact location of paradise as it was blocked for sinner Adam from eating from the tree of life in it.

Test questions:

1. What event in the created world caused the emergence of evil?
2. Why does the devil approach his temptation not to Adam, but to his wife?
3. What was the sin of the first people?
4. What changes occurred in man after the Fall?
5. Tell us about God’s conviction of sinners and God’s offer of repentance to them.
6. What punishment does a wife receive for sin?
7. What punishment does Adam receive for sin?
8. What was the curse of the serpent and what promise did it contain?
9. How should we understand leather clothing?
10. Why are expulsion from paradise and death saving for people?
11. What can you say about the location of heaven?

Sources and literature on the topic

Sources:

1. John Chrysostom, St. Conversations on the Book of Genesis. Conversation XVI. About the fall of the primeval ones. “And the devil was both naked, Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). http://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Ioann_Zlatoust/tolk_01/16. Conversation XVII. “And she heard the voice of the Lord God, going into paradise at noon” (Gen. 3:8). [Electronic resource]. – URL: http://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Ioann_Zlatoust/tolk_01/17 (access date: 10/27/2015).
2. Gregory Palamas, St. Omilia. Omilia VI. Exhortation to Lent. It also briefly talks about the creation of the world. It was said during the first week of Lent. [Electronic resource]. – URL: http://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Grigorij_Palama/homilia/6 (date of access: 10/27/2015).
3. Simeon the New Theologian, St. Words. Word 45. P. 2. About the crime of the commandment and expulsion from paradise. [Electronic resource]. – URL: http://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Simeon_Novyj_Bogoslov/slovo/45 (access date: 10/27/2015).
4. Ephraim the Syrian, St. Interpretations of Holy Scripture. Genesis. Chapter 3. [Electronic resource]. – URL: http://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Efrem_Sirin/tolkovanie-na-knigu-bytija/3 (access date: 10/27/2015).

Basic educational literature:

1. Serebryakova Yu.V., Nikulina E.N., Serebryakov N.S. Fundamentals of Orthodoxy: Textbook. - Ed. 3rd, corrected, additional - M.: PSTGU, 2014. The Fall of the Forefathers and its Consequences. The promise of the Savior.
2. Egorov G., Hierarch. Holy Scripture of the Old Testament. Part one: Legal and educational books. Lecture course. – M.: PSTGU, 2004. 136 p. Section I. The Pentateuch of Moses. Chapter 1. Beginning. 1.6. The Fall. 1.7. Consequences of the Fall. 1.8. The meaning of punishment. 1.9. The promise of salvation. [Electronic resource]. – URL: http://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Biblia/svjashennoe-pisanie-vethogo-zaveta/2#note18_return (date of access: 10/27/2015).
3. Lopukhin A.P. Biblical history. M., 1993. III. The Fall and its consequences. The location of paradise. [Electronic resource]. – URL: http://www.paraklit.org/sv.otcy/Lopuhin_Bibleiskaja_istorija.htm#_Toc245117993 (access date: 10/27/2015).

Additional literature:

1. Vladimir Vasilik, deacon. Spiritual and psychological aspects of the Fall. [Electronic resource]. – URL: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/jurnal/60583.htm (access date: 10/27/2015).
2. Explanatory Bible, or Commentary on all the books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments: in 11 volumes / Edited by A.P. Lopukhina (vol. 1); publication of A.P.'s successors Lopukhin (vol. 2-11). St. Petersburg: Petersburg, 1904-1913. Commentary on the book of Genesis. Chapter 3.

Video materials:

1. Korepanov K. The Fall

2. Anthony of Sourozh (Bloom), Metropolitan. Conversation about the history of the Fall

3. Genesis. "The Death of the First World" Lecture 2 (chapters 1-3). Priest Oleg Stenyaev. Bible portal

4. Biblical history. Kupriyanov F.A. Lecture 1

5. Conversations on the Sixth Day. Being. Chapter 3. Victor Lega. Bible portal

6. Book of Genesis. Chapter 3. The Bible. Hieromonk Nikodim (Shmatko).

7. Genesis. Chapter 3. Andrey Solodkov. Bible portal.

After the Lord created Adam and Eve, He gave them ownership of the entire Earth. But at the same time God commanded them:

"AND commanded The Lord God said to man, “Of every tree in the garden you will eat; tree of the knowledge of good and evil Do not eat from it, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” 1 .

It is obvious that it was no coincidence that the tree bore such a meaningful name - knowledge of good and evil. Everything that people needed to know for their own good, God revealed to them. And it was not at all necessary for a person to evaluate the value of good through the knowledge of evil.

But the first people listened not to the Lord, but to Satan, who, appearing before Eve in the form of a wise serpent, playing on her curiosity and vanity, convinced her to break her covenant with God and then become a temptress for Adam. It’s probably worth explaining who Satan is. Satan is the Hebrew translation of the word adversary. Initially, Satan was one of the prominent angels and bore the name Lightbearer (Lucifer) - the son of the dawn, but, having become proud, he rebelled against God, being dissatisfied with his position and wanting to be equal to Jesus 2. Lucifer drew many other angels into his rebellion, misrepresenting to them the character of God. Therefore, his second name is devil, which translates as liar, slanderer. For rebellion, Satan was cast out of heaven 3. The place of his temporary deployment, together with his new subjects - demons (fallen angels) - was the Earth, since only on our planet did God’s creations fall under his “spell”. I would like to immediately assure readers that Satan does not have unlimited power over people. It is always the person who has the right to choose!

It is necessary to understand that the act of Eve, and at her instigation of Adam, was not simple disobedience. Many today consider the Lord's punishment to be too cruel. Like, those people just ate an apple, and God reacted like that. It's not really about the apple. By the way, the Bible does not mention the word apple. The question is much more serious. People tasted the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, contrary to the command of God. The prophet Hosea, speaking on behalf of the Lord, compares the violation of the covenant by the people of Israel and their betrayal of God with the disobedience of Adam - that’s how serious the choice of Adam and Eve was: "They, like Adam, broke the covenant and there changed To me" 4 .

It was already mentioned earlier that the Lord warned the young couple that death would befall them for violating His instructions. But Satan was able to convince Eve by whispering to her what she wanted to hear, but which was not the truth. The devil assured Eve of impunity for breaking her promise to God. As a result, our first parents fell, voluntarily choosing temptation and thereby consciously departing from the Lord.

But God spoke the truth. It is worth noting that more than once in the Bible the Lord says that He never lies, unlike people and Satan. God knew the consequences of people’s knowledge of evil, which is why He warned His creations so seriously. It is also important that God did not force Adam and Eve to obey Him. Then people would no longer be free, but slaves. But the Lord made man free - with the right to choose. We can choose a path with God, but we can also go our own way, which is what Adam and Eve did.

As a result of this transgression, which is not without reason called the Fall, evil entered the Earth, and with it the foretold death. If before this people could live forever, eating the fruits of the tree of life, then after the Fall the Lord closed access to this tree and people became mortal.

“The Lord... placed... at the Garden of Eden Cherubim and a flaming sword that turned to guard the way to the tree of life» 6 .

1 Bible, Old Testament, Genesis 2:16,17
2 Bible, Old Testament, book of the prophet Ezekiel, 28:11-19, prophet Isaiah, 14:12-14
3 Bible, New Testament, book of Revelation, 12:7-9
4 Bible, Old Testament, book of the prophet Hosea, 6:7
5 Bible, Old Testament, Genesis 3:23,24

July 31st, 2012

I decided to post my seminar essays for the semester. Even if their price is small, I wrote them with my soul, I want to somehow preserve them. In general, I like to study, but now I have almost no time left for it.

Biblical story: "The Fall and its consequences"

Man in all centuries has been the center of attention of thinkers of all countries and peoples. Peering into its nature, many of them encountered a contradiction. The harmony and beauty of human nature collided with aging, disease and decay. The height of thought and feeling, reflected in the monuments of world culture and science, bordered on stupidity, mediocrity and vulgarity. Heroism, nobility and kindness were mixed with selfishness, pettiness and malice. Man reveals himself in all the diversity of aspects of his existence as a discrete, contradictory being. Non-Christian religious and philosophical systems tried to resolve this conflict in different ways. Some associated everything negative in a person with the body, calling it a prison for the spirit, a coffin. Someone tried to deify the very negative traits of human nature. However, all these attempts by the earthly mind to penetrate the mystery of human existence are hardly any closer to the truth. Many ancient philosophers felt that it was not possible to resolve their bewilderment through natural reflection. So Socrates said: “Do not hope to correct human morals until God Himself deigns to send a special Man to instruct us.” Plato argued that “there will be no order on earth unless God Himself, hidden under the image of man, explains to us both our relationship to Him and our mutual responsibilities to each other.”

The only thing on which almost all teachings more or less agree is the recognition that a person must be different. Christianity unambiguously answers the question of human nature, based on Divine Revelation about creation, the fall of man and its consequences.

The events directly related to the creation of the world and man, the state of the first people before and after the Fall are narrated in the book of Genesis. Before talking about these events, it is worth identifying some key points necessary for a correct understanding of the first chapters of Holy Scripture.

Firstly, the purpose of the Bible essentially boils down to one thing - to communicate to man the Revelation of God necessary for his salvation. Therefore, it is unacceptable to take the book of Genesis literally for the purpose of constructing scientific theories. This book is religious, mysterious, designed to give a person, first of all, spiritual guidelines. There are two temptations: to adapt scientific data to the Bible and to adapt the Bible to scientific theory. In the first case, there is a risk that modern science will become outdated in a few years or decades. And the supposed “scientific evidence” of the Holy Scriptures will cease to be so. This will definitely be used by the appropriate people to “debunk” the Bible. God's revelation does not need props. “The Explanatory Bible” by Lopukhin and “The Law of God” by Archpriest Seraphim Slobotsky, in terms of attracting some scientific data contemporary to the authors, look untenable today.

In the second case, a distortion of the true meaning of Scripture and a shift in the focus of attention from soteriological truths to secondary circumstances and objects is inevitable. On the other hand, the world as a creation of an unknowable God cannot be understood by rational methods in its essence. Therefore, many scientists noted the fact that scientific and technological progress did not increase holistic knowledge about the world, but, on the contrary, only alienated man from understanding nature, dividing the subjects of study in his research an infinite number of times.

In order to more fully understand the essence of the fall of the first people, it is worth saying a few words about the creation and purpose of man.

God, as a Perfect Being, creates the world from nothing to be perfect. First, the invisible angelic world appears. Angels are disembodied spirits, endowed with will, intelligence and freedom, having their own hierarchy. It is among the angels that evil is born. The Supreme Angel, Dennitsa, had a proud thought and thus fell, taking part of the Angels with him. “Whoever commits sin is of the devil, because the devil sinned first” (1 John 3:8). According to Rev. Maximus the Confessor, the fall of Dennitsa occurred after the creation of man and was based on envy (which, however, is the offspring of pride). “Through the envy of the devil death entered the world” (Wis. 2:24). From that time on, evil appeared in the world. Evil itself does not have an independent essence, its own existence. Evil is the absence of good, just as darkness is the absence of light.

How could the Good God-Love allow the emergence of evil in the beginning and its repetition at all times? The answer here lies in the freedom that the Creator endowed his intelligent beings with. Freedom is the highest gift, which separates angels and people from the animal world, determined by instincts, by an insurmountable gulf.

The book of Genesis reports the following about the appearance of Adam and Eve: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7). That is, on the one hand, we have something akin to all living things (“dust of the earth”), on the other hand, something that makes us related to the Creator Himself (“breath of life”). However, we do not see in the first people the opposition between flesh and spirit, characteristic of ancient philosophy. Man was created as a harmonious being, in which spirit, soul and body, mind, feelings and will were like separate sounds composed into a beautiful melody.

God creates man in His image and likeness. The image of God in man cannot be fully defined in his essence, since it is the image of an incomprehensible Divinity. However, some of its properties can be highlighted: freedom, reason, immortality. Similarity is a certain vector, a goal given to each person and humanity as a whole. Achieving Godlikeness through likening God in His properties, in other words, deification, is the goal of human life. “The expression: in the image - indicates the ability of mind and freedom; whereas the expression: in likeness means assimilation to God in virtue, as far as it is possible for a person,” writes the Monk John Damaxinus in “An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.”

Thus, man was created with the potential for development, the prospect of which is infinite, just as the Heavenly Father is infinitely perfect (cf. Matt. 5:48). Heaven was not something static, but had in itself a constant ascent from glory to glory.

Another fact is extremely important for understanding the further consequences of the Fall: God creates human nature as one. “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). “God is simultaneously one Nature and three Hypostases; man is simultaneously one nature and many hypostases; God is consubstantial and trinitarian; man is consubstantial and multi-hypostatic."

In the Paradise planted in the East, the first people were allowed to eat the fruits of all trees except one: “You shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17) . The meaning of the commandment established by the Creator is seen in the fact that without it development and perfection were impossible. “The tree of knowledge was supposed to serve as some test and temptation for man and an exercise in his obedience and disobedience.”

And so the devil, taking the form of a serpent, seduces the first people, instilling in them doubt in God, promising good (“you will be like gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5)) outside the Source of all good. After all, in essence, the Lord created man so that he would become a god by grace, sharing with Him the joy of being. Archimandrite George (Kapsanis) speaks about it this way: “Adam and Eve were deceived by the devil and wanted to become gods - only not with God’s assistance, not through obedience with love, but relying on their own strength and will, selfishly and autonomously. In other words, the fall was based on the self. Agreeing with self-sufficiency, the first parents separated themselves from God and, instead of deification, found the opposite of it: spiritual death.”

“The beginning of pride is the removal of a person from the Lord and the retreat of his heart from his Creator; for the beginning of sin is pride” (Sir. 10, 14-15). Eve and Adam accept a sinful thought and eat the forbidden fruit. “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (Gen. 3:7). The bliss of the first people consisted in communion with God, having lost this through sin, they were deprived of life-giving divine grace. A mind darkened by sin forced Adam and Eve to hide from the Omniscient and Omnipresent Lord in the bushes. God called for repentance, wanting through it to return the first people to their previous state. However, self-justification did not allow them to repent: Adam blamed his wife (“whom You gave me” (Gen. 3:12)), and Eve blamed the serpent. This is where a catastrophe on a universal scale occurs, a complete retreat, a final severance of communication with the Creator. Actually, this was the fall of the first people; everything else can only be considered a consequence of the loss of the grace-filled thread of communication with God.

After the empty attempts of the first parents to justify themselves, God pronounces curses, starting with the devil. “You will walk on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:14) - in all subsequent times, dark spirits began to live with human passions and vices, as if feeding on them. For Eve, and in her person and for the entire female race, God predicts sorrows associated with childbirth and dependence on her husband, and for Adam the hardships of existence on earth and death. The consequences of the Fall extend not only to humanity, but to the entire cosmos. “Cursed is the ground because of you” (Gen. 3:17). Natural disasters appeared, natural disasters appeared, the animal world became hostile towards people.

Expelling Adam and Eve from Paradise, God clothes them in leather garments, which signify the roughness and sensuality of the flesh. As stated above, humans were created in a body, but this body was passionless and immortal. We can judge its properties by the risen Savior, Who passed through closed doors and, at the same time, ate fish and honey.

The Fall disrupted all the harmony in man, the flesh began to dominate the spirit, sickness and death, the mind became darkened, the will weakened and began to be easily inclined to sin, feelings were perverted. “Adam’s soul died,” says Saint Gregory Palamas, “having been separated from God by disobedience: for he lived in body after that (after his fall) until nine hundred and thirty years. But death, which befalls the soul due to disobedience, not only makes the soul obscene and brings a curse on a person, but also the body itself, subjecting it to many infirmities, many ailments and corruption, and finally puts it to death.” Through sin, man lost his likeness to God, but retained the image of God within himself. Every born baby already contains within itself a hereditary defect of nature, the seed of sin. As the child grows, the seed begins to grow, giving rise to a bushy tree of human passions. At the heart of this entire tree is selfishness, selfishness, which gives three trunks: voluptuousness as an inclination to sensual pleasures, love of money, or self-interest as an addiction to perishable things, and love of glory as a vain search for earthly, human glory. From these three trunks grow many sin branches. At their core, all passions are perverted virtues. The devil cannot create anything new, but only spoil and pervert. “Passions are the name given to human properties in their painful state produced by the fall. Thus, the ability to eat turns into a tendency to overeat and indulge in delicacies; the power of desire is in whim and lust; the power of anger or mental energy - into temper, rage, anger, hatred; the ability to grieve and be sad - into cowardice, despondency and despair; it is a natural property to despise sin that degrades one’s nature - into contempt for one’s neighbors, into pride, and so on,” says Abba Isaiah.

For people, death began to act, on the one hand, as a tragedy, an unnatural state for humans, and on the other hand, as a bridle restraining evil. “And the Lord God said... now lest he put forth his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Gen. 3:22). God in the Old Testament, in order to stop the wickedness of the human race, shortened life expectancy. So the prophet David exclaims: “The days of our years are seventy years, and with greater strength - eighty years; and their best time is labor and illness, for they pass quickly, and we fly” (Ps. 89:10). The Holy Fathers call the memory of death an important work in the matter of salvation. We can say that the good Providence of God turns the consequences of the Fall to the benefit of man. As priest Oleg Davydenkov writes, “God creates conditions of existence for a sinner that are most appropriate to his spiritual and moral state, conditions that set a limit to the development of evil in fallen human nature.”

God expels people from Paradise, a Cherub with a fiery sword blocks their way back. However, if we take into account that Eden was on earth, a slightly different picture emerges: people still remain there on earth, but this is no longer Paradise. That is, having used his freedom for evil, a person, as it were, expels the Creator from himself and remains alone. God, who does not want the death of the sinner (cf. Eze. 33:11), has given the promise that the seed of the woman will erase the head of the serpent.

After the Fall, all human nature was damaged. The reason for this, as has been said, is the unity of human nature. Each personal sin of an individual, as well as his spiritual victory, is reflected in his environment, deceased relatives and descendants. However, this does not mean that a person is to blame for the sins of his ancestors, as some believe (for example, calling for repentance for the sin of regicide); we are talking specifically about the consequences, and not about the responsibility of someone else’s evil or good. Therefore, there is suffering of innocent people in the world, including those who were not involved in such ancient events. All generations following Adam bear the consequences of his apostasy. “Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).

Orthodox theology distinguishes two aspects in original sin: the sin itself of disobedience to the ancestors and the state generated by this sin. Manifestations of this state in all descendants of Adam, according to St. Maximus the Confessor, are passion, corruption and mortality. Morally, through original sin one inherits the tendency to sin. “By their sin, the forefathers introduced the devil into their lives and gave him a place in the God-created and God-like nature. Thus, sin became a creative principle in their nature, unnatural and God-fighting, malicious and devil-centred,” writes the Monk Justin (Popovich).

Often, especially among young people, you can hear the saying “what is natural is not ugly.” It calls on people to live as they please, according to the elements of their fallen, unnatural state. This state is similar to the state of animals, and often surpasses it in its baseness. This worldview is based precisely on ignoring the fact of the Fall. After all, the natural state for man can only be considered the state of Adam before the fall.

Without a correct understanding of the Fall, its consequences, and original sin, a correct view of human nature is impossible, and a correct assimilation of the Church’s teaching on the Economy of Salvation is also impossible. A false view of the consequences of the Fall leads to a distortion of church teaching and, as a consequence, to a distortion of religious practice. An example is the Catholic and Protestant understanding of original sin. The first reduces original sin only to the loss of grace, which did not affect nature itself. Protestant theology, on the contrary, is that ancestral “sin destroyed in him the nature created by God and, instead of the image of God, put into him the image of the devil.”

The Orthodox teaching about the Fall is established not by the human mind, but by the collective mind of the Church, the Holy Spirit, based on Divine Revelation, Holy Scripture and Tradition. It provides clear guidelines for the struggle against sin, the world, the devil and the flesh, which a Christian is called to undertake in order to assimilate the saving grace of God, brought to earth by the Savior and abiding in the Church.

It's no secret that from a psychological point of view we are all very different. One is gifted with mathematics, the other with literature, one swims like a fish in water in the world of philosophical abstractions, the other stands firmly on the basis of real things and facts. There are many psychological typologies. One of them is based on the relationship to Existence - to God. Let's consider first partial types that this typology highlights.

Related to contemplatively penetrating type have the experience of a direct encounter with the existence of God. It seems that people of this type are in worldly inaction - there is an illusion of non-action, an external absence of work. However, in fact, a representative of this type is filled with deep inner activity, immersed in the depths of peace, as a result of which he receives revelation.

Those who can be defined as symbolic-transformational type, they go to Existence in an indirect way: they serve the Lord through information (number, letter, number, word) and sign transformation - transition, meaning, symbol, transformation.

People structural-organizational type also go to Existence in an indirect way, but their service is accomplished through matter (the world of things), structure, organization, personal and active orderliness.

And finally, the fourth partial type - energy-educational. Those belonging to this type undergo service through flows, concentration, images, ups, breakthroughs, etc.

In the process of understanding the monuments of the Eastern Christian theological tradition, Russian Orthodox culture (patristic works, lives of saints, biographies of recent ascetics, etc.) holistic types of ontological relationship of personality(connective-collective/complex and initially holistic):

Human connective-collective type chooses an indirectly direct path to Existence, which is carried out in accordance with His plan (and one’s own), circumstances, situation, etc. This type of service is performed through the capabilities and originality of all four or several of the above-mentioned partial types, including their corresponding form, content , structure, sign, symbol, image, substance, information, energy.

Originally integral type defines those whose path to Existence is direct, not divided into separate attributes, signs and definitions, in the original fullness of self-denial “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit” - integrity. This type presupposes the integrity of service “in the Church - the universal body of Christ” as a life filled with love, about O marriage, salvation.

Partial types are fragments of a certain prototype - an initially integral type. In our opinion, it should be sought in the first man - Adam. The main ontological basis for the definition of Adam as an initially integral type is his creation in the image and likeness of God, about which the Bible speaks: “And God said: Let us make man in Our image [and] in Our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the beasts, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Gen. 1:26).

Let us analyze the concepts of “image” and “similarity”.

Unlike Father Alexander Men, we believe that the concepts of " image" (Heb. Tselem) and " similarity"(Heb. Demuth) are not synonyms. In the Hebrew text, tzelem - image means something permanent, an ontological constant, while demut - likeness is a variable quantity.

On the other hand, “tselem” means “appearance, appearance,” and “demut” means “plan, idea, drawing.”

Accordingly, if the image-“tselem” can be interpreted as a God-given given, then the “similarity” can be interpreted as a given, God’s plan for man. These same meanings are further deepened in the translated Greek terms: eikon (image) and omoioma (similarity), where eikon means “image” (often a natural image), and omoioma is something similar not only externally, but also internally, not only phenomenologically , but also energetically. Let us note that the concept of eikon appeals to integrity, totality, and omoioma – to existential completeness.

In the exegesis of the Church Fathers, these meanings are deepened. In the treatise “On the Constitution of Man,” the “image” (eikon) is considered as something given to man by nature, and the “likeness” (omoioma) as that highest ideal, or limit (telos), to which man should strive.

So, according to Saint Maximus the Confessor, Adam contains the totality of the energies of the Logos, therefore, he was a kind of energetic integrity.

And therefore, we can believe that he combined all four ontological types. We find confirmation of this thought in other Church Fathers. Saint Gregory of Nyssa calls Adam the all-man. In the words of St. Augustine, Adam is “the entire human race” (“totus genus humanorum”), and not only because he is the ancestor of humanity, but also because he represents an initially integral type as the bearer of the image of God, not yet damaged by the Fall.

This idea of ​​the fathers about the pan-humanity of Adam is confirmed by the biblical text. From it we see that Adam is the bearer of properties of various types.

First, it should be noted that the very command to “rule” is associated with management tasks and, therefore, with a structural-organizational type. The manifestation of the structural-organizational type is also visible in the image of Adam, the cultivator of the Garden of Eden: “And the Lord God took the man [whom he had created], and put him in the Garden of Eden, to cultivate it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15).

Adam is also the bearer of the energy-educational type, since he gives names to animals: “The Lord God formed from the earth all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air, and brought [them] to man, to see what he would call them, and so that what he would call them man is every living soul, that was its name. And the man named the names of all the livestock, and the birds of the air, and every beast of the field...” (Genesis 2: 19-20).

According to ancient Eastern thought, giving a name meant, first of all, dominion over someone. However, naming a name implies knowledge of the essence of what is being named and, in a sense, contact with it, and therefore, we have the right to talk here about synergistic activity, which is inherent in the energy-educational type.

Naturally, Adam also belonged to the contemplative-penetrating type, since he listened to Divine commands and contemplated Divine mysteries.

But it still has features of the symbolic-transformational type. This is confirmed by the parable that Adam spoke after the creation of Eve:

“And the man said, Behold, this is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she will be called woman, for she was taken from [her] husband” (Gen. 2:23).

We will understand little here if we do not remember that in Sumerian the word “ti” means both “bone” and “life”, and in Hebrew the words “husband” and “wife” come from the same root: “husband” - “ ish”, wife – “isha”.

Adam speaks this parable, symbolically denoting the connection between husband and wife, the wife's participation in the gift of life, as well as their ontological unity and, therefore, Eve's participation in the original wholeness.

The Church Fathers represented the variety of types united in Adam in the image of his three ministries - royal, priestly and prophetic (St. Gregory the Theologian). As king, Adam was to lead creation to perfection. Like a prophet - to know the will of God and communicate with God. Like a priest - to sanctify creation and sacrifice all of yourself to God. In relation to our classification, we can add that the royal ministry, to a first approximation, corresponds to the structural-organizational type, the priestly and prophetic ministries (each in its own way) are energetic-educational and contemplative-penetrating. The vocation of a priest also implies participation in a symbolic-transformational path. Consequently, both along the line of the biblical text and along the line of patristic exegesis, we come to an understanding of Adam as an initially integral type.

But then the Fall occurs. In his cosmic catastrophe, the original integrity of man is destroyed, including his ontopsychological type.

The descendants of a person of an initially integral type, for the most part, become carriers of attributive types, which are somewhat ontologically flawed.

Here is a biblical account showing the loss of integrity first by Eve and then by Adam:

“The serpent was more cunning than all the beasts of the field that the Lord God created. And the serpent said to the woman: Did God truly say: You shall not eat from any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent: We can eat fruit from the trees, only from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God said, do not eat it or touch it, lest you die. And the serpent said to the woman: No, you will not die, but God knows that on the day that you eat of them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil. And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes and desirable because it gave knowledge; and she took of its fruit and ate; and she gave it also to her husband, and he ate” (Genesis 3:1–6).

The Serpent carries out its destructive work according to all the rules of provocation and hidden control. First, he engages Eve in dialogue with a clearly exaggerated accusation against God, the very form of the question: “is it real?” - with the caveat that this is supposedly an incredible rumor that needs to be checked. Then, drawing her into the flow of conversation, he, having calmed Eve with positive information (“you will not die”), skillfully pours slander into her ears, presenting God as a greedy envious person (“the Lord God knows”), and ends his speech with a victorious chord: “and you will like gods,” having conducted the last and most important part of the conversation in the key of the triad “positive-negative-positive” (Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis). The serpent skillfully influences all structures of the human personality: the desire for knowledge, the thirst for justice, the instinct for safety.

The loss of integrity begins when the wife enters into dialogue with the tempter: instead of immediately stopping him, she gets carried away by the course of the discussion, experiences the temptation of instrumentality, the illusion that with the means available to her she can lead the erring (as it seems to her) serpent to the truth. Thus, the germs of the sin of vanity appear in a person.

The next important stage of personality destruction is Eve’s energy-resonant experience of the serpent’s slander against God - accusations of His supposed envy, and then - a cardinal temptation for the energy-resonance type: “And you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” Thus, a feeling of jealousy appears in a person and its reverse side is the sin of envy.

After the destruction of the instrumental and energy-resonant side of the single type, a slippage occurs into the lower level of the contemplative-inactive type - into the hedonic type: “And the wife saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye and desirable because it gives knowledge.” Here a distorted materialistic hierarchy of existence is already being built: first there is rough material hedonism - a feeling of pleasant taste, then a more refined aesthetic hedonism: “and pleasing to the eyes” - and only then, in the background, is the intellectualist thirst for knowledge.

It is not said what the psychological mechanism of Adam’s fall is - probably, due to the ontological unity of the first people, this happened with Adam, as with Eve, in a more or less similar way. Regarding Adam, the only detail that should be noted is that he does not take the fruit himself, as he should have, but receives it from his wife, in a sense submitting to her and becoming dependent on her. Consequently, in Adam the structural-organizational principle is defeated and the hedonistic type triumphs - that is, from a king he turns into a slave.

The motif of slavery is further emphasized by the following detail: “And their eyes were opened, and they saw that they were naked.” Nudity in the Ancient East was a symbol of slavery, defenselessness, captivity and humiliation. A feeling of shame is born in a person, which, however, is experienced not so much as guilt, but as discomfort. This is not accidental, since this reaction is typical for representatives of the hedonistic type. That is why Adam and Eve run and hide from God: “And Adam and his wife hid from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of paradise. And the Lord God called to Adam and said to him: [Adam,] where are you? He said: I heard Your voice in paradise, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. And [God] said: Who told you that you were naked? have you not eaten from the tree from which I forbade you to eat? Adam said: The wife whom You gave me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman: Why have you done this? The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Genesis 3: 8–13) .

Adam, who is within the hedonistic type, experiences fear, discomfort and in every possible way avoids responsibility, which he perceives as stress. His very actions - running away from God, and then an arrogant and aggressive response - are attempts to relieve stress, to escape from guilt and exposure to it.

God shows amazing fatherly care and understanding towards Adam by asking the question: “Who told you that you were naked? Have you not eaten from the tree?..” Such a sensitive question, reminiscent of the question of a loving parent to a guilty child or a confessor to a confessor, naturally suggests a positive answer, the possibility of repentance and, consequently, cleansing from sin and the possible restoration of a person. In this matter, God turns to the energy-educational side.

But Adam pushes away the outstretched hand, preferring to remain in an aggressively stressed state. Moreover, he tries to shift responsibility and punishment to someone else - to his wife, and ultimately to God: “The wife you gave me, she gave me from the tree.”

In the same way, the hero of George Orwell’s novel “1984” tried to “buy off” the torture of his beloved, shouting: “Do it to her.”

But if we read the biblical text, we will see that Adam, building an “instrumental” chain of giving” (God, Eve, Adam) in the spirit of simple sophism, ultimately accuses God of giving him fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good . It is no coincidence that Adam forgets about the serpent: from his point of view, if God created the serpent and Eve, then he must bear responsibility for everything that happened with their participation; and he, Adam, is beyond guilt as such. This attitude is characteristic of consumer consciousness, which is closely related to the hedonic type.

Eve’s reaction is much more sober and sincere, “essential”, with an admission of guilt, which is typical for representatives of the energy-educational type: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” That is why it is not Adam, but she, who is given the hope that her seed or offspring (and not Adam) will crush the head of the serpent. As for Adam, firstly, the disintegration of his personality, his original integrity is stated: “You are dust, and to dust you will return.”

And secondly, God, sending suffering and sorrow, extremely limits the possibilities for the development and rooting of the hedonistic type - and at the same time, commanding to work by the sweat of his brow, he posits the possibility of development in Adam of the instrumental or structural-organizational type: “For this, that you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree of which I commanded you, saying: You shall not eat from it; cursed is the ground because of you; you will eat from it in sorrow all the days of your life; She will bring forth thorns and thistles for you; and you will eat the grass of the field; By the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground from which you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:17-19).

This is how the instrumental-ascetic principle is brought up in a person, and on the other hand, “leather clothes” - the coarseness of bodily feelings - limit for him the side of life associated with the contemplative-penetrating and partly with the energetic-educational. “Leather vestments,” according to the Fathers of the Church, are given to prevent a person from falling into unhealthy mysticism and communication with the demonic world.

At the same time, for man there still remains the possibility of communication with God and the future restoration, which will be accomplished in the God-man Christ, the new Adam, according to His humanity - for He reveals Himself as an initially integral type.