Holy Scripture, the Church, and Scholarship, II

Here follows the second installment of my translation of an article by the New Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky), Archbishop of Verey (+1929). Part one is here. Two or three more installments are forthcoming. It should be noted that the title of this article could also be translated “Holy Scripture, the Church, and Science.” I have elected to translate the Russian наука in the title as “scholarship” rather than “science,” inasmuch as the latter in contemporary English usage is very often taken as a synonym of “natural science.” In the body of the article I translate it sometimes as “scholarship” and sometimes as “science,” depending on context. Readers should bear in mind that they translate one and the same Russian word.

Thus, the Church is the guide to the interpretation of Holy Scripture.

The necessity of precisely this guidance becomes especially clear when one considers to the end the great lie that Protestantism drew on its flag, and after it every imaginable sectarianism and human frivolousness and free-thinking generally. Protestantism rejected the necessity of Church norms and principles for the interpretation of Scripture. But then, obviously, everyone has to be directed in the interpretation of Scripture by his own so-called common sense [literally, sound mind]. There is no need to mention that people’s common sense can very often judge the very same phenomenon, the very same fact, differently; but I think, and this is indisputable, that our minds, in the understanding of Holy Scripture, left to themselves, cannot at all be sound. To speak frankly, how often it happens that we go astray in our lives, that our reason does little more than justify our (fallen) will through sophistries.

Normally we agree with one another very easily about questions that do not affect our lives, that do not concern the direction of our wills. That is why in questions of natural science, and particularly in mathematics, there are so many universally accepted and unquestioned truths. Why, in fact, should I not accept that the sum of the angles of a triangle is always equal to that of two right angles? Or that the sum of the areas of the squares on the cathedi is equal to the area of the square on the hypotenuse, as the Pythagorean theorem affirms? Why should I not accept these mathematical truths? Their recognition binds me to absolutely nothing. I think one can, and even should, agree with the brilliant philosopher Leibniz, who said: “If geometry conflicted with our passions and our present concerns as much as morality does, we would dispute it and transgress it almost as much – in spite of all Euclid’s and Archimedes’ demonstrations, which would be treated as fantasies and deemed to be full of fallacies – and Joseph Scaliger, Hobbes and others who have written against Euclid and Archimedes would not find so few supporters as they do in fact” [New Essays on Human Understanding, 1.2.96]. Yes, when the matter concerns life itself, then immediately fierce, often passionate debates flare up, debates without end. That is why there are so many debates about philosophical truths, and even more about religious truths. Theological sciences are the most vitally important sciences, and therefore their tenets attract such a mass of debates.

But how does all of this relate to our question? Namely that, if the interpretation of Holy Scripture is left to each individual person, then one will find as many understandings of the word of God as there are people, that is, one will not find Holy Scripture at all. St Vincent of Lerins spoke of just the same thing back in the fifth century: “Owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation” [Commonitorium, 2.5].

Scholarship, with all its methods, is powerless to establish any sort of unanimity. There are many scholarly interpretations. One can probably say that there is a shelf of books written on every verse, but not only have doubts not been settled, or differences of opinion smoothed over, but just the opposite – these doubts and differences of opinion grow more and more.

The individual person will also constantly go back and forth in his understanding of Holy Scripture if he is not guided by the authority of the Church. The intellect, left to itself, can go even further in abusing Scripture, justifying the wise words of Clement of Alexandria: “others, giving themselves up to pleasures, wrest Scripture, in accordance with their lusts” (Stromata, 7.16; [c.f., 2 Pet 3:16]). The books of Holy Scripture give particularly wide scope for unlimited and arbitrary self-judgment. Indeed, philosophers and founders of other religions left behind them whole volumes of their works, expressing everything more or less fully and definitely, and therefore there is not limitless room for arbitrary reinterpretation. But Christ Himself wrote nothing: other people wrote about Christ, even those who were not witnesses of His deeds or immediate hearers of His teaching. From the perspective of autonomous reason it is perfectly legitimate to ask whether Christ’s teaching was conveyed properly, and if His life and deeds were related correctly by the writers of the books of the New Testament. Even if we grant that these books are authentic, does that mean that everything written in them corresponds to reality? The authenticity of the books does not yet guarantee their accuracy. It is undeniable that authentic reports even from eyewitnesses are often false: the author either saw the events poorly, or misunderstood them, or remembered wrongly if he wrote decades after the events. If one begins from such a perspective, then there open limitless possibilities for one’s judgment to affirm whatever it likes, and one will found a “Christianity” in accordance with one’s own personal tastes and one’s own personal desires. I am not talking about alleged possibilities only, but about real historical facts. Already in the second century, as St Irenaeus of Lyons relates, there were people who prided themselves in correcting the apostles and in being wiser not only than the bishops, but even than the apostles (Against Heresies 3.1.1; 1.2.2).

A century ago the rationalists Eichorn and Paulus, recognizing the authenticity of the entire New Testament, nonetheless “corrected” it with their astonishing, and at times outrageous, interpretations, so that not a single miracle was left in the entire New Testament. Marcion, a heretic of the second century, said that only Paul properly understood Christ’s teaching, and that the other apostles distorted it with Jewish insertions, and Leo Tolstoy affirmed that even the Apostle Paul, “not understanding Christ’s teaching very well” (a literal quotation), did much to distort it. To whom should one listen? It is unclear, and it seems that only one thing is beyond doubt: without the authority of the Church, a person quickly places himself above the apostles, above Christ Himself, and will begin to replace Christ’s teaching with the fanciful images of his own idle fantasy. If one interprets Holy Scripture with his reason alone, then soon he will be left without Scripture. Without the Church there will be no Scripture! Even if the books of Holy Scripture remain, in words and letters, even then each person will place his own content into these forms.

It does not stop there. Reason does not stop even at the destruction of the very books of Holy Scripture. Questions about the authenticity and generally about the origin of the sacred books are the subject of the field of isagogy. At the present time isagogical studies have so expanded that they appear as nothing less than a mysterious labyrinth, from which no exit is at all visible. Every year newer and newer questions are posed, old solutions to old questions are rejected, and hypotheses are piled one on top of another. It sometimes seems that people are simply engaging in scholarly sports, writing learned books only to have something to write. Scholarly literature on isagogical questions has been growing for over a century. It is not surprising that a mountain of books has been written, but one cannot help but be astonished by the fact that there are almost no sold and indisputable results. How many self-sacrificing scholarly efforts have been dedicated to researching the origins of the New Testament alone! It would seem that scholars should long ago have come to agree about something! However, to this day, alongside the most orthodox works appear books that refute them in virtuoso fashion. Almost every day brings its own “last word of scholarship.” What is the cause of this phenomenon? The cause lies in the properties of scholarship itself, namely that it cannot be independent and free in deciding the most important questions that relate to our very lives. It gives people the very answers for which they were looking. Once again we return to the same conclusion: man, left to his intellect alone, will soon lose Holy Scripture, soon lose the very books of Holy Scripture, explaining them away as forgeries of the second century unworthy of special attention. Only the Church can give one an entirely satisfactory foundation for the recognition of the authenticity and Divine-inspiration of the well-known books of Holy Scripture.

There are two kind of knowledge: external or scientific knowledge, and inner and immediate knowledge, or self-consciousness. Science draws its knowledge either from the investigation of certain facts or, in historical questions, from their written monuments. It judges all phenomena by their external evidence, by the external traces these phenomena have left behind. But do all phenomena leave behind them sufficient external traces? How many facts from our personal lives pass noticed only by ourselves! If someone set out to confirm some event from our lives wholly scientifically, he would meet with great difficulty: not having sufficient scientific data, and interpreting the existing data in his own way, he would most like describe this event to us in such a way that we would not recognize it at all. Nonetheless, all the most brilliant scientific reasoning could not force us to change our knowledge of the events of our lives. When a known fact is in our consciousness we cannot perceive it other than how it appears to our immediate consciousness.

Let us take the “juridical error” as an example. All the existing evidence, all the data of the preliminary investigation demonstrates the guilt of the defendant. The prosecutor’s brilliant speech conclusively demonstrates his guilt. The defendant himself and his counsel cannot say anything in defense. The jury brings in a guilty verdict. The public leaves with the thought that justice reigns in the courts and that the defendant was sentenced justly. But the defendant himself knows that he is innocent, and no one can prove the contrary to him. Recall the brilliant trial so ingeniously portrayed by our great Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov. Could the swan song of the old prosecutor, in which there was so much about the “psychology that cuts both ways” and the “psychology at full steam,” have convinced Karamazov himself that he was guilty of killing his father? Or could the trial in The Living Corpse [aka Regeneration, a play by Tolstoy] have convinced the Karenins of their guilt? Is it not obvious that our self-consciousness is, for us, more reliable than all scientific knowledge?

It is precisely in the Church’s self-consciousness that knowledge of the authenticity of the books of Holy Scripture is given. These books were written for the Church, they were bestowed to the Church; the Church has preserved them, and expressed at the Councils its knowledge that the given books are authentic, apostolic, Divinely-inspired Scriptures. In the definitions of the Councils we hear the voice of the Church, which can be viewed as one “person,” because the one, personal Spirit of God enlivens it.

Scholarship has put the Church on trial; it has made its preliminary investigation. Reason has spoken with the effective and persuasive speech of the prosecutor. But the Church knows what it knows, and it cannot change its knowledge. The task of the Church’s theological scholarship is that of the speech of the defendant. For if a defendant, conscious of his own innocence, refuses any defense, then he will be convicted. If the Church refuses any defense, then the audience will leave the halls of the scientific court judging the Church. This is a temptation that the Church must prevent. Theological scholarship should review all the charges made against the Church, investigating all the documents and giving them a proper interpretation. The Church’s witness about its own self-consciousness should direct the fundamental solution to the question. The Church’s witness is not only a fully sufficient foundation for the recognition of the authenticity of the sacred books, but the only reliable basis for this recognition. The Blessed Augustine expressed this truth beautifully when he said: “I would not believe in the Gospels myself if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so” [Against the Letter of Mani Called ‘The Foundation’ 4.5]. In fact, Protestants or sectarians who reject the Church appear to recognize Holy Scripture. But this recognition of theirs is built on air. Let them try to consider this question to the end: why do they consider precisely these books, and none others, as Divinely-inspired Holy Scripture, as authentically apostolic works? One cannot cite scholarship, because a hopeless debate about the authenticity of a large part of the sacred books is still ongoing. One cannot cite one’s personal opinion, for this would mean to refuse to give a reasonable answer. To the question of why one or another books is authentic, apostolic Holy Scripture, all those who reject the Church remain and will remain without an answer or else will engage in different sorts of “rhetorical guile.”

From everything that has been said, we hope that it is obvious that it follows that only in the Church does Holy Scripture have its defined volume and its defined content. Faith in the Church is the true compass by which everyone seeking enlightenment of mind and knowledge of truth in Scripture can, without fear of destruction and ruin, direct one’s boat, whether one is an unlettered simpleton or an enlightened man of science.

It follows, in conclusion, that everything is determined by faith. It is altogether important to establish a principled attitude towards all the so-called negative sciences. Above all one needs to note that the most perverse conceptions about the state of modern scholarship about Holy Scripture reigns among us. If scientific knowledge in general is not widespread among us, then this can be said with special emphasis about scholarly knowledge of Holy Scripture. One often meets with such reasoning: contemporary scholarship has “conclusively demonstrated” that the books of the New Testament were written neither by the apostles nor in the first century. This is said in a tone of self-confidence that does not permit any objections, spoken in the name of science. After all, it is well known that it is the people who are least engaged in science, and who stand furthest from science, that like to allude to science and are particularly inclined either to degrade or to extol it.

Holy Scripture, the Church, and Scholarship, I

Today, on which we mark the tenth anniversary of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Glorification of the New Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky), Archbishop of Verey (+1929) (he had been Glorified among the ranks of the New Martyrs and Confessors by the Russian Church Abroad in 1981), I offer the first installment of my translation of an article by this great saint. This article, which originally appeared in Moskovskie tserkovnye vedomosti (1911, No. 50), has its origin in a lecture given at the theological courses for women created in Moscow in 1910 with the blessing of the New Hieromartyr Vladimir (Bogoiavlensky), who was at that time Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomena. The author was then a layman and associate professor of New Testament at the Moscow Theological Academy. Other articles by St Hilarion that can be found online in English include A Pascha of Incorruption, Christianity or the Church?, and Christianity and Socialism.

Holy Scripture… yet Christ did not write anything! It is said of Him only once, in the Gospel according to John, that He wrote anything, and in that case He wrote with His finger (c.f., Jn 8:6), and He wrote on the ground. The founders of different religions, the originators of philosophical schools, wrote much, and wrote gladly, but Christ wrote nothing. This is an entirely characteristic circumstance for a Christian. The entire essence of the matter of Christ becomes clear and comprehensible to us if we properly appreciate the fact that Christ wrote nothing. Christ did not write anything… That means that the Son of God came to earth not at all in order to write and give people some sort of book. Could it be that to write a book the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten Son of God was necessary? The Incarnation of the second Person of the Holy Trinity was necessary for people’s salvation. A book, no matter which, could not and cannot save mankind. Christ is not a teacher, but precisely the Savior. Human nature, corrupted by sin, needed to be renewed, and the beginning of this renewal was laid by the very Incarnation of the Son of God. The great theologian of the second century, St Irenaeus of Lyons, writes: “But if a thought of this kind should then suggest itself to you, to say, What then did the Lord bring to us by His advent – know that He brought all [possible] novelty, by bringing Himself Who had been announced. For this very thing was proclaimed beforehand, that a novelty should come to renew and quicken mankind” (Against the Heresies, 4:34:1).

By His Incarnation the Son of God made people communicants of the Divine nature, and therefore became the forefather of a new mankind, in which the previous nature of mankind, ruined by sin, is renewed. Christ Himself called this new mankind the Church. In the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew we read of how the Apostle Peter, on behalf of all the Apostles, confessed Christ as the Only-Begotten Son of God Incarnate. Christ answered Peter: on this rock (that is, His Incarnation), I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Mt 16:16-18). Separating from, and parting with, His disciples, He promised to send them another Comforter: the Holy Spirit, Who will guide them in all things, and Who will abide with them unto the ages (c.f., Jn 14:16-17; 15:26; 14:26; 16:13). Holy Scripture constantly says of this same Holy Spirit that He gives life to the Church, which is called the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the sole Source of all spiritual gifts given to members of the Church (c.f., 1 Cor 12:4-11). The Church lives, thinks, and prospers in perfection, directed by the Holy Spirit. Only in the Church does an individual person receive all the strength necessary for his moral regeneration.

It is precisely in this way that Holy Scripture compels us to conceive of the thought and essence of Christ’s deed. Christ’s deed is the creation of the Church. [For more, see my brochure “Christianity or the Church?”, second edition. Sergiev Posad, 1912.] Proceeding from this foundational thought, we must consider Holy Scripture.

Christ established the Church. The Church was in existence before there was the Holy Scripture of the New Testament. From the very beginning of the Church, Christians used the sacred books of the Old Testament for their edification. The books of the New Testament, however, appeared in the period of over a half-century from the historical beginning of the Church. The holy Apostles wrote these books for the instruction of the already-existing Church; they were written for the Church. If that is the case, then it would not be daring to say that it is not Holy Scripture, as a book, that saves man, but the grace of the Holy Spirit that lives in the Church. The grace-filled power of the Holy Spirit acts through the Church’s Mysteries, and through the rules of Church life; and it acts as the Divinely-inspired word of God through the books of Holy Scripture. By the will of the Holy Spirit, Scripture was written down and given to the Church. It is a precious property, but specifically the property of the Church. Therefore Holy Scripture cannot be separated from the Church. Outside the Church, Scripture is nothing; or, it would be better to say, outside the Church there is no Holy Scripture, nor can there be.

In order to become the follower of a given philosophical school it is necessary to absorb the philosophical works of the founder of this school. But in order to become a true Christian, for salvation, is it enough to know the New Testament? Of course not. One can know the entire New Testament by heart, one can know all New Testament scholarship, and nonetheless be very, very far from salvation. For salvation one must namely be added to the Church, as it is said in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, that those being saved were added to the Church (c.f., Acts 2:47; 5:13-14). Only within the Church of Christ, which alone saves, does Scripture serve to man’s benefit. Scripture is salvific only to those who are in the Church.

Thus Holy Scripture has its meaning and significance only in the Church, with which it is inextricably connected, and for which it came into being. The idea of the Church is therefore the foundational guiding principle for an Orthodox person in his judgments about Scripture and for its use for the actual benefit on his soul.

Above all, the Church and its dogmatic teaching give the key to the proper understanding of Holy Scripture. Nowadays one more and more often comes up against such reasoning: in Holy Scripture we read this and that, but the Church teaches something else; therefore the Church is in error. It is typically sectarians who reason in this manner, but one can also frequently hear such talk from people who, although they relate negatively to the Church, nonetheless call themselves Christians. But all such reasoning is entirely false down to its very root. The Holy Spirit wrote Holy Scripture through the holy apostles for the Church, and this same Spirit guides the very Church, according to the Savior’s true promise, in all truth. The Holy Spirit is one and indivisible, eternal and unchanging. How could He say one thing in Holy Scripture, and something else in Church doctrine and life? To allow for the possibility of contradiction between the Church and Holy Scripture means to speak of the self-contradiction of the Holy Spirit, it means in fact to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. The devil alone can inspire the blasphemous thought of the Holy Spirit contradicting Himself, and we should agree with the strong and sharp, but wise and correct expression of St Vincent of Lerins: “When we find people alleging passages from the Apostles or Prophets against the Catholic Faith, that the devil speaks through their mouths” [Commonitory, 26.68]. No explanation of Holy Scripture should contradict the teaching of the Church. For what is all the teaching of the Church? All the dogmas of the Church? For they are nothing other than an indication of how properly to understand Holy Scripture. At the Ecumenical Councils, before establishing any kind of true Christian doctrine, they first studied the words of the Holy Scripture in detail. Certain passages of Scripture seemed to heretics, particularly to the Arians at the First Ecumenical Council, to be in contradiction to this truth.

Then the Fathers of the Council demonstrated how one is to understand these passages in accordance with Church truth, and this truth was confirmed by the entire Council, that is by the entire Church, by the Holy Spirit, Who lives in the Church and guides it in all truth. Therefore later Church councils began their definitions, like the Council of the Apostles described in the fifteenth chapter of the book of Acts, with the words “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us.” Therefore if anything in Holy Scripture seems to us to contradict Church doctrine, then it remains for us only to try to understand the agreement between Holy Scripture and Church doctrine, and not to reject Church doctrine. This is why we can and should be guided by the works of the Holy Fathers in interpreting Holy Scripture: their authors, in interpreting Holy Scripture, remained steadily and consistently in accord with Church doctrine. Being, according to the expression of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, luminaries in the world, they were also rules of faith.

The Movement of the Water

The Venerable Bede writes:

The angel designates the one who descended invisibly into the pool and moved the water to provide the power of healing. Clothed in flesh, Christ descended into the water as the Angel of great counsel [Is 9:6], that is, as a herald of the Father's will to the Jewish people... The movement of the water suggests the Lord's Passion, which occurred by the nation of the Jews being moved and stirred up. And because through His Passion those who believed were redeemed from the curse of the law, it is as if they were healed as they descended into the troubled water of the pool... It is good that the one who first went down after the movement of the waster was healed of whatever illness had him in its grip, for there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Eph 4:5]; and a person, who in catholic unity is imbued with the mysteries of Christ, is healed from whatever illness, caused by his sins, holds him fast. Whoever is out of harmony with that unity is not capable of securing salvation, since it is from One.

Appeal from the Hermitage of the Holy Cross

The brotherhood of the Hermitage of the Holy Cross in Wayne, WV, is in need of your help and prayers. His Grace, Bishop George of Mayfield, sent out the following appeal yesterday:

Dear Fathers,

Christ is Risen!

Please ask people to pray for the monks at Holy Cross Monastery in WV. They have had heavy rainfall and now there has been a mud slide next to the newly built carpentry workshop. It has exposed 5 feet under the foundation and the concrete floor has cracked. Engineers say it will cost $17,000 to fix and they can't get to it til Tuesday. The monks will now try to fix it themselves and are renting equipment.

+Bp George

Victory Day in Dachau

Today is Victory Day in Russia, marking the anniversary of the surrender of the Nazi government to the Soviet Union in 1945. The day will be marked in Moscow and elsewhere with the sorts of parades that we all remember from the days of the Soviet Union: tanks and soldiers and missiles rolling through Red Square as the power elite stands in rigid attention.

A very different sort of procession was organized today in the German Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. Archpriest Ilya Limberger of the Church of St Nicholas in Stuttgart led a procession of young people on foot from the Monastery of St Job of Pochaev in Munich to the concentration camp in Dachau, a distance of some 12.5 kilometers (nearly 8 miles). Once at Dachau they served a panikhida (memorial service) for the reposed and a moleben (service of intercession) to St Nikolaj (Velimirović) of Ohrid and Ziča who, along with Patriarch Gavrilo of Serbia, was imprisoned in Dachau for several months in 1944.

Both services were performed in the Russian Orthodox chapel (depicted above) built in honor of the Orthodox prisoners who perished at Dachau. An online guide to the chapel notes the following:

A small Russian Orthodox Catholic [sic] Chapel stands on a mound just to the left of the tourist entrance into the crematoria area. It was built in honor of an estimated 6,000 Russian Prisoners of War who died in the Dachau camp or were executed at the SS firing range at Herbertshausen. All Russian POWs who were believed to be Communist Commissars were executed, in Dachau and elsewhere, on an order from Adolf Hitler who issued this directive on the eve of the German invasion of Russia on July 22, 1941. In all the camps, the Russian POWs were treated much worse than other prisoners in retaliation for the atrocities committed by the Russians against German soldiers. The Russians had not signed the most recent agreement at the Geneva Convention and were not following the rules of warfare with regard to German Prisoners of War. After the liberation of Dachau, the remaining Russian POWs were turned over to the Soviet Union in accordance with the Allied agreement at Yalta in 1943. The Soviet Union treated these returning prisoners as traitors and immediately sent them to the gulags, as the Communist concentration camps were called.

For an extraordinary account of the celebration of Pascha in Dachau in 1945, shortly after its liberation, go here. For another brief account (in French) of today's pilgrimage, go here.

With the Saints give rest, O Christ, to the souls of Thy servants, where there is no pain, no sorrow, no sighing, but life everlasting

UPDATE: A fuller account of the procession can be read here.

Archimandrite Kirill on the Sunday of the Paralytic

Here's my translation of a sermon by Archimandrite Kirill (Pavlov) for the Sunday of the Paralytic entitled On Patience:

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! The Gospel that was read today tells of the great miracle of the healing of the paralytic performed by our Lord Jesus Christ and of His mercy for suffering humanity. This Gospel bears the closest relation to each of us, and can serve as a great edification and comfort for us.

The Gospel tells us that not far from the Temple in Jerusalem was a sheep pool (something like a basin). An Angel of the Lord descended into this pool at a certain season, troubling the water and conveying miraculous power to it. Whoever went first into the water after its troubling by the Angel received healing from whatever illness he had. This healing power attracted many sick people to the water. Among them was a man who had suffered from a great ailment for thirty-seven years, but who had nonetheless never lost heart in the hope of healing.

Our Lord Jesus Christ came to Jerusalem on the occasion of a feast and visited the sheep pool. Turning his attention to the paralytic that was patiently awaiting God’s mercy, the Lord asked him: Wilt thou be made whole? Sir, replied the sick man, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Then the Lord said: Rise, take up thy bed, and walk (Jn 5:6-8). O wonder! With a single Divine word the Lord instantaneously healed the sick man. Having suffered from a terrible infirmity for thirty-seven years, he was immediately made well, took up his bed, and walked. But this was on a Sabbath day, and the Jews said that on the Sabbath it was not allowed to carry one’s bed. Then the one who had been healed answered: (Jn 5:11). Jesus Christ was no longer there with them. He had hid among the people. Later, when the Lord met the healed one in the Temple, He added the following words: He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk. Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee (Jn 5:14).

The first thing that deserves our attention is the firm faith of the sick man and the mercy of God. He suffered from a serious illness for thirty-seven years, but his patience and hope were not exhausted. He believed and hoped to receive that for which he asked, and the Lord remembered him and granted him healing. Learn from this example, my dear ones, to be patient when we are visited by sorrows, of which there are so many. Strive to put your trust in the Lord God and, hoping in Him, draw strength and courage to bear without murmuring every kind of sorrow and failure in life. No matter how severe your sorrows may be, no matter how long they last – believe that the Lord can help you, and sooner or later He will relieve your suffering, if you will only have firm, unwavering faith in His mercy. Everything is possible to the Lord, and He can instantaneously transform your sorrow into joy. Indeed, sorrows and troubles are at times unendurable to people, and we, out of our cowardice and impatience, not infrequently lose trust in God’s mercy, and cry and murmur, saying: “I am patient and I pray, but the Lord does not see my tears” – and we begin to fall into despair. You see how faint we are at times! May the example of the paralytic’s patient endurance serve for the edification of us all.

Dear brothers and sisters! If we believe that there is a God, that He gave over His Only-Begotten to death for our sake, if we believe that none other than the Heavenly Father directs our entire life – then we must therefore place all our trust on Him. Cast thy care upon the Lord, and He will nourish thee… (Ps 54:23).

We sometimes wish that our petitions and prayers would be fulfilled immediately, not considering that God knows better than we what is more profitable for us and when to offer us consolation. We cry and moan, calling ourselves unfortunate and, supposedly, suffering innocently our entire lives, not remembering the apostle’s teaching from the Lord: For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourageth every son whom He receiveth (Heb 12:6). Through the bearing of sorrow and physical suffering the Lord heals our soul, preparing it for the future life, teaching us humility and un-hypocritical trust in His mercy. The visitation of tribulations is a clear witness that the Lord has turned special attention to you during this time. He wants to educate you in salvation, giving you the possibility to show Him how rich you are in faith, hope, and love – those essential Christian virtues, without which no one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

It is no accident that the saints and righteous ones considered themselves neglected by the Lord when sorrows had not visited them for a long time. The Apostle Paul says: we glory not only in that, through faith, we receive justification and hope for the future, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience: and patience, experience: and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us (Rom 5:3-5). Sorrows are our teacher, they teach us patience, experience, and skill. Experience is a great thing in life. Experience animates in one confidence in success.

But we do not want to cultivate this miraculous power in ourselves, even when the Lord Himself, in His love for man, decides to raise it in us, this power. Then we murmur against Him, weeping for our fate: why does it require of us stress, effort, care, and work beyond our strength? Not knowing that, by our cowardice, we are substantially hampering God’s grace from helping us – we become incapable of anything, not allowing ourselves to receive in ourselves the grace that requires of us decisiveness in giving our will to the Lord.

The words from the Gospel that was read cannot but draw our attention, when the Lord says to the healed paralytic: Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee (Jn 5:14). It is clear from these words that there is the very tightest connection between illness and sin. As long as the first people did not sin they were healthy in body and soul. But later they were unable to preserve themselves from sin – then from sin came illness. This phenomenon repeats itself now, too, and this law of dependency will remain in effect until the end of the ages. Every violation of the law, both in the physical realm and in the moral realm will be accompanied by a disordering of our nature and will always be accompanied by illness. Therefore, knowing this truth, let us by all means avoid sin, as the cause of the destruction of our spiritual and physical natures.

Meanwhile there is no one who is able continuously to safeguard himself against sin. According to the word of God: for there is no man who lives without sinning, even if he lives but one day on the earth. But the grace of God gives us the means continuously to cleanse ourselves from sin in the Mystery of Repentance. No matter how man has fallen, he always has the possibility to get back up. Recognize your sin, regret that you have offended the All-Good God, and show the firm intention of correction – and then the Lord, in His mercy, will forgive you your sin and grant His grace. But if afflictions visit us and our petitions are long in being answered, then let the example of the paralytic who suffered for thirty-seven years serve for us as a consolation in the hope of God’s mercy.

Let us speak in the words of the Apostle James: Be ye also patient; establish your hearts… (Jm 5:8). Give your life over to the will of God. Believe this: the Lord knows better than us when to look upon us, and when to turn His precious face from us. No matter what happens in life, cry out more often: My hope is the Father, my refuge is the Son, my protection is the Holy Spirit: O Holy Trinity, glory to Thee!

Amen.

Bishop Mefody on the Sunday of the Paralytic

Here are two brief words by Bishop Mefody of Campanie (+1974) for the Sunday of the Paralytic I have translated:

Today in the Gospel we heard the story of the Lord’s healing of the paralytic. This unfortunate man had already lain for thirty-eight years. There was a pool in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate into which an Angel would descend at a certain season and trouble the water. Whoever first entered the water after the Angel had troubled the water would be healed of any ailment. The unfortunate paralytic laid by this pool, but he had no one who would lower him into the water after its troubling – someone was always lowered into the quickening waters before him.

The Lord Jesus Christ noticed the man lying there and asked him: would you like to be made well? The sick man answered that he would, but that he had no one who would help him. Then the Lord said: Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And the sick man arose, took up his bed, and walked.

Everything in this story is amazing: the greatness of God’s power; and that the Lord turned his attention to the sick man; and the vivifying waters of the pool; and the sick man himself, who had been sick for thirty-eight years without losing hope of recovery; and that he, surrounded by people, had no one who would help him.

Today, too, there is a “pool” in which people are healed and even resurrected. In this pool people are healed, above all, from spiritual illnesses and resurrected from the death of the soul. This pool is called the Church; and the healing water in it is called the grace of God. Those who desire to obtain healing of the soul must look for this, must ask for this, heeding the voice of the Church. And how important it is to have someone who can lead the sick soul to this pool.

Risen Jesus, raise our souls!

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In Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate was a pool, the remains of which can be seen even now, into the water of which an Angel of the Lord would at a certain season descend and trouble the water. Whoever first plunged into it after the troubling of the waters would be healed from any ailment. Near this pool were always many who were sick, blind, and lame. Among them was an unfortunate paralytic who had already been ill for thirty-eight years. He could not by any means be the first to plunge into the water and had no one who would help him.

The Lord Jesus Christ came near this place, saw the unfortunate one, and healed him with His all-powerful word. Such is the Gospel story that we have just heard. Two points in this story draw our attention. There was no one who would help the unfortunate one. Among the people there was no one! How often this is repeated in our contemporary life and even among us: among people there is no one. People do not see his need, his affliction, his loneliness. Someone perishes in a big city, among many people, because there was no one who would help him.

Another point in the Gospel narrative: the Lord came, and saw, and helped. The paralytic also saw Him and responded to the Lord’s voice and was healed.

O, if only all the lonely among people, if all those who are exhausted and perishing would know that the Lord is near them, that He sees and is prepared to stretch out a helping hand! O, if only they, and all of us, could see this helping hand and accept the Lord into our lives! Amen.