ST. SERAPHIM OF SAROV ON ADAM IN
PARADISE
ST. SERAPHIM OF SAROV
The
following is an excerpt from St. Seraphim of Sarov’s conversation with Nicholas
Motovilov, his disciple that explains the purpose of Christian life as being
the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. To
make his point, St. Seraphim gives a brief overview of the history of Holy
Scripture to show that this purpose for mankind existed from the beginning of
creation, with Adam and Eve, the first man and woman. By explaining that man was initially created
just like all animals is significant, because what distinguishes mankind from
the animals is that mankind has been given the gift of the Grace of God in
order to keep us immortal and make us gods.
This is the essential key to the theological interpretation of the early
chapters of Genesis, and all of Holy Scripture in general, as well as the
sacramental and ascetic life of the Church.
“We
have become so inattentive to the work of our salvation that we misinterpret
many other words in Holy Scripture as well, all because we do not seek the
Grace of God because of our pride, we do not allow it to dwell in our
souls. That is why we are without true
enlightenment from the Lord, which He sends into the hearts of men who hunger
and thirst wholeheartedly for God’s righteousness.
Many
explain that when it says in the Bible: ‘God breathed the breath of life into
the face of Adam the first-created, who was created by God out of the dust of
the ground, it must mean that until then there was neither a human soul or
spirit in Adam, but only the flesh created from the dust of the ground.’ This interpretation is wrong, for the Lord
God created Adam from the dust of the ground with the constitution which the
Holy Apostle Paul describes: ‘May your spirit and soul and body be preserved
blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (1 Thess. 5:23). And all these three parts of our nature were
created from the dust of the earth, and Adam was not created dead, but was
created as an active living being like all the other animate creatures of God
living on earth. The point is that if
the Lord God had not breathed afterwards into his face this breath of life
(that is, the Grace of our Lord God, the Holy Spirit Who proceeds from the
Father and rests in the Son and is sent into the world for the Son’s sake),
Adam would have remained without having within him the Holy Spirit Who raises
him to godlike dignity. However perfect he had been created and superior to all
the other creatures of God, as the crown of creation on earth, he would have
been just like all the other creatures which, though they have a body, soul and
spirit each according to its kind, yet do not have the Holy Spirit within them. But when the Lord God breathed into Adam’s
face the breath of life, then, according to Moses’ word, Adam became ‘a living
soul.’ (Gen. 2:7), that is, completely and in every way like God, and, like
Him, forever immortal. Adam was immune
to the action of the elements to such a degree that water could not drown him,
fire could not burn him, the earth could not swallow him in its abysses, and
the air could not harm him by any kind of action whatever. Everything was subject to him as the beloved
of God, as the king and lord of creation, and everything looked up to him as
the perfect crown of God’s creatures.
Adam was made so wise by this breath of life which was breathed into his
face from the creative lips of God, the Creator and Ruler of all, that there
never has been a man on earth wiser or more intelligent than him, and it is
hardly likely that there ever will be.
When the Lord commanded him to give names to all the creatures, he gave
every creature a name which completely expressed all the qualities, powers and
properties given to it by God at its creation.
Owing
to this very gift of the supernatural Grace of God which was infused into him
by the breath of life, Adam could see and understand the Lord walking in
paradise, and comprehend His words, and the conversation of the Holy Angles,
and the language of all beasts, birds and reptiles and all that is now hidden
from us fallen and sinful creatures, but was so clear to Adam before his
fall. To Eve also the Lord God gave the
same wisdom, strength and unlimited power, and all the other good and holy
qualities. And He created her not from
the dust of the ground but from Adam’s rib in the Eden of delight, in the
Paradise which He had planted in the midst of the earth.
In
order that they might always easily maintain within themselves the immortal,
divine and perfect properties of this breath of life, God planted in the midst
of the garden the tree of life and endowed its fruits with all the essence and
fullness of His divine breath. If they
had not sinned, Adam and Eve themselves as well as all their posterity could
have always eaten of the fruit of the tree of life and so would have eternally
maintained the quickening power of Divine Grace.
They
could have also maintained to all eternity the full powers of their body, soul
and spirit in a state of immortality and everlasting youth, and they could have
continued in this immortal blessed state of theirs forever. At the present time, it is difficult for us
even to imagine such Grace. But when
through the tasting of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—which was
premature and contrary to the will of God—they learned the difference between
good and evil and were subjected to all the afflictions which followed the
transgression of the commandment of God, then they lost this priceless gift of
the Grace of the Spirit of God, so that, until the actual coming into the world
of the God-Man Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God was not yet in the world because
Jesus was ‘not yet glorified.’ (John 7:39)
However,
that does not mean that the Spirit of God was not in the world at all, but His
presence was not as apparent as in Adam or in us Orthodox Christians. It manifested itself only externally; yet the
signs of His presence in the world were known to mankind. Thus, for instance, many mysteries in
connection with the future salvation of the human race were revealed to Adam as
well as to Eve after the fall. And for
Cain, in spite of his impiety and his transgression, it was easy to understand
the voice which held gracious and divine conversation with him which was
convicting. Noah conversed with
God. Abraham saw God; “Your father
Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” (John 8:56). The Grace of the Holy Spirit acting
externally was also reflected in all the Old Testament prophets and Saints of
Israel. The Hebrews afterwards
established special prophetic schools where the sons of the prophets were
taught to discern the signs of the manifestation of God or of Angels, and to
distinguish the operations of the Holy Spirit from the ordinary natural
phenomena of our graceless earthly life.
Saint Simeon, who held the Christ-Child in his arms, Joachim and Anna,
the grandparents of Jesus, and countless other servants of God continually, had
quite openly various divine apparitions, voices and revelations which were
justified by evident miraculous events.
Though not with the same power as in the people of God, nevertheless,
the presence of the Spirit of God also acted amongst the pagans who did not
know the true God, because even among them God found for Himself chosen
people. Such, for instance, were the
virgin prophetess Sibyls who vowed virginity to an unknown God, but still to
God the Creator of the universe, the all-powerful Ruler of the world, as he was
conceived by the pagans. Though the
pagan philosophers also wandered in the darkness of ignorance of God, yet they
sought the truth which is loved by God, and on account of this God-pleasing
effort, they could partake of the Spirit of God, for it is said that the
nations who do not know God practice by nature the demands of the law and this
is pleasing to God. “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature
the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to
themselves,” (Romans 2:14). The Lord so
praises the truth that He says it Himself by the Holy Spirit: ‘Truth has sprung
out of the earth, and righteousness has looked down from heaven.’ (Ps. 84:11).
So
you see, dear Motovilov, both in the holy Hebrew people, a people beloved of
God, and in the pagans who did not know God, there was preserved a knowledge of
God—that is, my son, a clear and rational comprehension of how our Lord God,
the Holy Spirit acts in man, and by means of what inner and outer feelings one
can be sure that this is really the action of our Lord God, the Holy Spirit,
and not a delusion of the enemy. That is
how it was from Adam’s fall until the coming in the flesh of our Lord Jesus
Christ into the world.
Without
this perceptible realization of the actions of the Holy Spirit which had always
been preserved in human nature, men could not possibly have known for certain
whether the fruit of the seed of the woman who had been promised to Adam and
Eve had come into the world to bruise the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15).
At
last the Holy Spirit had foretold to St. Simeon, who was then in his 65th
year of life, the mystery of the virginal conception and birth of Christ from
the most pure Ever-Virgin Mary.
Afterwards, having lived by the Grace of the Holy Spirit of God for
three hundred years, in the 365th year of his life he said openly in
the Temple of the Lord that he knew for certain through the gift of the Holy
Spirit that this was the very Christ, the Savior of the world, Whose
supernatural conception and birth from the Holy Spirit had been foretold to him
by an Angel three hundred years previously.
And
there was also St. Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, who from her
widowhood had served the Lord God in the Temple of God for eighty years, and
who was known to be a righteous widow, a chaste servant of God, from the
special gifts of Grace she had received. She too announced that He was actually
the Messiah Who had been promised to the world, the true Christ, God and Man,
the King of Israel, Who had come to save Adam and mankind.
But
when our Lord Jesus Christ condescended to accomplish the whole work of
salvation, after His Resurrection, He breathed on the Apostles, restored the
breath of life lost by Adam, and gave them the same Grace of the All-Holy
Spirit of God as Adam had enjoyed. But
that was not all. He also told them that
it was expedient for them that He should go to the Father, for if He did not
go, the Spirit of God would not come into the world. But if He, the Christ, went to the Father, He
would send Holy Spirit into the world, and He, the Comforter, would guide them
and all who followed their teaching into all truth and would remind them of all
that He had said to them when he was still in the world. “And of His fullness we have all received,
and grace for grace.” (John 1:16)
Then
on the Day of Pentecost He sent down to them in a tempestuous wind the Holy
Spirit in the form of tongues of fire which alighted on each of them and
entered within them and filled them with the fiery strength of Divine Grace
which bestowed a bedewing breath and acted gladly in their souls which partake
of His power and energies (Acts 2:1-4).
And this same fire-infusing Grace of the Holy Spirit which is given to us
all, the faithful of Christ, in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, is sealed by the
Sacrament of Holy Confirmation (Chrism) on the chief parts of our body as
appointed by the Holy Church, the eternal keeper of this Grace. It is said: ‘The seal of the Gift of the Holy
Spirit.’ On what do we put our seals, dear
Motovilov, if not on vessels containing some very precious treasure? But what on earth can be higher and what can
be more precious than the gifts of the Holy Spirit which are sent down to us
from above in the Sacrament of Baptism?
This baptismal grace is so great and so indispensible, so vital for
mankind, that even a heretic is not deprived of it until his very death; that
is, till the end of the period appointed on high by the Providence of God as a
life-long test of man on earth, in order to see what he will be able to achieve
(during this period given to him by God) by means of the power of Grace granted
him from on high.
METROPOLITAN NICHOLAS OF MESOGAIA &
LAVREOTIKI ANSWERS FOUR
QUESTIONS ABOUT SCIENCE & THE
THEORY OF EVOLUTION
Metropolitan
Nicholas of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki studied Physics at the University of
Thessaloniki, Greece where he received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1976 and
after serving in the Greek army he continued his studies at Harvard and M.I.T.
where he received his Masters of Arts and Masters of Science, and then in a
combined program at Harvard and M.I.T. he received his Ph. D in Biomedical
Engineering. Upon completing his studies
he worked simultaneously for New England Deaconess Hospital, NASA and Arthur D.
Little. After teaching at Harvard and
M.I.T., he went on to teach at the School of Medicine at the University of
Crete as well as at the University of Athens.
He then went back to Boston where he received both a Masters of
Theological Studies and a Masters in Theology from Holy Cross School of Theology,
and a doctorate from the University of Thessaloniki in Bioethics. In 2008 he received an Honorary Doctoral
Degree from the University Of Athens School Of Theology in Science and
Religion. The following questions on
science and the theory of evolution were recently presented to His Eminence
Metropolitan Nicholas.
Q.
As a person who believes in God, what is your perspective on someone who wants
to deal with modern research, especially that which in the end challenges God,
such as genetic engineering, cosmology or neurology?
A. Research that is done to challenge
God has the disease of prejudice.
Research is done to discover scientific truth. What problem is there with someone wanting to
broaden the horizons of their thoughts and knowledge? God is approached better this way. God is not an ideology that we should by all
means defend, but we believe in Him because He is Truth. In this sense, even scientific truth reveals
Him. If He is still questioned, it is
time to find out about Him. A believer
who fears scientific research, fears the truth.
Perhaps he is a believer who does not believe.
Q. What do you have to say about the theory of
evolution? Does it not contradict the
teaching of the Church?
A.
In regards to this issue, the teaching of the Church is based on the
inspired book of Genesis. This is not a
book about Physics or Biology. The
important thing it talks about is not whether God molded man from soil and
where he found it, but that man was made “in the image and likeness” of
God. Everything else is insignificant. How can science subvert this? Beyond this, if science improves our
understanding of this world and our image of Him, why should we challenge it? The most we can say is that we understand
some things better.
Q.
So it doesn’t matter if man descended from animals?
A. What matters is the divine origin of
man and his relationship to God, namely that God created us, not how He created
us. And also, the danger is not that man
descended from the animals, but rather that we end up like them: “People,
despite their honor, do not endure; they are like the beasts that perish.” (Ps.
49:12). While our purpose is to be like
God, are we trying to prove that we are animals?
The problem therefore is not the
scientific confirmation of evolution, but the commitment to the sick
interpretation of it. The latter does
not prove the non-existence of God, but affirms the impassioned nearsightedness
of man. To exchange the divine purpose
with an unwise degeneration to an animal! Not even animals would like this.
Q. But we have similarities with animals and we
need to find their importance.
A.
The interest in our likeness with animals surprises me. If there was similar interest in our affinity
with God, how different things would be.
We should discover the significance of this affinity. As for the animals, there are certainly
similarities. Our body in one way or
another resembles the higher primates.
We can even teach animals instinctive virtues. There are so many examples that exist in Holy
Scripture. Christ Himself says in the
Sermon on the Mount to “look at the birds in the air” and in what way we can
imitate them.
But what matters are our differences
from the animals. Man is psychosomatic. This is the source of his value. It is time to turn our attention away from
our similarity with animals and towards the possibility of our likeness to God.
THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE IS COMPLETED
THROUGH FAITH
Research
is intoxicating. Our world is made with
unimaginable beauty and wisdom. It is
worth discovering both of these things as much as possible. Simply it must be done with the humility of a
man, not with the audacity of a pseudo-god.
One must compromise within limits.
Human knowledge, understanding and wisdom are not infinite or
complete. Our own nature shows our
limits. The universe presents the
principle of singularity (a mathematical anomaly). It hides its secrets. In accordance with the principle of
uncertainty as nature reveals one of her secrets, so she also will hide
another. We are blessed to know many and
great things, but doomed to be unable to conquer the infinite and all. Yet this infinity and all, which is beyond
our senses and knowledge, is what leads to God. Anyone who is made dizzy from
their knowledge has lost contact with God.
Their life is like a chain where each link is a success. But the final result is total failure and
underachievement. Knowledge is very
beautiful, but it does little to make us free.
It has limits, it is finite. This
is why we need faith. This is what leads
to infinity and to all.
SCIENTISTS & THE FATHERS OF THE
CHURCH
The
Fathers of the Church studied the creation of the cosmos with a theological
purpose. They renounced both materialism
and metaphysics. Thus, the two
philosophical orientations “in the beginning was matter” and “in the beginning
was the idea” was contrasted with “in the beginning was the Word.” God is a person; He is love, because love is
an uncreated energy of God. Therefore
God is neither an idea nor matter. Later
they say that God created the cosmos “out of nothing,” “without the existence of
matter” but with His Word which is His uncreated energy, which creates created
beings.
Contemporary
scientists are divided into two categories in interpreting new
discoveries. In the first category are
those who accept that some power outside of space and time created the
cosmos. In the second category are the
agnostics and atheists who interpret the creation of the cosmos without
believing in the existence of God.
According
to the Fathers of the Church, scientists can study the cosmos, examine what it
is, how it happened, but they cannot enter into other areas, such as the
existence or non-existence of God.
Besides, the work of science is one thing and the work of Orthodox
theologians is another and there should be no conflict or confusion between
them. Science investigates the created
world, matter, atoms, molecules, protons, particles, cells, genes, etc. while
theology, which is empirical, deals with how man can know the person of God
with His uncreated energies. Science progresses in various discoveries which
should benefit and not harm people, and Orthodox theology gives answers to the
spiritual matters of man and how he can acquire unconditional love towards God
and his fellow man, at a time not only when the “death of God” is preached, but
also at a time when the “death of one’s neighbor” is preached.
Finally,
no matter how many discoveries science makes man hungers and thirsts for a
personal God, for unconditional love, inner peace and freedom, for spiritual
completeness. He wants to know what exists
beyond creation, what happens after death, what is eternal life, etc. Man is not an unreasonable being, but
develops culture, nurtures spiritual principles, searches for God and seeks to
experience His love. Hence, science is
trying to give an explanation for creation and the establishment of the cosmos,
but that which has great significance is Who created the cosmos and man. God is not an irrational force, nor a
blissful being, but a person. He is the
Logos who created the cosmos and within all of creation there is “logo of
being,” the energies of God.
Edited by:
+Fr. Constantine J. Simones, Waterford,
CT, September 15, 2014, USA, cjsimones300@gmail.com
Postscript:
Saint Seraphim was born Prokhor
Moshinin August 1, 1746 and he reposed in the Lord January 14, 1833. He is one of the most beloved Russian monks
and ascetics in the Orthodox Christian world.
He was canonized a saint in 1903.
Nicholas Motovilov is his biographer and disciple. The most famous conversation that Nicholas
writes about with Saint Seraphim is when they were speaking about the purpose
of human life. The Saint tells Nicholas
that the acquisition of the Holy Spirit is the ultimate purpose of life. As soon as the saint said this to Nicholas
they were both enveloped by a brilliant Light that enveloped them. As soon as this happened Motovilov could no
longer look at Saint Seraphim for he became brighter than the sun. Then Saint Seraphim asked Motovilov what he was
feeling. He responded by saying that he
felt warm, overwhelmed by a sense of peace and there was a sweet-smelling
fragrance that permeated the air. That
is when Saint Seraphim told Nicholas that they were both now in the embrace of the
Holy Spirit. This is one of the most
profound eye-witness accounts describing the presence of the Holy Spirit in the
Orthodox Christian Church.
+Fr. Constantine (Charles) J. Simones,
October 6, 2014
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου
Σας ευχαριστούμε.
Σημείωση: Μόνο ένα μέλος αυτού του ιστολογίου μπορεί να αναρτήσει σχόλιο.