1-я книга Ездры, Глава 1

The ancient accounts, with which the writings of the prophet Daniel agree (Дан. 5:30), relate that Cyrus king of the Persians, having joined together with his ally Darius king of the Medes, destroyed the kingdom of the Babylonians, after killing Belshazzar, the last of their kings, and razing the city and laying it waste. This Cyrus, no doubt realizing that the kingdom had been handed over to him by the God of Israel, as soon as he conquered the kingdom which had captured the Israelites and was oppressing them in slavery, gave them permission to return to their homeland and to rebuild the house of their God that had been destroyed by fire there. He communicated this declaration of freedom not only by word of mouth to those who were present there, but dispatched letters as well throughout all the provinces of his kingdom to those who lived further away, publicly acknowledging that he who is the God of Israel is the true Lord and God of heaven and the Creator of all kingdoms. The holy prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah clearly foretold that all these events would thus come to pass. Jeremiah even predicted the number of years in which they would be held captive in Babylonia and when they would be brought back to their homeland, whereas Isaiah, without any of the obscurities of prophetic speech, even revealed the name of King Cyrus, by whom they were to be freed from slavery, brought back to their homeland, and by whose permission they would restore the temple. For Jeremiah says: Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, to all that I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and dwell in them. For thus says the Lord of Hosts, when the seventy years have begun to be fulfilled in Babylon, I will come to you and raise up my voice over you and bring you back to that place.(Иер. 29:4-5, 10) And Isaiah says: This is what the Lord says, your Redeemer and Maker from the womb: ‘I am the Lord, who make all things;’ (Ис. 44:24) and a little farther on: I who say to the deep: ‘Be desolate, and I will dry up your rivers’. I who say to Cyrus: ‘You are my shepherd, and shall perform all my will’. I who say to Jerusalem: ‘You shall be built’; and to the temple: ‘Your foundation shall be laid’. (Ис. 44:27-28) This is what the Lord says to my anointed Cyrus, whose right hand I have taken hold of so that I may subdue nations before him and turn the backs of kings, and I will open doors before him and gates will not be shut: I will go before you and will level the great ones of the earth; I will knock down the gates of bronze and break through bars of iron. I will give you hidden treasures and secrets of secrets, so that you may know that I who call your name am the Lord, the God of Israel. For the sake of Jacob my servant and of Israel my elect, I have summoned you by name and have made you like them, though you have not known me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I have armed you, and you have not known me. (Ис. 45:1-5) From this prophecy of Isaiah it ought to be believed that King Cyrus greatly loved the children of Israel and freed them from captivity and sent them home and commanded them to rebuild the Lord’s temple, because he had heard what their prophets had foretold through the spirit of God concerning Cyrus’ kingdom and the destruction of the Babylonians’ kingdom. For these prophets had specifically described the kind of assault by which Cyrus seized Babylon, of whom Isaiah says: I who say to the deep: Be desolate, and I will dry up your rivers; (Ис. 44:27) but Jeremiah: That very wall of Babylon, very broad though it is, shall be utterly broken down, and her high gates shall be set on fire. (Иер. 51:58) For the accounts tell that the enemy entered Babylon via the dry and abandoned bed of the River Euphrates, which flows through the middle of the city but which had been diverted and emptied into many channels. Let this much be said briefly concerning the historical sense. According to the mystical senses, however, King Cyrus represents the Lord Saviour both in name and deeds. This we have learned not from our own surmise but from Isaiah’s very clear words, in which he said in the person of the Lord: I have made you like him, though you have not known me. (Ис. 45:4) For God made Cyrus like his Son – although Cyrus himself by no means knew the God who did this – firstly because he deigned to call him his anointed,(Ис. 45:1) then because he arranged long before he was born that he should be called Cyrus, which means ‘heir’. Indeed, this word well suits him to whom God the Father says, Ask me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, (Пс. 2:8) and about whom the Apostle says, Whom he has appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the world; (Евр. 1:2) and when he appeared in the flesh, even the enemies who persecuted him said, This is the heir; come and let us kill him; and the inheritance shall be ours. (Мк. 12:7) But also in the fact that God the Father subdued the nations before Cyrus, turned the backs of kings, knocked down gates of bronze and broke through bars of iron, namely those of Babylon or of the other cities that Cyrus seized, and in the fact that he gave him hidden treasures and secrets in secret places, i.e. the unknown riches of various provinces (ср. Ис. 45:1-3) – in all this God made Cyrus a likeness of our Lord and Saviour. For when the apostles were preaching throughout the world, our Lord subdued the necks of all nations to himself and subordinated even the masters of earthly affairs and the authors of secular wisdom to his own authority; he destroyed the gates of hell that he might from there free his elect and lead them to the freedom of the celestial homeland; and he refuted the errors of the pagan peoples and through the mouths of the humble overthrew teachings founded on human reason, so that when these errors had been corrected, he could reveal the light of his faith and truth in which all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. (Кол. 2:3) Our Lord, in his divine nature, possessed these treasures eternally from the Father; but after assuming his human nature he no doubt received them from that time when he became man. Therefore, the Lord made Cyrus like his only-begotten Son, our God and Lord, Jesus Christ, because just as Cyrus freed God’s people when he destroyed the kingdom of the Chaldeans, sent them back to their homeland, ordered that the temple destroyed by fire in Jerusalem be rebuilt, and even took care to publicize this edict in writing in order that Jeremiah’s words might be fulfilled in which he predicted that this would happen, so in the same way the mediator of God and men, (1 Тим. 2:5, ср. Ин. 11:52) having destroyed the devil’s reign over the world, reclaims his elect who have been scattered by the devil’s tyranny and gathers them into his Church, which not only in the present has been justified by faith and has peace with God through Christ, (ср. Рим. 5:1) but also in the future hastens towards the vision of perpetual peace: for Jerusalem means ‘vision of peace’. He also causes the temple that was destroyed by fire to be rebuilt when, leading back to salvation those who have lost their faith through the attacks of the ancient enemy, he makes them worthy of his dwelling. Moreover, he also sent into the whole world holy writings by which he could proclaim the faith of his name and the hope of salvation to all who belong to his kingdom, that is to all the elect. Not only Jeremiah but all the prophets by common consensus foretold that this would happen, in accordance with what he himself said to his disciples: For everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. (Лк. 24:44) Now the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of the Persians so that, when he recognized the power and providence of the God of Israel, he would carry out those things that Scripture relates about him. In the Gospel, the Lord says to the Jews: When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own but speak what the Father has taught me. (Ин. 8:28) But as to what Cyrus himself said in his letter, the Lord, the God of heaven, has given to me all the kingdoms of the earth, he properly confessed that the Lord God of Israel is indeed the God of heaven since he realized that he also holds all the kingdoms of the earth in his power and can give them to whomever he wishes. But it seems to sound less true when he says that all the kingdoms of the world were handed over to him by God, unless we should perhaps understand that at the time in which Cyrus wrote these things, there was no one to contest his rule; or at all events that after he had conquered, destroyed, and brought to an end as mighty and ancient a kingdom as that of the Chaldeans, he believed that no one in the whole world could oppose his rule. Yet this expression truly agrees with the majesty of him who says: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. (Мф. 28:18)

The king’s great faith and great mercy is evident in these words – faith in that he understood that, before other nations, the people of Israel are God’s people; mercy because without exception he allowed all who wished to return to their homeland to do so as free people; faith because he acknowledged that the same Lord God not only dwelt in heaven and was in Jerusalem but also could go up with each of those who were returning from Babylon to Jerusalem. Is it not clearer than light that Cyrus believed this God to be not corporeal and confinable in terms of place but a spirit and present everywhere? He confessed that God was present in Jerusalem and in the temple and yet did not doubt that he ruled simultaneously in the kingdom of heaven. And he believed that he ruled in heaven in such a way that he was nevertheless with his faithful on earth and guided their hearts and hands to the doing of those things which are salutary. Moreover, all the words of this passage are redolent with the spiritual sense. For to whom is it not readily apparent that it is only those whom God is with who can journey from the confusion of sins to works of virtue as though from the slavery of Babylon to freedom in Jerusalem, since we are able to do nothing without him? (Ср. Ин. 15:5) Who would not rightly see that the reason that the word ‘going up’ is used in the same sentence is no doubt that all who sin and are enslaved to the cares of this world are in the lowest place, whereas those who desire to please God must direct their mind to higher matters, sigh after the things of heaven, and through love of the eternal rise above all the pomp and enticements of the world? It is also mentioned that Jerusalem is in Judea (i.e. in ‘confession’), in order that we who have deserved through forgetfulness of God to be held captive by the Chaldeans (which means ‘demons’, i.e. evil spirits) and through the confession of divine mercy to be set free may return to the vision of free peace and light and there build a house to the Lord God of Israel. That is to say, we should prepare our own hearts (which the Lord himself deigns graciously to dwell in and to illuminate with his presence) in the unity of universal peace, in the confession either of our own sin or of his divine mercy and grace, but we must also take care to inflame the hearts of our neighbours to the praise of their Creator and to works of mercy. And so in both these ways we build a house to the Lord when we either exercise ourselves in works of righteousness or call forth those whom we can to the path of righteousness by examples and by words.

Итак, блюда - это плоские чаши, и обозначают они чистоту сердец людей простодушных, не знающих, как таить в себе коварные мысли, но всегда простым языком говорящих о том, что у них на уме. Ножи использовались для разрезания и разделения жертв на правильные количества, так чтобы после подго­товки к жертвоприношению часть была поглощена огнём на алтаре, а часть отдана на пользование прино­сивших жертву священников и левитов. Эти ножи указывают на тех людей в Церкви, которые обла­дают благодатью различения, которые в совершенстве знают, как различить жертву спасения, то есть Христа. Чаши, то есть сосуды для питья, образно выражают тех, кто обычно опьянены горящей внутри них любовью.