Книга пророка Даниила, Глава 3, стих 93. Толкования стиха

TRUST IN GOD. AUGUSTINE: Let faith be yours, and God will be with you in your trouble. There are waves on the sea, and you are tossed about in your cabin, because Christ sleeps. . . . If you allow faith to sleep in your heart, Christ is, you might say, sleeping with you in your ship. Because Christ dwells in you through faith, when you begin to be tossed about, awake Christ from his sleep. Awaken your faith, and you shall be assured he will not desert you. You may think that you are forsaken, because he does not rescue you at the very moment you desire. But did he not deliver the three children from the fire? EXPLANATIONS OF THE PSALMS 91.19.

THE LORD DELIVERS. AUGUSTINE: The flame could not approach or hurt the innocent and righteous children praising God, and he delivered them out of the fire. Some might say, “Truly, those who are righteous are those that are heard,” as it is written, “The righteous cried, and the Lord heard them and delivered them out of their troubles.” But I have cried, and he does not deliver me; either I am not righteous, or I do not do the things that he commands me to do or perhaps he just does not see me. Fear not: do what he commands you, and if he does not deliver you in bodily form, he will deliver you spiritually. . . . He delivered Peter when the angel came to him when he was in prison and said, “Arise, and go forth,” and suddenly his chains were released, and he followed the angel, and he delivered him. Had Peter, then, lost his righteousness when he did not deliver him from the cross? Did he not deliver him then? Even then God delivered him. . . . When God first delivered Peter, how many times did he suffer afterwards? So in the end, God sent him where he could suffer no evil. EXPLANATIONS OF THE PSALMS 34.21.

SERVANTS OF THE MOST HIGH GOD. CHRYSOSTOM: “You servants of the most high God, come forth and come here!” How are they to come forth, O king? Did you not cast them into the fire bound? But because they sang praises to God, they were saved. The fire reverenced their readiness to suffer, and afterwards it reverenced that wonderful song and their hymns of praise. By what title do you then call them? As I noted earlier, “You servants of the most high God.” Yes, to the servants of God all things are possible; for if some, who are the servants of people, have, just so, power and authority . . . much more have the servants of God. He called them by the name most delightful to them; he knew that by this means he flattered them most; for indeed, if it was in order to continue to be servants of God that they entered into the fire, there could be no sound more delightful to them than this. Had he called them kings, had he called them lords of the world, yet he would not have brought them joy as when he called them “servants of the most high God.” HOMILIES ON EPHESIANS 8.

THE FLAMES OF PASSION. SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN: When a person has abandoned the world, it seems to him that he is living in a remote desert, full of wild beasts. He is filled with unutterable fear and indescribable trembling and cries to God like Jonah from the whale, from the sea of this life, or like Daniel from the pit of the lions and the fierce passions or like the three children from the burning furnace and the flames of innate desire. . . . The Lord hears him and delivers him from the abyss of ignorance and the love of this world. . . . He delivers him, as he delivered Daniel, from the pit of desire and evil thoughts that rise up to devour the souls of people. Against the attacks of the fires of passion that consume and destroy the soul, pushing and pulling it into evil acts, he guards it from burning and sprinkles it with the dew of the Holy Spirit as he did with the three Israelites. THE PRACTICAL AND THEOLOGICAL CHAPTERS 1.76.