Плач Иеремии, Глава 4, стих 7. Толкования стиха

GOING TO THE FONT, WHITER THAN MILK. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUS: Take my advice, my friend, and be slow to do evil but swift to your salvation; for readiness to evil and tardiness to good are equally bad. If you are invited to a revel, be not swift to go; if to apostasy, leap away; if a company of evildoers say to you, “Come with us, share our blood guiltiness, let us hide in the earth a righteous person unjustly,” do not lend them even your ears. Thus you will make two very great gains; you will make known to the other his sin, and you will deliver yourself from evil company. But if David the Great says to you, Come and let us rejoice in the Lord, or another prophet, Come and let us ascend into the mountain of the Lord, or our Savior himself, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, or, Arise, let us go hence, shining brightly, glittering above snow, whiter than milk, shining above the sapphire stone, let us not resist or delay. Let us be like Peter and John, and let us hasten, as they did to the sepulcher and the resurrection, so we to the font; running together, racing against each other, striving to be first to obtain this blessing. ON HOLY BAPTISM, ORATION 40.25.

Четвертая песнь – прежнее и настоящее состояние Сиона. Здесь оплакивается окончательное разрушение Иерусалима и еще раз отмечается, что причиной этого были грехи иудеев и их духовных руководителей – лжепророков и нечестивых священников, проливающих невинную кровь праведников. Бедствия Иерусалима превзошли наказания Содома, ибо этот город погиб в одно мгновение, тогда как страдания иудеев мучительно продолжаются. Взору предстоит картина последних дней осады и падения Иерусалима, бегство иудеев и их пленение. Автор осуждает злорадство Едома, которому скоро грозит та же участь.

Иерусалим же автор утешает тем, что суд над ним уже окончился.

FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST PURER THAN SNOW. TERTULLIAN: The Christ of the Creator had to be called a Nazarene according to prophecy; thus the Jews also designate us, on that very account, Nazarenes after him. For we are they of whom it is written, “Its Nazarites were whiter than snow,” even they who were once defiled with the stains of sin and darkened with the clouds of ignorance. But to Christ the title Nazarene was destined to become a suitable one, from the hiding place of his infancy, for which he went down and dwelled at Nazareth, to escape from Archelaus the son of Herod. AGAINST MARCION 4.8.