History of Muscovy. How Muscovy stole the history of Kievan Rus-Ukraine (report by Doctor of Historical Sciences). Creation of the historical mythology of the Russian state

Orthodox Christians know that Christ is the Son of God. He became incarnate from the Heavenly Father, and the Virgin Mary became His Mother.

But few people know how the Savior was born. Doesn't mean environment at the moment of His birth, but the process itself. How did the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary take place? Let's talk about this in the article.

What is conception?

Before we move on to the topic of the virgin birth, let's remember what a normal conception is.

Union of sperm and oocyte. We will not describe further details here, because our main topic is different. Why is the question of “classical” conception raised? To remind readers: the birth of a new life requires the “participation” of two parties: father and mother. Dad has something mom doesn't have. And accordingly, vice versa.

Immaculate Conception

How did the Immaculate Conception occur in the Holy Virgin? Just think about it: Virgo conception. I mean, the Mother of God was a maiden. She didn't know her husband.

Some will say that this is all fiction and this cannot happen. It is difficult to take something for granted, especially in our time, when there is practically no trust and faith left. However, for any Christian, conception by the Mother of God is one of the most important aspects of faith.

There is a wonderful poem by nun Maria (Mernova) on this topic. Here's an excerpt:

In a wonderful way, unnatural for us.

In the most honest, brightest and virgin womb.

He was born - the Divine Son,

Mira Lord. Master of us all.

That is, conception occurred miraculously. The fact that after him Maria remained innocent is enough. How so? How did it all happen?

Nobody will tell us this. The Immaculate Conception is a mystery. Perhaps in the next world everything will open up and become clear. There is a version that the Holy Spirit descended on the Virgin Mary while She was sleeping. Whether this was so is unknown.

Annunciation

The Immaculate Conception is something that is hidden from the human mind. We cannot comprehend this miracle with our minds.

How is the Feast of the Annunciation connected with the conception and birth of the Savior? In the most direct way. Let's remember the history of the holiday.

The Mother of God was sinless from a young age. But, due to her humility, she could not imagine that she would have the honor of giving birth to the Savior.

Mary knew that Jesus Christ would be incarnate from pure virgin blood. And she wanted to be honored to become a servant of the One who would become His Mother.

At that time, Mary was betrothed to Joseph. That one took care of Her virginity. And so, 4 months after the betrothal, the Mother of God read Scripture. When the Archangel Gabriel came to Her with news. That's why the holiday is called Annunciation - good news.

Gabriel told Mary that She was chosen to be the Mother of God. The Savior will incarnate in Her. The Virgin was surprised: after all, She was innocent. And she asked the archangel how this would happen if She did not know her husband.

To which Gabriel replied that the Holy Spirit would descend on Her. And the Virgin Mary obediently accepted the will of God.

Here's another point. God didn’t just go and descend on the girl (the Mother of God was 14 years old). No, He humbly asked Her consent. And only when Mary gave a positive answer, Life was born in Her womb.

The mystery of the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is hidden from us. Until a certain point.

Ever-Virgin

Why is Mary the Ever-Virgin? After all, the birth of a child involves the deprivation of the hymen. More precisely, its final destruction. How did the Savior enter the world?

Here's another wonderful moment. It is known that Jesus Christ emerged from the side of his Most Pure Mother. How so? God is able to pass through obstacles, let's not forget this fact.

That is why the Mother of God is called the Ever-Virgin. She retained her virginity despite the birth of her Son.

Joseph's attitude to what happened

It is known that the husband of the Virgin Mary was many years old. He was very old, and She was very young. And the elder was entrusted with the Mother of God, so that he would preserve Her in purity and innocence.

What was Joseph’s horror when he realized that the Virgin was carrying a child? Fear of being blamed for it. Fear because he did not keep the Maiden pure.

But the elder did not make excuses and did not betray Mary. On the contrary, he told Her that he would let her go secretly, without telling anyone. Then an angel appeared to Joseph, telling him that Mary was not guilty before her husband. Her conception is the will of God, and the Child that the Virgin will give birth to is the Son of God.

The wise old man humbly accepted the will of God and began to care even more deeply for the Virgin Mary. And we know what happened next. Departure for the census and the Nativity of the Savior.

Are there churches dedicated to the conception of the Savior?

There is a Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary in Moscow. This is not a church, this is huge Catholic cathedral in Gothic style.

In general, Catholics have many cathedrals built in honor of the Immaculate Conception all over the world. The largest of them, as mentioned above, is located in Moscow.

Humility of the Mother of God

The virgin birth is something that is incomprehensible to the human mind. And here the complete humility of the Virgin Mary is revealed to us. She surrenders herself to the will of God. She is God's servant. Not in the sense in which the word "slavery" is known today: a person who does not have the right to express his opinion. Not at all, the Mother of God loves God. And he surrenders himself to His will not because of fear and lack of opportunity to object. She does this just out of love.

If appropriate, let's give an example from life. When we love someone very much, it won’t even occur to us to disobey or object. We know that if we are told to do it this way, then this is what we need to do. The one we love does not wish us harm. He knows better how to do it right.

It's the same here. The Mother of God had the firm confidence that God knows best what is good for her. And she agreed to become the Chosen One. Become the Mother of the Savior.

This wonderful color, this Child

She will give birth to the Savior.

From the cruel clutches of hell

The whole world will be freed.

These lines are from a poem by nun Maria (Mernova), dedicated to the holiday of Christmas Holy Mother of God.

Conclusion

Now the reader knows that the virgin birth is a mystery. A mystery unknown to the human mind. It is impossible to understand it, you can only accept it on faith.

We also talked about how the feast of the Annunciation is connected with conception, and why the Mother of God is called the Ever-Virgin.

The birth of Jesus is shrouded in mystery and mystery, overgrown with speculation and myths. Some considered Jesus God from His very first days and believed in His completely unique birth (In Orthodoxy there is even a claim that the Mother of God allegedly gave birth to the baby Jesus in a very unusual way - the fetus came out from the side through the wall of the body in a miraculous way! That is why at Christmas She remained a Virgin .). Others - that He was born in a normal way - from a man and a woman, and only then, during baptism, became God the Son. Still others - that He was born naturally and was essentially a man, although, of course, very charismatic and brilliant.
Of the four evangelists, only John was a participant and eyewitness to the events that took place in Palestine at the end of the first third of the 1st century AD. (if the author of the gospel is really him, and not his disciples), which he narrates personally. But John, in order not to invent or introduce contradictory rumors into his narrative, omits the period of Jesus’ life from birth to about 29 years old and describes His ministry only from the moment of baptism (this event is depicted indirectly - John 1:26-33). It is quite possible that John, as Jesus’ beloved disciple, knew the truth about the birth of his teacher, but he does not focus his attention on this at all due to various possible reasons.

One of them may be the absolute naturalness of the birth of Jesus, without any miracles and external signs, otherwise John would definitely have written about it. Another reason for such a strange silence may be the persistent reluctance of the author of the fourth gospel to focus the attention of future followers of Christ on external manifestations and attributes of His Person. After all, this could significantly harm the perception of the Teaching itself.
Other evangelists describe the events associated with the birth of the Messiah in details and details that differ significantly from each other.

So Matthew (Matthew 2:1 - compare with Matthew 13:54) and Luke (Luke 2:1-16) tell us that the birthplace of Jesus is Bethlehem. And the gospels of Mark and John call Him Jesus of Nazareth (Mark 1:9, 6:1, John 1:45). The desire to move the birth to Bethlehem is quite understandable - King David himself was born in this town, and the expected Messiah must be from the line of David (Mic. 5:2, Matt. 2:5-6, 22:42, Mark 12:35, Luke 1:32, John 7:42). But in this regard, a logical question arises: “Couldn’t the true descendant of David have been born in some other city?” This means that the transfer of the birth of Jesus from Nazareth to Bethlehem was necessary only to artificially emphasize and strengthen the connection between Him and His distant, but very eminent ancestor.
Particular attention in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke is given to the genealogies of Jesus. Matthew traces the genealogy of Jesus to Abraham (Matt. 1:1-16), and Luke traces it back to God himself (Luke 3:23-38). What is significant when considering them is that they contain significant differences. So in Matthew, from Abraham to Jesus, only 42 generations pass, and in Luke, as many as 55. But the main discrepancies are contained in the names of the ancestors. Even Jesus’ paternal grandfather Joseph in Matthew is James (Matthew 1:16), and in Luke it is Elijah (Luke 3:23). If there are such obvious discrepancies in the genealogies at this stage, then can the deeper roots of Jesus be verified? Moreover, more than a thousand years passed from David to the birth of Jesus. During this time, more than thirty generations (!) passed and, in principle, almost every second resident of the country could consider himself the heir of King David, if he could trace his ancestry back a thousand years!

“The inaccuracies and contradictions found in his genealogies make one think that they are the result of the work of popular thought in various places and that none of them was sanctioned by Jesus. He himself, personally, never called himself the son of David. His disciples, like less enlightened people sometimes exaggerated what he said about himself; more often than not, he did not know anything about these exaggerations. Let us add to this that during the first three centuries significant factions of Christianity persistently denied the royal origin of Jesus and the reliability of his genealogies. (E. Renan, "Life of Jesus", chapter 15).

But the discrepancies in the genealogies themselves are not even so significant as the fact that they do not make the slightest sense at all! After all, according to everyone church canons Jesus' mother Mary conceived from the Holy Spirit and His real father was God the Father, not Joseph, Mary's husband!
There can be only one conclusion from all this: even if the genealogies cited by Matthew and Luke were invented (or at least one of them), the authors of the gospels, like their contemporaries, had no doubt about the actual paternity of Joseph from the line of David .
If Jesus is the Messiah expected and predicted by the prophets, then these are the genealogical roots that he should have had. But in this case, the very fact of the virgin birth as such must be excluded forever from Christian dogmas, because it contradicts the theory of heredity to the throne of King David. If Jesus is the Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit, then He cannot be the Messiah, since He does not come from the line of David!
There may, of course, be objections that Jesus is in fact the Son of God, since his genealogy goes back to the Heavenly Father through David, Abraham, Moses and Adam. Yes, this is the absolute truth. It is also true that the most distant ancestor of any person living on earth (if you believe the biblical book of Genesis) is the same first man Adam, created by God on the sixth day of His creation of the Universe. But then it turns out that every person on Earth can with good reason consider himself the son of God and Jesus has no advantage over him in this regard!

In Matthew, the Magi follow a guiding star to the manger of Jesus only after some time (days or weeks, since they needed to get to the place). Herod finds out from them the time of the appearance of the star, “and having sent them to Bethlehem, he said: Go, carefully investigate the Child, and when you find him, inform me, so that I too can go to worship Him” (Matthew 2:8). A logical question arises - why find out what so many people who go to worship the divine child already know about?
“Then Herod, seeing himself ridiculed by the wise men, was very angry, and sent to kill all the infants in Bethlehem and in all its borders, from two years old and under, according to the time that he found out from the wise men” (Matthew 2:16). It turns out that for about two years no one persecuted Jesus and His parents at all. During this time, many people could find out the whereabouts of Jesus. All the more strange is the very fact of the “beating of babies.” Why, one might ask, organize a bloody massacre and incur the wrath of a people who already do not have much love for their ruler (and Herod’s tenure on the throne was very shaky and not entirely legal), if you can arrange everything quietly and without attracting attention? However, the historian Josephus, who, to put it mildly, did not like the tyrant, would certainly not have failed to accuse Herod of monstrous atrocities, but he does not mention this monstrous tragedy at all!
Luke does not say anything about the Magi, but he mentions that the shepherds come to the manger of Jesus on the night of his birth at a very vague sign from the Angel of the Lord: “you will find a Child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in the manger” (Luke 2:12). Despite this, they find the baby just a few hours after birth!

Matthew tells that after the departure of the wise men, the Angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and said: “Get up, take the Child and His Mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod wants to look for the Child in order to destroy Him” (Matthew .2:13). According to the author of the first Gospel, Joseph “was there until the death of Herod” (Matthew 2:15).
And Luke states that Jesus “when the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him before the Lord” (Luke 2:22). Luke does not say a word about such a significant event in the life of the holy family as the flight to Egypt.
Most likely, the theme of the flight to Egypt was introduced by Matthew into his narrative only in order to once again emphasize the messiahship of Jesus. He himself speaks about this when he writes: “That what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, Out of Egypt I called my Son” (Matthew 2:15).
According to E. Renan, the Gospel of Luke is the least reliable and compiled from others (I consider the Gospel of Matthew to be such), includes free interpretations and suffers from many “inaccuracies” from the description of the temple and geographical names to the miracles of Jesus. Luke attributes to Jesus the fulfillment of all Jewish rites and words that are clearly well edited and poeticized (in particular, about Jerusalem - Luke 13:34, 21:8-36).

"It is obvious that the Gospels are partly legendary, since they are full of miracles and the supernatural; but there is legend and legend. No one questions the main facts of the life of Francis of Assisi, although the supernatural is found in his life story at every step. On the contrary, no one gives faith to "life Apollonius of Tyana", since it was written many years after this hero lived, and, moreover, in the form of a real novel. In what era, by whose hands, under what conditions were the Gospels edited? This is the essence main question, on the decision of which depends the opinion about the degree of their reliability" (E. Renan, "Life of Jesus", Introduction). In addition, "the significance of the ideals of Christ, Buddha and Krishna is in no way diminished by any lack of historical data and any lack of evidence of authenticity scriptures. Many of the stories handed down to us may be historically incorrect, but ethically and life-wise they are correct. Whether a given event occurred in the physical life of a given teacher or not does not matter much: the influence of such an ideal character on one’s environment always turns out to be deeply correct. The sacred scriptures represent spiritual facts, regardless of whether the physical events themselves are historically true or not" (A. Besant, "A Study of Consciousness", part 2, chapter 3, paragraph 3).
I will only note that from time immemorial the Jews have been a people persecuted from everywhere. Their barbarities have been the subject of legends for centuries. But Jesus is not only born in the depths of this very people, but also in a city that, apparently, does not enjoy a good reputation even among the Jews themselves. After all, when one of Jesus’ disciples, Philip, finds a certain Nathanael and informs him that their teacher from Nazareth is the Messiah, he receives the answer: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46).

Is it really that important to establish one hundred percent paternity of the Son of Man? Firstly, this is completely impossible to either confirm or refute. This, again, is just a matter of faith. Everyone professes what is closest to him. What will it give if it suddenly turns out that the biological father of Jesus is not the Holy Spirit (although I have absolutely no idea how this could even be), but Mary’s husband Joseph? Will this make the Teachings of Christ worse or less great and important?
So was Mary, the mother of Jesus and wife of Joseph of Nazareth, a virgin? Can this statement be considered a fact?
A fact is something that can be verified with documentation, as evidenced by eyewitnesses and contemporaries of the event. Truth is a category of a completely different level of consciousness. Truth not only does not require proof, it cannot be proven in principle. This is an axiom that is not even taken on faith. It is accepted without any reservations or conditions. Truth is the very foundation of foundations.
Each fact can bring us as close as we like to the knowledge of the truth, but even the entire set of facts can never become the truth. Truth for facts is practically unattainable.

It turns out that an absolute skeptic can never know absolute truth- he will always lack evidence!
Only by relying on something higher - the ability to understand people, intuition, divine revelation, trust, faith and love, i.e. everything that by its nature cannot have documentary confirmation, a person has the opportunity to know the Truth.
"Jesus was born of a virgin - but this is not a real fact. Of course, this is the truth: he was born of an extraordinarily innocent mother. He was born of a mother whose love was all-consuming - and love is virgin, love is always virgin" (Osho, "Philosophy of Perennis").
The assertion that Mary conceived from the Holy Spirit, and not from God the Father (Matthew 1:18) is, moreover, one of the weak points where critics of Christianity hit. Well, of course - God the Son was born of the Holy Spirit, and not God the Father!
There is a clear contradiction, if we proceed from the role of each hypostasis of the Trinity. But this contradiction disappears when we come to the conclusion that Jesus received his physical body from his earthly parents - his father (no matter who he really was) and mother, and his soul and spirit - from God the Father (one of whose qualities is the Holy Spirit).
Remember that the spirit, according to the Bible, is something (or someone) whose property is knowledge: “For which of men knows the things that are in a man, except the spirit of man that dwells in him? So no one knows the things of God, except the Spirit of God.” (1 Cor. 2:11). “The Spirit of God” - in one of its meanings - is the very knowledge of God, great and unlimited by human consciousness.

Many, when reading the Bible, were probably struck by the fact that His contemporaries did not believe in the great mission of Jesus - those people with whom He communicated directly, those who were personally present at His sermons and before whom He performed great miracles.
The Apostle John, the youngest and most beloved disciple of Jesus Christ, mentions one interesting detail in his gospel: “The feast of the Jews—the setting up of tabernacles—was approaching. Then His brothers said to Him: Get out of here and go to Judea, so that Your disciples may see the works that You are doing. . For no one does anything in secret, and seeks to be known. If You do such things, show Yourself to the world. For His brothers did not believe in Him" ​​(John 7:2-5).
Even his own brothers, who knew Him from birth, did not believe in Jesus! In addition, they even once considered Him crazy when they heard what He was saying: “And when His neighbors heard Him, they went to take Him, for they said that He had lost his temper” (Mark 3:21).
Even though the people knew Jesus very little and did not believe in His divinity and extraordinary power. But the closest relatives should have known about the great mission of Jesus! Great miracles like the virgin birth, the appearance of angels, the worship of the baby Jesus by tens and hundreds of people: His birth mother Mary was present during the miracle of turning water into wine (John 2:1-11). And then there were more miracles, many miracles... They could not help but know about His power over matter and life on earth. After all, according to the authors of the gospels, this is all that happened! How can they doubt His extreme uniqueness and divinity? How could Joseph and Mary be surprised by what was said by Simeon the God-receiver, who recognized the promised Messiah in the baby Jesus (Luke 2:25-35)?
Or maybe everything was a little different? Perhaps His childhood passed in a completely normal way, unremarkably and calmly, like that of many thousands of other poor Galilean children.

After all, Jesus is even buried by complete strangers - a certain Joseph from Arimathea. One of His many unknown disciples, “coming to Pilate, asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered the body to be given up; and, taking the body, Joseph wrapped it in a clean shroud and laid it in his new tomb, which he carved into the rock; and, rolling a large the stone to the door of the tomb was removed" (Matthew 27:58-60).
His relatives could have taken the body of the executed Jesus without fear of anyone, but they did not!
Doesn't this mean that all this euphoria around the earthly life of Jesus Christ and His preaching activity was invented much later - when the gospels were written, but in reality everything was more modest and inconspicuous?

After all, even St. Augustine himself, perfectly aware of the situation around the New Testament writings, once exclaimed: “I too would not believe the gospels if the authority of the church did not command me!”
Celsus, in his polemical treatise “The Truthful Word,” published in 178, wrote: “As for the mother of Jesus, Mary, she never realized that she had given birth to an unearthly being, the son of God. On the contrary, Christians forgot to erase from the gospels the phrase that that Mary considered Jesus a madman and, together with other members of the family, tried to captivate him and isolate him from those around him: It is necessary, throwing away all the bonds of syllogisms, to completely trust intuition as the only path remaining to us.”
It should be remembered that only since 431, when the Council of Ephesus took place, the mother of Jesus Mary began to be called nothing less than the Mother of God (Greek: Theotokos).

“In the New Testament, Mary in no way stands above the level of an ordinary person. As Christology develops, ideas about Mary acquire a prominent and extremely increased significance. The more the figure of the historical, human Jesus recedes in favor of the pre-existent God the Son, the more Mary is deified. Although According to the New Testament, Mary continued to give birth to children in her marriage to Joseph; Epiphanius disputes this point of view as heretical and frivolous. During the Nestorian controversy, it was finally decided in 431 against Nestorius that Mary was not only the mother of Christ. but also the mother of God, and at the end of the fourth century the cult of Mary arose and prayers were addressed to her. Around the same time, sculptural images of Mary also began to play a large and increasingly important role. In subsequent centuries, everything. higher value was given to the mother of God and her veneration became more magnificent and more general. Altars were built to worship her, and her images were exhibited everywhere. She went from being a recipient of grace to being a giver of grace. Mary with the baby Jesus became a symbol of the Catholic Middle Ages" (E. Fromm, "Dogma of Christ").
Many such obvious and unambiguous contradictions and dubious facts, which are replete with the life of Jesus, cast a shadow on the personality of Christ Himself. If the official church itself tried to figure out properly what is truth and what is fiction in the story of Jesus and left only what is an indisputable fact, then any speculation and malicious attacks by opponents of the greatest Teaching that passed tests for centuries!
"There is internal evidence in the New Testament that some parts of it come from an eminent man, and other parts are the work of very mediocre minds. These parts are as easy to pick out as diamonds in the mud" (Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams, 1814). ).

The Apostle Paul, who did not personally know Jesus Christ, but accepted the very spirit of His teaching, says this about the Teacher: “born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and revealed to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, through the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:3 -4).
It is characteristic that only Matthew (Matthew 1:18) and Luke (Luke 1:26-38) talk about the unusual conception. The evangelists Mark and John, as well as another apostle, Paul, who wrote somewhere between 48 and 64 AD, do not mention this at all. It’s strange, isn’t it, considering that the case of the Immaculate Conception is more than unique?
Nevertheless, despite all the sometimes too violent criticism of the “immaculate conception,” I will assert absolutely sincerely that it undoubtedly took place. But in a completely different sense.
“Immaculate” means “without sin,” and “immaculate conception” means “conception without sin.” But “what God has made clean, you do not call unclean” (Acts 10:15). And God is Love! This means that everyone conceived in a marriage sanctified by Love is not the fruit of sin. And the Orthodox Church reveres Mother Mary as “the most honorable of the Cherubim and the most glorious of the Seraphim,” i.e. free from all vices. Jesus was conceived in Love and therefore this conception was sanctified by God Himself and cannot bear the mark of vice!

“The Royal Virgin, clothed with true glory and dignity, does not yet need any false glory.”
Bernard Clervoskin. Ad canonicos Lugdunenses, de conceptione s. Mariae.

Some people, deceived by similarity of words or false association of ideas, confuse the doctrine of the Roman Church regarding the virgin birth of Mary with the dogma of the virgin birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. The first of these teachings, being an innovation of Roman Catholicism, refers to the birth of the Blessed Virgin Herself, while the second, the common treasure Christian faith, concerns the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, “for us, man and our salvation, who came down from heaven and became incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became human.”

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception has its origins in the special veneration that some spiritual circles in the separated West began to pay to the Blessed Virgin from the end of the 13th century. It was proclaimed “revealed truth” on December 8, 1854 by Pope Pius IX motu proprio (without convening a Council). This new dogma was adopted with the intention of glorifying the Blessed Virgin, who, as the instrument of the incarnation of our Lord, becomes Participant in our redemption. According to this teaching, She allegedly enjoys the special privilege of being immune from original sin from the moment of Her conception by Her parents Joachim and Anna. This special grace, which made Her, so to speak, as if redeemed before the feat of redemption, was allegedly granted to Her in anticipation of the future merit of Her Son. In order to be incarnate and become “perfect man,” the Divine Word needed a perfect nature, uncontaminated by sin; It was necessary, therefore, that the vessel from which He perceived His humanity should be clean from all filth, cleansed in advance. From here, according to Roman theologians, follows the need to grant the Blessed Virgin, although conceived naturally, like every human creature, a special privilege, placing Her outside the offspring of Adam and freeing Her from the original guilt common to the entire human race. In fact, according to the new Roman dogma, the Blessed Virgin allegedly joined from her mother’s womb to the state of the first man before the Fall.

The Orthodox Church, which has always given Mother of God special veneration, exalting Her above the heavenly spirits - “the most honest cherub and the most glorious seraphim without comparison” - was never allowed, at least in the meaning that the Roman Church - dogma about the Immaculate Conception. The definition “a privilege granted to the Blessed Virgin in view of the future merit of Her Son” is contrary to the spirit of Orthodox Christianity; it cannot accept this extreme jurisprudence, which erases the real character of the feat of our redemption and sees in it only the abstract merit of Christ, imputed to the human person before the suffering and resurrection of Christ, even before His incarnation, and this is by God’s special will. If the Most Holy Virgin could enjoy the consequences of redemption before the redemptive feat of Christ, then it is not clear why this privilege could not be extended to other people, for example, to the entire race of Christ, to all those descendants of Adam who contributed from generation to generation to the preparation of human nature so that she would then be received by the Word in the womb of Mary. Indeed, this would be logical and would correspond to our idea of ​​the goodness of God, but the absurdity of such an assumption is completely obvious: humanity uses a kind of “judicial ruling on the absence of corpus delicti,” despite its fall, is saved in advance and still awaits its feat salvation from Christ. What seems absurd in relation to all humanity who lived before Christ is no less absurd when we're talking about about one person. This nonsense becomes even more obvious in this case: in order for the feat of redemption to be accomplished for all of humanity, it was necessary that it first be accomplished for one of its members. In other words, for redemption to take place, it had to already exist, for someone to benefit from its fruits in advance.

Of course, it may be objected that this is legal when we are talking about such an exceptional creature as the Blessed Virgin, who was destined to serve as an instrument for the incarnation and thereby for redemption. To some extent this is correct: the Virgin, who immaculately gave birth to the Word, the true God and true Man, was no ordinary creature. But can She be completely separated, from the moment of Her conception by Joachim and Anna, from the rest of Adam's offspring? By isolating Her in this way, do we not run the risk of devaluing the entire history of mankind before Christ, of destroying the very meaning of the Old Testament, which was the messianic expectation of the gradual preparation of mankind for the incarnation of the Word? Indeed, if the incarnation was due only to the privilege granted to the Blessed Virgin “in view of the future merit of Her Son,” then the coming of the Messiah into the world could have taken place at any other moment in human history; at any moment, God, by special will, depending only on His Divine will, could create an immaculate instrument of His incarnation, regardless of human freedom in the destinies of the fallen world. However, the history of the Old Testament teaches us something else: the voluntary sacrifice of Abraham, the suffering of Job, the exploits of the prophets, and finally, the entire history of the chosen people with its ups and downs are not only a collection of types of Christ, but also a constant test of human freedom, responding to the Divine call, providing God in this slow and difficult progress the human conditions necessary to fulfill His promise.

The entire biblical history is thus revealed as the preparation of mankind for the incarnation, for that “fullness of times” when the angel was sent to greet Mary and receive from Her lips the consent of mankind for the Word to become flesh: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be according to Me.” to your verb."

Byzantine theologian of the 14th century. Nicholas Kavasila, in his teaching on the Annunciation, says: “The Annunciation was not only a feat of the Father, His Power and His Spirit, but also a feat of the will and faith of the Blessed Virgin. Without the consent of the Immaculate One, without the participation of Her faith, this intention would have been as unrealizable as without the intervention of the three Divine Persons themselves. Only after God has taught and convinced Her, He takes Her as His Mother and borrows from Her the flesh that She wishes to provide to Him, in the same way that He voluntarily incarnated, He wanted. and His Mother freely and according to Her full desire gave birth to Him."

If the Blessed Virgin were isolated from the rest of humanity by the privilege of God, who granted Her in advance the state of man before the Fall, then Her free consent to the Divine will, Her response to the Archangel Gabriel would have lost their historical connection with other acts that contributed over the centuries to the preparation of humanity for the coming Messiah; then the continuity of the holiness of the Old Testament, accumulated from generation to generation, would be broken, to be finally completed in the person of Mary, the Most Pure Virgin, whose humble obedience had to cross the last threshold, which on the human side made possible the feat of our salvation. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, as formulated by the Roman Church, breaks that holy continuity of the “righteous forefathers of God”, which finds its final limit in “Ecce ancil-la Domini”. The history of Israel loses its own meaning, human freedom is deprived of all its significance, and the very coming of Christ, which supposedly occurred by virtue of the spontaneous decision of God, takes on the character of the appearance of a "deus ex machina" bursting into human history. Such are the fruits of an artificial and abstract teaching, which, wishing to glorify the Blessed Virgin, deprives Her of an internal deep connection with humanity and, granting Her the privilege of being free from original sin from the moment of Her conception, strangely reduces the significance of Her obedience to the Divine Annunciation on the day of the Annunciation.

The Orthodox Church rejects the Roman Catholic interpretation of the virgin birth. However, she glorifies the Blessed Virgin, magnifying Her “Most Immaculate,” “Undefiled,” “Most Pure.” Saint Ephraim of Syria (IV century) even says: “You, Lord, like Your Mother, are the only holy ones, for You are besides vice and Your Mother besides sin.” But how is this possible outside the legal framework (privilege of exception) of the dogma of the immaculate conception?

First of all, we need to make a distinction between original sin as a guilt before God, common to all humanity, starting with Adam, and the same sin, the power of evil, manifested in the nature of fallen humanity; in the same way, a distinction must be made between the nature common to all humanity and the person inherent in each person individually. Personally, the Blessed Virgin was alien to any vice, any sin, but by Her nature She bore, together with all the descendants of Adam, responsibility for original sin. This suggests that sin, as a force of evil, did not manifest itself in the nature of the chosen Virgin, which was gradually purified over the generations of Her righteous forefathers and protected by grace from the moment of Her conception.

The Most Holy Virgin was protected from all defilement, but She was not exempt from responsibility for the guilt of Adam, which could only be abolished in fallen humanity by the Divine Person of the Word.

The Holy Scripture gives us other examples of Divine help and sanctification from the womb: David, Jeremiah, and finally, John the Baptist (Luke 1:41). In this sense, the Orthodox Church has been celebrating since ancient times the day of the conception of the Blessed Virgin (December 9, Art.), just as it also celebrates the conception of St. John the Baptist (September 23). It should be noted in this regard that Roman dogma establishes, with regard to the conception of the Blessed Virgin by Joachim and Anna, a distinction between “active conception” and “passive conception”: the first of these is a natural, carnal act, the act of the parents who conceive, and the second is only a consequence of the marital union; the character of the "immaculate conception" refers only to the passive aspect of the conception of the Blessed Virgin.

The Orthodox Church, alien to this aversion to what pertains to the carnal nature, does not know the artificial distinction between “active conception” and “passive conception.” Glorifying the conception of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin and St. John the Baptist, she testifies to the miraculous nature of these births, she honors the chaste union of the parents, at the same time as the holiness of their fruits. For the Blessed Virgin, as for John the Baptist, this holiness does not consist in some abstract privilege of innocence, but in real change human nature, gradually purified and exalted by grace in previous generations. This constant elevation of our nature, destined to become the nature of the incarnate Son of God, continues in the life of Mary; On the feast of the Entry into the Temple of the Most Holy Theotokos (November 21), Tradition testifies to this continuous sanctification of Her, this protection of Her by Divine grace from all defilement of sin. The consecration of the Blessed Virgin ends at the moment of the Annunciation, when the Holy Spirit made Her capable of the immaculate conception in the full meaning of the word - the virgin conception of the Son of God, who became the Son of man.

Written more than twelve years ago, this little explanation of the Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception should have been completely redone and greatly developed. Hoping to ever accomplish this, we will be content for now, so as not to delay its publication, by adding to the text of this brief overview two remarks that should clear up some misunderstandings.

1) Some Orthodox Christians, driven by a very understandable feeling of zeal for the Truth, consider themselves obliged to deny the authenticity of the appearance of the Mother of God to Bernadette and refuse to recognize the manifestations of grace in Lourdes under the pretext that these spiritual phenomena serve to confirm the Mariological dogma, alien to Christian Tradition. We believe that their attitude towards this is not justified, for it occurs due to the insufficiency of the distinction between the fact of a religious order and its doctrinal use by the Roman Church. Before passing a negative judgment on the appearance of the Mother of God in Lourdes, at the risk of committing a sin against the infinite grace of the Holy Spirit, it would be more careful and more correct to consider with spiritual sobriety and religious attention the words heard by young Bernadette, as well as the circumstances in which these words were addressed to her. During the entire period of Her fifteen appearances in Lourdes, the Blessed Virgin spoke only once, calling Herself. She said, "I am the Immaculate Conception." However, these words were spoken on March 25, 1858, on the Feast of the Annunciation. Their direct meaning remains clear to those who are not obliged to interpret them contrary to sound theology and rules of grammar: the immaculate conception of the Son of God is the highest glory of the Immaculate Virgin.

2) Roman Catholic authors often insist on the fact that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin was accepted explicitly or implicitly by many Orthodox theologians, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. Impressive lists Theological textbooks compiled in that era, mostly in the south of Russia, do testify to the extent to which theological teaching at the Kyiv Academy and in other schools in Ukraine, Galicia, Lithuania and Belarus was permeated with themes inherent in the doctrine and piety of the Roman Church. Although the Orthodox people of these border regions heroically defended their faith, they inevitably experienced the influence of their Roman Catholic opponents, for they belonged to the same world of Baroque culture, with its special forms of piety.

It is known that the “Latinized” theology of Ukrainians caused a dogmatic scandal in Moscow at the end of the 17th century. about epiclesis. The theme of the Immaculate Conception was all the more easily accepted because it found expression in piety rather than in any specific theological teaching. It is in this form of piety that one can find some traces of Roman Mariology in the writings of St. Demetrius of Rostov, the Russian saint Ukrainian origin and education. This is only one significant name among the theological "authorities" who are usually cited in order to show that the dogma of the virgin birth of Mary is acceptable to the Orthodox. We will not, in turn, compile a list (somewhat more significant!) of theologians of the Roman Church, whose Mariological thought resolutely opposes the teaching that was turned into a dogma a century ago. It will be enough to cite one name - the name of Thomas Aquinas, in order to establish that the dogma of 1854 goes against everything that is most healthy in the theological tradition of the separated West. To do this, you need to read passages from the interpretation of the “Sentences” (I, III, d. 3, q. 1. art. 1 et 2; q. 4, art. 1) and from the “Summa Theology” (III a, q. 27), as well as from other scriptures where the angelic teacher treats the question of the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin: there one can find an example of sober and accurate theological judgment, clear thought, able to use the texts of the Western Fathers ( St. Augustine) and eastern (St. John of Damascus) to show the true glory of the Blessed Virgin, Mother of our God. For a hundred years now, these Mariological pages of Thomas Aquinas have been under a forbidden seal for Roman Catholic theologians, obliged to follow the “general line,” but they will not cease to serve as evidence of the common Tradition for those Orthodox who know how to appreciate the theological treasure of their estranged brothers.

Notes
* From "Bulletin of the Russian Western European Patriarchal Exarchate", No. 20, 1954, p. 246-251. Translation from French V. A. Reshchikova published in "Theological Works", collection. 14, pp. 121-125|.
1. Editions Jugie. Patrologia orientalis, XIX, 2.
2. "Behold the servant of the Lord."
3. “I was established in you from the womb, from my mother’s womb, You are my Protector...” (Ps. 70:6).
4. “First I created you in the womb, I knew you, and before I brought you out of the womb that sanctified you...” (Jer. 1:5).

Having studied the American official NASA Full Moon Tables for the period from -100 to 100 AD, in which the astronomical “year zero” falls on the 1st year BC, and compared with the “careful research” carried out by the Evangelist Luke (Gospel of Luke 1:3 ) the circumstances of the birth of Jesus Christ and based on my recent notes and the note “Two Nativity of Christ” written a year ago, I can give a fairly substantiated answer - Jesus was conceived on the night of March 21-22 -12, that is, on the day when the vernal equinox coincided with the first spring full moon, corresponding to the holy day of the Jewish calendar, 14 Nissan (the first spring month) - the eve of the Jewish Passover and the day of ovulation according to the lunar-menstrual cycle. And he was born on time - on the days of the winter solstice on the night of December 22-23 -12. The circumcision of the baby Jesus took place on the eighth day after His Nativity, that is, on the transition to January 1 -11. “After eight days, When the child was to be circumcised, they gave him the name Jesus, who was called by the angel before he was conceived in the womb” (Luke 2:21). This is the origin of the New Year holiday - January 1 according to the Julian calendar!

Since from the “twinship” of John the Baptist (Forerunner) and Jesus Christ, established in previous notes, it follows that their conceptions and births should be coupled with the annual cycle of solstices and equinoxes (John was conceived on the full moon of the autumn equinox, and Jesus - on the following spring equinox), it is necessary It was possible to select the most suitable matching pairs using the NASA Full Moon Tables. What is beyond competition here is the conjugacy of the autumnal equinox in -13, falling at 22:03 on September 25, and the spring equinox in -12, falling at 04:41 on March 22. These dates fit into the interval of ovulation-conception days; all other annual “twin” ligaments over 100 years are clearly not suitable.

Accordingly, following Luke, the “second” or spiritual conception of the Child Jesus took place in Jerusalem 12 years later on the days of the Jewish Passover (precisely “days of festival” - Luke 2:43), and in -1 year of the festival of 14-15 Nissan, according to those The same NASA Tables were centered around the full moon on March 20, overlapping the vernal equinox on March 21-22. Then, by analogy with the bodily cycle, the spiritual Nativity of Christ, which, by the way, was foreseen by Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky in the book “Jesus the Unknown” (Moscow: Republic, 1996) - “At that moment when He united with Her in the kiss of heavenly love / with Spirit, Sophia, Bride, Sister, Mother/, and was born in Jesus Christ” (p. 101) - happened during the winter solstice -1, which is now celebrated as Christmas. Then followed year 0 - the first year of our chronology.

For comparison, I will give a printout from the NASA Full Moon Table - on the left is the year, on the right is the day of the March full moon (repetition cycle lunar phases or Metonic cycle – 19 years; at that time, the day of the vernal equinox according to the Julian calendar is March 22):

18 28
-17 17
-16 6
-15 25
-14 14
-13 4
-12 22
-11 11
-10 29
-09 19
-08 7
-07 26
-06 16
-05 5
-04 23
-03 13
-02 2, 31
-01 20
0 8
01 27
02 17
03 7
04 25
05 14
06 3
07 22
08 10
09 29
10 18
11 8
12 26
13 16
14 5
15 24
16 12
17 1, 31
18 20
19 9
20 27
21 17
22 7
23 25
24 14
25 3
26 21
27 11
28 29
29 18
30 8
31 27
32 15
33 4
34 23
35 12
36 1, 30
37 20
38 9
39 28
40 17
41 6
42 25
43 14
44 2

When about forty years ago I entered into correspondence with Vitebsk resident Immanuel Velikovsky, who then lived in Princeton (USA), he sensed a kindred spirit - a fisherman sees a fisherman from afar - and sent me a parcel post to Moscow with his very impressive books, which made me want to “ scientific-naturalistic" exegesis of the Holy Scriptures - to comprehend not only their existential-theological meaning, but also to discern their physical and cosmic background. Under the influence of Immanuel Shimonovich, he wrote and even published articles on the connection of ancient theogonic myths with the data of relativistic astrophysics and cosmogony. Now we need to unravel the “code” of the Program (Word) for the deployment-bootstrapping of the existence of existence or the history of creatures and man-microcosm and all humanity, first of all Sacred History, armed with the basics of programming and computer science in general. Undoubtedly, the Program is super-economical and does not allow unnecessary entities and therefore unfolds and bootstraps in “circles” or a screw-vortex of a spiral, being reproduced and reflected in constant “rhymes” and “repetitions” and in “twins”, including the twin conjugation of John the Baptist ( Forerunners) and Jesus Christ. The annual cycle Spring Equinox (conception of Jesus) - Summer Solstice (birth of John) - Autumn Equinox (conception of John) - Winter Solstice (Nativity of Jesus Christ) is hard-coded and underlies the intuitions of human myths and insights. The rhyme-synchronization with the rest of existence, so persistently emphasized in the Holy Scriptures, is implied by itself. Archangel Gabriel (Jabrail in the Holy Quran) bootstraps existence and acts as a system administrator (sysadmin). In particular, and this is very important for further understanding, he, as if “from above” (from the Program), communicates and wills the names of both John (“and you shall call his name John” - Luke 1:13) and Jesus (“and behold , you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a Son, and you will call His name Jesus” - Luke 1:31). By the way, on January 16, 2008, at a meeting of the Russian Historical Society, we discussed this point with a friend, philologist Vladimir Pavlov, and he put forward a number of interesting ideas by deciphering the meanings of these holy names and by the rhyming of their twinness, in particular, through the graphics of their writing (in the sense of the grammatology-ecritology of Jacques Derrida). Let us take into account that the Program of God is higher than the words of man, and therefore the texts themselves imprinted through existence Holy Scripture and even more so their translations into modern languages obviously contain errors. Therefore, scientific data about the associated rhythms-rhymes-repetitions of the cosmos and microcosm are more accurate than the myths-legends and their reflections on perishable media.

'12? (We will use astronomical chronology, although when recalculating the dates of Roman history, some minor clarifications are possible when the astronomical calendar is coordinated with the Julian calendar). How does this date fit with other gospel and contemporary evidence about the time of the conception and birth of Jesus Christ?

The Gospel of Luke says – “2:1. In those days, Caesar Augustus issued an order to take a census of the entire earth. 2:2. This census was the first during the reign of Quirinius Syria.”

It is known that Augustus Octavian (-63 – 14, ruled alone from -27) carried out three censuses - “And in the sixth consulate with his colleague M<арком>Agrippa, I carried out an assessment of the people's property. After the forty-second year I carried out the census. During this census, four million sixty-three thousand heads of Roman citizens were counted. [Then] a second time, using consular power, I carried out the census alone, when the consuls were G<ай>Censorin and G<ай>Asiny. During this census, four million two hundred and thirty-three thousand heads of Roman citizens were counted. And for the third time, using consular power, I carried out a census with my colleague Tib<ерием>and Caesar, my son, when Sextus Pompey and Sextus Appuleius were consuls. During this census, the heads of Roman [citizens] were counted four million nine [nine] hundred thirty-seven thousand” (Acts of the Divine Augustus; Ancyra / Ankara / inscription).

The first census “after the forty-second year” (from the birth of Augustus Octavian?) - apparently in -21, for the previously named Mark Agrippa was consul along with Augustus Octavian in -27. The second census, judging by the Roman tables consuls, - in 8. Third census - 14.

The mentioned three censuses of Augustus Octavian concerned Roman citizens, but more than once censuses (qualifications) were also carried out in satellite protectorate states to calculate taxes. One of them was the Jewish kingdom of Herod the Great (-40 - -4), and in it the conceptions and births of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ took place.

At the height of the reign of Augustus, the empire was streamlined and inventoried, and, in the words of the priest Georgy Petrovich Chistyakov, “The three censuses that Octavian carried out were a kind of summing up of his reign for more than a quarter of a century. Looking through the census materials, he could take in at one glance the lands and tribes under his control.” Tacitus notes that under Augustus information was collected “about the state treasury, about the number of citizens and allies in military service, about the number of ships, about kingdoms, provinces, direct and indirect taxes” (Tacitus. Annals, I, II; cf. Suetonius. Augustus, 101).

There is a lot of debate among biblical scholars about the translation of the second phrase “avte apografë prote egeneto egemoneyontos tes Sirias Kyreniou.” I believe that my translation “This census was /during/ the first reign of Quirinius in Syria” does not contradict the norms of the Greek language instead of the synodal translation “This census was the first during the reign of Quirinius in Syria.” Professor of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University and teacher of my daughter Olga and one of the luminaries of our Russian Historical Society Oleg Mikhailovich Rapov (1939-2002) - he also dates the birth of Jesus Christ to -12! – notes in the work When was Jesus Christ born and crucified? (Historical and Astronomical Research. Issue XXIV. - Moscow: Nauka, 1992) that Publius Sulpicius Quirinius resigned his consular powers by July -12 and, according to a fragment of a Roman text discovered in Antioch, was in Syria on behalf of Emperor Augustus during the period when Lucius Volusius Saturninus was the suffix of Rome, that is, from -12 to -11. And in 10-7 years. BC. he, having placed his headquarters in Syria, led military operation against the Homonadenses - a tribe that lived in the Taurus Mountains in Asia Minor (Keller V. The Bible as History. Moscow: Kron-Press, 1998, p. 384).

Even earlier, Alexander Ivanovich Reznikov allowed the combination of the Christmas version of Luke with the historical background of the autumn of 12 BC. e. (Reznikov A.I. Halley’s Comet: Demystification of the Christmas legend? // Historical and astronomical studies. Issue XVIII. - Moscow: Nauka, 1986, p. 75):

“We assume that Quirinius Sulpicius, who was consul in Rome until July 12 BC. e. , could have arrived in Syria as early as August to prepare legions for war with the Gomonads in Cilicia, a region adjacent to Syria. As Tacitus (55 - 120) writes, Quirinius soon (the Latin adverb “mox” in Tacitus can be translated as “soon, immediately after”) after the end of his consulate, he won a victory over the gonads [Tacitus. Annals: III, 48]. Questions regarding the dating of Quirinius’s expedition against the Gomonads, as well as the possibility of his ruling Syria until 6 AD. e., have been discussed many times. The possible time frame for this expedition extends from 12 to 3 years. BC e. Note that in the list of rulers of Syria there is a gap that dates back to 12-11. BC e. Perhaps it was at this time that Quirinius ruled Syria for the first time?

The census of Quirinius by order of Emperor Augustus in -12 is also allowed by foreign historians (Gorbishley T. Quirinius and the Census: A Re-study of the Evidence // Klio. Beiträge zur alten Geschichte. - Leipzig, 1936, Band 29, S. 81-93). The authoritative opinion of the outstanding Soviet antique scholar Nikolai Aleksandrovich Mashkin, expressed in the classic and Stalin Prize-winning study “Principate of Augustus: Origin and Social Essence” (Moscow - Leningrad: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1949. - 606 pp.), about Quirinius’ tenure as ruler Asia Minor in 10-7. BC. and about his management of Syria in 7-6. BC. and of his ability to control the census held by Herod (p. 545). According to Tertullian, who is well acquainted with the Roman archives, the legate of Syria at the first census was Gaius Sentius Saturninus (Tertullian. Against Marcion, IV, 19), but the census itself was carried out by an official of a lower rank, Quirinus. Some scholars suggest reading Luke 2:2 as follows: “This census took place before the reign of Quirinius in Syria.” Review of versions - Archpriest Pavel Ivanovich Alfeev. Census of Quirinius. Ryazan, 1915, pp. 26 ff. J. McKinley believes that Quirinius ruled in Syria for the first time in 8-5. BC, and dates the Nativity of Christ to the autumn of 8 BC. (Mackinlay G. The Magi: How they recognized Christ's star. - London, 1907, p. 166). More or less full material about the prefect of Syria Quirinius and scientific analysis its relationship with the message of the Gospel of Luke is contained in the book famous historian Edwar Shurer (E. Shurer. The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ. New edition. Volume I. - Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1979, pp. 339-427.), and the theological version of the same clearance problems possible error Luke the Evangelist is presented in the book of J. H. Marshall. The Gospel of Luke: New International Greek Testament. Commentary. - Grand Rapids: Eardmans, 1978, pp. 99-104. The original exegete van Bebber believes that Quirinius first reigned in Syria from the autumn of 742 from the founding of Rome (= -12) to the summer of 744 - therefore, Jesus Christ was born in -12/-11 or -11 /-10, since Quirinius could no longer rule in Syria. In addition, the same author argues that the second census of Augustus, indicated in the Ancyra inscription, was started by Quirinius in the east of the empire in 743 or 742 from the founding of Rome (at the turn of -12 and -11, that is in December-January (Bebber J. van. Zur Chronologie des Lebens Jesu: eine exegetische Studie. - Munster i. W., 1898, S. 110-113, 117-120).

The outstanding Russian theologian and historian Nikolai Nikandrovich Glubokovsky (1863-1937) also admits that Quirinius, after his consulate in -13 - -12. could have become hegemon in Syria during the time of Herod the Great, and notes that the new legate did not always appear in his province immediately and did not remain there all the time. Of course, the province was not left without government supervision, and it was carried out by special deputy legates. In this case, under the legate Quirinius there could be an adjutor in the person of Saturninus, who ruled in 9-6. (746-748 a. U.C.), which is consistent with the mention of Saturninus by Tertullian (Glubokovsky N.N. About the Quirinian census in its connection with the Nativity of Christ. - Kyiv, 1913, p. 31).

Apparently, Augustus Octavian had some problems with Herod the Great, which caused both the first census of Quirinius in -12 and Herod’s summons to Rome (more on that below). If Quirinius arrived in Syria by September -12, then by the winter solstice (the birthday of Jesus) he could organizationally prepare Palestine for a census in an area of ​​less than 26 thousand square meters. km, the population of which at that time ranged from 700 thousand to 2 million people, including women and children not subject to census (The Jewish People in the First Century. Volume I. - Amsterdam, 1974, p. 109; Wright G. E. Biblical Archaeology, p. .239).

It must be said that censuses in the provinces were carried out close to local rules. “And they all went to be registered, every one to his own city” (Luke 2:3). “Herod might not have decided to carry out a census according to the Roman model, fearing unrest,” said priest Georgy Chistyakov. - People have always met such measures with hostility, since they entailed new taxes. It was easier for the king to follow orders, even if less convenient, but to which they were accustomed in the East and which caused less discontent. Sometimes for the census they resorted to counting the remains of Easter sacrifices. They could also conduct it by checking genealogical books, for which they called people to the cities where they were kept.” In short, the person being copied had to arrive at the place of “registration” or “registration”, where his “house register” was kept, as it were.

Contemporary Russian biblical scholar Alexey Anatolyevich Oparin in the book Judges Who Sentenced Theirself: Archeology of the New Testament notes: “Today we have found complete historical confirmation of Luke’s message that for the census it was necessary to go “to your city.” Thus, in one of the papyri containing a Roman decree it is said: “Gaius Vibius Maximus, governor of Egypt, commands: since we intend to carry out a census, it is necessary to order everyone who for any reason lives outside the home to return to their own districts in order to go through the census in the usual manner" (Kenyon F. G., Bell H. J. Greek Papiri in the British Museum. - London, 1907, VIII, p. 125). Another papyrus names the names of Tiberius, Claudius and Augustus, and confirms Luke’s story that in order to pay taxes, the subject had to return with his family to his homeland.” Apparently something similar happened in Judea.

It is reliably known that Quirinius appeared in Syria for the second time by order of the same Augustus Octavian in 6-7. AD for supervision, including over Judea, after the expulsion from it of Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great. “Then Quirinius arrived in Judea, which in the meantime became part of Syria, wanting to carry out a general census and confiscate the property of Archelaus...” (Flavius ​​Josephus. Jewish Antiquities. Volume I. - St. Petersburg, 1900, p. 290). And Quirinius, as expected, carried out an inventory-census of the tax-paying population in 7, and according to stricter Roman rules, which caused indignation among some of the Jews and therefore came to the attention of the historian Josephus (37 - 102). Latin documents, by the way, do not mention both Quirinian censuses in Palestine - perhaps from the point of view of Rome they were considered purely local.

Now let's look at the chronology of Herod the Great. What was he doing in December -12, during the supposed first census of Quirinius and the Nativity of Jesus Christ?

It is believed that the period from 30 to 12 BC. - the heyday of the half-Hellenized kingdom of Judea, half-Arab, half-Jew Herod (-74 - -4), which, notes Michael Grant, was about the same for Jews as Joseph Stalin was for Russian Georgian-Ossetians. And during the time of Augustus he managed to rise above the rest of the rulers of the Roman world. Officially, he was one of the kings who were “friends and allies of the Roman people.” The rulers of the states that were included in this category did not actually have the right to conduct an independent foreign policy, and even in domestic political affairs they had to take into account the needs and interests of the Romans. King Herod's duties included maintaining order on the borders of his possessions and providing Rome with military support if necessary. However, in reality, Herod’s powers were determined not so much by these formal requirements as by his personal relationships with Augustus and other influential persons in the capital of the empire, primarily with its second person, the aforementioned Marcus Agrippa. In the internal affairs of Judea his powers were extremely broad. The only factor that Herod had to consider in carrying out his plans was the possibility of open trouble or rebellion, which could damage his power and damage his position in the eyes of the Romans. Herod more than once proved his personal devotion to Augustus, and most zealously of all he began to introduce the cult of the Roman emperor.

Nevertheless, by -12 AD, internecine struggles between the sons of Herod the Great threatened the stability of government of the country. The fatal murder in -26 of his beloved wife Mariamne, who came from the royal-high-priestly family of the Hasmoneans, popular among the Jews, exacerbated the irreconcilable enmity between her sons Alexander III and Aristobulus IV on the one hand and Antipater II, the son of Herod’s first wife Doris (after divorcing her In connection with their marriage to Mariamne, both mother and son were exiled by Herod to the wilderness). But Herod, who was inclined to “beat up infants,” encroached on the lives of Alexander and Aristobulus.

In the English Wikipedia, in the article Herod the Great under the year 12 BC it is reported - “Herod suspected both his sons (from his marriage to Mariamne I) Alexander and Aristobulus of threatening his life. He took them to Aquileia to be tried. Augustus reconciled the three. Herod supported the financially strapped Olympic Games and ensured their future. Herod amended his will so that Alexander and Aristobulus rose in the royal succession, but Antipater would be higher in the succession."

So, in the year of the Olympics, in 12 BC, Herod, who had crossed the threshold of his sixtieth birthday, was required to go to Aquileia on the Adriatic to explain himself to Augustus. Before this, Augustus had already launched a “tax audit” of Quirinius on the kingdom of Herod (however, Herod, for the sake of his “tax amnesty,” bequeathed more than 1000 talents of gold to Augustus and thereby neutralized the threat of tax claims). Be that as it may, Augustus’ decision in Aquileia predetermined the development of further events in Palestine. And Herod was consoled by the fact that for his money he acquired the prestigious status in the empire of a lifelong sponsor and curator Olympic Games.

This year, illuminated by Halley's comet, became fateful for world history. Caesar Augustus was proclaimed the great and virtually universal pontiff (pontifex maximus) - the chief priest of the First Rome. But to Caesar is Caesar’s, and to God is God’s, and in the same sacred year 12, as if in contrast to the Great Pan of Earthly Rome, the Lord Savior of Heavenly Jerusalem is born. Programmatically, symbolically, providentially, Augustus Caesar and Jesus Christ are in many ways a complementary key, although not “twin,” pair of Sacred History.

It is no coincidence that so many rhymes unite Jesus Christ, born on the winter solstice, and Augustus (“Exalted by the Gods”) Gaius Octavius, conceived on the winter solstice and born on the autumn equinox on September 23, 63 BC. As Suetonius writes with reference to the “Discourses on the Gods” by Asclepiades of Mendetus, the wife of Octavius ​​the father Atia gave birth to her offspring from Apollo, who appeared to her in the form of a serpent while she was sleeping in the temple. The solar prophetic god Apollo seemed to impregnate her on the winter solstice. However, in the myth of the Dioscuri Twins (Castor and Polydeuces), one of the two brothers associated with the annual circle - Polydeuces - was born by Leda from Zeus, and legend also endowed Alexander the Great and Scipio Africanus with divine origin, only it was not a snake that appeared to their mothers, and Zeus is Jupiter.

Naturally, the “divine Augustus” was also elevated to a divine ancestor, but it is interesting that the father of Octavius ​​the son was considered to be Apollo, the son of Zeus and Leto, the patron of muses, sciences and philosophy, the deity of Light. And in his adolescence, Gaius Octavius, like the twelve-year-old Child Jesus, experienced a spiritual breakthrough in the Roman temple, similar to the spiritual “second conception” of Jesus in the Jerusalem temple - “In his twelfth year, he delivered a laudatory speech to the congregation at the funeral of his grandmother Julia” (Suetonius) . And just as Gaius Julius Caesar, who adopted Gaius Octavian, who was related by blood, became his Forerunner and “baptized” him into the Earthly Kingdom with his own blood, dying at the hands of the autocracy of the Roman race that could not withstand his autocracy, so John the Baptist, being a relative of Jesus by blood and his twin in spirit, he baptized Him with water into the Kingdom of Heaven, perishing at the hands of Herod’s offspring, who could not withstand his rule.

The myth of Augustus Caesar (more precisely, one of the key segments of the Program) was reproduced and repeated in the subsequent myth of Jesus Christ, especially, as we know, Herod the Great introduced the cult of Augustus in his kingdom at the state level and very intrusively.

Suetonius, with reference to Julius Marat, also reports a very important legend that a few months before the birth of Octavius ​​the son, a miracle took place in Rome with a crowd of people, heralding the birth of a king for the Roman people. The Roman Senate, as if fearing the Monarch, prohibited feeding children born in -63, but this order was not carried out. The striking closeness of this legend to the later legend about Herod the Great, who ordered the killing of infants, among whom, as the magicians told him, the future King of the Jews was growing up, is obvious.

What is the real background to the myth of the massacre of infants, undertaken by the Jewish king Herod after the birth of Jesus Christ (that is, after 12 BC) in order to proactively eliminate possible unwanted heirs to the throne?

/To be continued/