“Picaso”: Two ways to become a God
An excerpt from Andrey Vlasov’s book “Picaso. Part One: Slave.” Episode 23.
Time: 1992
Place: Kyiv
Characters: Fr. Lavr, seminarians
“I want to draw your attention, brethren, to the fact that we read in Church Slavonic. This translation is much more accurate than the Russian one.”
“Why?” someone asked.
Fr. Lavr stroked his beard and said:
“That is a separate and very interesting topic which we will not go into right now. I will only say that the Church Slavonic translation was made from the Greek text, the Septuagint – that is, from the translation of the books of Holy Scripture into Greek, completed in the third century before the Nativity of Christ. But the Russian translation was made from the Masoretic Text, that is, from the Hebrew. The problem is that the Masoretic Text itself is rather late. It took shape already in the second century after the Nativity of Christ and even later, when the Jews who did not accept Christ were already polemicizing against Christianity and therefore could not resist the temptation to revise – and in some places quite seriously distort – the sacred text in their own favor. Yes… But let us return to…” – he almost said “to the Fall” again. “So then. What did the commandment consist of? ‘Do not eat!’ From a single tree in paradise! By fulfilling this commandment, man could morally perfect himself, become like God. He could become capable of union with Him. I repeat, man possessed free will… And if he had freely, without compulsion, fulfilled the commandment of God, he would have ascended to a higher stage of his development. How many such stages there would have been and what they consisted in, we do not know. But in the end, under the guidance of God, in harmony with the will of God, man would have attained theosis, deification, would have become a god by grace. That is precisely what God wanted.”
“Many fathers assert that the commandment ‘do not eat’ was given to man only for a time. In the canon for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross there are these words,” – Fr. Lavr took his little notebook from the table: “‘Disobedience destroyed the commandment of God, and the tree brought death to mankind, because it was partaken of untimely…’ In these words, brethren, there is an indication that Adam tasted from the tree of knowledge untimely, and therefore could have tasted of it timely – that is, when God Himself would have commanded him. The commandment ‘do not eat’ is a commandment of abstinence, of fasting, which, as we know, ends with Pascha or another feast.”
“And what did the serpent offer man? He offered him the same thing: to become a god. To become a god! Do you hear?” – Fr. Lavr raised his index finger and raised his voice. “To become a god without God! Without exertion, without labor, without walking in obedience to God and, ultimately, without loving God. But very easily and simply. Just by taking and eating the forbidden fruit,” – he paused for a moment, pacing between the desks. “As I once saw on an advertising billboard in the city: ‘Here and now.’ Yes…”
“So does that mean man actually became a god?” someone asked.
“No,” Fr. Lavr answered with a sigh. “The devil is a liar and the father of lies. He simply lied. If man listens to God, he becomes godlike. But if he listens to the evil one?”
“Then why did Adam believe him? Isn’t it obvious that you cannot become a god without God? Was he not thinking at all?”
“Brother, be careful about speaking so boldly,” said Fr. Lavr. “You know, many people scold Adam and Eve. They say that if only they had not eaten, how well all of us would have lived.”
“Well, yes! Isn’t that true?”
“Hm.” Fr. Lavr tugged at his beard. “There is a commandment: ‘Honor thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God commanded thee, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long upon the earth.’ Let us not violate this commandment, brethren, and let us not revile our forefathers. So then… Why did man break this commandment? The commandment was very easy. Ephraim the Syrian writes,” – he again took his notebook from the table and began to read: “‘The commandment was easy, because God gave Adam the whole of paradise and forbade him to eat only from one tree. Since God gave him many trees instead of one, if the transgression was committed, it happened not out of necessity but through negligence.’ And here is what John Chrysostom writes: ‘It is as if God says to Adam: “I do not require from you anything difficult or burdensome. I allow you to enjoy all the trees and command you to abstain only from this one.”’”
As he read these excerpts, Fr. Lavr approached the back rows and looked at the seminarian who had pointed out the disagreement between the holy fathers concerning paradise. The seminarian raised his eyes to the teacher.
“You see, brother, consensus patrum,” Fr. Lavr smiled almost imperceptibly and walked back toward the teacher’s desk. “Again then, why did man violate this simple and easy commandment?”
“Out of curiosity, maybe?” someone suggested.
“No, everything here is much deeper. In man himself there was already something that readily responded to temptation. Here is what St. Ephraim writes: ‘The tempting word would not have led the tempted into sin had not their own desire served as a guide to the tempter.’ Remember this, brethren: man sins only when the tempter finds something sinful within him, in his soul, perhaps in some hidden thoughts. Christ says of Himself: ‘The prince of this world comes, and hath nothing in Me.’ That is, the tempter found nothing in Him that responded to his temptations. Unfortunately, this is not the case with us. From our heart proceed ‘evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies,’ and so on. Again, all of this, unfortunately, exists within us. Some sins flourish within us if they find a suitable environment to be committed outwardly, while others remain in hidden form. Like seeds, you know, which can lie dormant for centuries – but give them moisture and soil, and they begin to sprout.”
“From this, brethren, follows the most important moral lesson,” – Fr. Lavr again raised his index finger – “never judge your neighbor for any sins whatsoever. Because what your brother has committed in deed exists within you yourself in the form of a seed that simply has not yet sprouted. Yet God looks upon the heart of man and judges the thoughts of the heart,” – he shook his head sorrowfully. “And if God permits it, you will fall into the same sin, or even worse. I used to be greatly surprised when I read the prayers – evening prayers or prayers before Communion,” – he stopped in the middle of the classroom and, closing his eyes, began reciting from memory: “‘What evil have I not done? What sin have I not committed? What wickedness have I not imagined in my soul? Fornication, adultery, blasphemy, hatred, envy, greed, robbery…’ and so on. Then you read the life of the saint who wrote the prayer – no, he never actually did such things. He lived a righteous life. At first I thought it was merely a figure of speech, but later I understood: no, it is not simply a beautiful turn of phrase. The saint felt this sin within himself, even though it had not outwardly manifested itself, and repented of it as though it had already been committed. And in the second prayer before sleep this is stated directly: ‘Do not abandon me to Satan’s desire, for the seed of corruption is within me.’ Again, God looks upon the heart of man.”
Fr. Lavr paced back and forth across the classroom.
“So then, brethren, what the devil found in the first, still sinless man was pride. Diabolical pride, the very thing that destroyed the devil himself,” – he stopped and closed his eyes. “‘But thou hast said in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven… I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.’ In the same way, man became proud and wanted to become a god himself. He said to God: I myself can manage without You! And the woman… notice this, brethren: when she plucked the fruit, she did not carry it to Adam for him to eat first, but ate it herself. And Ephraim the Syrian writes: ‘She tasted before her husband, hoping that, already clothed in divinity, she would return to him from whom she had come as a human being. In order to become the head of him who had been her head, to become the ruler of him from whom she ought to receive commands, to be older in divinity than the one before whom she was younger in humanity.’”
“So then, brethren, through the violation of the commandment it was revealed that instead of love for God and neighbor, pride lived within man. And that pride is the original cause of every sin is testified to both by Holy Scripture and by a great multitude of the holy fathers,” – he again opened his notebook. “St. John Cassian the Roman, in his survey of spiritual warfare, writes: ‘The eighth and final battle lies before us – with the spirit of pride. Though this passion is placed last in the order of describing the struggle with the passions, in origin and in time it is the first. The angel who, because of the excessive brilliance and beauty bestowed upon him, was called Lucifer, was cast down from heaven for no other reason than this passion.’ And then further: ‘This was the cause of the first fall and the beginning of the chief passion, which afterward, through him who was first wounded by it’ – that is, the devil – ‘having crept into the first-created man, produced an innumerable multitude of passions.’ And St. John Climacus writes: ‘Pride is the denial of God, contempt for men, the mother of condemnation, the banishment of God’s help, the cause of falls. Wherever a fall has occurred, pride had already settled there first; for pride is the herald of falls.’ Yes…”
“But what about where it is written that ‘the love of money is the root of all evils’?” someone suddenly exclaimed.
To be continued…
The previous episode of the book is available here.
