(2 votes: 4.5 out of 5)

“I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come,” says the last member of the creed, and this is the general Christian faith. Present life is the path to the life of the future age; the “kingdom of grace” passes into the “kingdom of glory.” “The image of this age is passing away” (I Cor. 7:31), tending to its end. The entire worldview of a Christian is determined by this eschatologism, in which, although earthly life is not devalued, it receives the highest justification for itself. Early Christianity was completely overwhelmed by the feeling of the near, immediate end: “Hey, I’m coming soon! Hey, come, Lord Jesus!” (Apoc. 22, 20); these fiery words sounded like heavenly music in the hearts of the early Christians and made them seem supermundane. The spontaneity of waiting for the end with its joyful tension in the subsequent story, naturally, was lost. It was replaced by a sense of the finitude of personal life in death and the reward that follows it, and eschatologism has already taken on more severe and strict tones - equally, both in the West and in the East. At the same time, in Christianity, and especially in Orthodoxy, a special veneration of death developed, to a certain extent close to the ancient Egyptian one (just as in general there is a certain underground connection between Egyptian piety in paganism and Orthodoxy in Christianity). The dead body is buried here with respect, as the seed of the future resurrection body, and the very rite of burial is considered a sacrament by some ancient writers. Prayer for the departed, their periodic commemoration, establishes a connection between us and that world, and each buried body in liturgical language (in the breviary) is called relics, fraught with the possibility of glorification. The separation of the soul from the body is a kind of sacrament in which at the same time God’s judgment is carried out on the fallen Adam, the composition of man is torn apart in the unnatural separation of body from soul, but at the same time a new birth into the spiritual world takes place. The soul, having separated from the body, directly realizes its spirituality and finds itself in the world of disembodied spirits, light and dark. Her self-determination in the new world is also connected with this new state, which consists in the self-evident self-disclosure of the state of the soul. This is the so-called preliminary trial. This self-awareness, the awakening of the soul, is depicted in church writing in the images of “going through ordeals,” bearing the features of the Jewish apocrypha, if not directly Egyptian images from the “Book of the Dead.” The soul goes through ordeals, in which it is tortured by the corresponding demons for various sins, but protected by angels, and if the severity of sin in it turns out to be overcome, it is delayed in one or another ordeal and, as a result, remains distant from God, in a state of hellish torment. Souls that have gone through ordeals are brought to worship God and are awarded heavenly bliss. This destiny is revealed in various images in church writing, but doctrinally is left by Orthodoxy in wise uncertainty, as a mystery, penetration into which is accomplished only in the living experience of the Church. However, it is an axiom of church consciousness that although the world of the living and the dead is separated from one another, this wall is not impenetrable to church love and the power of prayer. In Orthodoxy, a huge place is occupied by prayer for the dead, both performed in connection with the Eucharistic sacrifice, and in addition to it, in connection with the belief in the effectiveness of this prayer. The latter can alleviate the condition of sinful souls and free them from a place of languor, extricate them from hell. Of course, this action of prayer presupposes not only intercession before the Creator for forgiveness, but also a direct impact on the soul itself, in which the strength to assimilate forgiveness is awakened. The soul is reborn to a new life, enlightened by the torments it has experienced. On the other hand, there is also the opposite effect: the prayers of saints are effective for us in our lives, and from this we can conclude that any prayer is effective, even of unglorified saints (and perhaps not even saints at all) who pray to the Lord for us.

The Orthodox Church distinguishes between the possibility of three states in the afterlife: heavenly bliss and the double torment of hell, with the possibility of liberation from them through the prayers of the Church and the power of the internal process occurring in the soul, and without this possibility. She doesn't know purgatory as special places or a state that is accepted in Catholic dogmatics (although, to tell the truth, modern Catholic theology does not know what to do with it). There is no sufficient biblical or dogmatic basis for the acceptance of such a special third place. However, one cannot deny the possibility and presence of a cleansing state(the acceptance of which is common between Orthodoxy and Catholicism). Religiously-practical the difference between purgatory and hell is elusive due to the complete unknown for us of the afterlife fate of every soul. Essentially, what is important is not to distinguish between hell and purgatory as two different places the afterlife of souls, but as two states, more precisely, the possibility of liberation from hellish torment, the transition from a state of rejection to a state of justification. And in this sense, one can ask not whether purgatory exists for Orthodoxy, but rather whether there is hell in the final sense, i.e. Doesn't it also represent a kind of purgatory? At least, the Church does not know any restrictions in its prayer for those who have departed in unity with the Church, believing, of course, in the effectiveness of this prayer.

About external ones, i.e. The Church does not judge those who do not belong to the Church or have fallen away, committing them to the mercy of God. God has placed in ignorance the afterlife destinies of those who in this life did not know Christ and did not enter His Church. A ray of hope here is shed by the teaching of the Church about the descent of Christ into hell and the sermon in hell, which was addressed to all pre-Christian humanity (Catholics limit it only to the Old Testament righteous, limbus patrum, excluding from it those whom St. Justin the Philosopher calls “Christians before Christ” ). The word is firm that God “wants all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Tim. 2:4). However, regarding the fate of non-Christians, both adults and infants (for whom Catholic theologians also reserved a special “place” - limbus patrum), there are still no general church definitions, and there remains freedom of dogmatic searches and theological opinions. The personal eschatology of death and the afterlife in historical consciousness to a certain extent overshadowed the general eschatology of the second coming. However, at times, the feeling of expectation of the Coming Christ, with the prayer “hey, come, Lord Jesus,” lights up in the souls, illuminating them with its otherworldly light. This feeling is indestructible and must be unremitting in Christian humanity, for it is, in a certain sense, the measure of its love for Christ. However, eschatologism can have two images, light and dark. The latter occurs when it arises as a result of historical fear and some religious panic: such, for example, are the Russian schismatics - self-immolators who wanted to destroy themselves in order to save themselves from the reigning Antichrist. But eschatologism can (and should) be characterized by a bright image of aspiration towards the Coming Christ. As we move through history, we move towards Him, and the rays coming from His future coming into the world become tangible. Perhaps there is still a new era ahead in the life of the Church, illuminated by these rays. For the second coming of Christ is not only terrible for us, for He comes as a Judge, but also glorious, for He comes in His Glory, and this Glory is both the glorification of the world and the fullness of the accomplishment of all creation. The glorification inherent in the resurrected body of Christ will be communicated through it to all creation, a new heaven and a new earth will appear, transformed and, as it were, resurrected with Christ and His humanity. This will happen in connection with the resurrection of the dead, which will be accomplished by Christ through His angels. This accomplishment is depicted in the Word of God symbolically in the images of the apocalypses of the era, and for our consciousness certain aspects of it are revealed in history (in particular, this includes Fedorov’s question about whether the sons of men take any part in this resurrection). One way or another, death is conquered, and the entire human race, freed from the power of death, for the first time appears as a whole, as a unity, not fragmented in the change of generations, and it will appear before its consciousness common cause in history. But this will also be a trial against him. The terrible judgment of Christ over humanity.

The doctrine of the Last Judgment in Orthodoxy, as far as it is contained in the Word of God, is common to the entire Christian world. The last separation of sheep and goats, death and hell, damnation and rejection, eternal torment for some, and the kingdom of heaven, eternal bliss, the sight of the Lord, for others - this is the result of the earthly path of mankind. The court already presupposes the possibility of not only justification, but also condemnation, and this is a self-evident truth. Every person who confesses his sins cannot help but realize that if no one else does, then he deserves God’s condemnation. “If you see lawlessness, Lord, who will stand?” (Ps. 129:3). However, there remains hope - for God’s mercy towards His creation: “I am yours, save me” (118, 94). At the Last Judgment, where the Lord himself, meek and humble in heart, will be the Judge of Truth, carrying out the judgment of His Father, where will there be mercy? To this question, Orthodoxy gives a silent but expressive answer - iconographically: on the icons of the Last Judgment, the Most Pure Virgin is depicted at the right hand of the Son, beseeching Him for mercy with Her maternal love, She is the Mother of God and the entire human race. The Son entrusted mercy to her when He Himself accepted the judgment of righteousness from the Father (John 5:22, 27). But behind this, a new secret is also revealed: the Mother of God, the Spirit-Bearer, is the living medium of the Holy Spirit himself, through Her participating in the Last Judgment. After all, if God creates the world and man according to the advice of the Holy Trinity, with the corresponding participation of all three hypostases, and if the salvation of man through the incarnation of the Son also occurs with the participation of the entire Holy Trinity, then the outcome of earthly creation, the judgment of humanity is also carried out at the same time participation: the Father judges through the Son, but the perfect Holy Spirit has mercy and heals the wounds of sin, the wounds of the universe. There is no person who would be without sin, who would not even turn out to be a goat in one way or another among the sheep. And the Comforter Spirit heals and replenishes the ulcerated creature, and has mercy on it with Divine mercy. Here we come up against the religious antinomy, condemnation and pardon, which is evidence secrets Divine vision.

In Christian eschatology there has always been and remains the question of eternity hellish torment and the final rejection of those who are sent “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Since ancient times, doubts have been expressed about the eternity of these torments, seeing in them a temporary, as it were, pedagogical means of influencing souls and hoping for the final restoration of άποκάταστασις . Since ancient times, there have been two directions in eschatology: one is rigoristic, affirming the eternity of torment in the sense of its finality and infinity, the other is St. Augustine ironically called his representatives “complainers” (misericordes) - they denied the infinity of torment and the persistence of evil in creation, professing the final victory of the Kingdom of God in creation, when “God will be all in all.” Representatives of the doctrine of apocatastasis were not only Origen, who was doubtful regarding the Orthodoxy of some of his teachings, but also St. Gregory of Nyssa, blessed by the Church as an universal teacher, with their followers. It was believed that the corresponding teaching of Origen was condemned at the V Ecumenical Council; however, modern historical research no longer allows us to assert even this, while the teaching of St. Gregory of Nyssa, much more decisive and consistent, moreover, free from the touch of Origen’s teaching on the pre-existence of souls, was never condemned and on this basis retains the rights of citizenship, at least as an authoritative theological opinion (theologumena) in the Church. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church has a doctrinal definition of the eternity of torment, and therefore there is no room for apocatastasis in one form or another. On the contrary, in Orthodoxy there was and is no such doctrinal definition. Is it true, prevailing opinion what is presented in most dogmatic manuals either does not dwell on the question of apocatastasis at all or is expressed in the spirit of Catholic rigorism. However, along with these individual thinkers, opinions close to the teachings of St. Gregory of Nyssa, or in any case much more complex than straightforward rigorism. Therefore, we can say that this question is not closed for further discussion and new insights sent down from the Holy Spirit of the Church. And in any case, no amount of rigorism can eliminate the hope that is given in the triumphant words of St. Paul that “God united everyone in opposition in order to have mercy on everyone. Oh, the depth of wealth and wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His destinies and His ways unsearchable!” (Rom. 11:32-33). The picture of the judgment of the world ends with the descent of heavenly Jerusalem to the new earth under the new heavens and the appearance of the Kingdom of God descending from heaven to earth. Here the teachings of Orthodoxy merge with the beliefs of all Christianity. Eschatology contains the answer to all earthly sorrows and questions.

Eschatology from gr. εσχατος - extreme, last - the teaching about the last things, about the ultimate fate of the world and man. Eschatology has always occupied religious thought.

Eschatological ideas in the pagan world

Ideas about the afterlife - languor in the underground kingdom of the dead, torment, wanderings in a ghostly world or peace and bliss in the land of gods and heroes - are widespread, and this is clear evidence that these ideas did not arise from human fantasy, but come from the Divine revelations. Although they apparently have deep psychological roots, this can also be considered as evidence that the soul remembers its immortality.

As religion penetrates with moral ideas, ideas about afterlife judgment and retribution also appear, although religion seeks to provide the believer with afterlife bliss in addition to his moral merits - through spells or other religious means, as we see among the Egyptians, and later among the Greeks or Gnostics.

Along with the question about the fate of an individual human personality, the question may also arise about the final fate of all humanity and the whole world - about the “end of the world,” for example, among the ancient Germans (twilight of the gods), or in Parsism (although it is difficult to determine the time of the emergence of its eschatology).

Eschatology in the Old Testament

Among the Old Testament Jews, individual eschatology, i.e., a set of ideas about the afterlife existence of an individual, is displaced from the area of religious interest itself, which focuses on national or universal eschatology, i.e., on ideas about the final fate of Israel, the people of God, and, consequently, and the works of God on earth.

In popular beliefs, such an end was naturally the exaltation of Israel and its national kingdom as the kingdom of Yahweh himself, the God of Israel, and His Anointed or Son - the people of Israel, personified in the king, prophets, leaders, and priests.

The prophets invested the highest spiritual content into the idea of the kingdom of God. This kingdom cannot have exclusively national significance: its implementation - the final realization of God's holy will on earth - has universal significance for the whole world, for all peoples. It is defined primarily negatively as judgment and condemnation, exposure and overthrow of all godless pagan kingdoms and at the same time all human untruth and lawlessness. This judgment, in its universality, concerns not only the pagans, the enemies of Israel: it begins with the house of Israel, and, from this point of view, all historical catastrophes that befall the people of God appear to be signs of God's judgment, which is justified by the very faith of Israel and is divinely necessary.

On the other hand, the ultimate realization of the kingdom is defined positively as salvation and life, as a renewal concerning the spiritual nature of man and the outer nature itself.

During the Babylonian captivity and after it, the eschatology of the Jews received a particularly deep and rich development along with messianic aspirations.

In both sermons, the kingdom of God as the perfect implementation of God’s will on earth (“as in heaven”) is recognized primarily as judgment, but at the same time as salvation. It approached, it came, although without any visible catastrophe; it is already among people, in the person of Jesus, who recognizes himself as the only begotten Son of God, anointed by the Spirit, and is called “Son of Man” (as in Daniel or in the book of Enoch), i.e. Messiah, Christ. The Messiah contains the kingdom within himself, is its focus, bearer, sower. In it the New Testament is realized - the internal, perfect union of the divine with the human, the guarantee of which is that unique in history intimate, direct union of personal self-consciousness with God-consciousness, which we find in Jesus Christ and only in Him.

The inner spiritual side of the kingdom of God in humanity finds its full realization here: in this sense, the kingdom of God has come, although it has not yet appeared in the fullness of its glory. Jesus Christ is “the judgment of this world” - that world that “did not know” and did not accept Him; and together He is “salvation” and “life” for those who “know”, accept Him and “do the will of the Father” hidden in Him, that is, become a “son of the kingdom.”

This internal union with God in Christ, this spiritual creation of the kingdom of God does not, however, abolish faith in the final realization of this kingdom, its “appearance” or coming “in power and glory.” Jesus' last word to the Sanhedrin, the word for which He was condemned to death, was a solemn testimony of this faith: “I eat (the son of the Blessed One); and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62). Conscious of Himself as the focus of the “kingdom,” Jesus could not help but feel its immediate proximity (Mark 13:21, seq.), although He recognized the date of its onset as known to the Father alone (ibid.; cf. Acts 1:7); but the consciousness of the immediate proximity of the kingdom, or the “messianic self-consciousness” of Christ had for Him the practical consequence of the conscious necessity of suffering and death - for the redemption of many, for saving them from judgment and rejection associated with the immediate onset of the kingdom from which they, in their internal attitude, to him, they exclude themselves.

The Father's commandment is not to judge, but to save the world. Not appearing in glory among legions of angels, but death on the cross - this is the path to inner victory over the world and man. And yet, this death on the cross also does not abolish the eschatology of the kingdom: it only gives it a new meaning.

The first generation of Christians was completely imbued with the idea of the nearness of the kingdom: before you have time to go around the cities of Israel, the Son of Man will come (Matthew 10:23); This generation (generation, γενεά) will not pass away until all these things happen (Mark 13:30); Christ's beloved disciple will not die before the coming of the kingdom. The fall of Jerusalem is a sign of the imminent coming (Mark 13:24; Luke 21:27), and if during the siege and storming of Jerusalem the Jews were every minute expecting the glorious and miraculous appearance of the Messiah, then among Christians of the first century these expectations are felt with no less force, being a consolation in sorrow and persecution and at the same time an expression of living faith in the immediate proximity of Christ. The last times are approaching (James 5:8; 1 Pet. 4:7; 1 John 2:18), the Lord will come soon (Rev. 22:10 et seq.); salvation is closer than at the beginning of the sermon, the night passes and dawn comes (Rom. 13: 11-12).

The resurrection of Christ, as the first victory over death, served as a guarantee of the final victory, the general resurrection, the liberation of all creation from slavery to corruption; “manifestations of the Spirit” serve as a guarantee of the final triumph of the Spirit, the spiritualization of the universe. “The hope of the resurrection of the dead” - this is how the ap. Paul his confession and creed (Acts 23:6).

Within the framework of traditional eschatology (Antichrist, the gathering of Israel, judgment, resurrection, the reign of the Messiah, paradise, etc.), the apostle puts the basic Christian thought: in the resurrection and glorious realization of the kingdom, the final union of God with man, and through him with all nature, takes place , which is completely transformed, freed from corruption; God will be all in all (1 Cor 15).

The first Christians and apostles died without waiting for “salvation”; Jerusalem is destroyed; pagan Rome continues to reign - and this is in doubt. There are scoffers who ask, where are the promises about the coming of Christ? Since the fathers died, everything remains the same as it was from the beginning of creation. In response to these ridicule, the second letter of Peter points out that just as the former world was once destroyed by the flood, so the present heaven and earth are reserved for fire, reserved for the day of judgment and destruction of the wicked. One thing you need to know is that “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day” (2 Pet. 3:8; cf. Ps. 89:5), - why the delay in the fulfillment of the promise should not be explained by slowness , but by longsuffering (2 Pet. 3:15).

This text, in connection with the legend of chiliasm, has given rise to numerous interpretations; By the way, he caused anticipation of the end of the world for about a year, and then in the 14th century, since the “millennial kingdom” began to be considered to have come from the time of Constantine.

Eschatology as a whole is perhaps one of the first dogmas of Christianity; the first century was its heyday.

Subsequent centuries lived with the traditions of early Christian and partly Jewish eschatology, and over time some ancient traditions fell away (for example, the sensual idea of chiliasm, which played a significant role in Jewish apocalypticism and was borrowed by Christians of the first centuries: see, for example, phragm. Papias) .

Among the later appendages, we note the idea of ordeals, which once played an important role among the Gnostics, but was also adopted by the Orthodox.

The eschatology of the Western Church was enriched by the doctrine of purgatory. Medieval dogmatics scholastically developed all particular questions about “last things”; in Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae one can find detailed information about the various departments of the afterlife, the location of forefathers, children who died before baptism, the womb of Abraham, the fate of the soul after death, the fire of purgatory, the resurrection of bodies, etc.

We find the artistic expression of these views in Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” and in our country - in apocryphal literature about heaven and hell, “walking through torment,” etc., which lasts for many centuries and the beginnings of which should be sought in the early apocryphal apocalypses.

Modern thought is indifferent or negative towards eschatology; those preachers of Christianity who strive to adapt it to the requirements of modern thought in order to open it wide access to the circle of the intelligentsia, often quite sincerely try to present it as an accidental appendage of Christianity, as a temporary and passing moment, as something brought into it from the outside by that historical environment, in which it arose.

Already for the Greek intelligentsia, the eschatology of the Apostle Paul served as a temptation, as we see from the impression made by his speech before the Areopagus: “having heard about the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said: We will hear you about this at another time” (Acts 17: 32 , cf. Acts 24:25).

Nevertheless, even now every conscientious historian who scientifically studies the history of Christianity is forced to admit that Christianity as such, that is, as faith in Christ, the Messiah Jesus, was necessarily from the beginning associated with eschatology, which was not an accidental appendage, but an essential element gospel of the kingdom. Without renouncing itself, Christianity cannot renounce faith in God-Humanity and in the Kingdom of God, in the final, perfect victory, the realization of God on earth - from the belief expressed by the Apostle in the first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 15:13, seq. .).

Individual images of Christian eschatology can be explained historically, but its main idea, testified by the life and death of Christ Jesus and the entire New Testament, starting with the Lord’s Prayer, still represents the vital question of Christianity - faith “in One God, the Father Almighty.” Is the world process beginningless, endless, aimless and meaningless, a purely elemental process, or does it have a rational final goal, an absolute (i.e., in religious language, divine) end? Does such a goal or absolute good exist (i.e. God) and is this good realizable “in everything” (the kingdom of heaven - God is all in all), or does nature represent the eternal limit for its implementation and it itself is only subjective, illusory ideal? Christianity has only one answer to this.

Used materials

Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron.

Orthodoxy. [Essays on the teachings of the Orthodox Church] Bulgakov Sergei Nikolaevich

ORTHODOX ESCHATOLOGY

The Orthodox Church distinguishes between the possibility of three states in the afterlife: heavenly bliss and the double torment of hell, with the possibility of liberation from them through the prayers of the Church and the power of the internal process occurring in the soul, and without this possibility. She doesn't know purgatory as special places or a state that is accepted in Catholic dogmatics (although, to tell the truth, modern Catholic theology does not know what to do with it). There is no sufficient biblical or dogmatic basis for the acceptance of such a special third place. However, one cannot deny the possibility and presence of a cleansing state(the acceptance of which is common between Orthodoxy and Catholicism). Religiously-practical the difference between purgatory and hell is elusive due to the complete unknown for us of the afterlife fate of every soul. Essentially, what is important is not to distinguish between hell and purgatory as two different places the afterlife of souls, but as two states, more precisely, the possibility of liberation from hellish torment, the transition from a state of rejection to a state of justification. And in this sense, one can ask not whether purgatory exists for Orthodoxy, but rather whether there is hell in the final sense, that is, whether it is not a kind of purgatory? At least, the Church does not know any restrictions in its prayer for those who have departed in unity with the Church, believing, of course, in the effectiveness of this prayer.

The Church does not judge those outside, that is, those who do not belong to the Church or have fallen away, commending them to the mercy of God. God has placed in ignorance the afterlife destinies of those who in this life did not know Christ and did not enter His Church. A ray of hope here is shed by the teaching of the Church about the descent of Christ into hell and the sermon in hell, which was addressed to all pre-Christian humanity (Catholics limit it only to the Old Testament righteous, limbus patrum, excluding from it those whom St. Justin the Philosopher calls “Christians before Christ” ). The word is firm that God “wants all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Tim. 2:4). However, regarding the fate of non-Christians, both adults and infants (for whom Catholic theologians also reserved a special “place” - limbus patrum), there are still no general church definitions, and freedom of dogmatic quest and theological opinions remains. The personal eschatology of death and the afterlife in historical consciousness to a certain extent overshadowed the general eschatology of the second coming. However, at times, the feeling of expectation of the Coming Christ, with the prayer “hey, come, Lord Jesus,” lights up in the souls, illuminating them with its otherworldly light. This feeling is indestructible and must be unremitting in Christian humanity, for it is, in a certain sense, the measure of its love for Christ. However, eschatologism can have two images, light and dark. The latter occurs when it arises as a result of historical fear and some religious panic: such, for example, are the Russian schismatics - self-immolators who wanted to destroy themselves in order to save themselves from the reigning Antichrist. But eschatologism can (and should) be characterized by a bright image of aspiration towards the Coming Christ. As we move through history, we move towards Him, and the rays coming from His future coming into the world become tangible. Perhaps there is still a new era ahead in the life of the Church, illuminated by these rays. For the second coming of Christ is not only terrible for us, for He comes as a Judge, but also glorious, for He comes in His Glory, and this Glory is both the glorification of the world and the fullness of the accomplishment of all creation. The glorification inherent in the resurrected body of Christ will be communicated through it to all creation, a new heaven and a new earth will appear, transformed and, as it were, resurrected with Christ and His humanity. This will happen in connection with the resurrection of the dead, which will be accomplished by Christ through His angels. This accomplishment is depicted in the Word of God symbolically in the images of the apocalypses of the era, and for our consciousness certain aspects of it are revealed in history (in particular, this includes Fedorov’s question about whether the sons of men take any part in this resurrection). One way or another, death is conquered, and the entire human race, freed from the power of death, for the first time appears as a whole, as a unity, not fragmented in the change of generations, and it will appear before its consciousness common cause in history. But this will also be a trial against him. The terrible judgment of Christ over humanity.

The doctrine of the Last Judgment in Orthodoxy, as far as it is contained in the Word of God, is common to the entire Christian world. The last separation of sheep and goats, death and hell, damnation and rejection, eternal torment for some, and the kingdom of heaven, eternal bliss, the sight of the Lord, for others - this is the result of the earthly path of humanity. The court already presupposes the possibility of not only justification, but also condemnation, and this is a self-evident truth. Every person who confesses his sins cannot help but realize that if no one else does, then he deserves God’s condemnation. “If you see lawlessness, Lord, who will stand?” (Ps. 129:3). However, there remains hope - for God’s mercy towards His creation: “I am yours, save me” (118, 94). At the Last Judgment, where the Lord himself, meek and humble in heart, will be the Judge of Truth, carrying out the judgment of His Father, where will there be mercy? To this question, Orthodoxy gives a silent but expressive answer - iconographically: on the icons of the Last Judgment, the Most Pure Virgin is depicted at the right hand of the Son, begging Him for mercy with Her maternal love, She is the Mother of God and the entire human race. The Son entrusted mercy to her when He Himself accepted the judgment of righteousness from the Father (John 5:22, 27). But behind this, a new secret is also revealed: the Mother of God, the Spirit-Bearer, is the living medium of the Holy Spirit himself, through Her participating in the Last Judgment. After all, if God creates the world and man according to the advice of the Holy Trinity, with the corresponding participation of all three hypostases, and if the salvation of man through the incarnation of the Son also occurs with the participation of the entire Holy Trinity, then the outcome of earthly creation, the judgment of humanity is also carried out at the same time participation: the Father judges through the Son, but the perfect Holy Spirit has mercy and heals the wounds of sin, the wounds of the universe. There is no person who would be without sin, who would not even turn out to be a goat in one way or another among the sheep. And the Comforter Spirit heals and replenishes the ulcerated creature, and has mercy on it with Divine mercy. Here we come up against the religious antinomy, condemnation and pardon, which is evidence secrets Divine vision.

In Christian eschatology there has always been and remains the question of eternity hellish torment and the final rejection of those who are sent “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Since ancient times, doubts have been expressed about the eternity of these torments, seeing in them a temporary, as it were, pedagogical means of influencing souls and hoping for the final restoration?????????????. Since ancient times, there have been two directions in eschatology: one is rigoristic, affirming the eternity of torment in the sense of its finality and infinity, the other is St. Augustine ironically called his representatives “complainers” (misericordes) - they denied the infinity of torment and the persistence of evil in creation, professing the final victory of the Kingdom of God in creation, when “God will be all in all.” Representatives of the doctrine of apocatastasis were not only Origen, who was doubtful regarding the Orthodoxy of some of his teachings, but also St. Gregory of Nyssa, blessed by the Church as an universal teacher, with their followers. It was believed that the corresponding teaching of Origen was condemned at the V Ecumenical Council; however, modern historical research no longer allows us to assert even this, while the teaching of St. Gregory of Nyssa, much more decisive and consistent, moreover, free from the touch of Origen’s teaching on the pre-existence of souls, was never condemned and on this basis retains the rights of citizenship, at least as an authoritative theological opinion (theologumena) in the Church. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church has a doctrinal definition of the eternity of torment, and therefore there is no room for apocatastasis in one form or another. On the contrary, in Orthodoxy there was and is no such doctrinal definition. Is it true, prevailing opinion what is presented in most dogmatic manuals either does not dwell on the question of apocatastasis at all or is expressed in the spirit of Catholic rigorism. However, along with these individual thinkers, opinions close to the teachings of St. Gregory of Nyssa, or in any case much more complex than straightforward rigorism. Therefore, we can say that this question is not closed for further discussion and new insights sent down from the Holy Spirit of the Church. And in any case, no amount of rigorism can eliminate the hope that is given in the triumphant words of St. Paul that “God united everyone in opposition in order to have mercy on everyone. Oh, the depth of wealth and wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His destinies and His ways unsearchable!” (Rom. 11:32–33). The picture of the judgment of the world ends with the descent of heavenly Jerusalem to the new earth under the new heavens and the appearance of the Kingdom of God descending from heaven to earth. Here the teachings of Orthodoxy merge with the beliefs of all Christianity. Eschatology contains the answer to all earthly sorrows and questions.

From the book Bilean Foundations of Modern Science by Morris Henry

Thermodynamics and Eschatology If the first and second laws of thermodynamics were to remain universal throughout eternity, the eschatological future would look truly bleak. The arrow of time points down, and the cosmos moves inexorably towards the final

From the book Six Systems of Indian Philosophy by Müller Max

From the book Son of Man author Smorodinov Ruslan

37. Eschatology of Jesus We have already talked about the apocalyptic maxims of the Jews in the era of Christ. The eschatology of Jesus can be conditionally formulated as follows: The state of humanity contemporary to the Founder is coming to an end: “The time is fulfilled and has drawn near.”

From the book Gnosticism. (Gnostic religion) by Jonas Hans

Eschatology The radical nature of dualism predetermines the doctrine of salvation. Equally alien and so transcendental to the world, God is entirely pneumatic. The goal of Gnostic aspirations is the liberation of the “inner man” from the shackles of the world and his return to the original kingdom

From the book Sophia-Logos. Dictionary author Averintsev Sergey Sergeevich

From the book Byzantine Theology. Historical trends and doctrinal themes author Meyendorff Ioann Feofilovich

3. Eschatology Eschatology cannot, in essence, be considered as a separate chapter of Christian theology, for eschatology determines the qualities of theology as a whole. This is especially true of Byzantine Christian thought, which is what we have tried to do.

From the book Christhood and Skoptchestvo: Folklore and traditional culture of Russian mystical sects author Panchenko Alexander Alexandrovich

Eschatology and acculturation Above, I have repeatedly noted that the formation of folklore and ritualism of Christianity and skoptchestvo was largely determined by eschatological expectations and aspirations. It must be said that rumors, rumors and beliefs of the apocalyptic

From the book Great Teachers of the Church author Skurat Konstantin Efimovich

Eschatology Although Saint Abba repeatedly turns his gaze to the final destinies of the world (there is even one - the 12th - teaching “On the fear of future torment ...”), the same picture is observed here - illumination in the moral aspect. When the soul “leaves the body , - the saint reflects

From the book Bibliological Dictionary author Men Alexander

"REALIZED ESCHATOLOGY" (English: Realized Eschatology), one of the modern. exegetical theories related to the interpretation of the new law. *eschatology. It was first formulated by *Dodd in his book “Parables of the Kingdom” (1935), although his ideas were partially anticipated by other exegetes (for example, *Trubetskoy and

From the book Russian Religiosity author Fedotov Georgy Petrovich

VI. Russian eschatology

From the book The Far Future of the Universe [Eschatology in Cosmic Perspective] by Ellis George

Eschatology For a more complete assessment of the Russian historical worldview, it is necessary to remember its eschatological orientation. For a Christian, history is not an endless cycle of repeating cycles, as it was for Aristotle or Polybius, but it is not

From the book Hilary, Bishop of Pictavia author Popov Ivan Vasilievich

From the book Mani and Manichaeism by Widengren Geo

From the book General History of the World's Religions author Karamazov Voldemar Danilovich

Eschatology In Hilary's eschatology, it is necessary to note several theses that are characteristic not so much of his personal beliefs as of Western church writers of the ante-Nicene era, who by the time of Hilary had become traditional in the church environment in which he received his

From the author's book

3. Eschatology Indian eschatology would not be truly Indian if it did not also count on the beautiful female being who meets the righteous in heaven, brahmaloka. The Manichaean hymns also do not abandon the virgins of paradise. We remember that in

The question of the end of the world and the afterlife has always interested people, which explains the presence of various myths and ideas, many of which are similar to fairy tales. To describe the main idea, eschatology is used, which is characteristic of many religions and different historical movements.

What is eschatology?

The religious doctrine of the ultimate destinies of the world and humanity is called eschatology. There are individual and global directions. Ancient Egypt played a big role in the formation of the first, and Judaism played a big role in the second. Individual eschatology is part of a universal trend. Although the Bible does not say anything about the future life, in many religious teachings the ideas of posthumous reward are perfectly read. Examples include the Egyptian and Tibetan Book of the Dead, as well as Dante's Divine Comedy.

Eschatology in philosophy

The presented teaching not only talks about the end of the world and life, but also about the future, which is possible after the disappearance of imperfect existence. Eschatology in philosophy is an important movement that considers the end of history, as the completion of a person’s unsuccessful experience or illusions. The collapse of the world simultaneously implies the entry of a person into an area that combines the spiritual, earthly and divine parts. The philosophy of history cannot be separated from eschatological motives.

The eschatological concept of the development of society has become widespread in the philosophy of Europe to a greater extent thanks to the special European thinking, which considers everything that exists in the world by analogy with human activity, that is, everything is in motion, has a beginning, development and end, after which the result can be assessed . The main problems of philosophy that are solved with the help of eschatology include: understanding history, the essence of man and methods of improvement, freedom and opportunity, as well as various ethical problems.

Eschatology in Christianity

When compared with other religious movements, Christians, like Jews, refute the assumption that time is cyclical and claim that there will be no future after the end of the world. Orthodox eschatology has a direct connection with chiliasm (the doctrine of the coming thousand-year reign of the Lord and the righteous on earth) and messianism (the doctrine of the future coming of God's messenger). All believers are confident that soon the Messiah will come to earth for the second time and the end of the world will come.

At its inception, Christianity developed as an eschatological religion. In the letters of the apostles and in the book of Revelation one can read the idea that the end of the world cannot be avoided, but when it will happen is known only to the Lord. Christian eschatology (the doctrine of the end of the world) includes dispensationalism (ideas that view the historical process as a sequential distribution of divine Revelation) and the doctrine of the rapture of the church.

Eschatology in Islam

In this religion, eschatological prophecies concerning are of great importance. It is worth noting that discussions on this topic are contradictory, and sometimes even incomprehensible and ambiguous. Muslim eschatology is based on the injunctions of the Koran, and the picture of the end of the world looks something like this:

Before the great event occurs, there will come an era of terrible wickedness and unbelief. People will betray all the values of Islam and they will wallow in sins.
After this, the reign of the Antichrist will come, and it will last 40 days. When this period ends, the Messiah will come and the Fall will end. As a result, within 40 years there will be an idyll on earth.
At the next stage, a signal will be given about the offensive, which will be carried out by Allah himself. He will interrogate everyone, both living and dead. Sinners will go to Hell, and the righteous will go to Paradise, but for this they will have to cross a bridge through which they can be transferred by animals that they sacrificed to Allah during their lifetime.
It is worth noting that Christian eschatology was the basis for Islam, but there are also some significant additions, for example, it is indicated that the Prophet Muhammad will be present at the Last Judgment, who will be able to mitigate the fate of sinners and will pray to Allah to forgive their sins.

Eschatology in Judaism

Unlike other religions, in Judaism there is a paradox of Creation, which implies the creation of a “perfect” world and man, and then they go through a stage of fall, reaching the brink of extinction, but this is not the end, because by the will of the creator, they again come to perfection. The eschatology of Judaism is based on the fact that evil will end and good will ultimately win. The book of Amos states that the world will exist for 6 thousand years, and the destruction will last 1 thousand years. Humanity and its history can be divided into three stages: the period of desolation, the teaching and the era of the Messiah.

Scandinavian eschatology

Scandinavian mythology differs from others in its eschatological aspects, according to which everyone has a destiny and the gods are not immortal. The concept of the development of civilization implies the passage of all stages: birth, development, extinction and death. As a result, a new one will emerge from the ruins of the past world and a world order will be formed from chaos. Many eschatological myths are built on this concept, and they differ from others in that the gods are not observers, but participants in events.

Eschatology of Ancient Greece

The system of religious views in ancient times was different among the Greeks, since they had no idea about the end of the world, believing that what has no beginning cannot have an end. The eschatological myths of Ancient Greece were largely concerned with the individual fate of man. The Greeks believed that the first element is the body, which is irrevocable and disappears forever. As for the soul, eschatology indicates that it is immortal, originates and is intended for communication with God.

Individual eschatology is associated with the moment of death. General eschatology refers to the end of history, which in the Christian vision is associated with the second coming of Christ, the stopping and disappearance of time, the complete victory over Satan and evil and the transition of the universe into eternity.

Christianity believes that the history of both humanity and the universe is a finite phenomenon. Their end is the ultimate reality towards which all events are directed. Eschatology and the Second Coming have two aspects: joyful, associated with the coming of God, and terrible, associated with the fact that God will appear as a judge. The Last Judgment is conceived as the triumph of God's justice, revealed against the backdrop of judgment over all of human history.

The Bible states that calculating the timing of the Second Coming is impossible and unnecessary, although a number of indirect signs can be used to make assumptions about its approach. St. Augustine believed that the eschatological period began with the founding of the church, whether it lasted a few years or many centuries. At the moment of the Second Coming, the dead will be resurrected bodily, i.e. their souls will receive flesh (this is a very important point, since Christian anthropology believes that man, unlike an angel, was originally conceived as clothed in flesh, and sin does not come from the flesh as such, but from its weakness and from the passions of the soul). The righteous will receive their bodies glorified those. purified and more perfect. Here one can see the difference between Christian ideas about man and, for example, the philosophy of Plato and the Neoplatonists, according to which the body is only a “dungeon of the soul” from which one needs to escape. Similar views are common among Gnostics.

The Church insists on the fundamental finitude of human history, the inevitability of the onset of an apocalyptic period preceding the end. The coming of Christ is associated with the appearance Antichrist, his adversary, who will persecute and spiritually seduce Christians by obvious and hidden means.

The book is primarily devoted to eschatology in the Bible "Apocalypse" of John, having a complex structure and full of very complex images that require very careful interpretation. Thus, the words about the “thousand-year kingdom of God”, which can be established in apocalyptic times, are left to the discretion of theologians. There is no definitive interpretation of these words. The Church has repeatedly warned that if we are seriously prepared for the end of history, we should avoid “apocalyptic hysteria” and ridiculous predictions. Various options were not accepted by the official creed millenarianism(from lat. mille – thousand), or chiliasma – the teaching that the Second Coming of Christ is associated with the establishment of a special, everlasting kingdom. The point of view that goes back to St. Augustine, that by this kingdom in the Bible we must understand the period of the church that has already come. Millenarianism is accepted mainly in radical Protestant communities, and is also held by some theologians as a private opinion.

Christianity retains faith in the justice of God and the posthumous fate of people. The immortal soul is installed either in hell(place of torment), or in paradise(place of eternal bliss). Posthumous fate, on the one hand, is determined by the justice of God, on the other, by the deeds and thoughts of a person who, already on earth, outlines his path and his future state. Bliss is understood as purely spiritual, associated with the sight of God, who himself is absolute good and perfection. Heavenly bliss is not thought of as vulgar idleness or bodily pleasure.

Sinners in hell receive, in essence, what they were striving for; hell is not interpreted by the church as some kind of “vindictiveness” of God. The opinion is expressed that a sinner transferred to heaven will suffer there even more, since being there is incompatible with his personality. Hell is a state in which there is absolutely no God. The Church rejected the doctrine of the temporary torment of hell expressed by Origen at the turn of the 2nd–3rd centuries. The torments of hell are eternal, and this brings an element of realism and even tragedy into Christianity.

A person is brought to an individual trial immediately after death (there is also a version of the understanding found among Orthodox authors that this trial is preliminary in nature, and the stay until the Last Judgment is in some respects temporary), but at the end of history there must also be Last Judgment. This is not just a duplication of a sentence already passed, but God’s judgment over the entire history of mankind, where people must see all the historical justice of God.

The Church recognizes the practice of prayers for the dead (remembrance), which can be performed both during the liturgy and in private. Accordingly, the existence of an intermediate category of the dead is recognized (hell excludes prayers, and heaven makes them unnecessary). These are considered souls that are unworthy of hell, but due to the imperfection of life, cannot immediately enter heaven. In Catholicism this condition is called purgatory it is these souls who are waiting for prayers for them. Being in purgatory is sometimes defined by earthly time, but this definition is conditional, since there is no earthly time and space beyond earthly boundaries. In Orthodoxy, the analogue of purgatory is ordeal, through which the soul of the deceased passes. The issue of prayers for unbaptized infants is controversial. They are not prohibited, but they are not remembered at temple services. There is a theological opinion that their souls do not deserve suffering, but they also do not taste joy, since, having not received the grace of Baptism, they simply cannot contain it.

It is interesting to note that heaven in the Christian view not only does not abolish the personality (like nirvana in Buddhism), but also does not level out personal qualities. Each person receives a reward consistent with his life and personality structure (“as much as he can hold,” just as vessels of different sizes can be filled to the brim with different volumes of liquid). It is no coincidence that in Christian iconography heaven is often depicted as a hierarchically arranged structure. In general, Christian theology often says that heaven and hell are not so much a certain place in space as a state. At the same time, hellfire is considered not just a beautiful image, but a real phenomenon, albeit of a special nature.

Death is both a joyful (meeting with God and deliverance from an imperfect earthly life) and a terrible (judgment) event. The manifestation of grief for the deceased, especially excessive grief, is considered cowardice, lack of faith, and unreasonableness, since the meeting of the righteous with God is the best fate; only the torment of condemned sinners is terrible. St. John Chrysostom(344–407) said that Christian funerals differ from pagan ones in that there is no crying. It is no coincidence that funeral rituals sometimes involve white people, i.e. festive vestments (black ones symbolize precisely spiritual mourning, associated not with the departure itself, but with the need to answer to the supreme judge, hence a number of “formidable” prayers and hymns dedicated to this, for example the Catholic Dies irae - Day of Wrath).

Death is also seen as having pedagogical significance for the living, encouraging them to realize the transience of the earthly. Some saints kept burial-related items on display and often prayed and meditated in the cemetery.