The earthly paradise, or beautiful garden, in which God settled the first people - Adam and Eve, was located in Asia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The life of people in paradise was full of joy and bliss. Their conscience was calm, their heart was pure, their mind was bright. They were not afraid of illness or death, and had no need for clothing. They had prosperity and contentment in everything. Their food was the fruits of the trees of paradise.

There was no enmity among the animals - the strong did not touch the weak, they lived together and ate grass and plants. None of them were afraid of people, and everyone loved and obeyed them.

But the highest bliss of Adam and Eve was in prayer, that is, in frequent conversation with God. God appeared to them in paradise in a visible way, like a father to children, and told them everything they needed.

God created people, as well as angels, so that they could love God and each other and enjoy the great joy of life in the love of God. Therefore, just like the angels, He gave them complete freedom: to love Him or not to love Him. Without freedom there can be no love. And love manifests itself in the joyful fulfillment of the desires of the one you love.

But, since people were less perfect than angels, the Lord did not allow them to immediately and forever make a choice: to accept or reject this love, as was the case with the angels.

God began to teach people love. For this reason, He gave people this small, not difficult commandment - do not eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. By fulfilling this command or desire of God, they could thereby demonstrate their love for Him. Gradually, moving from easy to more complex, they would strengthen in love and improve in it. Adam and Eve obeyed God with love and joy. And in paradise the will of God and God’s order were in everything.

Peace to you, Elena!

First, let's figure out what won't be there: sin, death, cemetery, grief, illness, tears, sadness, longing, deception, screaming, poverty, hunger, quarrel, fight, fear, resentment, envy, betrayal, jealousy, pain and etc. You can add other unpleasant things to this list yourself.

What will we do in heaven? Elena, I like how you confidently put the pronoun “we” in the question! By the grace of God - so be it, we will be in eternity! What to do there is another question. So...

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him.” ().

Yes, the Lord has prepared a lot of interesting things for us! Human language is unable to describe the reward of the righteous. There, among the beautiful, wondrous nature, the people of God will find their homeland. “And I will build houses and live in them, and plant vineyards and eat the fruit thereof.They will not build for another to live, they will not plant for another to eat; For the days of My people will be like the days of a tree, and My chosen ones will enjoy the work of their hands for a long time" (). “Then the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion, and the ox will be together, and a little child will lead them. And the cow will feed with the she-bear, and their cubs will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. And the child will play over the asp's hole, and the child will stretch out his hand into the snake's nest."().

We will always feel the freshness of the endless morning. Poet, musician, teacher, builder, photographer, artist, inventor - everyone will develop their talents and abilities! Your wildest dreams and plans will come true! But even after achievements, there will be new heights to which we will strive! We will be eternal witnesses of miracles! All the treasures of the Universe are ours - the Lord gives them to us!

I am very afraid of snakes, but I am sure that in eternity I will no longer be afraid. I have a childhood dream - to pat the ears of a fluffy bear, cheetah, lion, tiger - and perhaps they will tell me something in a language I understand! ;)) The eye did not see, the ear did not hear, Elena!

And, of course, see Jesus in person! Be with Him and see Him every day! We will discover deep and glorious truths about God. And as you learn, love and happiness will increase. The more the redeemed come to know God, the more they will admire Him. The Lord is worthy of glory and worship - we will serve Him and sing praises! We will stand facing Jesus, see His loving eyes, see the glory of His face, talk to Him! This is happiness - to hug Him, to fall on your knees before the Savior!

In eternity we will not be bored from idleness. Every day will be unique for us. We will be healthy and young, because disease and death have been defeated. " Death! where is your sting? hell! where is your victory? ().

There are wonderful words from the song:

My cherished dream is to see the sky over Eden!

And stay there forever - in the wonderful homeland of Adam!

Sky of Eden - you are my song!

The sky of Eden is a dream today!

The brightest, most tender,

In my life - one!

Elena, I wish that this dream is yours, and that it will certainly come true!

Blessings and joy!

Sincerely,

Inna

Read more on the topic "Death, heaven and hell, soul and spirit":

All-honorable paradise, the most beautiful kindness, a god-created village, endless fun and pleasure,

Glory to the righteous, beauty of prophets and holy dwelling, Pray to the Creator of all with the noise of your leaves,

I opened the gates that I closed with crime.

Lenten Triodion, raw food week, stichera to the Lord I cried.

About paradise

- Father Alexander, please tell us about the conclusions you came to by studying the writings of the holy fathers about paradise.

My own task is very modest in view of the scope of my capabilities. I think that, first of all, we should thoroughly study the teaching of the Holy Fathers about the cosmos and the creation of the world and systematize it. Here you can find material for writing ten dissertations, but few do this. Meanwhile, everyone who writes about the creation of the world and man is very fond of referring to the holy fathers. That is, we often see how individual quotes are taken and adjusted to the author’s reasoning. This approach can hardly be considered scientific.

The main feature of the teaching of the holy fathers about the creation of the world was, in my opinion, attention to the action of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God abided in the created world from the very beginning of its creation, and Scripture (in the Hebrew version) likens this action to a bird hatching an egg - this is how St. Ephraim the Syrian translates the Hebrew text. The world was perceived as a created cosmos, initially and continuously filled with life. This initial fullness of life makes the primordial cosmos different from what we see now.

Such great interest in matter itself, as we see today, appeared much later, already in modern times, in Europe, which was losing faith in Christ. In addition, the aesthetic aspect was of great importance to the ancients, which is either not mentioned or spoken briefly, or even in passing. In fact, the idea of ​​beauty is one of the most important for understanding Shestodnev. But this is, so to speak, “not modern.” It should be noted that now there are theologians who understand all this and are striving to find a new solution to this issue. I would name N. Serebryakov and priest Oleg Mumrikov.

- Why is the doctrine of heaven important for modern Orthodox theology?

Tree of Life

- What is the Tree of Life?

Today the source of life for us is the sun, but at the beginning of creation it was not so. Life was sustained by the grace of God. A mysterious Tree of Life was planted in paradise, which was supposed to become the source of eternal life for man and for the whole world, but man could partake of it only with the special blessing of God. The Holy Fathers say that it was both a real and a symbolic tree. Liturgical poetry speaks of the Cross of Christ as the Tree of Life. And the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the Tree of Life. As we read in the service of the forefeast of the Nativity of Christ, “the tree of the belly in the den of prosperity is from the Virgin.”

Light emanated from the Tree of Life, as St. Ephraim the Syrian writes about it, but it was a special light. Probably this light was not limited to the space of heaven: it spread to the entire universe. The Bible says that even before the creation of the sun, there was primordial light. The sun, as St. Basil the Great writes, was “the chariot of primordial light.” This light can be tried to be associated with cosmic microwave background radiation. But there was also a heavenly light. Just as the water of heaven watered the whole earth, so the light of heaven illuminated the whole universe. And after the Fall, this light is also separated from our universe. The relict radiation has survived, but the heavenly light does not illuminate our planet.

Animals

The Bible says that animals were immediately produced by the earth and then brought into heaven by God. Some scientific directions adhere to the theory of evolution, that is, the doctrine of the origin of some species from others. How to be here?

Yes, animals and birds were brought to heaven. And the fish, too, probably swam along the heavenly river. All creation was brought for heavenly blessing. The animals, in orderly rows, without fear of each other, went to heaven, and Adam gave them names, says St. Ephraim the Syrian. They were afraid of the man, but they obeyed him. What did this mean for the relationship between Adam and the animal world? According to the ancients, giving something a name meant gaining possession of that object, since the name is associated with the essence of the thing.

For example, the philosopher Plato said that the essence of every creature is its idea: a horse has “horseness,” the idea of ​​a horse, which is the essence of a horse. Adam gave names to animals and through this he comprehended their essence, thus gaining power over them. Of course, the presence of animals in paradise in some way ennobled them. This was some very important stage for them. This shows that the theory of evolution has nothing to do with the biblical text, at least until judgment is pronounced. By the way, let me remind you that according to Shestodnev, all animals ate grass - there were no predators on earth, but what about us? And what does “natural science” apologetics say about this?

- What is your opinion?

It seems to me that this herbal diet indicates the special nature of the primordial world, like paradise - no one ate each other there, there was no suffering and cruelty in the behavior of animals. They were created dispassionate.

But what about dinosaurs, lizards, mastodons, saber-toothed tigers and other creatures that paleontology talks about? Children often ask about this. And for some reason no one answers them...

As we have just said, we must keep in mind that the paradise and primordial existence was qualitatively different from the existing existence. You must either believe in this as truth, or consider the story about paradise a children's fairy tale. We must remember the doctrine of the essence of things. The essence is unchangeable, although everything external in a given being can change. The essence of the holistic animal world is that all animals in general were created as assistants to people. Not just horses, dogs and elephants, but all living beings in general. Prehistoric creatures discovered by science - giants with incredible strength - were supposed to be helpers, servants of humanity.

God created man differently from other creatures. Before his creation, God, in the Most Holy Trinity, confirmed His desire, He said: “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness”.

And God created man from the dust of the earth, that is, from the substance from which the entire material, earthly world was created, and breathed into his face the breath of life, that is, he gave him a free, rational, living and immortal spirit, in His image and likeness; and there became a man with an immortal soul. This “breath of God” or immortal soul distinguishes man from all other living creatures.

Thus, we belong to two worlds: with our body – to the visible, material, earthly world, and with our soul – to the invisible, spiritual, heavenly world. At the moment of death, the soul is separated from the body, and the body ceases to live and suffer. But the soul continues to live in the invisible world.

And God gave the first man the name Adam, which means “taken from the earth.” For him, God grew a paradise on earth, that is, a beautiful garden, and settled Adam in it so that he would cultivate and preserve it. An earthly paradise or a beautiful garden in which God settled the first people, Adam and Eve, was located in Asia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

In Paradise there grew all kinds of trees with beautiful fruits, among which were two special trees: one was called the tree of life, and the other was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eating the fruit of the tree of life had the power to protect a person from illness and death. About the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God gave Adam the commandment: “You may eat from every tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because if you eat from it, you will die.”

All the animals in paradise obeyed man and served him. At the command of God, Adam gave names to all the animals and birds of the air, but did not find among them a friend and helper similar to himself. Then God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep; and when he fell asleep, he took one of his ribs and covered that place with flesh. And God created a wife from a rib taken from a man. Adam named her Eve, which means “life,” because she became the mother of all people.

God blessed the first people in paradise and told them: "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it". By creating a wife from the rib of the first man, God indicated that all people come from one body and soul, must be united - love and take care of each other. The life of people in paradise was full of joy and bliss. Their conscience was calm, their heart was pure, their mind was bright. They were not afraid of illness or death, and had no need for clothing. They had prosperity and contentment in everything. Their food was the fruits of the trees of paradise.

God created people, as well as Angels, so that they would love God and each other and enjoy the great joy of life in the love of God. Therefore, just like the Angels, He gave them complete freedom: to love Him or not to love Him. Without freedom there can be no love. Love, among other things, manifests itself in the joyful fulfillment of the desires of the one you love.

But since people, like the Angels, had not yet become so established in goodness as not to sin, the Lord did not allow them to immediately and forever make their choice: to accept or reject His love, as was the case with the Angels. God began to teach people love. For this reason, He gave people this small, not difficult commandment - not to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

By fulfilling this command or desire of God, they could thereby demonstrate their love for Him. Gradually, moving from easy to more complex, they would strengthen in love and improve in it. Adam and Eve obeyed God with love and joy. And in paradise the will of God and God’s order were in everything.

The Fall of Adam and Eve

But the devil was jealous of the heavenly bliss of the first people and planned to deprive them of heavenly life. To do this, he entered the serpent and hid in the branches of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And when Eve passed not far from him, the devil began to inspire her to eat fruit from the forbidden tree. Turning to Eve, he cunningly asked: “Is it true that God said: Do not eat from any tree in paradise?”

Eve answered the serpent: “We can eat the fruits of the trees, only the fruits of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God said, do not eat them or touch them, lest you die.”. But the devil began to lie in order to seduce Eve: “No, you will not die, but God knows that on the day that you eat them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.”

The seductive, devilish speech of the serpent affected Eve. She looked at the tree and saw that the tree was pleasant to the eyes, good for food and gives knowledge; and she wanted to know good and evil. She picked fruit from the forbidden tree and ate it, then gave it to her husband, and he ate.

People, succumbing to the temptation of the devil, violated the commandment or the will of God - they sinned, fell into sin. So it happened the fall of people. By refusing the repentance offered to them by the merciful Lord, our first parents brought upon themselves the full extent of the grave consequences of their crime.

In such a fallen state, our first parents were no longer able to dwell in paradise and were expelled from there by God. At the entrance to the Garden of Eden, the Lord placed a guard - a cherub with a fiery sword, to prevent any more evil from entering there.

This first sin of Adam and Eve, or the fall of people, is called original sin, so how exactly this sin was the beginning for all subsequent sins in people. Its consequence was spiritual death and physical death.

Spiritual death consisted in the separation of the soul from God - the source of eternal life, in the openness of the soul to demonic influences and in the captivity of the main forces of the soul by sin: mind, will and feelings.

Bodily death consisted in the rupture of the integrity of human nature, in its corruption, which led to the separation of soul and body.

Spiritual death struck Adam and Eve immediately after eating the forbidden fruit. And physical death, as a consequence of spiritual death, overtook them after the time allotted by God. This state of being infected with sin and death began to be transmitted to all the descendants of Adam and Eve like a hereditary disease.

The disease of sin turned out to be so strong that it was impossible to heal it with human forces. This required special Divine intervention. And the Lord, expelling our first parents from paradise, promised them that in due time the Savior of the world would be born among their descendants, Who would “bruise the serpent’s head” - defeat the devil, sin and death.

What was man like in Paradise, and how did the biology of the exiled Adam, as well as the physics of the universe, change?

Adam and Eve in Paradise. Image from liveinorthodoxy.com

By comparing the genomes of humans and chimpanzees, science draws conclusions about their evolutionary relationship. Religion claims: man did not BE, but BECAME like a monkey - after being expelled from Paradise.

Archpriest Oleg Mumrikov, theologian, biologist, teacher at PSTGU and the Department of Biblical Studies at the Moscow Academy of Sciences and History:

Not necessarily immortal

Man in Paradise was incorruptible, immortal, did not need sensual food, did not burn in fire, did not drown in water, and even had an inexhaustible potential for immortality and self-improvement, provided that he voluntarily followed the divine will, so says the patristic tradition.

Only the disobedience of Adam and Eve, despite the fact that God warned them about the possible danger, becomes the cause of the appearance of corruption and mortality.

It is interesting that even in antiquity there were writers who spoke about the perfection of the first people, for example, Philo of Alexandria (1st century) in his treatise “On the Creation of the World”: “This first man born from the earth<…>arose, it seems to me, better in both respects - body and soul, and in many ways differed from his descendants in terms of both. After all, he was truly beautiful and truly virtuous.<…>

Together with symmetry, He [the Creator – priest. O. M.] put [into man] perfectly formed flesh,<…>desiring that the first man in particular should look most beautiful. It is clear that in regard to the soul he was the best. After all, God, to create it, apparently did not use any other example from the emerging entities, but only<…>With your own Logos. Therefore He says that man arose as the image and likeness of the Logos, which was given to him by inhalation through the face.”

However, the immortality of man in Paradise was not necessary, “mandatory”. What does it mean?

The early Christian apologist St. Theophilus of Antioch writes: “Man was created by nature neither mortal nor immortal. For if God had created him immortal at the beginning, he would have made him God; if, on the contrary, he had created him mortal, then he himself would have been the culprit of his death.

So He created<…>him capable of both, so that if he strives for that which leads to immortality, fulfilling the commandment of God, he will receive from Him as a reward for this immortality and become God; if he deviates from the works of death, disobeying God, he himself would be the author of his own death.” . We find similar thoughts in St. John Chrysostom and Blessed Augustine.

Adam. Fragment of an ivory panel from a casket with the story of Adam and Eve. 10th - 11th centuries, Constantinople. Image from wikipedia.org

St. Simeon the New Theologian clarifies:

“Adam was created with an incorruptible body, however, material, and not yet spiritual, and was installed by the Creator God as an immortal king over the incorruptible world, and not only over paradise, but also over all creation that is under heaven.”
According to St. Maximus the Confessor, the composition of the body of primordial man was “light and incorruptible,” and therefore Adam “could not burden himself with the concern of maintaining it with sensual nutrition.”

There are no contradictions here with Gen. 2:16 – « And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou shalt eat.” although Adam and Eve were created perfect spiritually and physically, these are only the first degrees of perfection, open to further deification, spiritual growth and, as a consequence, spiritualization, transformation of even that incorruptible primordial physical nature of theirs.

What is the tree of life?

Not what, but Who, and the heavenly tree of Life, according to the patristic tradition, expressed, in particular, by the Byzantine theologian St. Niketas Stiphatus (XI century) - is called

“God himself, the Creator of everything... having... life, and bearing edible fruit only to those who are worthy of life, as not subject to death,” giving “inexpressible sweetness to those who have a part in His divine communion and distributing to them immortal life.”

We also find a complete analogy of the Tree of Paradise from the book of Genesis, which nourishes the human race, in the Revelation of St. Apostle John the Theologian (Rev. 22: 2, 14). Such a sublime interpretation, based, we note, on real spiritual experience, does not cancel the literal-historical understanding, just as the most sublime understanding of the sacrament of the Eucharist, timeless "Marriage Supper of the Lamb" does not cancel the material and spatio-temporal component of everything that surrounds him during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy in the temple.

Man is a macrocosm

Creation of Adam; mosaic of the Cathedral in Montreal. 12th century Image from ruicon.ru

Man is more than once called the king of the universe in patristic tradition. In what sense? Adam was called to preserve and cultivate paradise, and his descendants bear full responsibility for the created material world, which is a kind of continuation of human corporeality.

St. Maximus the Confessor, reflecting on the Gospel text (John 19:23), which speaks of the division of the clothes of the crucified Savior by soldiers, writes: “... let us understand what the intention of Scripture is in this case, and how in us, with our negligence for good, crucifies The Lord, and how He is exposed due to our failure to do good, and demons, to serve the passions through us, divide, like [His] clothes, His creation.<…>

If, in addition to what has been said, you wish to understand the world of incorporeal and intelligible entities under the tunic woven on top, and to think of nature under the outer clothing, which Scripture divided into four parts, as into elements, then you will not sin against the truth. From these two worlds, [the demons] destroyed the body through corruption, gaining power against us in breaking the law of the commandment, but they did not tear the soul, as akin to the heavenly world.”

Commenting on these words, patrolologist prof. A.I. Sidorov notes: “Rev. Maxim here proceeds from the idea of ​​man as a “microcosm,” which is similar to and closely related to the “macrocosm,” consisting of the intelligible and sensory worlds corresponding to the soul and body of man.”

It is also interesting that a number of holy fathers (St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Simeon the New Theologian, St. Nikita Stifat, St. Gregory Palamas) considered man as a “macrocosm” in relation to the world – “microcosm.” This approach is due to the approach to man as the image of God, placed at the “center of the universe” and responsible for the entrusted universe.

It didn't rain and there were no hurricanes in Paradise

"Paradise"; Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis. 1909 Image from wikipedia.org

Today, natural science states that the modern universe exists, completely obeying the so-called Second Law of Thermodynamics - the principle that establishes the dynamics and irreversibility of macroscopic processes characterized by entropy - a function of the state of systems that describes the free interconversion of various types of energy.

Simply put, the Second Law of Thermodynamics speaks of the “arrow of time,” “fluidity,” and “perishability” as ontological properties of the universe. But to what extent did the state of the surrounding cosmos correspond to the physical state of man before the Fall?

Were animals and plants in the universe perishable before the Fall of man? Was there time in heaven?

Turning to the Holy Tradition, we can find a variety of patristic opinions on this issue. A number of fathers completely identify the condition of man and all creation. The Venerable Simeon the New Theologian teaches that “God in the beginning, before he planted paradise and gave it to the primordial ones, in five days he created the earth and what is on it, and the sky and what is in it, and in the sixth he created Adam and made him lord and king of all visible creation.

There was no heaven then. But this world was from God, like a kind of paradise, albeit material and sensory. God gave him into the power of Adam and all his descendants, as the Divine Scripture says<…>(Gen. 1:26-30). [after the fall of our ancestors] “God did not curse paradise<…>, but he cursed only all the other earth, which was also incorruptible and grew everything by itself, so that Adam would no longer have a life free from tedious labors and sweats.<…>

So, the one who became corruptible and mortal because of the transgression of the commandment, in all justice, had to live on corruptible land and eat corruptible food<…>.

Then all creatures, when they saw that Adam had been expelled from paradise, no longer wanted to obey him, the criminal<…>But God<…>restrained all these creatures with His power, and out of His compassion and goodness did not allow them to immediately rush against man, and commanded that the creature remain subordinate to him, and having become corruptible, serve the corruptible man for whom it was created.

So that when man is renewed again and becomes spiritual, incorruptible and immortal, all creation, subordinated by God to man for his work, is freed from this work, renewed with him and becomes incorruptible and, as it were, spiritual. All this was predetermined by the all-generous God before the foundation of the world.”

Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) held almost the same opinion:

“The earth, created, decorated, blessed by God, had no flaws. She was full of grace.

Nowadays the earth appears to our eyes in a completely different form. We do not know her state in holy virginity; we know her in a state of corruption and damnation, we know her already doomed to be burned;

she was created for eternity.

The Divinely inspired Writer of Genesis says that the earth, in its original state, did not need cultivation: it itself produced grain and other nutritious herbs, vegetables and fruits in abundance and of excellent quality.

There was no change in the weather: it was always the same - the clearest and most favorable. There was no rain: a spring came from the earth and covered its face.

Lucas Cranach the Elder, "Paradise". 1530 Image from germany-art.com

Beasts and other animals were in perfect harmony with each other, eating plants (Gen. 1:30). The Creator's wrath changed the earth. "Cursed is the earth because of your deeds"(Genesis 3:17), He said to the man who had trampled on His commandment: and the taking away of the blessing from the earth was immediately expressed by its various general disorders.

The winds whistled, storms raged, lightning flashed, thunder roared, rain, snow, hail, floods, and earthquakes appeared.

Animals have lost obedience and love for man, who has lost obedience and love for God<…>leaving the food that was first intended for them, sensing a change in their very nature, which joined the curse that struck the earth, they rebelled against each other and began to devour each other.<…>

The destruction of the world has become a necessity: its destruction is a natural consequence of his mortal illness.<…>The small features of the original state of the earth, preserved for us by the book of Genesis, show what a huge, what a sad, incomprehensible change for us took place over the earth after the fall of man.”

Was there time in Paradise, or about the polyphony of the Holy Fathers

Studying the interpretive heritage more deeply, we come across other patristic opinions in this area, sometimes from the same authors.

Blessed Theodoret of Cyrrhus speaks of God’s original creation of predatory animals for a twofold purpose: first, in anticipation of the fall of man (as well as the division of the primordial creatures into two biological sexes); secondly, for a pedagogical purpose, in order to “bring to the need to call upon God to help oneself.”

St. Augustine also speaks of primordial mortality among animals: “God was pleased to attribute this blessing [Genesis 1:22 – Holy. O. M.] to productivity, which is found in the succession of offspring, so that, being created weak and mortal, [animals] preserve their race by birth by virtue of this very blessing.”

Saint Basil the Great in his “Conversations on the Sixth Day” especially touches upon such inherent, fundamental properties of created matter, originally laid down by God, as dynamism and variability in time :

“And when it became necessary to add disembodied spirits to the existing [intellectual world] - holy. O. M.] and this world is mainly a school and a place of formation of human souls, and then a place of residence for everything that is subject to birth and destruction;

then a continuity of time, akin to the world and the animals and plants found in it, was produced, always hastening and flowing, and nowhere interrupting its flow.

Isn’t time such that in it the past has passed, the future has not yet arrived, and the present eludes the senses before it is known? And such is the nature of what is in this world; it either necessarily increases or decreases, and clearly has nothing solid and permanent.

Therefore, it was fitting for the bodies of animals and plants, which are necessarily connected, as it were, with some flow, and are carried away by the movement leading to birth and destruction, to be contained in the nature of time, which received properties akin to changeable things.”

Theological and philosophical understanding of the inextricable ontological unity of matter and space-time allows us to better understand the fact of the reflection of ancestral sin on everyone world existence, incl. on the pristine paradise space-time, which were originally measures of improvement, and not decay in the pursuit of non-existence:

“This lot is ours, or our share... i.e. what spoken about us from above, destined or awarded...the destiny of our weakness and our superiority, the gift of godlike creativity, is time-space" , - notes Fr. Pavel Florensky.

Leather vestments - clothes of death

"The Creation of Eve", book miniature. 13th century, England. Image from wikipedia.org

The task of the first people was to transform the entire created world to a heavenly state, because The deification of the cosmos is possible, according to the Creator's plan, only through man - the king of the universe, the bearer of the divine image and likeness.

“For a person in a state of initial perfection, every point on the earth’s surface could be a place of bliss, since it depended not on the external environment, but on the internal, spiritual state. At first, from the outside, paradise was centered around the Tree of Life.

But if a person refrained from sin and, multiplying, spread throughout the whole earth, then indeed the whole earth would become for sinless people the same as paradise in Eden was for the primordial couple,” wrote Prof. Ya.A. Bogorodsky.

Growing in love involves sacrifice. The first lesson of such sacrifice was the commandment not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen. 2:17).

But even in paradise, in his sinless, dispassionate state, man was unable to fulfill this commandment, and his fall into sin changed both himself and the entire world around him.

Of particular importance for understanding how man and the world have changed are the biblical words: “And the Lord God made garments of skins for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.” (Gen. 3:21).

Without denying their literal meaning, the fathers also pointed to a deep symbolic and ontological meaning:

dressing in leather vestments after transgressing the divine commandment, a person takes on a “bestial nature”, his biological nature changes qualitatively, the body becomes mortal and perishable.

Saint Gregory the Theologian writes: “But when<…>man ate the sweet fruit prematurely, and put on leather garments - heavy flesh, and became a corpse-bearer, because by death Christ put limits on sin; Then he came from paradise to the earth from which he was taken, and received a difficult life as his inheritance...

When, through the envy of the devil and the deception of the wife, to which she herself was subjected as the weakest, and which she carried out as skillful in persuasion<…>, a person has forgotten the commandment given to him, and is overcome by bitter taste: then through sin he becomes an exile, removed at the same time from the tree of life, and from paradise, and from God; puts on leather garments (perhaps in the coarsest, mortal and warring flesh), for the first time knows his own shame, and hides from God.”

Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. Fresco of the vestibule of the Refectory Church of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra. Image from stsl.ru

If Saint John Chrysostom, as noted above, mainly adhered to the view that before the Fall the whole world was incorruptible, then St. Gregory of Nyssa, following Basil the Great, defends the opinion of the incorruptibility and immortality of only one primordial man, who after the Fall assimilated the corruptible nature of animals, which is symbolically indicated by his clothing in leather vestments:

“So, since everything that was mixed into human nature from the life of the dumb did not exist in us before, until humanity fell into passion due to vice;<…>so then we too will take off this deathly and vile tunic imposed on us from the skins of dumb animals (and when I hear about skin, I think to understand the appearance of a dumb nature, in which we have clothed ourselves, having become accustomed to passion);

Then we will throw off everything that was in us from the skin of the dumb, after taking off the tunic.

And what we have received from the skin of the dumb is carnal mixture, conception, birth, uncleanness, breasts, food, eruption, gradual coming to perfect age, maturity of age, old age, illness, death.<…>

For the wrinkledness and corpulence of the body, leanness and plumpness, and everything else that happens with the fluid nature of bodies, what do they have in common with this life, which is alien to the fluid and fleeting transmission of real life?

Although St. Ephraim the Syrian attaches greater importance to the literal meaning (like St. John Chrysostom), he does not ignore the symbolic side of Genesis. 3:21:

“These garments were either made from the skin of animals, or were created again, because, according to Moses, the Lord created these garments and clothed Adam and Eve with them. One might think that the ancestors, touching their girdles with their hands, found that they were clothed in vestments made of the skin of animals, killed, perhaps, before their own eyes, so that they would eat their meat, cover their nakedness with skins, and in their very death they saw death your own body."

St. Gregory of Sinai (14th century) also says that after the tragedy of the Fall, man in physical nature became like corruptible animals:

“Corruption is a product of the flesh. Eating food and throwing out excess, holding your head proudly and lying down to sleep is a natural property of animals and cattle, in which we, having become like cattle through disobedience, have fallen away from the God-given blessings inherent to us and have become bestial from rational and bestial from divine.<…>

When the soul, through inspiration, was created rational and mental, then God did not create with it rage and bestial lust, but only the power of desire and the courage to fulfill desires. Likewise, having created the body, He did not put into it anger and irrational lust at the beginning, but later, through disobedience, it accepted into itself deadness, corruption and bestiality.

The body, say theologians, was created incorruptible, and as such will be resurrected, just as the soul was created impassive; but just as the soul had the freedom to sin, so the body had the opportunity to undergo corruption. And both of them, i.e. soul and body were corrupted and dissolved, according to the natural law of their combination with each other and mutual influence: moreover, the soul was qualified by passions, and especially by demons; and the body became like foolish beasts and sank into decay.”

Another important aspect can be noted here. According to St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus and other saints. fathers,

man was not initially subject to the law of “bestial birth from seed”: God’s original intention did not include the multiplication of people in the “familiar” way to us, although man was created as a man and a woman.

“Wearing “skin garments” meant that<…>man was not only deprived of the incorruptibility of his nature, but also condemned to passionate birth from a seed in the image of animals.

His body was completely subject to the laws of a voluntarily chosen bestial life,” wrote St. Maxim the Confessor.

Will animals be resurrected?

Adam names the animals. Fresco of the church of the monastery of St. Nicholas the Pacifier in Meteora (Greece). 16th century, master Theophan of Crete. Image from wikipedia.org

In general, the Orthodox tradition does not recognize the immortality of not only the physical, but also the spiritual nature of animals. Saint Basil the Great says about this:

“Why does the earth plague the living soul? So that you know the difference between the soul of cattle and the soul of man. You will soon learn how the human soul is created, but now listen about the soul of the dumb. According to Scripture, The life of every animal is its blood (Lev. 17:11), and condensed blood usually turns into flesh, and decayed flesh decomposes into the ground; then, in all fairness, the soul of cattle is something earthly.<…>

Consider the connection of soul with blood, blood with flesh, flesh with earth; and again, in the reverse order, move from earth to flesh, from flesh to blood, from blood to soul; and you will find that the soul of cattle is earth. Do not think that it is older than their bodily composition, and that it remains after the destruction of the body.” Saint Gregory Palamas writes: “Sensual and dumb creatures of the animal world have in themselves only the spirit of life, and even that in itself is not able to exist, they are completely devoid of an immortal mind and the gift of speech;

beings that exist above the entire sensory (material) world - Angels and Archangels - although spiritual and rational, have an immortal mind and word (reason), but do not have a life-giving spirit in themselves, and therefore do not possess a body, which receives life from the life-giving spirit;

man, the only one created in the image of the Trinitarian Nature, has an immortal mind and the gift of speech and a spirit that gives life to the body (associated with him)”;

“The soul of each of the irrational living beings is the life of the body, animated by it, and having this life not in essence, but in action, as life in relation to another, but not in itself.”

Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that after the Fall of man the nature of animals changed so much, which led to the mortality of the immortal souls of “dumb” living beings. Apparently, they were created initially as transient and limited in their existence in time.

At the same time, it can be assumed that before Adam’s crime, their transition to non-existence was not associated with the same physical sensations and suffering as in the present era.

Which Adam is compared to a chimpanzee?

Adam. Ivory, 10th - 11th century. Constantinople. Image from wikipedia.org

The cited patristic texts, revealing the theology of “leather vestments,” lead us to the conclusion: when studying the related genetic, physiological and anatomical continuity of animals and people, science deals only with a person who has already been expelled from Eden.

Studying his bodily nature, clothed in “leather clothes,” natural science quite naturally and “legitimately” speaks of an evolutionary, historical relationship with primates. However, from the point of view of Orthodox theology, these conclusions essentially, ontologically do not relate to the primordial Adam and his descendants, but in themselves are one of the paradoxical consequences of the Fall of our ancestors:

God-likeness is not destroyed, but, as it were, fades into the background in front of the likeness to the “beasts of the field.”
The created world exists in accordance with the good divine meaning, plan (logos), but the image of its existence ( tropos- according to Rev. Maximus the Confessor) may not correspond to this plan. Having realized his freedom as resistance to the Divine will, Adam receives the bitter right to an “autonomous” existence ( And the Lord God said: Behold, Adam has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil– Gen.3:22).

Accordingly, both the history of formation and the current existence of the world, as well as his own existence, appear before him, who is in a fallen state, as a random, blind, meaningless, dead, chaotic process, where there is a place not only for competition, natural selection, death, cruelty, suffering.

Existing ephemerally “autonomously from the Creator,” it is impossible, based on rational and sensory experience, to “see” one’s own origin differently.

“So, the demons divide into parts the visible creation [consisting of] the four elements, preparing us to see [it only] with our senses to excite passion, not knowing the divine logoi contained in it,” says St. Maxim the Confessor.

Since ancient times, probably successively - from the ancestors themselves - humanity has preserved in various mythological images and hymns the mournful memory of the lost Eden as the past “Golden Age”. Ethnographers, religious scholars, cultural scientists, and archaeologists who have studied history since the Paleolithic have constantly drawn attention to this feature. We see the difference only in ideological interpretations.

So, the first quarter of the twentieth century. (1923), the famous English ethnographer and historian of religion J. Fraser, considering the biblical narrative of the creation of man and the Fall, challenged the uniqueness and inspiration of the first chapters of the book of Genesis and the entire Holy Scripture as a whole on the basis of the similarity of some of their details with other monuments of literature and mythology ancient world.

Archpriest Oleg Mumrikov, theologian, biologist, teacher at PSTGU and the Department of Biblical Studies at the Moscow Academy of Sciences and History. Photo from the site mpda.ru

Meanwhile, modern Christian researchers and apologists see the presence of such similarities as one of the most important evidence of the historicity of biblical texts.