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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, lived together and ate grass and plants. None of them were afraid of people, and everyone loved and obeyed them.
But the highest blessedness 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 you need.
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 - 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.
Note
: See the Bible in the book. "Genesis": ch.
2
, 10-14;
2
, 25.
Conversation about a person
When we say that a person consists of a soul and a body, we express by this that a person consists not only of dead substance - matter, but also of that higher principle that revives this matter, makes it alive. In reality, man is three-part
and consists of
body, soul
and
spirit
.
Ap. Paul says: “The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul
and
spirit
, joints and marrow, and to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb.
4:12
).
1. BODY.
The human body was created by God “from the dust of the earth” (Gen.
2
:7) and therefore it belongs to the earth: “you are earth and you will go back to earth” (Gen.
3:19
), said to the first man after his fall.
With his bodily life, a person is no different from other living beings - animals, and it consists in satisfying the needs of the body. The needs of the body are varied, but in general they all come down to the satisfaction of two basic instincts: 1) the instinct of self-preservation
and 2)
the instinct of procreation
.
Both of these instincts are embedded by the Creator in the bodily nature of every living creature, with a completely understandable and reasonable purpose - so that this living creature does not perish or be destroyed without a trace.
To communicate with the outside world, the human body is endowed with five senses: vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch.
, without which a person would be completely helpless in this world. This entire apparatus of the human body is extraordinarily complex and wisely designed, but in itself it would be only a dead machine without movement if it were not animated by the soul.
2. SOUL.
The soul is given by God as a life-giving principle in order to control the body.
In other words, the soul is the life force
of man and every living creature; Scientists call it that: vitalistic (life) force.
Animals also have a soul, but it, together with the body, was produced by the earth. “And God said: Let the water bring forth living things... fish and reptiles. And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures... livestock, creeping things, wild beasts... according to their kinds: and it was so” (Gen. 1
, 20-24).
And only about man it is said that after creating his body from the dust of the ground, the Lord God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2
, 7).
This “breath of life” is the highest principle in man, that is, his spirit
, by which he immeasurably rises above all other living beings. Therefore, although the human soul is in many ways similar to the soul of animals, in its highest part it is incomparably superior to the soul of animals, precisely because of its combination with the spirit, which is from God. The human soul is, as it were, a connecting link between the body and the spirit, representing itself, as it were, a bridge from the body to the spirit.
All actions, or rather movements of the soul, are so diverse and complex, so intertwined with each other, so lightning-fast changeable and often difficult to catch, that for the convenience of distinguishing them it is customary to divide them into three types, three categories: thoughts, feelings
and
desires
. These movements of the soul are the subject of study of the science called “psychology.”
1. An organ of the body with the help of which the soul carries out its mental work
, is
the brain
.
2. Central sense
is considered to be
the heart
. It is a measure of what is pleasant or unpleasant to us. The heart is naturally considered as a certain center of human life, a center that contains everything that enters the soul from the outside, from which comes everything that is discovered by the soul outside.
3. Desires
a person is guided by
the will
, which does not have a material organ in our body, but the instruments for fulfilling its plans are our members, set in motion with the help of muscles and nerves.
The results of the activity of our mind and feelings generated by the heart exert this or that pressure on the will, and our body produces this or that action or movement.
Thus, the soul and body are closely related to each other. The body, with the help of external sense organs, gives certain impressions to the soul, and the soul, depending on this, somehow controls the body and directs its activities. In view of this connection between the soul and the body, this life is often called the general term: “mental-physical life.” However, it is still necessary to distinguish between: bodily life, as satisfying the needs of the body, and mental life, as satisfying the needs of the soul.
What physical life consists of, we have already said. It consists in satisfying the requirements of two main instincts: the instinct of self-preservation and the instinct of procreation.
Mental life consists of satisfying the needs of the mind, feelings and will: the soul wants
acquire knowledge and experience certain feelings.
3. SPIRIT.
But human life is far from being exhausted by satisfying the above-mentioned needs of the body and soul alone.
Body and soul are not the whole person, or rather, not the complete person. Above the body and soul there is something higher, namely the spirit, which often acts as a judge of both soul and body and gives everything an assessment from a special, higher point of view. “Spirit,” says Bp. Theophan, “as the power that came from God, knows God, seeks God, and finds peace in Him Alone. Convincing himself of his origin from God by some spiritual, intimate instinct, he feels his complete dependence on Him and recognizes himself as obligated to please Him in every possible way and to live only for Him and by Him.” This is exactly what Blessed Augustine said: “You, God, created us with a desire for You, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.
The spirit in a person manifests itself in three forms: 1) fear of God, 2) conscience and 3) thirst for God.
1. «Fear of God
“- this, of course, is not fear in our ordinary human understanding of this word: it is awe of the greatness of God, inextricably linked with unchanging faith in the truth of the existence of God, in the reality of the existence of God as our Creator, Provider. Savior and Rewarder. All peoples, no matter what stages of development they are at, all have faith in God. Even the ancient writer Cicero, two thousand years before our time, said: “there is not a single people so rude and wild that they do not have faith in God, even if they do not know His essence.” Since then, says the scientist Gottinger, America and Australia have been discovered and explored, and countless new peoples have entered history, and his words still remain unshakable, except that they have become even more undoubted and quite obvious than before. Thus, as history counts the centuries that have passed, there is as much evidence for this truth.
2. The second way the spirit manifests itself in a person is conscience
. Conscience shows a person what is right and what is not right, what is pleasing to God and what is displeasing, what he should and should not do. But he not only indicates, but also forces a person to fulfill what is indicated, and rewards with consolation for fulfillment, and punishes with remorse for non-fulfillment. Conscience is our internal judge - the guardian of God's law. It is not for nothing that our people call conscience the “voice of God” in the human soul.
3. The third manifestation of the spirit in man Ep. Feofan aptly called “ thirst for God
" And in fact, it is natural for our spirit to seek God, to strive for union with God, to thirst for God. Our spirit cannot be satisfied with anything created or earthly. No matter how many and how varied earthly goods one of us possesses, he still wants something more. This eternal human dissatisfaction, this constant dissatisfaction, this truly insatiable thirst shows that our spirit has a desire for something higher than everything that surrounds it in earthly life, for something ideal, as they say, and since nothing earthly can quench this thirst in a person, the human spirit is restless, finding no peace for itself until it finds complete satisfaction in God, to living communion with Whom the human spirit always consciously or unconsciously strives.
These are the manifestations of the spirit in man, which should be the guiding principle in the life of every person, that is, to live in communion with God, to live according to the will of God and to abide in the love of God, and this means to fulfill one’s purpose on earth and inherit eternal life.
(Based on the article by Archimandrite Averky “Soulfulness and Spirituality.” Munich 1949)
Evolution that gave life
According to scientists, primates are the direct ancestors of humans. Apes evolved by adapting to changes in the external environment, which became the impetus for their mental and physical development. The Earth's climate was changing, which forced primates to look for the first shelters that protected from wind and cold, to obtain food, creating adaptations for hunting and cultivating the land.
Since it was quite difficult to obtain food alone, great apes gathered in groups. Thanks to this, communication began to develop and the first speech appeared. All these factors caused changes in the anatomy and physiology of primates, which became decisive in the emergence of humans:
- the structure of the brain was transformed;
- bipedal locomotion developed;
- a significant part of the hairline has disappeared;
- the fangs have decreased in size;
- a grasping hand has developed;
- the larynx and hyoid bone dropped.
The Fall
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. He cunningly asked Eve: “Is it true that God did not allow you to eat from any tree in paradise?”
“No,” Eve answered the serpent, “we can eat the fruits of all the trees, only the fruits of the tree that is in the middle of paradise, God said, do not eat or touch them, lest you die.”
But the devil began to lie to tempt Eve. He said: “No, you will not die; but God knows that if you taste, you yourself will be like gods, and you will know 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; then she gave it to her husband, and he ate.
People succumbed to the temptation of the devil, violated the commandment or the will of God - they sinned
, fell into sin. This is how the fall of people took place.
This first sin of Adam and Eve, or the Fall of people, is called original sin
, since it was this sin that later became the beginning for all subsequent sins in people.
NOTE: See the Bible in the book. "Genesis": ch. 3
, 1-6.
Place of residence
Researchers are trying to establish where the first human settlement appeared . For many years it was believed that the human race originated in Western Europe.
The main reason for this is the theory of Eurocentrism, which said that it was on the territory of Europe that powerful civilizations were created, and it was from here that progress began.
In the second half of the twentieth century, archaeologists found the remains of that same Homo habilis in the territory of modern Tanzania, the so-called Afar Triangle.
It was there that key discoveries were made that shed light on the origins of humanity. Archaeologists found tools made of stone next to human bones, which could well serve as a good tool for obtaining food.
In 1960, Darwin's theory of evolution was no longer in doubt. Archaeological finds also made it clear how man developed, how the volume of his brain increased over time and intellectual activity improved.
As for the classification by period, the origin of humanity should be dated to the Cenozoic era , which began 65 million years ago. This period is referred to as the “era of new life,” because it started immediately after the fall of a huge meteorite, which destroyed the dinosaurs and most of life on the planet.
This is interesting! Where did the East Slavic tribes and their neighbors live?
The consequences of the Fall and the promise of the Savior
When the first people sinned, they felt ashamed and afraid, as happens to everyone who does wrong. They immediately noticed that they were naked. To cover their nakedness, they sewed clothes for themselves from fig tree leaves, in the form of wide belts. Instead of receiving perfection equal to God's, as they wanted, it turned out the other way around, their minds became darkened, they began to be tormented, and they lost peace of mind.
All this happened because they knew good and evil against the will of God, that is, through sin
.
Sin changed people so much that when they heard the voice of God in paradise, they hid among the trees in fear and shame, immediately forgetting that nothing could be hidden anywhere from the omnipresent and omniscient God. Thus, every sin removes people from God.
But God, in His mercy, began to call them to repentance
, that is, so that people understand their sin, confess it to the Lord and ask for forgiveness.
The Lord asked: “Adam, where are you?”
Adam answered: “I heard Your voice in paradise and was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”
God asked again: “Who told you that you were naked? Have you not eaten fruit from the tree from which I forbade you to eat?”
But Adam said: “The wife whom You gave me, she gave me fruit and I ate it.” So Adam began to blame Eve and even God himself, who gave him a wife.
And the Lord said to Eve: “What have you done?”
But instead of repenting, Eve also answered: “The serpent tempted me, and I ate.”
Then the Lord announced the consequences of the sin they had committed.
God said to Eve: “ You will give birth to children in illness and must obey your husband.”
».
Adam said: “ Because of your sin, the earth will not be fruitful as before. She will produce thorns and thistles for you. By the sweat of your brow you will eat bread
”, that is, you will earn food through hard work, “
until you return to the land from which you were taken
,” that is, until you die.
“ For dust you are, and to dust you will return
.”
And he said to the devil, who was hiding in the snake, the main culprit of human sin: “ You are cursed because you did this.”
"... And he said that there would be a struggle between him and people, in which people would remain victorious, namely: “
The seed of the woman will erase your head, and you will bruise his heel
,” that is, from the wife will come
a Descendant - the Savior of the world
, Who will be born from the virgin, he will defeat the devil and save people, but for this he himself will have to suffer.
People accepted this promise or promise of God about the coming of the Savior with faith and joy, because it gave them great consolation. And so that people do not forget this promise of God, God taught people to make sacrifices
. To do this, He commanded to slaughter a calf, lamb or goat and burn them with a prayer for the forgiveness of sins and with faith in the future Savior. Such a sacrifice was a pre-image or prototype of the Savior, Who had to suffer and shed His blood for our sins, that is, with His most pure blood, wash our souls from sin and make them pure, holy, again worthy of heaven.
Right there, in paradise, the first sacrifice for the sin of people was made. And God made clothes for Adam and Eve from the skins of animals and clothed them.
But since people became sinners, they could no longer live in paradise, and the Lord expelled them from paradise. And the Lord placed a cherub angel with a fiery sword at the entrance to paradise to guard the path to the tree of life. The original sin of Adam and Eve with all its consequences, through natural birth, passed on to all their offspring, that is, to all of humanity - to all of us. That is why we are born sinners and are subject to all the consequences of sin: sorrows, illnesses and death.
So, the consequences of the Fall turned out to be enormous and grave. People have lost their heavenly blissful life. The world, darkened by sin, has changed: from then on the earth began to produce crops with difficulty; in the fields, along with good fruits, weeds began to grow; animals began to fear humans, became wild and predatory. Disease, suffering and death appeared. But, most importantly, people, through their sinfulness, lost close and direct communication with God; He no longer appeared to them in a visible way, as in paradise, that is, people’s prayer became imperfect.
Note
: see the Bible in the book. "Genesis": ch.
3
, 7-24.
Features of the anatomy of the first people
The first thing that may catch your eye when studying Australopithecus is the significant difference between the anatomy of females and males. In the modern world, men are on average about 15% larger than women. Australopithecus males could be 50% heavier than females.
Some of the very first people in the world were small in height and barely reached 140 cm. At the same time, they were slim, and their brain volume exceeded 500 cm³. The structure of the organs is generally similar to that of other great apes. Including those who live on Earth now.
Conversation about the Fall
When God created the first people, he saw that “ there is great good
“that is, man is directed by his love towards God, that there are no contradictions in created man.
Man is a complete unity of spirit, soul
and
body
- one harmonious whole, namely, the spirit of man is directed towards God, the soul is united or freely subordinated to the spirit, and the body is to the soul; unity of purpose, aspiration and will. The man was holy, deified.
The will of God, namely, is that man freely, that is, with love, strives for God, the source of eternal life and bliss, and thereby invariably remains in communion with God, in the bliss of eternal life. These were Adam and Eve. That is why they had an enlightened mind and “ Adam knew every creature by name
“, this means that the physical laws of the universe and the animal world were revealed to him, which we now partially comprehend and will comprehend in the future.
But by their fall, people violated the harmony within themselves - the unity of spirit, soul and body
- they upset their nature. There was no unity of purpose, aspiration and will.
In vain do some wish to see the meaning of the Fall allegorically, i.e. that the Fall consisted of physical love between Adam and Eve, forgetting that the Lord Himself commanded them: “Be fruitful and multiply...” Moses clearly narrates that “Eve sinned first alone, and not together with her husband,” says Metropolitan Philaret. “How could Moses have written this if he had written the allegory that they want to find here?”
The essence of the Fall was
is that the forefathers, succumbing to temptation, stopped looking at the forbidden fruit as an object of God’s commandment, but began to consider it in its supposed relation to themselves - to their sensuality and their heart, their understanding (Ccl.
7
, 29), with deviation from the unity of God's truth
into the multiplicity of one's own thoughts, one's own desires not concentrated in the will of God
, that is,
with deviation into lust
.
Lust, having conceived sin, gives birth to actual sin (James 1
:14-15).
Eve, tempted by the devil, saw in the forbidden tree not what it is, but what she herself desires
, according to certain types of lust (1 John
2
, 16; Gen.
3
, 6).
What lusts were revealed in Eve’s soul before eating the forbidden fruit? “ And the woman saw that the tree was good for food
,” that is, she suggested some special, unusually pleasant taste in the forbidden fruit - this is
the lust of the flesh
.
“ And that it is pleasing to the eye
,” that is, the forbidden fruit seemed more beautiful to the wife than anyone else—this is
lust
, or passion for pleasure.
“ And it is desirable, because it gives knowledge
,” that is, the wife wanted to experience that higher and divine knowledge that the tempter promised her - this is
worldly pride
.
First sin
is born
in sensuality
- the desire for pleasant sensations - for luxury,
in the heart
- with the desire to enjoy without reasoning,
in the mind
- the dream of arrogant knowledge, and consequently,
it penetrates all the forces of human nature.
The disorder of human nature lies in the fact that sin rejected or tore the soul away from the spirit, and the soul, as a result of this, began to have an attraction to the body, to the flesh and rely on it, and the body, having lost this elevating power of the soul and as itself created from “ chaos”, began to have an attraction to sensuality, to “chaos”, to death. Therefore, the result of sin is illness, destruction and death. The human mind became darkened, the will weakened, feelings were distorted, contradictions arose, and the human soul lost its sense of purpose towards God.
Thus, having transgressed the limit set by the commandment of God, man turned his soul away from God
, true universal concentration and completeness, formed for her
a false focus in her selfhood
, imprisoned her
in the darkness of sensuality, in the coarseness of matter
.
The mind, will and activity of man turned away, deviated, fell from God to creation, from the heavenly to the earthly, from the invisible to the visible (Gen. 3
, 6).
Deceived by the seduction of the tempter, man voluntarily “joined the foolish beasts and became like them” (Ps. 48:13
).
The disorder of human nature by original sin, the separation of the soul from the spirit in man, which even now has an attraction to sensuality, to lust, are clearly expressed in the words of Ap. Paul: “ I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I do not want, I do. But if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
"(Rom.
7
, 19-20).
A person constantly has “remorse” within himself, recognizing his sinfulness and criminality. it is impossible
for a person to restore his nature damaged and upset by sin on his own, without the intervention or help of God .
Therefore, it took the condescension or coming of God Himself to earth - the incarnation of the Son of God (taking on flesh) - to recreate
the fallen and corrupted human nature, to save man from destruction and eternal death.
Who are Australopithecus
Australopithecus belongs to the ancient people who lived on Earth more than 4 million years ago. As mentioned above, it was they who became the progenitors of the Habilis. Anthropologists and archaeologists discovered the first Australopithecus bones in the world in South Africa (Kalahari Desert).
There is no evidence that would confirm that it was Australopithecines who became the ancestors of Homo sapiens. There are two main versions. The first argues that an ancient representative of the genus Homo could have become a descendant of Africanus or Kenyanthropus.
For Australopithecines, savannah lands were preferred; males played the first role in populations. They acted together, which increased the chances of a successful hunt. Among Australopithecus males, polygamy occurred. A notable feature of the society of these ancient people was the departure of females from groups. This example of behavior is not the first in the history of evolution and is now found in the world among chimpanzees.
The main food for australopithecines was small animals, as well as vegetables and fruits. Ancient man often ate nuts, using the most primitive types of tools (ordinary stones) to crack them. Teeth were also often used, much more powerful than those of modern people in our world.
What did primitive people eat?
What we managed to catch or collect. Men went hunting or fishing, while women collected various berries and fruits. Hunting by primitive man was a very dangerous activity; often the hunters themselves died or became prey to other predators (if a primitive hunter went, for example, to hunt a bear, then there was still the question of who would dine on whom as a result, a man with a bear or a bear with a man).
But if it was possible to catch large prey, kill the same mammoth, then its meat would last for a longer period.
Hunting of primitive people.
The caught game was cooked on a fire, which primitive people learned to light with sticks and stones.
* * *
The words "Stone Age" are usually used in a pejorative sense - to denote primitiveness, stupidity and savagery. Indeed, the early Neolithic was an era when crushing skulls was considered a much more interesting activity than trading. However, with the transition to agriculture, the world changed beyond recognition.
Labor made a man out of a monkey. He also turned bloodthirsty maniacs into architects, sculptors, painters and musicians. The Stone Age turned out to be not such a bad time after all. A healthy lifestyle, good ecology, diet, constant physical activity and the tranquility of small villages, sincere belief in gods and magical monsters... Isn’t this the foundation for any fantasy?
