The Agony of the Church (1917)Velimirović, Nikolaj
Religion
The Agony of the Church (1917)
Velimirović, Nikolaj
Christianity -- 20th century; Church
Let us look now to the Christian Church in the early time of her
formation.
Jesus Christ gave the largest possible scheme on which to work and the
largest foundation to build upon. There is no other name in history upon
which more has been constructed than upon His name. The primitive Church
realised it from the beginning, and declared it. She was inclusive from
the first, inclusive in her teaching and worship.
(a) Inclusive in Teaching.--Christ was put in the centre of the world's
history. He represented what was the best and highest in Eastern and
Western thought. The dream of Messias was the best and highest in the
Jewish conception. Well, Jesus was the Messias.
The expectation of a second Adam, the redeemer of the first, sinful
Adam, was common among the peoples in Palestine and Mesopotamia. Well,
Jesus was the second Adam, the expected Redeemer, God's Messenger.
Egypt had an intuition into the mystery of the Divinity as a Trinity.
However rough may have been that idea, the Trinity being thought of as a
human family of Father, Mother, and Son, still it existed very vividly
in Egypt. And the people expected the coming of God's only Son, the
third person of their Trinity, not an imaginary being like Horus, but
the real son of Osiris in flesh and blood who would bring happiness to
men. Well, Jesus of Nazareth was this Son of God, and He as Christ was
the eternal sharer of the Divine Trinity.
India was the cradle of the teaching of the Incarnation. The supreme
God, Brahma, had already been incarnated in many persons since the dawn
of history. But the highest incarnation of Him was still to come. Well,
Jesus Christ was this highest incarnation of Brahma in human shape.
The cultivated polytheists did not like the idea of a monotonous
theology of one solitary God. They liked rather a divine company upon
Olympus. Well, Christianity with its Trinity-teaching presented to them
a limited polytheism. God was not physically one, as in Judaism, nor
many, as in Hellenism. He was a Trinitarian Plurality in Unity. He was
not a grim hermit, but He had the riches of an eternal life.
The intellectual Greeks and Hellenists climbed to the idea of one God
and of Logos, the Mediator between God and the world, through whom God
created whatever He created, and who may be incarnated for the salvation
of the fallen, suffering creation. Well, Jesus Christ could include in
His person this wonderful doctrine of Neoplatonism.
The mountainous Asia under Caucasus and Ararat, plunged into the mystery
of Mithras, which was born out of the Zoroastrian dualistic religion of
light and darkness, of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Well now, Christ, the friend
of humanity, revealed Himself as the God of light struggling against
Satan, the enemy of humanity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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