Q: Hello
Father! Why don’t we observe the Wednesday and Friday fast during the week of
the Publican and the Pharisee? Thank you! Respectfully, Olga.
A: The parable of the publican and the Pharisee
gives an image of the spiritual truth that God resisteth the proud, but giveth
grace unto the humble (Js. 4:6). The Pharisees were representatives of the
social-religious trend in Judea during the second century B.C. Their
distinguishing characteristic was an intense zeal for observing the Law of
Moses. Religious life requires that a person be attentive to himself, that he
have moral sensitivity, humility, and pure intentions. If he doesn’t have
these, a hardness of heart gradually creeps in on him. Then a
pseudo-spirituality inevitably comes. The result is spiritual death. If instead
of humility there is self-opinion and pride, instead of sacrificial love there
is spiritual egoism, then it is not hard for the devil to take over such a
person and make him an accomplice in his evil deeds. People who are unbelieving
or spiritually inattentive do not even know or guess how often they do just
what the enemy of our salvation wants them to do.
Phariseeism
is not a vocation or a membership in some kind of religious organization.
Phariseeism is a state of the soul. It begins with self-opinion and
self-aggrandizement. Just as soon as a person’s attention to himself and
strictness with himself relaxes, the first shoots of a dangerous plant appear,
the fruits of which can kill the soul. Death comes as a result of poisoning
with the poison of pride.
The main
moral characteristic of a Pharisee is self-love and egoism, which directs all
the movements of his soul. We rarely think about how much egoism and therefore,
phariseeism we have in ourselves. Our insensitivity to our surroundings, our
constant coldness, the lack of a constant readiness to sacrifice our time,
energy, and convenience for the sake of others shows how far we are from the
repentant publican, who with a contrite heart pronounced only five words, but
departed justified.
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| Hieromonk Job (Gumerov) |
By
cancelling the Wednesday and Friday fast during the week of the Publican and
the Pharisee, the holy Church desires to keep us from pharisaical self-complacency,
when the formal observation of Church rules (fasting, prayer rule, and church
attendance) becomes the goal of spiritual life. The holy fathers teach that all
this must be fulfilled, but it must be seen as a means for acquiring spiritual fruits.
The
Pharisees considered themselves to be wise and knowing. But the wisdom that is
from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated,
full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And
the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace (Js.
3:17-18)
Q: Hello!
Christ tells the parable of the Pharisee and the publican in the temple. The
Pharisee says that he does this and that, including that he fasts two days out
of the week. Tell me, please, what days of the week were these, and why were
they fast days? Thank you! Evgeny.
A: According to the law of Moses there was only
one day established as a day of fasting (Heb. tsum—to draw out) during the
year—on the day of Purificaton (Yom Kippur): Lev. 16:29; Num. 29:7.
Nevertheless, any of the sons of Israel could voluntarily take on a fast. Such
fasts are often written about in the Old Testament. A fast could be for one
day, or it could go on for many days: the prophet Moses on the mountain in the
presence of God spent forty days without food and water (Ex. 34:28), and the
prophet Elias fasted for just as long (3 Kings 19:7-8). Fasting for the Jews
presupposed total abstinence from food. David ate nothing for seven days (2
Kings 12:16-21). The faster usually put on sackcloth, refrained from daily
washing, sprinkled his head with ashes (3 Kings 21:27; Nem. 9:1). The Jews had
voluntary recourse to fasting: 1) Before decisive events, the outcome of which depended
upon God’s mercy; (2 Kings 12:16, 21-23; Eph. 4:3-16, and others); 2) During
sincere repentance and humility before God (1 Kings 7:6; 3 Kings 21:27); Ezd.
10:6; Nem. 9:1); and 3) To attain full communion with God (Ex. 34:28; Deut.
9:9, 18).
In Babylonian
captivity, a one-day fast was established for the Jews: On the ninth day of the
fourth month (tammuza), as a sorrowful remembrance of the Chaldean capture of
Jerusalem (587/6 B.C.), on the tenth day of the fifth month (ava), on which the
city was destroyed and the temple was burned (Jer. 52:12-13), on one of the
days of the seventh month (tishri) in memory of the murder of Godolia (Jer.
41:1-3)
The
Pharisee from the Lord’s parable fasted twice a week voluntarily, and boasted
of it. The Pharisees had a custom of fasting on the fifth day of the week, when
the prophet Moses ascended Mt. Sinai, and on the second, when he descended from
the mountain.
The
prophets condemned external fasts without repentance and humility. The parable
of the publican and the Pharisee speaks of this. Such a fast leads to pride and
spiritual blindness.
Q: Who are
the Pharisees?
A: The
Pharisees (according to one etymology, the Hebrew perushim—set apart) were
representatives of the most influential religious-social trend in Judea. They
are first mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew (3:7-9). The lack of mention of
them in the Old Testament leads us to believe that this sect was formed
significantly later than the conclusion of the canon of sacred Old Testament
books (c. fifth century B.C.). There is a convincing theory by certain
researchers who see the sect of the Pharisees as an answer to Hellenism—the
tendency toward cultural-historical synthesis among the Mediterranean peoples.
This tendency was the result of Alexander the Great’s successful military
campaigns (356-323 B.C.). The Hellenic influence on Israeli society apparently
brought to life this party of zealous defenders of national tradition. Josephus
Flavius first speaks of the Pharisees as one of the three sects (along with the
Sadducees and Essenes) in the thirteenth book of Judaic antiquity (13.5:9),
talking about the activities of one of the Maccabees—the high priest Jonathan
(c. second century B.C.).
The
Pharisees, unlike the Sadducees, accepted the future resurrection, and the
existence of angels and spirits. They preached a strict life, ritual purity,
and exact fulfillment of the law. Representatives of this movement struggled
against pagan influence upon the people, and stood for national independence.
All of this attracted people to them.
But the
farther time separated them from the God-revealed source of truth, the stronger
a purely human origin showed itself in their teachings and actions. Formalism
began to grow. The Lord through Moses forbade the introduction of new
commandments and the repeal of those already given: You shall not add to the
word that I speak to you, neither shall you take away from it: keep the
commandments of the Lord your God which I command you (Deut. 4:2). Despite
this, they introduced 613 new rules: 248 commands (according to the number of
bones in the human body) and 365 prohibitions (according to the number of days
in the year). They ascribed more significance to their innovations than they
did to God’s commandments. The Savior rebuked them for this: Why do ye also
transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? (Mt. 15:3); For laying aside
the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men (Mk. 7:8). They
characteristically treated with contempt sinners, publicans, and people not of
the book: But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed (Jn. 7:49).
Although there were many sinners in Israeli society during the time of the
Savior, the Lord never rebuked anyone like he did the Pharisees. But woe unto
you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass
over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to
leave the other undone. Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost
seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets. Woe unto you, scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men
that walk over them are not aware of them (Lk. 11:42-44). Jesus Christ rebuked
the soulless formalism of the Pharisees and Scribes, who accused the Savior of
violating the Sabbath by healing seriously ill people. Without doing away with
the law, the Lord placed works of love and mercy for suffering people higher
than ritual: The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath (Mk.
2:27).
Pride and
self-opinion about their righteousness lead the Pharisees to spiritual
blindness and made them incapable of humbly accepting anyone higher, purer, and
more righteous than themselves. The Lord’s miracles, His teachings, which
astounded the people by their moral heights, and His meekness all evoked wrath
in the representatives of this sect. This was the main reason why they did not
see in Jesus Christ the Messiah promised by the prophets, and, along with the
Sadducees, demanded His crucifixion.
The
better representatives of the Pharisees, who had a living faith and were not
deadened by formalism, became Christians: the Apostle Paul, righteous
Nicodemus, Gamaliel, and others.
Our Lord
Jesus Christ warned His disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees (Mt.
16:11). Phariseeism as a spiritual state is a danger to any believer. It begins
when a person prays formally, with his lips and not his heart, out of habit,
and thinks he is pleasing to God. “People who are trying to conduct a spiritual
life sometimes have the most subtle and difficult battle through their thoughts
every moment of life—a spiritual battle. One has to be a bright eye to
everything in every moment in order to notice the thoughts flowing into the
soul from the evil one and deflect them. Such people must always have a heart
burning with faith, humility, and love; otherwise, devilish deceit easily
settles into it, and after deceit comes little faith or faithlessness, and then
also all kinds of evil, from which they cannot soon cleanse themselves even
with tears. Therefore do not allow your heart to be cold, especially during
prayer, and avoid all cold indifference” (St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in
Christ). Spiritual pride, assurance of your own righteousness, ostentatious
piety and hypocrisy are all phariseeism. The Holy Church in its struggle with
the danger of falling into this state puts forth the example of the repentant
publican. With his humble prayer we begin our daily morning prayers: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
By Hieromonk Job (Gumerov)
Source: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/76967.html
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