Peace in the Face of War

which they were bound up comes to an end, when the accustomed social
order is destroyed, and the social class to which they belong is overthrown.
Cries that the Antichrist has come all too often greet anything unpopular.
Presentiments of the end of imperial Russia, which was flying headlong into
the abyss, provoked eschatological sentiments and predictions.... Only one
thing is sure and unquestionable. We live in an era of catastrophic historic
upheaval, where we must not judge contemporary events by old standards.
The weakness of politicians in our time can be explained by the fact that they
remain stuck under the influence of their old, historic polemics, which have
been swept away in the intervening struggle.
Problems with the Apocalypse Of all the books of the New Testament,
the Apocalypse always provokes a cautious attitude [especially among the
Orthodox]; [liturgically] it has been completely ignored. This book is an
unpleasant reminder of the catastrophic End, about which people prefer not
to think although they do everything they can to prepare for it. A specialist
literature of commentary on the Apocalypse exists, but it remains of a rather
low quality. It is usually in the form of a completely arbitrary explanation of
the symbolism of the Apocalypse, and is obscurantist in nature. In order to
approach the Apocalypse critically, one must establish the principal by which
we approach the text of Holy Scripture. We can no longer naively credit the
literal text of holy books with a sense of infallibility as we once did. The voice
of God, the word of God, comes down to us through a muddy, dark, human
medium, i.e. one conformed to the spiritual condition of people and the
structure of their consciousness. The word of God is not assimilated by people
automatically, always in the same way and passively, independent of what
sort of people they are. Man is also active in the perception of revelation. And
this activity can often be negative, reflecting people’s lower nature. A human
interpretation of the word of God brings with it elements of distorted sociomorphism.
For this reason there is a constant need to purify, spiritualize and
humanize the means of assimilating God’s word. An immense spiritual effort
is needed to hear God’ s word in its purity. In this process of purification,
biblical criticism, objective historical study, and creative philosophical
thinking can be immensely important. An anthropomorphic (in the bad
sense) and socio-morphic perception of the word of God, corresponding to
the enslaved condition of human societies, has left its distinctive mark on
the apocalyptic books too. A vindictive eschatology took shape. The most
interesting pre-Christian apocalyptic book, excluded from the Biblical canon,
the Book of Enoch, is permeated with themes of revenge by the righteous, by
good people on evil sinners. It describes judgement on sinners, carried out in
the presence of the righteous, who sit as it were over the sinner in judgement
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