”On Babylon rivers”
“And saying, Alas, alas, that great city,
that was clothed in fine linen, and purple,
and scarlet, and decked with gold, and
precious stones, and pearls! For in one hour
so great riches is come to nought.“
The Babylonian captivity of the Jews is not an extraordinary event in world history. We shall never know how many peoples have been other peoples’ captives no matter how keen we are to learn this. My work’s title associates with the Babylonian captivity rather arbitrarily. Having disappeared from the face of the earth, the historical Babylon actually did not vanish as a worldly object, but scattered its seeds over countries and continents of our planet. The entire history of mankind shows that it is permanently and exclusively engaged in construction and destruction of Babylons, supplementing the process with extermination of fellow creatures. So it went on to this day. And, rest assured, so it will be till the second advent.
Our entire civilization, with its countries, towns and capitals, is essentially a huge Babylon standing on rivers of blood. It is sunk in lust for lucre, bragging about its brutal force, polytheism, wanton spectacles and depravity. The demented human mind keeps reproducing one and the same image from which it can’t rid itself. It is driven by a corrupt longing and carnal desire recruiting cruel force. Its monotonous actions resemble the proverbial donkey crowned with a stick, from the end of which a carrot dangles urging the donkey to run tirelessly on and on till it breathlessly drops.
In the same vein, a fallen man who identifies himself with an encapsulated body, expends all his strength and aspirations and, ultimately, all his life on maintaining his capsule in luxury, warmth, comfort and enjoyment. However, approaching the end of his sojourn on earth, realizing all the futility of his efforts, seeing all he has possessed disappear together with him, he falls into dismay and, if the pain in liver does not drive him to utter desperation, wails and moans, he succumbs to what seems to him to be pleasing remembrances, satisfying and enjoyable. But remembrances about events are not events as such and the joy they bring is not the real joy but only ghosts that comfort but little, rather trigger a keen anguish in our insatiable consciousness. A complete loss, inconsolable distress, defeat and chilling fear of disappearance. So it is with all who are fixed to land and who fuss on it all their life long.
The curious people of different times and nations, consumed by the desire to learn the being, tried to peep behind the curtain of death and to explain the origin of the entire visible world, its phenomena and the advent of man. They organized the life of their tribes in compliance with their understanding of the current historical moment. So it was over many centuries and millenniums. The Egyptians and Hindus proved to be the most advanced but by the beginning of our era the Greeks outperformed all others. They threshed a lot of philosophic doctrines, cosmologic notions and gods’ pantheons, and sucked out from the human brains whatever could be obtained, whereupon they stopped short, realizing the fruitlessness of their logic construing and searching. So they erected in Athens an Altar “to the unknown God” which apostle Paul encountered and for which he praised them in Areopagus. As it happened, the Jews were the luckiest of all for the Lord Himself chose them for preparing His salutary coming via sending to Earth His Only Son Jesus Christ. The Lord spared no time and effort working on them. And He chose for them such hard ways in order to knock the nonsense out of their heads. He shut His eyes to the routs of their tribes, including the self-same Babylonian captivity when the state itself and the temple were destroyed while the elite priests and the ablest of people were led away into the Chaldean captivity. David’s psalm No.136 tells us how the Jews endured this rout, what pain they sustained, what fortitude they displayed, what hope and faith in the coming liberation they demonstrated, which liberation did occur seventy years subsequently by the divine providence.
All losses cause spiritual suffering, especially the loss of the home country, the promised land. Israel wept and missed his motherland and its destroyed temple. This weeping was none other than the self-same weeping of Adam over Paradise lost. They were deprived of the opportunity to perform services and sing hymns to the Lord in their sacred place, the Temple of Jerusalem. So each man, who is touched by the Lord’s love which then goes, feels an irreparable bitter loss, pines with a hope, appeals for the Lord’s mercy and seeks an encounter with Him again, with His world that knows no misery for it has no corporal expression and thus needs neither time nor space because there is no one to die since there is no death and food is the Lord Himself. Love reigns supreme in this world and it is eternal. True, it is a creation, but it is in the Lord. We, the fallen creatures, are also creations and we exist and are supported by the Lord. But we are separated from Him by the reason damaged by inflated pride. Our mind has become callous and it has acquired a corporal shell (“the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skins for their clothing”, Genesis 3:21) which is subject to decay and death. The Lord triumphed in this world and canceled death by His death on the cross. He transformed the self-same flesh, immortalizing it and giving people new commandments leading home to Father’s bosom. However, in order to make these commandments into the norms of one’s new life, it is necessary to give up the old life and the principles of the Babylonian life, which is a narrow way that not all take and not all go to its final point. Here many fall away and sustain hardships, but only this is the salvation and the real endless life and eternal joy.
One day, on hearing this composition, a good friend of mine said: “I heard the angels, felt the anguish and joy. But it was a queer joy, sort of incomplete.” In my mind I disagreed with him about the angels. But I fully agreed with his unusual joy because it was not even a joy, but a recollection about it.
I shall be glad, Reader, if in my work you will hear what I’ve written about. If this site and music are not to your liking, don’t be upset and forgive me, the sinner. Then I shall be glad that they did not seriously damage your digestive tract or disturb your healthy sleep.
And now let us listen to the music. For this, go to the site top and click on the icon “On the Babylonian rivers”.