The word "Gospel" comes from the Greek compound "εὐάγγελος", which translates as "good news", where "εὖ" is "good, good", "ἀγγελία" - "news, news." So, we know that "ἄγγελος" is a "messenger", the one who reports, announces, delivers, transmits, broadcasts messages, information, instructions. That is, the "angel" is the one who brings the message.
On the vernal equinox, it is even customary to celebrate the church holiday "Annunciation", which in Greek is called "Evangelismos" (Εὐαγγελισμός). This day is famous for the fact that the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary and told her the good news:
"… Rejoice, Gracious One! The Lord is with You; blessed are You among women … … do not be afraid, Mary, for You have found grace with God; and, behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bear a Son, and you will call His name: Jesus. He will be great and He will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and His kingdom will have no end "(Luke 1: 28-33)
Thus, Gabriel fully fulfilled the role of an Angel, bringing the message from God to man.
In general, the name "Gabriel" (Γαβριήλ) was rather absurdly adapted to the Semitic dialect (גַּבְרִיאֵל). After all, as we "translate" it: "The Lord is my strength." In general, in mythology, any name is an epithet that reveals some function of a character. But when we come across the names of angels, this logic collapses at the root, which seems to hint …
Although any Russian person in "Gabriel" will hear "Speak" and it will be more logical, because throughout the Bible this archangel is engaged in what He tells people to lead and instructions on what to do and how.
So the plot of the act itself, called "Evangelismos", is precisely in this feature: a winged creature informs Mary that she is about to conceive. And although the theme of angels and their appearance is a whole epic of the Middle Ages and is worthy of a separate investigation (up to technical versions), the moment of the Annunciation is so canonical that it is always portrayed in the same way - a winged angel is broadcasting to Mary:
Giovanni Battista Pittoni - Annunciation.
Promotional video:
That is, it is in this act (EXACTLY IN THIS!) That there is no place for any other types of angels; the image of a winged creature carrying a message is used here. Yes, another important point that exists only in the apocrypha, but influenced icon painting. The so-called "pre-annunciation", when the angel tried for the first time to get in touch with Mary. This happened near the Well. Remember this moment.
The whole solution to the term "Gospel" lies in the Slavic rituals of meeting the spring, which consists in the so-called "crying" of the birds, when the girls sang the so-called "vesnyanka". Other names for spring trees: ogulki, gaivki, hailki, yagilki and others. Read them carefully, and you will see the Greek "angel" (just as an option), because in both cases we see the root "Voice", which is essentially what angels are when they come to people.
The winged angels carried the message from heavenly paradise, just as the first spring migratory birds carried the message from the "vyri", in which they stayed all winter.
Why do birds call and how does it happen? Details in the book by Anichkov E. V. “Spring ritual song in the West and among the Slavs. Part I. From rite to song (1903) (I will shorten it as much as possible, although there are many interesting things):
Thus, the name of the birds was, which carry with them a metaphorical key with which you can open nature, release it from the winter shackles. The theme of keys and locks is a symbolic one for Slavic folklore, it permeates everything connected with Reality, and there is no polarity “free-good, closed-bad” in it, these are just different states of reality, the relationship between reality and navu. For example, in personified Slavic mythology Veles is “closing” and “closed”, and Perun is “unlocking, liberating”, but this does not at all make the former a villain, but the latter a hero. Although at a later time it began to be considered.
It is noteworthy that this topic of keys eventually got even into Catholicism, where the Apostle Peter keeps the keys to Paradise, which was reflected even in the architecture of the Vatican, but this is too big a topic, touched on by me in the most out of the way in the article on the coast and will probably pop up and in subsequent articles.
With regard to nature, the first birds carry spring springs. And later the keys to nature were entrusted to several “saints”. One of them is St. Evdokia, who, of course, was selected the appropriate Christian life, according to which Evdokia of Iliopolskaya was a noble harlot, but after a vision in which the Archangel Michael snatches her from the clutches of Satan, she becomes a righteous Christian and gives all her fortune, earned by hard work, to the local bishop, with all the ensuing martyrdom.
The Slavs called her "Plyushchikha" in honor of the traces of the rivulets of thawed snow on the ice (buns), as well as Baba Marta, Avdotya Vesnukha, Baba Dokiya, etc. Wikipedia writes: “According to Slavic beliefs, God instructed Evdokia to resurrect the earth from winter sleep - death, and gave her the keys to all spring waters. She could, at her own discretion, "let or not let" spring"
The name Evdokia / Avdotya is traditionally translated from Greek “Blessed”, but if you look at Sanskrit, the word धौति (dhauti) is translated as “a source of water, a well, a key, a bath”. We see the basis of this word in the pan-European “Doi” meaning “to give moisture, to nourish”, from which such words as “milk” and “don” (in the name of many rivers) originated, which brings us back to the symbol of the key-spring-well. fountain gushing out of the ground. The Key again, this time as an open spring land, giving its water nourishing riches. And this is the answer to the question why, in the Apocrypha, Mary receives the first voice message from an angel, being near the Well.
The Mother of God at the Well.
The oldest Russian icon of the Annunciation depicts Mary with red yarn in her hands, also taken from the Apocrypha, according to which Mary at that moment was making a curtain of purple for the Jerusalem Temple.
"Annunciation", mosaic, c. 1040.
At the same time, in the Bulgarian tradition, in honor of Baba Marta, a red cloth is hung on the fence, and “martenitsa” (martishora for Romanians) - amulets made of white and red threads - are hung on the trees. From Wikipedia: “Archaeological excavations in Romania prove that amulets, like the modern martisor, existed about 8 thousand years ago. Then they were made in the form of small pebbles, painted in white and red, worn around the neck. For the first time the martisor was mentioned by Iordache Golescu. Folklorist Simon Florea Marian wrote that in Moldova and Bukovina the martisor consisted of a gold or silver coin on a red and white thread, which children wore around their necks. The girls also wore a martisor around their necks for the first 12 days of spring, and then weaved it into their hair until the arrival of storks or until the first trees were in bloom …”. The tradition is interesting and deserves separate consideration, especially considering its connection with the late Christian story about Mary.
Well, and the Annunciation … Why are we waiting for spring? The sun, which brings us vitamin D and a feeling of happiness, which was so lacking all winter. The peasants, by the first birds, noted the imminent start of hard field work, tried to determine the annual trends by the first spring signs. In the same period, children were born, conceived on Kupala, because 40 cherished weeks had passed (again, you need to open the womb with a symbolic key so that childbirth would pass without problems). That is, the first spring storks actually brought children. And also the first signs of pregnancy appeared in girls who got married during the wedding season in January-February.
The whole point is not in the very call of the birds, they will arrive without human songs. The people tuned in for spring and sent their prayers to nature for health, for the economy, for offspring and live, for the future, hoping for goodwill. These are "woman's" rituals, as they were called, female, earthly, aimed at fertility, primarily family, youth, spring fertility.
And everyone believed, everyone expected that the Earth-Maria was about to unlock its locks and release life from under the snowdrifts, and she would gush with a spring key, inspiring, directing, prompting. This is the cherished "εὖ" about which the arriving March "angels" were shouting about.
Author: peremyshlin