This is Jonathan Peeshew. Welcome to the symbolic world. Good evening, As
our lovely director of this wonderful institution said previously, I am Father Patrick O'Rourke,
the dean of students here at Hellenic College Holy Cross. But about twelve
years ago, almost thirteen now, I was Scott Patrick O'Rourke, a wayward
college graduate who had just completed a postgraduate fellowship in Philadelphia, and who had
just moved for a summer to Charleston, South Carolina, to live and work
with master craftsman and artists and Andrew Gould. Andrew, if you're unaware,
Andrew designs Orthodox churches. He designs everything that goes inside of a church,
from equonostasis to vestments to windows. But I didn't go there to work on
architectural things alone. One of the things that Andrew asked me to help with
was my most recent professional endeavor, which was journalism. He asked me to
come and help establish the Orthodox Arts Journal, and he told me that it
would be three person team that would start this. Andrew, myself, and
some guy up in Canada named Jonathan. Jonathan Pagoe is how I used to
say it before I learned better, and so twelve, almost eighteen years ago,
I met Jonathan through the phone. We've had many conversations, We've worked
on a few different projects, and I've even helped him with some of the
things that he's done recently. For those of you who are unaware of Jonathan's
full trajectory, he was very much what you would call a starving artist as
an icon carver, and the Orthodox Arts Journal was his first foray into expressing
his thoughts and his interpretations of symbolism within the confines of ecclesiastical art, primarily
in iconography, and for about five years Jonathan did that and was well received.
He went from being Jonathan Pajoe, a guy in Canada that I talked
to on the phone, to somebody whose thoughts and insights I deeply valued and
took in to myself and started to look at the world world through the lenses
that he was giving myself and others. He took that as a springboard to
create what now everyone knows as The Symbolic World, a series that started off
primarily online, which has now grown into an IRL presence in real life with
a recent and very successful Symbolic World conference. Jonathan has a wonderful way of
expressing these truths that symbolism helps us digest and understand from within the church,
but now outward into the world. And in that way, I think he
is a wonderful paradigm for all of us to learn, to internalize and then
to share outside of the confines of our own ecclesiastical environment. So I hope
and I pray that tonight, through his wisdom and his words, each of
us may take in some of these insights and start to form our vision of
the icons of Holy Week, so that we can encounter them through their symbolism,
being transformed by them, then we can share those truths in symbols with
the rest of the world with no further ado. It is my joy and
my honor to introduce to you a friend that I have now made after twelve
years in real life, mister Jonathan Pegot. So it is. It's a
great joy to be here. For several years now, I've wanted to come
and visit Holy Cross Hellenic College, and so this was a great opportunity to
come. I want to thank especially doctor Timothy Petitza, who I've become friends
with over the past few years, whose thought is I feel very very close
to mine, expressing the deep truth that we find in the in our tradition
in a manner that can also help to heal the world, you know,
through beauty and through these these patterns of being. And so, you know,
I on my YouTube channel, I talk about all kinds of things,
but obviously what I really love to talk about is icons and the powerful symbolism
that we find in them. That's where my root is. And so you
know, if I'm going to speak at a at an Orthodox college, obviously
I'm going to talk about icons. And so, as we have Holy Week
coming towards us very soon, I thought it would be wonderful to go through
the icons that we that we see during Holy Week, as they follow the
story of the Passion, of course, but also that I believe that the
succession of the icons, and we find in those particular icons, they revealed
to us a mystery about the Passion, about the incarnation itself, one that
we also find in the hymnology as well. And it's something of the deep
paradox of the incarnation, the deep paradox of Christ, you know, how
he is both the god Man but also is the one who ends up horribly
crucified on the cross, and so in the icons we kind of see that,
we see these extremes being put up against each other. And so we're
going to go through some of the icons and look at the symbolism that is
shown there, and so we're going to turn it on there you go,
all right, and so we're gonna start with pump Sunday, the Entry into
Jerusalem, you know, and here we really see there are different aspects of
the way we represent Christ. You know. The iconography of Christ is to
represent him as an emperor, really, to represent him as this glorious character.
The way that Christ is dressed in our eys, he's dressed as a
like a Roman senator or a Roman nobleman. Jesus was probably not dressed that
way in first century Galilee, you know, with the clavvy, this sign
of nobility on his cloth, but it was in some ways as Christian art
started to develop, it was a way to signify that he was the king.
He was the king of kings and the Lord of lords. And so
in icons like the Entry into Jerusalem, this is what we're seeing. The
image of the of the Entry into Jerusalem is based on the images of the
sorry, let me get this water the images of the triumphal entry of emperors.
So if when you look at the images of the of the triumphal entry
of different emperors into Rome after their conquests, this is the pattern that they
would have. You would see him on a horse coming in and the people
greeting him as he entered into the city. Of course, it's not a
stretch, because that is how also how it's described in the gospels, because
that is what was happening. The people were, even if in a very
kind of tenuous way, it seems that they were welcoming their king, and
they were treating him as a king and as an emperor as he was entering
into the city. This image of the entry into Jerusalem is really one of
the oldest images. As soon as Christian art starts to flourish, we already
have the type appear right away. So this is a fourth century image of
the entry to Jerusalem on the sarcophagus of Junius Bassis, and we see that
almost all the elements that we still have today in our icon of the entry
Jerusalem is there. You have Christ coming in, sitting on a donkey,
you have someone climbing up in a tree that is going to cut out,
cut down the branches. And then you also have a child putting his vestment
under the feet of the donkey. So this is what we're seeing here.
Christ is coming to the city. He is the glorious Emperor. And what's
interesting about this as well, is that Christ is sitting on a donkey.
Now why is he on a donkey and not on a horse. There are
different interpretations, but the one that I find the most interesting is actually the
one that is parallel to the interpretation that is still current among Jews today.
It's the one that Origin, you know, kind of teases out as he
was in contact with rabbis of his time, which is that the Messiah sitting
on a donkey, is he's sitting on an impure animal. And what that
means is that he's actually sitting on the nation of the gentiles. Like he's
ruling the gentiles. He's ruling the impure folks, the people that aren't us,
and that ruling them, he is now having conquered them, you know,
into Jerusalem. And this is the interpretation that Origin takes, and it's
one of the interpretations that is kept in the Church fathers after him. What's
fascinating about it is already in this image, and already in the way that
Christ is writing the foreign nations into Jerusalem. There's already the paradox of what
it is that Christ is going to do and what it is that Christ is
going to be. Because you know, you often hear you know, the
more cynical, the more cynical Bible scholars who say, everybody was expecting a
king that would deliver, that would deliver the Jews, and what ended up
happening was that he was killed and therefore the promise wasn't fulfilled, right,
that's what they were expecting. But the truth is that Jesus did conquer Rome.
I mean, it took three hundred years, but he did conquer Rome,
and he did it in a manner that was very different from how and
people usually conquer cities. He did it from the inside through a type of
transformation which was not a military conquest, but was a deep inner transformation that
was related to what it is that Christ is going to show all during Passion
Week. But what we do see in the image, of course, is
this powerful image of the king that is coming into the city and is being
received by the people celebrating him as the king. Now, in my opinion,
one of the best ways to interpret icons is to interpret them together.
Is not to isolate the icons and interpret them separately, but to interpret them
as they relate to each other. And in the liturgical cycle, what comes
after the entry to Jerusalem is the bridegroom Matens. And for the the service
of the Bridegroom Mattens, we bring out this icon, which is the icon
of the we call the icon of the Bridegroom, but it's it's based on
several other other icons. Will go through them a little, but now all
of a sudden, what you see is this humiliated, beaten, tortured man.
And so the contrast is very strong between the emperor that comes into the
city and then suddenly right away, you know, and in some traditions,
this icon will be brought out on the Sunday, on Palm Sunday and will
be put into the church right after the services that celebrate that celebrate Palm Sunday.
And so you have this contrast, which is here's the emperor and then
here is this beaten tortured man. Now again in this icon, although it's
like the opposite, the could say of the Entry to Jerusalem, just like
in the Entry. In the Entry of Jerusalem, there's this strange paradox about
how it is that this king is going to end up ruling. Now again
you see the same He's obviously not just a tortured man, but he is
a king, right. He is wearing a crown, he is holding a
scepter, he is dressed in the purple, and so he is this king
that has come into Jerusalem to rule. And so we see in this image
the deep irony that that is going to happen in passion, these clashes of
meaning that are going to be brought together that we discover in our hypnography,
you know, the opposites coming together is what we're seeing. And this image.
It's interesting because this image is a rather late image, and there are
even iconographers today that refuse to paint it because they say that it's a Western
image. It's based on the on the h a homo image that was developed
in the West, you know, where you see you know, Christ is
taken out and say here is the man. But it is nonetheless, even
though it's a late image, it is based on very early types uh which
we call the King of Glory, which are similar but show Christ going down
into the tomb and having the elements of the crucifixion with him, and so
they wouldn't have been related at the outset with bridegroom mattens, but the elements
of the of the bridegroom icon are there. And so what's fascinating about the
about the bridegroom icon as well, is that you know, when you look
at bridegroom mattins, there's an eschatological motif, right It's this, It's the
the the parable of the ten virgins that you know that have to have their
the oil in their lamps and they have to be ready for the coming of
the King. And there's this idea right of this, this final moment,
there's this eschatological reality about it. But the icon that we use to celebrate
it is this image. Here is your bridegroom, right here is your King,
and the deep irony is present. And we'll see that go through all
the icons of Holy Week. And that's the way that I want you to
start to think about what happens during the passion and what we see in the
images of the the icons of Holy Week. The next icon that we usually
encounter in Holy Week is the washing of the feet. Again. In this
image, we have this strange moment where the king, right, the same
king that came into Jerusalem, is now humiliating himself and making him the servant
of his disciples. And we see this paradox again represented in the image I
love and Oh, by the way, some of these are my carvings.
I'm not pointing. I'm not good at pointing them out. Every time you
see carving, it's one of mine. Just I thought you could see some
of the things that I that I that I do, And so hear you
in the in the story of course of the washing of the feet, and
in the image of the washing of the feet, you really have you're playing
with this tension, and it's a tension that's hard to even in the decisions
of the iconographer. It's difficult to know sometimes even how to do it.
So Christ removes his garment and then washes the feet of the disciple. But
in most of the traditions of this image, we also try to find some
physical way to show that Christ is standing, and so in most of the
images, he's standing, and they they stack the disciples up or they do
they find some way to do it so that you know, we don't we
don't know how to deal with this problem of you know, which one is
it? You know, is he the king? Is he the humiliated one?
How do we do this? Because you know, he is the Lord
of Lord, he's the King of kings, he's the Son of God,
he's all these things. But now he's washing the feet. How do we
signify that in the image without betraying something, without you know, without going
too far in one in one way or the other. And so you see
in most of the images of the of the washing of the feet, Christ
is standing, disciples are sitting, and he is washing the feet, though
he's not completely prostrating himself before the disciples. And then you see, of
course in Saint Peter's face that a wonderful expression of dismay, where he is
completely dismayed at what is happening. You know, he cannot understand what is
going on. And again this is this is ultimately is the mystery of Holy
Week. I think that in this image we have the entire history of Christian
hierarchy, like how does Christian authority function? Because we have this problem and
we're going to We're going to see it all through the icons. Like,
we have this problem when we think of Christ, when we think of authority.
How do we deal with it? We have, on the one hand,
the image of Christ as the one who is the king of kings,
and is this this regal figure, but also Christ, who you know,
goes to the marginalized, who who helps the who helps the poor, who
heals the sick, who does who's constantly going to the lost sheep? So
how do we how do we reconcile this in the image? And I think
in this particular image we have a powerful vision of Christian hierarchy, which is
that Christ tells his disciples that he is going to wash their feet, and
then the disciples don't say, what's about time? Right, It's like,
you know, it's like we were waiting for this, you know, finally
he comes down from his from his eye horse. No. The disciples are
dismayed and are saying no, no, no, like you can't wash our
feet, you know, we should be washing your feet' that's how it's supposed
to be. And then Christ then does the most wonderful thing ever, which
is that he uses his authority to then serve them, he says, no,
I'm the boss. I decide. Now shut up and let me wash
your feet, right. And so I think that that is one of the
most powerful images of what authority in the Christian vision is, which is,
on the one hand, those that are our leaders, you know, they're
they in love, want to serve us. But we, as those who
see our leaders, we also, you know, want to serve them as
well. And if we have that, if we can keep that deal going,
then things go well. If they move too far in one direction or
the other, then things start to go off track. And you see that
in a family. It's like, my children have to submit to me.
But you know, I'm supposed to love my children. If I if I
don't love my children at some point, it's difficult to blame them from not
wanting to listen to me, you know. And so that balance is a
very powerful and it's an image I think of everything that happens in the icons
of Holy Week and in Holy Week in general. And so I want to
give you just take a little detour and tell you about, you know,
my own So I when I made this image, I because I was thinking
about this problem. And so I did decide to make Christ kneeling, and
there are some precedents for it. You know, you can you know when
you're making icons, if you're going to do something a little different, you
really have to shake. You have to be a little in my for me
at least, you have to be tentative and nervous about it. But I
really felt like I wanted to show Christ's kneeling as he watched his feet.
We have examples in early early Renaissance images of this. So this is an
image by Duccio where you see Christ's kneeling as he's watching the feet. And
then one of the things, for example, that I that I wanted to
do, which I hadn't, which I've seen in other images, was of
course to have Judas walking away as Christ is washing everybody's feet, and to
kind of show him in side profile, which is which is one of the
tropes that we see in in icons. And so then the next image we
have is an image of the Last Supper. Now again we move in these
extremes, which is, on the one hand, you have Christ, who
humbles himself, who who who who comes down and serves the disciple and becomes
the servant of all and then again he becomes now again the head of the
table. He becomes the high priest, he becomes the one who's running the
show, and he's offering the meal to his disciples, and he's telling them
what's going to happen. You know, he's he's telling even Saint Peter to
take a swords. He is acting as the leader again. And so you
see right in the even in the same event, right in the same evening,
when they're in the upper room, that this this deep, these deep,
this deep paradox about of Holy Week is playing itself out in the story
and is then also playing playing itself out in the images. This image that
I carved, it's one of my very first commissions. I think it's like
in twenty twelve that I carved this, this icon, and so I was
it was very very early. So I made it a strict copy of a
famous icon from vettal Petty that I loved, that I'd loved for you know,
I'd love for a decade before that. I finally was able to carve
it. And I was very very grateful this year to have the chance to
see the fresco at Veto Petty. You know, just kind of stood there
in front of it for way too long, because, yeah, the monks,
they are not used to people just looking at the icon. At some
point it become a little nervous, like what is he's just standing there looking
at the icon. But yeah, but but for me it was a great
joy to see it, and in this in this particular fresco, and in
some ways it was is one of those images that with the inspiration for my
Washing of the Feet icon, because you can see that the way that I
represented Judas in this icon is almost the same as the way that I represented
him in the icon of the Washing of the feet with a with a certain
look, with curly hair. And then also from on the side profile,
all right, and of course from the Holy Supper. Then we come to
the icon of the Crucifixion. Now, the image of the Crucifixion, the
entire mystery of this contradiction, or this clash of extremes, is in its
fullest, fullest representation, you know, and we have to understand that it
took quite a while for Christians to be willing to represent the crucifixion openly.
You know, we do have early images of Christ on the cross from the
fifth century. Usually on there's an image on the door of Santa Sabina,
very schematic, and there's also an ivory We have an ivory box from the
fifth century, but it's not very and they're struggling again with the problem how
do we do this the first images? So here's here's a sixth century image
of the crucifixion from the Rabula Gospel. You know, how do we represent
this? And people are struggling with reason to know how to represent this deep
mystery that is happening. And so the early earliest representations of Christ, what
they will do is it will show him on the cross with his eyes open
and wearing a regal vestment, wearing a kind of royal vestment to cover his
nakedness. And you can, you can kind of understand why they're doing that,
because how do we so what do we just represent him naked? Is
that what we're supposed to do? How do we deal with this, with
this problem of the of the cross? Because it is you know, we're
so used to seeing crosses, we're so used to seeing crucifixes, that we
forget how scandalous this image is. It is so scandalous. Ultimately, what
would happen. And there are stories of Western Christians coming to Constantinople in I
think like tenth or eleventh century and witnessing some of the first images where Christ
is shown with his eyes closed on the cross and slumped on the cross and
being scandalized, like freaking out, how is it that they're doing this.
Ultimately, that image would end up being the image that we represent. But
we never show people's eyes closed in icons. We don't do that because it
means they're dead, like we're showing someone who's dead on the cross, and
that has that's a very deep thing. Like anyways that but on the cross
and the image of the cross, we really have all of this coming together,
which is that Christ in this image brings together all the stories of the
Old Testament, you know, all of these extremes into one. He is
the King, it says so on his on the on the board above his
head that he is the King. He's lifted up, you know, he's
lifted up for all to see, both in glory and in shame. He
is returning into the garden. And we know that he's returning into the garden
because even in the icon will represent him like I did, for example,
in my version where you see the two thieves, you see the good thief
and the bad thief, and so you see Christ on the tree discerning good
and evil. Right, that's what he's doing. And his nakedness is both
the nakedness of the garden but also the nakedness of shame which comes after the
fall. It's like it's a weird clash of all the images together. He
kind of brings it together in one in one moment. And of course,
you know, we could have there are all these things that we could show
in a cruse fiction, but we have chosen mostly to show the Mother of
God and Saint John at his side. And why, like, why are
we doing that? There are probably plenty of reasons, but one of the
reason is that this is the beginning of the church, right, the Church
is being born in the moment that Christ is closing his eyes, and so
the world, you know, Saint Maximus goes way further than I dare.
Saint Maximus says, Christ is creating the world on the cross, you know,
and so it's like it's the when when they pierced his side and the
water and the blood came out. It is the water of the Garden of
Eden that is flowing from a side. It is Eve that is bursting from
a side. It is all these images of the beginning that is happening in
the end. You know, when Christ says I'm the Alpha the Omega,
he wasn't joking. Like it really comes together in this particular image where you
see Christ elevated and humiliated all at once, you know, spreading his hands
out in order to gather the entire world into himself as he is emptying himself
out at the same time. And we always show we most of the time
when we show the Chris fixion will show the sun and the moon in the
image. In mind, is it there in the mosaic, No, it's
not. In mind. You'll see the sun and the moon in the Rabulah
Gospel. When you see it as well, if you look at the top
of the image, you'll see the sun and the moon. And you know,
and you can see that the Christian early Christians knew that this was a
cosmic event, that this was the center of the world, right, that
the Cross of Christ is the mountain, it is the pillar, It is
the right, it is the it is the pillar that God was in in
Exodus, all of these images of anything that connects and Earth is ultimately brought
together in the image of the Cross. And then we show that in the
icon, because what we show is the you know, we show the sun
and the moon above with the angels above. You know, when you see
angels above, you always have to remember we're so used to these images,
right, So we have the angels above, and then below we have the
skull of Adam. Right that is down below, but you could see that
as the skull of Adam, of course, but you could just see it
as death, as death itself. Death is down below, and above you
have the angels. These are the you know, the same angels that sang
at his birth. They are the patterns of the music, of the spheres,
the patterns of the heavens. Everything that is above is there witnessing this
cosmic event which connects that world with this world below of death, and is
just crashing them together in one image. But this image is mostly, of
course, an image of a man being tortured on a cross. And so
what will happen, I think inevitably, is that we will ultimately lead this
will lead to the image of the anastasis, which we'll see and those two
have to be kind of held together in attention, you know, we'll look
at them when we get there. Now, these images, now, the
images of the descent of the Cross, are in some ways even more scandalous
than the Cross itself in terms of what is going on here, you know,
here, here is the god Man being taken down the limp body,
you know, and ultimately this image I think is probably one of the most
difficult ones. Once again, we never show people horizontal in icons, right,
because when we show people horizontal in icons, it means that they're dead,
and we don't. We usually don't show dead people in icons. I
know that sounds weird, but we usually show icons have an eschatological quality.
We tend to show people alive in icons, you know, because we represent
their being. And so these images are very very paradoxical and mysterious. To
show Christ, you know, lying down on the on the tomb or lying
down on the stone is is to really show the mystery of the incarnation and
ultimately is what it's coming. I think the only other image that we have
that's similar to this is the mission where we have you know, the Mother
of God lying down. I'm trying to I'm probably going to find more as
my scan in my mind what we very rarely show people really just dead in
icon. And of course people have pointed out that this the image. Sadly
I didn't bring one, but that this image of Christ lying down, you
know, on the stone as he's being wrapped and being put into the tomb
is parallel to the image of the Nativity, where Christ is also wrapped,
you know, already in the cave, you know, as a as a
prophecy or a promise of what the incarnation is about. And of course,
as we know, this image is going to be used during the during the
Pascal, during the the funeral procession, where we have this icon which is
stitch on a on a piece of cloth, and then we carry it as
we carry the body those I mean most people hear, probably Orthodox and you
know that, but that this ends up being this the very body of Christ,
that is that is cared for, that we take, that we venerate,
that we bring out into the into the church to be venerated, and
so it has a liturgical function in itself. It's not just an icon that
we see on the wall like a fresco or a painting, but it is
a becomes the very object is part of the liturgy. It becomes the stand
in for the very body of Christ that we carry out and we bring out
in order to be buried and to be to be venerated. And this leads,
of course to the image of the Anastasis. Now, I think again,
this image of the of the anastasis shows us the same problem or the
same problem of Passion week, which which is we show Christ on the cross,
and then we show that there is death below. Often will show you
can see the blood of Christ that is flowing down onto the skull of Adam
below right. And so what that signifying is that what you're seeing on the
outside here, what's secretly happening is this, which is what's visibly happening on
the outside, is Christ being humiliated, being subject to death, but that
secretly he is now again the great conqueror, He is now the Emperor,
he is now the king, and he is coming down into death as a
as a hero, as a conqueror, as the Emperor that's coming into his
city in order to gather all of his and to take them out of death.
And so you have this contrast again of on the one hand the deep
humiliation, but on the other hand the conquering that is happening simultaneously. And
we always have to remember that on the cross, what you see with the
blood dripping on the skull of Atom is Christ going down into death to get
Atam. That's what's happening on the cross already, and so we we separate
it. Of course, we have the icon of the descendant to Hades and
we have the Crucifixion, but those two are happening simultaneously, right, This
is what is happening on the cross. The cross brings it all together,
and now we separate it again. But here we really have if you look
at the image of Christ, he is he is a superhero in this image,
you know, if you kind of you see him like often like the
cap floating, if you try to imagine the scene the way it's represented,
and he's like flying into to death and grabbing people and whoa like, you
know, like just pulling them out of Hades, you know, and breaking
the door open and all of this really dramatic imagery of the conqueror of death
coming in coming in to to Haites to get his but that is ultimately all
the images are playing between these two realities and how one ultimately is the reason
for the other. And this is what I mean when I say that it's
it's captured to some extent in the washing of the feet. It's captured to
some extent in the image of the crown of thorns. You know, the
image of the crown of thorns is also to me one of the most mysterious
images in the Bible, because the crown of the thorns are a consequence of
the fall right. So when Adam and Eve sin, God says the world
the earth will produce thorns, so there are consequence of death. They are
in some ways a reaction to death. Think about it, like what thorns
are basically a defense mechanism there they're the plants protecting themselves from a dangerous world.
And they're also the opposite of a like a mountain or a point.
There are many many either a breakdown of points where instead of having one point,
you've got all these different points that are going in all kinds of directions.
There really are an image of fragmentation, of violence and all of that.
But then Christ takes that and then makes it into his crown, you
know, and it truly is a crown, it is a crown of glory.
So you see that, you see this contradiction hinted at, and I
think that really that this is, I mean, it really is the mystery
of what Christianity offers. And it's not when you see it, you know,
once Christ all for that to the world, it's understandable that it's a
complete scandal. It's a complete scandal to present this. It's like, okay,
so this guy who's who's tortured and mocked, this deep irony where we
pretend he's the king, all of these this strange, this strange giving up
of himself and the and then he's the king, Like how does that work?
But when you look at the image of the washing of feet, you
can see that that's actually how reality works. Christ is actually exposing how the
world functions. He's it's not like, it's not just this arbitrary thing that
we have to believe in in a in a you know, just to whatever
to be say, But he is showing, he's revealing to the world how
creation functions, which is that the in order for someone to rule, they
necessarily and in order for anything to rule in order for it to rule proper,
really, it necessarily has to empty itself. There's no other way for
that to happen. And Christ is doing the opposite of what obviously what Adam
and Eve did in the garden, which is, instead of saying mine,
instead of saying I own this, I'm in charge. I'm the one.
You know, I've got divinity. I can take it, he did the
very opposite. Although he was God, he emptied himself and he he emptied
out his presence into the world, and ultimately that's why he can be king.
And it's in some ways the only legitimate king is the one that does
that or else we have the problem that we have all the time, which
is corruption, which is tyranny, which is all of these things. We
have to deal with this as humans all the time. But we know,
even in our own tradition, we know that the best bishops are always the
ones that didn't want to be bishop. You know. You know that the
story of the monk that gets dragged out of the desert, you know,
like there, we have so many of those those stories in in in the
in our tradition, and we know that that's actually how how the world works.
And what's amazing is in the juxtaposition of the icons of Holy Week,
you seem to have this play between the two, which is, on the
one hand, the glorious King and on the other hand, the one who
empties himself, who humiliates himself, who descends, who becomes the smallest,
and those are played against each other all during Holy Week to try to help
you see the mystery of what is happening, which is that that is actually
how reality functioned. So of course the last image is of Holy Week is
the murdering image. And again, you know, you have these, you
have these images of One of the things that I love about this this image
is how humble it is. We actually don't have a tradition of a resurrection
icon in Orthodoxy. Everybody kind of knows that we have later images, like
nineteenth century images, but we don't actually have a tradition of a resurrection icon,
you know. And it's very fascinating because I think it again plays with
this this mystery of that which is this glorious aspect, which is hidden in
the humble, which is hidden in the small, which is hidden in something
which at the outset looks like the very opposite of what it is. And
I think that it is captured in our in our icon of the resurrection,
which is our icon of the resurrection, isn't you know? Could our icon
of the resurrection could have been the icon of Mary Magdalen, for example,
seeing Christ in the garden. Although that icon kind of exists, it's not
the one that's mostly surgically used. This is the one that we celebrate with
the Sunday of the murdering women. And it's like, that's it, that's
the image. There's a weird anti climactic aspect to it, but I think
that that anticlimactic aspect is part of again the mystery of what the incarnation is
doing, and that our image of the resurrection is an image of the empty
tomb. Right, is an image of Christ no longer in the tomb.
And if you think about you know, what we were shown before, you
know this image, right, and this and this image, we can understand
how this image of the empty tomb is this this this little sigh of relief
in the end, this little like and the fact that it's the women also
that are there. You know, it also has to do I do believe
it has to do with something about the secret of the resurrection, because even
in scripture, the resurrection isn't described, you know, it doesn't say or
say he was lying in the tomb and then then he got up and he
left. No, it's always described from the outside, and it's described in
ways that is even contradictory, right. You know, it's like the disciples
don't recognize them, and then you know, they don't recognize them on the
road, they don't recognize them. There's this way in which they were trying
to diffuse even the resurrection itself, which is the central, our central teaching.
But there's something in the Gospel that is wanted to say, hey,
don't think you've got this, like, don't think you master this, like
you don't you don't control this. This is something that is that that you
have to approach with the type of reverence and hesitation and almost fear that you
see in the women in the icon of the bearing the murd bearing women.
So what I want to propose to you is that in some ways these two
aspects that I mentioned to you, they are the key to understanding much of
of our iconographic tradition, which is, on the one hand, we have
images in our ariconographic canon, which are images that represent Christ as the glorious
one, that Christ as the light that is shining that everybody is seeing.
We can think of the Transfiguration, we can think of the icon of Baptism,
Theophany. There are many images like that that represent this kind of glorious
aspect of Christ. But we also have other images that seem to represent the
making small or the going in and in that we have, of course,
the icon of the Nativity. We have we have the actually the icon of
Theophany has both a bit of both, right, because he's naked in the
water, so there's something about that that is also this this kind of mystery.
But you can understand these two extremes of Christ, which is both Christ
in the Dome of the Church as the Great Judge, the one who comes
in the end and rules over all of reality. But then at the same
time he is the innocent victy him who was destroyed by authority, you know.
And that's the paradox, and that's in some ways why he can be
the great King and the Great Judge is because he went through all the injustice
of what authority is. Because we you know, we have this problem right
now in North America, in the world as well, and even in Christianity,
is that we have our own, We have our Jesus. A lot
of people have their Jesus. And many people like the victim Jesus. You
know. It's like the Jesus who is an unjust victim of a tyrannical and
corrupt system, and the Jesus who is friends with the prostitutes, friends with
the marginal people, you know, and that is definitely Jesus. And there's
some people who like the other Jesus, who like the you know, he's
the logos, He's the divine logos. He decides what's true. Besides what's
real, He rules over all reality, all needs will bow, everyone will
confess that he is the Lord. And so you have these this tension,
but the reality is that they're they're the same. And if with only one
you don't get the full image of Christ, and with only the other you
do not get the full image of Christ. And if you don't have them
together, then you have perversions of Christianity, ultimately on one side or the
other. And so we have this powerful testimony of Christ. And even in
the eschatological Christ, it's in the image of the heavenly Jerusalem. It's described
that the Son of Man is ruling over the city, and there's this description
of the Son of Man as the one sitting on the throne, you know,
and is ruling over all the reality. But also he is also paired,
you know, with the lamb that was sacrificed before the foundation of the
world. And those two are together, they are the they're the same person,
and we need to kind of we need to keep them together because that
is that is the testimony that Christianity uh offers. That is the testimony that
that that we have for the world, and it is the only manner that
we as Christians can find each other, because even we have to be able
to see in others. If one of us is the Christian that likes the
the king, the King Jesus, we have to know that the Christian that
likes the victim Jesus, he's right, and the other way the other way
as well. And if we are able to if we are able to do
that, I do believe that we will find in the Church a great solution
to many of the problems that we're facing today. So thank you for your
time. Thank you so much Jonathan. Now, this portion of the program
is going to be a Q and A with Jonathan and doctor Timothy Patitis,
who we mentioned earlier. He's the dean of Hellenic College and a professor of
ethics, also the author of the Ethics of Beauty and co founder of Beauty
First Films. And maybe doctor tim and Jonathan can talk a little bit about
how they know each other or other topics, and then after that we'll take
a few questions from the audience, but just a few to keep our spirits
high, and then we'll have a nice reception outside where you can have a
chance to share your thoughts afterward. So thank you all and let's continue fantastic.
Well, thanks thanks. Do you want to say more right off the
bat about the side that it's just reality that the only one that can nothing,
can rule accept it empties itself. Yeah, yeah, no, so
this is I mean, this is really I didn't want to go into too
much, but it is in some ways a technically true description, you know.
And this is something that I think the more the more that people study
complexity and they study also patterns of cognitive science, they're realizing that that's actually
how identity functions that in fact, for things to exist, they always have
to fit into higher participations, right, And this is as Christians, it's
like, oh, yeah, we know that's true, but it's not just
true morally, where we know that our goods have to stack up and we
have to let's say, our goods have to participate in higher goods or else
they become idols that we can worship. But that seems to be actually how
reality works itself because a simple example, like you know, it's like if
I have a steering wheel and the steering wheel doesn't give itself to its participation
in the car, then it's ridiculous. It's a it's a fetishized object that
has no purpose. And that's how all things function. They always have to
kind of give themselves up, empty themselves into their into their higher participations.
Uh. And that seems to be That seems to be actually the way that
we perceive reality. And we're constantly moving as we engage with things. We're
constantly moving between the particular of an experience. Like you know, if I'm
if I'm drinking water, I have to both attend to my fingers you know,
around the thing and the right pressure and everything, But ultimately I'm also
attending to the fact that I'm thirsty, you know, And and ultimately I'm
attending to the fact that if I don't drink some point, I'm gonna die.
Like there's a there's a kind of there's a kind of hierarchy of goods
that stack onto each other. And I think that this is the amazing thing
about I think what Christ is revealing on the Cross. I don't want to
I don't want it to feel like I'm diminishing what Christ is revealing. I
think, to the contrary, Christ, everything that we say morally about what
Christ did is true, but it also happens to be a description of how
the world works, you know. And and also things also have to give
themselves down. They have to give themselves up into higher participation, but they
also have to kind of give themselves down in a in a kind of flexibility
towards variability. And so like it. I know it sounds it sounds technical,
but you know, it's like for a steering wheel to exist, it
has to allow for a variability of its existence. It has to allow for
all kinds of steering wheels to exist. There can just be one steering wheel,
that there has to be like a million possible steering wheels, you know,
but they all we all recognize them as a steering wheel, even though
they're all different from each other. So identities always kind of give themselves down
into their their variability, but also give themselves up into participation, into higher,
higher identities. And so I think that the incarnation, you know,
when say Maximus talks about the fact that we all everything has a logos,
everything, all the logi are hidden behind all things in creation. There's a
way in which I you know, right now, in these different fields,
they are discovering this to be true. Just about our experience of the world
in general. It's a fractal, right, a fractal thing. Sure,
I'm gonna ask another question. We'll see if there's any relation before we get
to the audience. You hinted that this, or you stated it that at
the moment that the Roman soldiers thought they were mocking Christ by you know,
he's a fake king, they actually were revealing who he really was. Does
that work in our lives or does that work I mean, or does that
work in the lives of saints? That a moment where they're rejected or because
when I think of, for example, sitting Aktarius, because we've seen the
movie Man of God. Everyone's seen it. When he's rejected, how does
that reveal that he's Yeah, yeah, so Jesus. Jesus uses these images,
you know, he talks about the idea, right that the stone that
was rejected by the builders has become the head of the corner, has become
the cornerstone or the I always think it's a keystone. That's the best way
to think about it. Right, then you it's the stone that doesn't look
like the others. And then if you finish the arch, then you oh,
that's where it goes. It just holds the whole thing together. And
so you have this image of the stumbling stone and the keystone or the cornerstone.
And that also seems to be a feature about reality, which is that
ah, the higher, the higher identities, like the higher things, when
they peek into the world, they don't look like the flat world. They
look different, and so they look like you know that you can see it
like the pearl in the field, right, you need the whole field,
and then when you buy the whole field, then you can get the pearl.
But the pearl isn't like the rest of the field. The field is
full of rocks, but there's one thing in the field that shows its allegiance
to more value. And I think that that's the one of the problems that
happens, is that people don't recognize that people because people are looking flat like
their eyes are like this, and they just see the facts, but they
can't recognize the one shining fact that is revealing the higher purpose of something.
And so because of that, people tend to tend to reject it. Right,
It's like the logo shines into the world, but the world does not
recognize it. And that seems to be a sad fact of the fall that
we struggle to be able to capture. You know, we get stuck in
the mire of what we're doing and we struggle to see the purpose. So
I don't want it to sound I hate when it sounds woo, when I
say it sounds woo. So this is something that you deal with all the
time. Right. Imagine you in a job and then people get caught up
in the tasks that they're doing and they forget the reason why they're doing something,
and they don't know but they're dying and they don't even know that they're
dying because they're busy and they're doing all these things and they're super busy.
But because they've forgotten their allegiance to a higher purpose, they're dying. And
so you need someone to come a profit even in your business, like a
little profit, not a profit from God, but like a profit from the
purpose of the company, to come in and say, hey, pick up,
folks, You're supposed to be doing this for this reason. You're not
just doing a bunch of stuff like there's a reason, you know. But
sometimes people hate that. They hate it because it's annoying because I'm busy and
I'm doing all these things. Why are you bothering me with this the uppity
stuff? You know? And so you know, when Jesus described as something
that there are things that we deal with all the time, I thought that
would be a great T shirt. People are dying, but they don't know
they're dying because they're busy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you see
that. You know that, that's definitely something that definitely gets some looks.
You went through the theme park or wherever wherever. Yeah, that's true.
So that sounds a little bit like the ugly duckling, right, Like the
reason the duckling is ugly because it's a Swan. I sorry, I think
gave that away the story spoiler alert, that's but the but I recall a
story of a Romanian abbess who was absolutely loved and regarded as holy and would
disappear one day a week and someone someone followed her to another part of Bucharest
where a very you know, sort of run down place where she sat in
a gutter and people would just spit on her something. That's what's that about?
What was going on in her psychology if you know? So it doesn't
think is that we have to be careful like it so so you see it
in the image of Christ, like in the even the Christ, you see
them both. Christ is always showing the both. It's like when Christ comes
in Jerusalem, people love him, people recognize them, people see him as
the king. And so sometimes that happens, Like we have saints that don't
that are just saints, and everybody sees it and they don't get persecuted and
they don't get you know, and then that's just what I want to be.
I want to be that saying and when to recognizing don't life like Saint
John Christistem people just you know, loved him, and I mean obviously did
get killed by the emperor, but the people, but like people loved him,
and people recognize them and people, so you have you have, you
have both of those stories are possible. And I think in the story of
Jesus, you have you have an aspect which shows you people seeing the king
and recognizing the glorious one, and then also people being blind to them and
being caught up in their passions and in there and in their own distraction and
then not seeing him. So and and that story. By the way,
it seems like the nuns then sort of rejected the abbess on that basic like
at least mentally for a moment. What does she like? What is this?
Yeah, Like, why is it that that saints tend to take take
the the contempt like to take that on. I mean, they're definitely they
seem to be acting like Jesus, you know, and and that they're seem
we do seem to have the possitive the capacity to participate in what Jesus did.
I hate to say it because I don't want to do that, but
they seem to be able to take people's sins and for and in in in
taking them and forgiving them, they are healing the world somehow. Hm hm.
And you see that. I mean, you see all these crazy stories
of you know, of of of abbots, you know, or or you
know, abbots of going and confessing sins to to the to the novice.
But it's there. It's the sin of the novice. And then the novice
is hearing his own sin being confessed by the abbot, and it's like he's
taking the sin of the and you hear like all these stories of saints who
take the blame for other months and stuff. So you know, it seems
to be part of of reality. It's kind of scary though, because,
like I said, I really don't want to do that. It's like when
I see it, I like, oh, that's amazing, But that's rough.
Should we go to the audience for questions now? Because I don't care.
I think they want they want to come to you directly, you know.
So does anybody does anybody have a question? I think there are two
mics going through. So it sounded like you said that the resurrection in the
iconography and the in the scripture. It's not like directly portrayed often, but
to me it seems like, at least in the hymnography, it's very direct,
you know, it's very explicit. You know, you know the hymn
hymnography of Pasca. Of course, you know how many times you say crisis
risen all over the place. Yeah, of course Christ is risen. Yeah,
so can you talk about like why in the hymnography it's like so so
direct when in the iconography in the snow, what I mean is that the
resurrection itself is not portrayed, and so we of course Christ has risen,
and of course he does appear to the disciples and ultimately reveals himself completely fully
where they all recognize him. But there seems to be something left of a
mystery in the mechanism. It doesn't doesn't want to simplify the the fact of
it like it's it doesn't in scripture, doesn't say, you know, he
knocked on the door. I don't know like what he could say, like
like that that he opened the that he opened the tomb and he walked out,
or you see some Jesus movies that do that and it's not good,
Like there's some Jesus movies they actually show him like in the tomb and then
like sitting up. It's like bad stuff. That's bad stuff, you know,
and so and so. Yeah, And I think, I think,
I mean, I can't completely explain why that is, but there seems to
be there seems to be something about the resurrection that is meant to be kept
mysterious. Not that it didn't happen, but that it's not It can't be
reduced to a phenomena that we can that we can reproduce. Let's say that
we could analyze and put it in the laboratory and say here's how the resurrection
works. Thank you, that makes sense. Thank you, Jonathan. Great
to see you. It's good to see your father. Yes, I think
you gave the answer in your talk, and you're trying to keep that tension
between the two. In other words, is he the king? Is he
the humility humiliated one? And I think the reason the church doesn't show and
when you say resurrection, you mean his resurrection coming out of the tomb.
And I think there's a good reason for that. And the reason is exactly
what you showed us, Because there's a danger of that coming a form of
Nestorianism. Why because when you see the resurrection, you don't have the other
image that you showed, in other words, the late humiliation. Because the
whole thing is that it needs to be. That's why the earliest icons of
the resurrection or the crucifixion, like the Rabbullah depictions, where you have the
crucified and risen one. In other words, the danger is to, like
you said, if you get rid of that balance, you have heresy.
The danger is to say, okay, he he's divine and human, and
the human part died and then the divine part by itself rose. Of course
he rose because he's got he's got. But then first of all you're dividing
him into two people in a sense. But also the Church, i believe,
seizes there's a danger there because then it doesn't matter to us. In
other words, that's his thing. It's not a resurrection, and the resurrection
icon that finally came about basically is our resurrection. So because you said,
the eschatological aspect is always there, and that's very important because our historians want
to always look from a Western point of view, a Renaissance point of view.
Oh it must be a picture must be a depiction of something in the
past, and therefore they say, because you never see that, it always
is anastesis. A nastis means resurrection, and resurrection is a physical resurrection.
And he's not alone in the Orthodox icon, whereas the Westerns will have the
banner and he's by himself. But that's not described in the gospels for good
reason. And you have earlier, before the final an icon developed, you
have besides the empty tomb that you showed, you have other depictions of basically
an empty tomb like my house. Yeah, maybe you've seen it, the
old marbles of that. Again, you don't have Christ by himself resurre because
that can be misconstrued as, oh, of course he's God, and that
doesn't affect me. So in a sense, it's the danger of that separation
of the one, mister, because our theology starts from as your icon so
beautifully showed, he is the crucified and rison one in one action, you
know, trampling upon death by death, and that's why all your icons showed
both. And once you separate that, then you have a problem because then
it becomes something that is made superficial in the sense that you lose that radical
newness. Well Western, I'm not pulling your fingers, but it's a theological
statement when you don't have this in the pastor the Easter just passed, you
know, did you know that it happened? I mean, in a sense,
you see bania rabbits, you see chocolate, But is it an existential
event. It's not, because if you have crime coming out of the tomb,
then in a sense, it's his thing. See, I got back
at you guys. I'm God, of course, and I wrote I rose.
But that other side, the humulation side, is not there. So
I think that's that's what the church is, always keeping those two things together.
And the earliest celebration of Pasca was a one night vigil where all these
things were celebrated together, you know, the Crucifixion, the death, and
the resurrection. And that's why I say trampling upon death by death and Pasca
means suffering. Pascal also means resurrection. And that's why all your icons showed
that whole mystery being always depicted together, in other words, held together.
And you made that point, and I think that's the answer to the question.
Really, that's a great that's a great insight. And I love the
idea that the that the anesthetis icon is our resurrection, because when you look
at images of the Last Judgment, you see like when when Christ picks up
Adam and Eve, he's bringing them to the Last Judgment, and you see
them in the icon of the Last Judgment, you know, kneeling before the
prepared throne. It's like, that's it. It is already our resurrection.
You've seen the depiction. I think it's Torcello or porch one of the Near
Venice where Yeah, I did a whole talk on that. Yeah, and
on top is the resurrection, so it's the end times. Yeah, it's
yeah. And plus you're never going to see that emblem you know, is
adu. It doesn't exist. It's an US and resurrection means a resurrection.
And he's pulling them you know, you're an artist. He's pulling it behind
the wrist. It's physical, they're heavy. It's a physical resurrection because then
we spiritualize it and then becomes chocolate and money. Rabbits, Oh, thank
you for coming today. It was a very uh impelled talk, the kind
of bounce off what you said earlier and to continued father's point of splitting the
Christmas of Christ as being the King and the servant, and that kind of
sparked to mind, like how sometimes the Catholicism they overemphasize the servant part with
like for example, friends of a CSI and the over exaggeration of like the
imagery of the suffering, and then also with like bringing to the Protestants the
over emmeasis of the king, the judge, the one that rules everybody.
And it seems like an Orthodoxy, it's they always bring it to they bring
it together. They have the two in unity, and I feel like that's
kind of a theme in like the other the other fate like denominations, is
like the Catholics and the Protestants kind of take one thing from Orthodoxy, but
they only have they don't have the complete truth. It's like a form of
Nestorianism. They split them. And was one of your thoughts on that?
What I would say, It depends, like the Orthodoxy has had a tendency
to focus on the imperial aspect, you know, especially when Byzantine Emperor empire
was quite strong. The image of the of the Christ as emperor was was
more prominent in the East, you know, and the cross was less was
less prominent, and so I do believe that in the theology and in the
mystery, we do have that that that joining together. But we're not the
Orthodox are not immune from excess. Sadly, we wish we were. But
you know, the Holy Spirit does the work over the long term and kind
of brings things together ultimately. But there are moments when we have tended to
emphasize the the imperial aspect of Christ quite quite a lot. Hi, thank
you so much for your speech. One of my questions kind of relating to
that. But if we take the Hebrew, the biblical Hebrew, and bring
the Hebreak emphasis onto this, So for example, the word gospel comes from
Basar, and Basar literally means flesh, so the word gospel is tied to
this Hebrew idea already that is existing in the Old Testament. So the fleshiness
of God, the blood, the water, the thorns, all the imageres
that you mentioned from the Old Testament. Now that we have a chance to
have concordances and the way that the fathers and some of the iconographers did not
have a chance to. So if we reread the Passion week, but using
the septugen but referring back again and again to the Hebrew words, because that's
the foundation of whatever is happening in the New Testament. So do you think
icons and our perception or what we're being scandalized about seeing too much of the
fleshiness maybe, or maybe we're ignoring the imperial side too much. What do
you think bringing the hebrek direct Hebrew words onto the passion narrative, how that
we affect iconography? Thank you? Yeah, well, I believe that we
do have the I think that we are we do have that tradition in the
Church. I mean we through the Syrian fathers, we have this whole Hebraic
thought that that that fed into the Orthodox world, you know, and if
you read Saint Ephraim and you read Saint Isaac, you know, you see
that they're deeply thinking in Hebraic terms. So I think it's there in the
in the Church. I'm always worried about, you know, our Gospel is
written in Greek, and so I'm always worried about attempts to want to then
to simply, you know, like speculate about what it's translating in Hebrew.
It's not completely useless, but I would I'm I'm always careful because you know,
it's it is a bit it is a bit speculative. Uh, And
I would tend to take you know, I have a great love of Saint
Ephraim. He's obviously when my great go to people, and so that's how
I tend to do it, you know. And see, you know,
but I'm not you know, I'm not against the idea, but I would
say it had to be done cautiously, you know. Yeah, thanks for
the great talk, yes, right, yes, So you started your talk
by talk by saying that Jesus came to conquer the Roman Empire, and then
you had my attention because obviously I'm interested in the Roman Empire. Yes,
if you're man, Yeah, exactly. But I also throughout the talk,
I I tried to look at the images as somebody living in the first,
second, third century. And of course this icons didn't exist, but the
mental images existed and were circulating. So I thought that the images themselves are
very controversial, right, because you have this Roman Empire that portrays emperors and
warriors as godlike, and and then you have somebody Jesus that is exactly the
opposite. So and we had also earlier somebody brought it up that and you
also that we many people prefer the humiliating Jesus. So I was asking myself
and I want your take on this. Did he conquer Rome as a king
or as somebody who is humiliated? No, he did both. I mean
it was both at the same time. You know, when Saint Paul's it's
so crazy to read, you know, for example, to know that these
texts were written, you know, hundreds of years before Rome became Christian.
Saint Paul, I forget which passion he says. He says, right now
he is ascending. He is conquering the principalities. He is He's he's saying,
like Christ. You don't see it, but Christ, right now he's
conquering the world. He's actually going up the hierarchy. He's subjugating all these
principalities to himself. All of these kingdoms are being submitted to him. And
you don't see it, but it's happening. And then and then ultimately,
you know, a few hundred years later, then the fruits appear, you
know, and the image of and we have to remember that the image of
the kingly like the son of man, image is not is not just in
revelation. Right, it's there all through the prophetic literature. But the mystery
of Christ is to join the image of the suffering servant and all of this
image of the lowly descriptions of the Messiah in scripture. So like Joseph,
Right, So, Joseph gets cast out into Egypt, He's persecuted by his
brothers, he's chased, you know, his brothers want to kill him.
All of this stuff is going on. You know, he's ended up being
a prisoner in a foreign land. All of this is happening. That's an
image of the Messiah, Okay. And then it's like, oh, then
there's also this David figure who is like, he's the he plans a temple,
he's the ruling king, he's this he's this great conquering hero. And
it's like that's also an image of them aside, and it's like, okay,
well, how do you fit those two together? You know? And
that's the mystery. That's one of the mysteries of Christ is that he shatters
that, you know, he brings it all together into one one, one
opposite, into these two opposites together. Uh. And so I do believe.
I believe that that Christ you know that Christ conquered the Roman emperor both
as a servant and as a king, just like he did in his just
as he was in his own his own life. The image of one sows
in another reap, so though in this case Christ is the sower and three
centuries later the reaper. Yeah, I think we have time for one or
two more questions, so I can't whatever. If you're doing a great job,
microphone people, keep it up. Thank you Jonathan for being here.
We all look for or two it and we hope to see you back very
soon we can. I wanted to see if you would comment on the bridegroom
icon, specifically the the image of the read and the icon. So I
know we have the other prop saying Isaiah about bruised read, he show up
break, But is there anything specifically about the read and the scepter and the
properties of those two things that make them fit for for that icon. Yeah,
that's I'd never thought about it enough. I don't think I have.
There's definitely something there. There's definitely something. There has to be an analogy
between the crown of Thorns and the kingly crown and the read and the scepter.
There has to be an analogy there, but I don't. I'm afraid
that I don't completely see it, but I'm long to it now, so
I'm going I'm going to think about it. But there has there has to
be because it's so Martin, it's so striking. You know, you have
to footnote that question when you're back. I just put it back in there.
Yeah. So I was noticing when you were talking about side right away.
Sorry, when you mentioned earlier about Christ's empty emptying himself and how that
makes them the only legitimate king, it occurred to me that that has a
lot of parallels. I don't know how familiar are with Daoism, but there's
a number of parallels there. I was just hoping maybe you would talk a
little bit about some of those parallels and kind of reconciling that continuity. Hmm.
Yeah. I don't know Daoism enough to be able to make that comparison,
you know, I know that there's a wonderful book on Christ and the
and the Doo that has been written, and A. C. S.
Lewis seemed to have seen also a very strong relationship between the logos and the
dow and so it is it is definitely quite possible that the that the Taoists
had an intuition about. I mean, the thing is the thing about once
you realize that that that Christ, that the divine Logos created the world,
it's not it's not shocking to realize that people would have had intuitions about about
that before he was, before he came, because that's actually how the world
works. And so you know, if there were people that were pure of
heart, if there were people that were you know, that that that were
not taken up by their passions, then they would have had intuitions about about
the same things that we that we teach. To me, that's not surprising.
It's that, you know, it's this whole idea of the of justin
Martyr's you know, logos permaticos, like this idea of the of Christ hidden
in the world and hidden in reality because he is the source, He's upholding
the world. And so to me, the idea that that the Taoists or
that other traditions would have would have captured some element of of of the logos
and how that works is not only is it not surprising, but it just
seems like completely inevitable, you know, And that's why like, you know,
we have this idea of people of Christianity imposing itself, and sometimes it
has, but many many times it didn't. It basically was like a last
key to the puzzle of other people's traditions. You know, there are there
are even many Aboriginal you know, Native native tribes when they heard the sort
of Jesus, You're like, oh, yeah, of course that that fits.
It's like it ties everything together. You know, we've had the we
have these traditions, and then it's like, here's the here's the key.
You know, the Gallic people converted like that. We don't like right away,
they just converted. And so I think that I think that that's yeah,
that's true. So I feel like there's one more person who's gonna just
burst if they don't ask that final question. So who is that person?
Is it someone done there? Maybe in the white sweater there or someone over
here? And this is the final one. Because Hi, thank you for
your talk. Nice to see you up there. So I just had a
general question if, as an expert, if you could explain the relationship between
iconography and in for the individual in terms of meaning, and what would you
advise someone new to knowing Christ. Is there a specific image that you would
suggest looking at or anything, yeah, that you've known to be really impactful.
Well, the icon of Christ is the is the sense is the is
the central image. Everything is in that image. You know, it's just
the just the icon of Christ. Who's who's there, He's blessing with his
right hand, he holds a book in his left hand. All of the
all of iconography is is gathered into that image. You know, people often
ask me, like, I'd like to commission one icon, which one should
be. It's like, that's if you're going to just commission one icon,
that's the icon you should commission, because you know, you can have an
icon core with a thousand icons, or you can have an icon corner with
the with the icon of Christ. If you have the icon of Christ,
it's all gathered into that one image. So that's that's what I would suggest.
Well, very sadly and reluctantly, we've got to wrap up for tonight.
Jonathan, thank you very much for coming. I don't know if you
have one last word you want to say or what I want to think.
I want to thank thank you, thank Holy Cross for coming. You know,
it's been great. I was able to come with my wife and my
daughter, and you know, you all received them wonderfully, beautifully. I
was really happy to see, you know, my family making relationships and even
my daughter, you know, talking to students and all that that's been for
me. It's been a great joy. So I'm happy to be able to
come. Thank you, Thank you very much for coming everyone. Good night. Yes,