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This is Jonathan Peeshew. Welcome to
the symbolic world. Good evening, As

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our lovely director of this wonderful institution
said previously, I am Father Patrick O'Rourke,

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the dean of students here at Hellenic
College Holy Cross. But about twelve

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years ago, almost thirteen now,
I was Scott Patrick O'Rourke, a wayward

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college graduate who had just completed a
postgraduate fellowship in Philadelphia, and who had

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just moved for a summer to Charleston, South Carolina, to live and work

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with master craftsman and artists and Andrew
Gould. Andrew, if you're unaware,

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Andrew designs Orthodox churches. He designs
everything that goes inside of a church,

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from equonostasis to vestments to windows.
But I didn't go there to work on

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architectural things alone. One of the
things that Andrew asked me to help with

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was my most recent professional endeavor,
which was journalism. He asked me to

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come and help establish the Orthodox Arts
Journal, and he told me that it

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would be three person team that would
start this. Andrew, myself, and

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some guy up in Canada named Jonathan. Jonathan Pagoe is how I used to

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say it before I learned better,
and so twelve, almost eighteen years ago,

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I met Jonathan through the phone.
We've had many conversations, We've worked

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on a few different projects, and
I've even helped him with some of the

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things that he's done recently. For
those of you who are unaware of Jonathan's

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full trajectory, he was very much
what you would call a starving artist as

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an icon carver, and the Orthodox
Arts Journal was his first foray into expressing

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his thoughts and his interpretations of symbolism
within the confines of ecclesiastical art, primarily

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in iconography, and for about five
years Jonathan did that and was well received.

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He went from being Jonathan Pajoe,
a guy in Canada that I talked

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to on the phone, to somebody
whose thoughts and insights I deeply valued and

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took in to myself and started to
look at the world world through the lenses

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that he was giving myself and others. He took that as a springboard to

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create what now everyone knows as The
Symbolic World, a series that started off

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primarily online, which has now grown
into an IRL presence in real life with

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a recent and very successful Symbolic World
conference. Jonathan has a wonderful way of

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expressing these truths that symbolism helps us
digest and understand from within the church,

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but now outward into the world.
And in that way, I think he

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is a wonderful paradigm for all of
us to learn, to internalize and then

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to share outside of the confines of
our own ecclesiastical environment. So I hope

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and I pray that tonight, through
his wisdom and his words, each of

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us may take in some of these
insights and start to form our vision of

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the icons of Holy Week, so
that we can encounter them through their symbolism,

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being transformed by them, then we
can share those truths in symbols with

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the rest of the world with no
further ado. It is my joy and

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my honor to introduce to you a
friend that I have now made after twelve

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years in real life, mister Jonathan
Pegot. So it is. It's a

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great joy to be here. For
several years now, I've wanted to come

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and visit Holy Cross Hellenic College,
and so this was a great opportunity to

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come. I want to thank especially
doctor Timothy Petitza, who I've become friends

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with over the past few years,
whose thought is I feel very very close

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to mine, expressing the deep truth
that we find in the in our tradition

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in a manner that can also help
to heal the world, you know,

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through beauty and through these these patterns
of being. And so, you know,

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I on my YouTube channel, I
talk about all kinds of things,

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but obviously what I really love to
talk about is icons and the powerful symbolism

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that we find in them. That's
where my root is. And so you

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know, if I'm going to speak
at a at an Orthodox college, obviously

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I'm going to talk about icons.
And so, as we have Holy Week

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coming towards us very soon, I
thought it would be wonderful to go through

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the icons that we that we see
during Holy Week, as they follow the

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story of the Passion, of course, but also that I believe that the

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succession of the icons, and we
find in those particular icons, they revealed

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to us a mystery about the Passion, about the incarnation itself, one that

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we also find in the hymnology as
well. And it's something of the deep

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paradox of the incarnation, the deep
paradox of Christ, you know, how

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he is both the god Man but
also is the one who ends up horribly

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crucified on the cross, and so
in the icons we kind of see that,

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we see these extremes being put up
against each other. And so we're

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going to go through some of the
icons and look at the symbolism that is

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shown there, and so we're going
to turn it on there you go,

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all right, and so we're gonna
start with pump Sunday, the Entry into

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Jerusalem, you know, and here
we really see there are different aspects of

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the way we represent Christ. You
know. The iconography of Christ is to

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represent him as an emperor, really, to represent him as this glorious character.

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The way that Christ is dressed in
our eys, he's dressed as a

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like a Roman senator or a Roman
nobleman. Jesus was probably not dressed that

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way in first century Galilee, you
know, with the clavvy, this sign

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of nobility on his cloth, but
it was in some ways as Christian art

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started to develop, it was a
way to signify that he was the king.

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He was the king of kings and
the Lord of lords. And so

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in icons like the Entry into Jerusalem, this is what we're seeing. The

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image of the of the Entry into
Jerusalem is based on the images of the

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sorry, let me get this water
the images of the triumphal entry of emperors.

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So if when you look at the
images of the of the triumphal entry

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of different emperors into Rome after their
conquests, this is the pattern that they

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would have. You would see him
on a horse coming in and the people

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greeting him as he entered into the
city. Of course, it's not a

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stretch, because that is how also
how it's described in the gospels, because

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that is what was happening. The
people were, even if in a very

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kind of tenuous way, it seems
that they were welcoming their king, and

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they were treating him as a king
and as an emperor as he was entering

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into the city. This image of
the entry into Jerusalem is really one of

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the oldest images. As soon as
Christian art starts to flourish, we already

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have the type appear right away.
So this is a fourth century image of

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the entry to Jerusalem on the sarcophagus
of Junius Bassis, and we see that

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almost all the elements that we still
have today in our icon of the entry

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Jerusalem is there. You have Christ
coming in, sitting on a donkey,

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you have someone climbing up in a
tree that is going to cut out,

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cut down the branches. And then
you also have a child putting his vestment

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under the feet of the donkey.
So this is what we're seeing here.

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Christ is coming to the city.
He is the glorious Emperor. And what's

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interesting about this as well, is
that Christ is sitting on a donkey.

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Now why is he on a donkey
and not on a horse. There are

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different interpretations, but the one that
I find the most interesting is actually the

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one that is parallel to the interpretation
that is still current among Jews today.

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It's the one that Origin, you
know, kind of teases out as he

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was in contact with rabbis of his
time, which is that the Messiah sitting

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on a donkey, is he's sitting
on an impure animal. And what that

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means is that he's actually sitting on
the nation of the gentiles. Like he's

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ruling the gentiles. He's ruling the
impure folks, the people that aren't us,

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and that ruling them, he is
now having conquered them, you know,

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into Jerusalem. And this is the
interpretation that Origin takes, and it's

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one of the interpretations that is kept
in the Church fathers after him. What's

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fascinating about it is already in this
image, and already in the way that

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Christ is writing the foreign nations into
Jerusalem. There's already the paradox of what

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it is that Christ is going to
do and what it is that Christ is

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going to be. Because you know, you often hear you know, the

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more cynical, the more cynical Bible
scholars who say, everybody was expecting a

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king that would deliver, that would
deliver the Jews, and what ended up

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happening was that he was killed and
therefore the promise wasn't fulfilled, right,

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that's what they were expecting. But
the truth is that Jesus did conquer Rome.

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I mean, it took three hundred
years, but he did conquer Rome,

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and he did it in a manner
that was very different from how and

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people usually conquer cities. He did
it from the inside through a type of

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transformation which was not a military conquest, but was a deep inner transformation that

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was related to what it is that
Christ is going to show all during Passion

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Week. But what we do see
in the image, of course, is

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this powerful image of the king that
is coming into the city and is being

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received by the people celebrating him as
the king. Now, in my opinion,

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one of the best ways to interpret
icons is to interpret them together.

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Is not to isolate the icons and
interpret them separately, but to interpret them

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as they relate to each other.
And in the liturgical cycle, what comes

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after the entry to Jerusalem is the
bridegroom Matens. And for the the service

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of the Bridegroom Mattens, we bring
out this icon, which is the icon

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of the we call the icon of
the Bridegroom, but it's it's based on

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several other other icons. Will go
through them a little, but now all

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of a sudden, what you see
is this humiliated, beaten, tortured man.

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And so the contrast is very strong
between the emperor that comes into the

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city and then suddenly right away,
you know, and in some traditions,

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this icon will be brought out on
the Sunday, on Palm Sunday and will

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be put into the church right after
the services that celebrate that celebrate Palm Sunday.

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And so you have this contrast,
which is here's the emperor and then

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here is this beaten tortured man.
Now again in this icon, although it's

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like the opposite, the could say
of the Entry to Jerusalem, just like

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in the Entry. In the Entry
of Jerusalem, there's this strange paradox about

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how it is that this king is
going to end up ruling. Now again

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you see the same He's obviously not
just a tortured man, but he is

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a king, right. He is
wearing a crown, he is holding a

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scepter, he is dressed in the
purple, and so he is this king

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that has come into Jerusalem to rule. And so we see in this image

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the deep irony that that is going
to happen in passion, these clashes of

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meaning that are going to be brought
together that we discover in our hypnography,

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you know, the opposites coming together
is what we're seeing. And this image.

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It's interesting because this image is a
rather late image, and there are

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even iconographers today that refuse to paint
it because they say that it's a Western

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image. It's based on the on
the h a homo image that was developed

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in the West, you know,
where you see you know, Christ is

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taken out and say here is the
man. But it is nonetheless, even

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though it's a late image, it
is based on very early types uh which

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we call the King of Glory,
which are similar but show Christ going down

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into the tomb and having the elements
of the crucifixion with him, and so

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they wouldn't have been related at the
outset with bridegroom mattens, but the elements

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of the of the bridegroom icon are
there. And so what's fascinating about the

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about the bridegroom icon as well,
is that you know, when you look

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at bridegroom mattins, there's an eschatological
motif, right It's this, It's the

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the the parable of the ten virgins
that you know that have to have their

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the oil in their lamps and they
have to be ready for the coming of

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the King. And there's this idea
right of this, this final moment,

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there's this eschatological reality about it.
But the icon that we use to celebrate

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it is this image. Here is
your bridegroom, right here is your King,

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and the deep irony is present.
And we'll see that go through all

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the icons of Holy Week. And
that's the way that I want you to

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start to think about what happens during
the passion and what we see in the

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images of the the icons of Holy
Week. The next icon that we usually

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encounter in Holy Week is the washing
of the feet. Again. In this

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image, we have this strange moment
where the king, right, the same

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king that came into Jerusalem, is
now humiliating himself and making him the servant

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of his disciples. And we see
this paradox again represented in the image I

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love and Oh, by the way, some of these are my carvings.

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I'm not pointing. I'm not good
at pointing them out. Every time you

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see carving, it's one of mine. Just I thought you could see some

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of the things that I that I
that I do, And so hear you

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in the in the story of course
of the washing of the feet, and

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in the image of the washing of
the feet, you really have you're playing

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with this tension, and it's a
tension that's hard to even in the decisions

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of the iconographer. It's difficult to
know sometimes even how to do it.

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So Christ removes his garment and then
washes the feet of the disciple. But

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in most of the traditions of this
image, we also try to find some

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physical way to show that Christ is
standing, and so in most of the

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images, he's standing, and they
they stack the disciples up or they do

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they find some way to do it
so that you know, we don't we

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don't know how to deal with this
problem of you know, which one is

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it? You know, is he
the king? Is he the humiliated one?

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How do we do this? Because
you know, he is the Lord

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of Lord, he's the King of
kings, he's the Son of God,

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he's all these things. But now
he's washing the feet. How do we

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signify that in the image without betraying
something, without you know, without going

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too far in one in one way
or the other. And so you see

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in most of the images of the
of the washing of the feet, Christ

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is standing, disciples are sitting,
and he is washing the feet, though

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he's not completely prostrating himself before the
disciples. And then you see, of

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course in Saint Peter's face that a
wonderful expression of dismay, where he is

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completely dismayed at what is happening.
You know, he cannot understand what is

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going on. And again this is
this is ultimately is the mystery of Holy

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Week. I think that in this
image we have the entire history of Christian

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hierarchy, like how does Christian authority
function? Because we have this problem and

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we're going to We're going to see
it all through the icons. Like,

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we have this problem when we think
of Christ, when we think of authority.

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How do we deal with it?
We have, on the one hand,

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the image of Christ as the one
who is the king of kings,

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and is this this regal figure,
but also Christ, who you know,

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goes to the marginalized, who who
helps the who helps the poor, who

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heals the sick, who does who's
constantly going to the lost sheep? So

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how do we how do we reconcile
this in the image? And I think

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in this particular image we have a
powerful vision of Christian hierarchy, which is

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that Christ tells his disciples that he
is going to wash their feet, and

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then the disciples don't say, what's
about time? Right, It's like,

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you know, it's like we were
waiting for this, you know, finally

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he comes down from his from his
eye horse. No. The disciples are

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dismayed and are saying no, no, no, like you can't wash our

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feet, you know, we should
be washing your feet' that's how it's supposed

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to be. And then Christ then
does the most wonderful thing ever, which

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is that he uses his authority to
then serve them, he says, no,

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I'm the boss. I decide.
Now shut up and let me wash

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your feet, right. And so
I think that that is one of the

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most powerful images of what authority in
the Christian vision is, which is,

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on the one hand, those that
are our leaders, you know, they're

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they in love, want to serve
us. But we, as those who

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see our leaders, we also,
you know, want to serve them as

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well. And if we have that, if we can keep that deal going,

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then things go well. If they
move too far in one direction or

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the other, then things start to
go off track. And you see that

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in a family. It's like,
my children have to submit to me.

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But you know, I'm supposed to
love my children. If I if I

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don't love my children at some point, it's difficult to blame them from not

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wanting to listen to me, you
know. And so that balance is a

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very powerful and it's an image I
think of everything that happens in the icons

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of Holy Week and in Holy Week
in general. And so I want to

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give you just take a little detour
and tell you about, you know,

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my own So I when I made
this image, I because I was thinking

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about this problem. And so I
did decide to make Christ kneeling, and

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there are some precedents for it.
You know, you can you know when

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you're making icons, if you're going
to do something a little different, you

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really have to shake. You have
to be a little in my for me

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at least, you have to be
tentative and nervous about it. But I

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really felt like I wanted to show
Christ's kneeling as he watched his feet.

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We have examples in early early Renaissance
images of this. So this is an

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image by Duccio where you see Christ's
kneeling as he's watching the feet. And

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then one of the things, for
example, that I that I wanted to

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do, which I hadn't, which
I've seen in other images, was of

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course to have Judas walking away as
Christ is washing everybody's feet, and to

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kind of show him in side profile, which is which is one of the

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tropes that we see in in icons. And so then the next image we

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have is an image of the Last
Supper. Now again we move in these

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extremes, which is, on the
one hand, you have Christ, who

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humbles himself, who who who who
comes down and serves the disciple and becomes

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the servant of all and then again
he becomes now again the head of the

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table. He becomes the high priest, he becomes the one who's running the

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show, and he's offering the meal
to his disciples, and he's telling them

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what's going to happen. You know, he's he's telling even Saint Peter to

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take a swords. He is acting
as the leader again. And so you

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see right in the even in the
same event, right in the same evening,

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when they're in the upper room,
that this this deep, these deep,

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this deep paradox about of Holy Week
is playing itself out in the story

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and is then also playing playing itself
out in the images. This image that

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I carved, it's one of my
very first commissions. I think it's like

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in twenty twelve that I carved this, this icon, and so I was

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it was very very early. So
I made it a strict copy of a

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famous icon from vettal Petty that I
loved, that I'd loved for you know,

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I'd love for a decade before that. I finally was able to carve

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it. And I was very very
grateful this year to have the chance to

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see the fresco at Veto Petty.
You know, just kind of stood there

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in front of it for way too
long, because, yeah, the monks,

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they are not used to people just
looking at the icon. At some

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point it become a little nervous,
like what is he's just standing there looking

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at the icon. But yeah,
but but for me it was a great

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joy to see it, and in
this in this particular fresco, and in

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some ways it was is one of
those images that with the inspiration for my

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Washing of the Feet icon, because
you can see that the way that I

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represented Judas in this icon is almost
the same as the way that I represented

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him in the icon of the Washing
of the feet with a with a certain

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look, with curly hair. And
then also from on the side profile,

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all right, and of course from
the Holy Supper. Then we come to

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the icon of the Crucifixion. Now, the image of the Crucifixion, the

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entire mystery of this contradiction, or
this clash of extremes, is in its

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fullest, fullest representation, you know, and we have to understand that it

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took quite a while for Christians to
be willing to represent the crucifixion openly.

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You know, we do have early
images of Christ on the cross from the

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fifth century. Usually on there's an
image on the door of Santa Sabina,

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very schematic, and there's also an
ivory We have an ivory box from the

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fifth century, but it's not very
and they're struggling again with the problem how

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do we do this the first images? So here's here's a sixth century image

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of the crucifixion from the Rabula Gospel. You know, how do we represent

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this? And people are struggling with
reason to know how to represent this deep

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mystery that is happening. And so
the early earliest representations of Christ, what

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they will do is it will show
him on the cross with his eyes open

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and wearing a regal vestment, wearing
a kind of royal vestment to cover his

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nakedness. And you can, you
can kind of understand why they're doing that,

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because how do we so what do
we just represent him naked? Is

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that what we're supposed to do?
How do we deal with this, with

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this problem of the of the cross? Because it is you know, we're

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so used to seeing crosses, we're
so used to seeing crucifixes, that we

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forget how scandalous this image is.
It is so scandalous. Ultimately, what

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would happen. And there are stories
of Western Christians coming to Constantinople in I

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think like tenth or eleventh century and
witnessing some of the first images where Christ

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is shown with his eyes closed on
the cross and slumped on the cross and

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being scandalized, like freaking out,
how is it that they're doing this.

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Ultimately, that image would end up
being the image that we represent. But

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we never show people's eyes closed in
icons. We don't do that because it

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means they're dead, like we're showing
someone who's dead on the cross, and

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that has that's a very deep thing. Like anyways that but on the cross

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and the image of the cross,
we really have all of this coming together,

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which is that Christ in this image
brings together all the stories of the

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Old Testament, you know, all
of these extremes into one. He is

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the King, it says so on
his on the on the board above his

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head that he is the King.
He's lifted up, you know, he's

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lifted up for all to see,
both in glory and in shame. He

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is returning into the garden. And
we know that he's returning into the garden

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because even in the icon will represent
him like I did, for example,

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in my version where you see the
two thieves, you see the good thief

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and the bad thief, and so
you see Christ on the tree discerning good

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and evil. Right, that's what
he's doing. And his nakedness is both

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the nakedness of the garden but also
the nakedness of shame which comes after the

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fall. It's like it's a weird
clash of all the images together. He

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kind of brings it together in one
in one moment. And of course,

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you know, we could have there
are all these things that we could show

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in a cruse fiction, but we
have chosen mostly to show the Mother of

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God and Saint John at his side. And why, like, why are

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we doing that? There are probably
plenty of reasons, but one of the

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reason is that this is the beginning
of the church, right, the Church

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is being born in the moment that
Christ is closing his eyes, and so

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the world, you know, Saint
Maximus goes way further than I dare.

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Saint Maximus says, Christ is creating
the world on the cross, you know,

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and so it's like it's the when
when they pierced his side and the

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water and the blood came out.
It is the water of the Garden of

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Eden that is flowing from a side. It is Eve that is bursting from

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a side. It is all these
images of the beginning that is happening in

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the end. You know, when
Christ says I'm the Alpha the Omega,

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he wasn't joking. Like it really
comes together in this particular image where you

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see Christ elevated and humiliated all at
once, you know, spreading his hands

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out in order to gather the entire
world into himself as he is emptying himself

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out at the same time. And
we always show we most of the time

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when we show the Chris fixion will
show the sun and the moon in the

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image. In mind, is it
there in the mosaic, No, it's

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not. In mind. You'll see
the sun and the moon in the Rabulah

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Gospel. When you see it as
well, if you look at the top

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of the image, you'll see the
sun and the moon. And you know,

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00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,240
and you can see that the Christian
early Christians knew that this was a

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00:29:41,319 --> 00:29:47,680
cosmic event, that this was the
center of the world, right, that

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the Cross of Christ is the mountain, it is the pillar, It is

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the right, it is the it
is the pillar that God was in in

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Exodus, all of these images of
anything that connects and Earth is ultimately brought

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together in the image of the Cross. And then we show that in the

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icon, because what we show is
the you know, we show the sun

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and the moon above with the angels
above. You know, when you see

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angels above, you always have to
remember we're so used to these images,

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right, So we have the angels
above, and then below we have the

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skull of Adam. Right that is
down below, but you could see that

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as the skull of Adam, of
course, but you could just see it

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as death, as death itself.
Death is down below, and above you

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have the angels. These are the
you know, the same angels that sang

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at his birth. They are the
patterns of the music, of the spheres,

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the patterns of the heavens. Everything
that is above is there witnessing this

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00:30:57,839 --> 00:31:07,759
cosmic event which connects that world with
this world below of death, and is

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00:31:07,119 --> 00:31:21,079
just crashing them together in one image. But this image is mostly, of

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course, an image of a man
being tortured on a cross. And so

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what will happen, I think inevitably, is that we will ultimately lead this

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will lead to the image of the
anastasis, which we'll see and those two

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00:31:37,319 --> 00:31:40,880
have to be kind of held together
in attention, you know, we'll look

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00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:47,960
at them when we get there.
Now, these images, now, the

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00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:51,960
images of the descent of the Cross, are in some ways even more scandalous

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00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:56,599
than the Cross itself in terms of
what is going on here, you know,

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here, here is the god Man
being taken down the limp body,

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you know, and ultimately this image
I think is probably one of the most

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00:32:09,759 --> 00:32:17,079
difficult ones. Once again, we
never show people horizontal in icons, right,

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because when we show people horizontal in
icons, it means that they're dead,

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and we don't. We usually don't
show dead people in icons. I

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00:32:28,079 --> 00:32:32,240
know that sounds weird, but we
usually show icons have an eschatological quality.

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We tend to show people alive in
icons, you know, because we represent

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their being. And so these images
are very very paradoxical and mysterious. To

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show Christ, you know, lying
down on the on the tomb or lying

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down on the stone is is to
really show the mystery of the incarnation and

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ultimately is what it's coming. I
think the only other image that we have

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00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:00,880
that's similar to this is the mission
where we have you know, the Mother

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00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:06,000
of God lying down. I'm trying
to I'm probably going to find more as

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my scan in my mind what we
very rarely show people really just dead in

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00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:19,960
icon. And of course people have
pointed out that this the image. Sadly

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00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:23,079
I didn't bring one, but that
this image of Christ lying down, you

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00:33:23,079 --> 00:33:28,200
know, on the stone as he's
being wrapped and being put into the tomb

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00:33:28,559 --> 00:33:34,039
is parallel to the image of the
Nativity, where Christ is also wrapped,

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00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:37,759
you know, already in the cave, you know, as a as a

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00:33:37,799 --> 00:33:45,839
prophecy or a promise of what the
incarnation is about. And of course,

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00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:51,839
as we know, this image is
going to be used during the during the

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00:33:52,759 --> 00:34:00,000
Pascal, during the the funeral procession, where we have this icon which is

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00:34:00,039 --> 00:34:04,480
stitch on a on a piece of
cloth, and then we carry it as

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00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:07,720
we carry the body those I mean
most people hear, probably Orthodox and you

391
00:34:07,799 --> 00:34:12,239
know that, but that this ends
up being this the very body of Christ,

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that is that is cared for,
that we take, that we venerate,

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00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:21,960
that we bring out into the into
the church to be venerated, and

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00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:24,480
so it has a liturgical function in
itself. It's not just an icon that

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00:34:24,519 --> 00:34:28,840
we see on the wall like a
fresco or a painting, but it is

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00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:34,000
a becomes the very object is part
of the liturgy. It becomes the stand

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00:34:34,039 --> 00:34:37,920
in for the very body of Christ
that we carry out and we bring out

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00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:42,559
in order to be buried and to
be to be venerated. And this leads,

399
00:34:42,599 --> 00:34:50,920
of course to the image of the
Anastasis. Now, I think again,

400
00:34:51,199 --> 00:34:57,519
this image of the of the anastasis
shows us the same problem or the

401
00:34:57,599 --> 00:35:04,639
same problem of Passion week, which
which is we show Christ on the cross,

402
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and then we show that there is
death below. Often will show you

403
00:35:12,039 --> 00:35:17,880
can see the blood of Christ that
is flowing down onto the skull of Adam

404
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:24,239
below right. And so what that
signifying is that what you're seeing on the

405
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:35,360
outside here, what's secretly happening is
this, which is what's visibly happening on

406
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,639
the outside, is Christ being humiliated, being subject to death, but that

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00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:45,239
secretly he is now again the great
conqueror, He is now the Emperor,

408
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:50,679
he is now the king, and
he is coming down into death as a

409
00:35:50,679 --> 00:35:53,159
as a hero, as a conqueror, as the Emperor that's coming into his

410
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:59,480
city in order to gather all of
his and to take them out of death.

411
00:36:00,079 --> 00:36:04,719
And so you have this contrast again
of on the one hand the deep

412
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:09,239
humiliation, but on the other hand
the conquering that is happening simultaneously. And

413
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:13,440
we always have to remember that on
the cross, what you see with the

414
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:17,000
blood dripping on the skull of Atom
is Christ going down into death to get

415
00:36:17,039 --> 00:36:22,880
Atam. That's what's happening on the
cross already, and so we we separate

416
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:25,320
it. Of course, we have
the icon of the descendant to Hades and

417
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:30,719
we have the Crucifixion, but those
two are happening simultaneously, right, This

418
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:34,119
is what is happening on the cross. The cross brings it all together,

419
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:38,239
and now we separate it again.
But here we really have if you look

420
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:44,320
at the image of Christ, he
is he is a superhero in this image,

421
00:36:44,519 --> 00:36:46,639
you know, if you kind of
you see him like often like the

422
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:51,000
cap floating, if you try to
imagine the scene the way it's represented,

423
00:36:51,199 --> 00:36:54,639
and he's like flying into to death
and grabbing people and whoa like, you

424
00:36:54,679 --> 00:36:58,840
know, like just pulling them out
of Hades, you know, and breaking

425
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:02,119
the door open and all of this
really dramatic imagery of the conqueror of death

426
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:10,400
coming in coming in to to Haites
to get his but that is ultimately all

427
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:17,599
the images are playing between these two
realities and how one ultimately is the reason

428
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:22,119
for the other. And this is
what I mean when I say that it's

429
00:37:23,559 --> 00:37:30,079
it's captured to some extent in the
washing of the feet. It's captured to

430
00:37:30,159 --> 00:37:36,880
some extent in the image of the
crown of thorns. You know, the

431
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:40,199
image of the crown of thorns is
also to me one of the most mysterious

432
00:37:40,599 --> 00:37:45,360
images in the Bible, because the
crown of the thorns are a consequence of

433
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:51,920
the fall right. So when Adam
and Eve sin, God says the world

434
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:55,360
the earth will produce thorns, so
there are consequence of death. They are

435
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:59,440
in some ways a reaction to death. Think about it, like what thorns

436
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:06,000
are basically a defense mechanism there they're
the plants protecting themselves from a dangerous world.

437
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:09,239
And they're also the opposite of a
like a mountain or a point.

438
00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:14,840
There are many many either a breakdown
of points where instead of having one point,

439
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:17,159
you've got all these different points that
are going in all kinds of directions.

440
00:38:17,159 --> 00:38:22,639
There really are an image of fragmentation, of violence and all of that.

441
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:30,000
But then Christ takes that and then
makes it into his crown, you

442
00:38:30,039 --> 00:38:36,559
know, and it truly is a
crown, it is a crown of glory.

443
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:42,840
So you see that, you see
this contradiction hinted at, and I

444
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:50,000
think that really that this is,
I mean, it really is the mystery

445
00:38:50,039 --> 00:38:58,760
of what Christianity offers. And it's
not when you see it, you know,

446
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:02,480
once Christ all for that to the
world, it's understandable that it's a

447
00:39:02,519 --> 00:39:07,519
complete scandal. It's a complete scandal
to present this. It's like, okay,

448
00:39:07,559 --> 00:39:13,360
so this guy who's who's tortured and
mocked, this deep irony where we

449
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:20,119
pretend he's the king, all of
these this strange, this strange giving up

450
00:39:20,199 --> 00:39:23,880
of himself and the and then he's
the king, Like how does that work?

451
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:28,000
But when you look at the image
of the washing of feet, you

452
00:39:28,119 --> 00:39:34,440
can see that that's actually how reality
works. Christ is actually exposing how the

453
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:38,559
world functions. He's it's not like, it's not just this arbitrary thing that

454
00:39:38,599 --> 00:39:42,719
we have to believe in in a
in a you know, just to whatever

455
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:46,480
to be say, But he is
showing, he's revealing to the world how

456
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:55,199
creation functions, which is that the
in order for someone to rule, they

457
00:39:55,320 --> 00:40:00,000
necessarily and in order for anything to
rule in order for it to rule proper,

458
00:40:00,079 --> 00:40:04,559
really, it necessarily has to empty
itself. There's no other way for

459
00:40:04,599 --> 00:40:08,679
that to happen. And Christ is
doing the opposite of what obviously what Adam

460
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:13,159
and Eve did in the garden,
which is, instead of saying mine,

461
00:40:13,559 --> 00:40:16,360
instead of saying I own this,
I'm in charge. I'm the one.

462
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:21,159
You know, I've got divinity.
I can take it, he did the

463
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:28,199
very opposite. Although he was God, he emptied himself and he he emptied

464
00:40:28,199 --> 00:40:32,880
out his presence into the world,
and ultimately that's why he can be king.

465
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:37,519
And it's in some ways the only
legitimate king is the one that does

466
00:40:37,559 --> 00:40:42,920
that or else we have the problem
that we have all the time, which

467
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:45,760
is corruption, which is tyranny,
which is all of these things. We

468
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:47,039
have to deal with this as humans
all the time. But we know,

469
00:40:47,519 --> 00:40:51,519
even in our own tradition, we
know that the best bishops are always the

470
00:40:51,519 --> 00:40:53,960
ones that didn't want to be bishop. You know. You know that the

471
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:57,679
story of the monk that gets dragged
out of the desert, you know,

472
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:01,920
like there, we have so many
of those those stories in in in the

473
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:07,400
in our tradition, and we know
that that's actually how how the world works.

474
00:41:13,119 --> 00:41:17,199
And what's amazing is in the juxtaposition
of the icons of Holy Week,

475
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:22,719
you seem to have this play between
the two, which is, on the

476
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:27,280
one hand, the glorious King and
on the other hand, the one who

477
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:31,119
empties himself, who humiliates himself,
who descends, who becomes the smallest,

478
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:37,039
and those are played against each other
all during Holy Week to try to help

479
00:41:37,079 --> 00:41:42,239
you see the mystery of what is
happening, which is that that is actually

480
00:41:43,079 --> 00:41:50,880
how reality functioned. So of course
the last image is of Holy Week is

481
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:55,559
the murdering image. And again,
you know, you have these, you

482
00:41:55,679 --> 00:42:02,840
have these images of One of the
things that I love about this this image

483
00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:08,679
is how humble it is. We
actually don't have a tradition of a resurrection

484
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:13,840
icon in Orthodoxy. Everybody kind of
knows that we have later images, like

485
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:19,440
nineteenth century images, but we don't
actually have a tradition of a resurrection icon,

486
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:24,119
you know. And it's very fascinating
because I think it again plays with

487
00:42:24,199 --> 00:42:31,239
this this mystery of that which is
this glorious aspect, which is hidden in

488
00:42:31,519 --> 00:42:35,840
the humble, which is hidden in
the small, which is hidden in something

489
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,079
which at the outset looks like the
very opposite of what it is. And

490
00:42:39,119 --> 00:42:44,280
I think that it is captured in
our in our icon of the resurrection,

491
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:47,559
which is our icon of the resurrection, isn't you know? Could our icon

492
00:42:47,559 --> 00:42:51,880
of the resurrection could have been the
icon of Mary Magdalen, for example,

493
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:54,039
seeing Christ in the garden. Although
that icon kind of exists, it's not

494
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:58,719
the one that's mostly surgically used.
This is the one that we celebrate with

495
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:02,199
the Sunday of the murdering women.
And it's like, that's it, that's

496
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:07,440
the image. There's a weird anti
climactic aspect to it, but I think

497
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:14,400
that that anticlimactic aspect is part of
again the mystery of what the incarnation is

498
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,400
doing, and that our image of
the resurrection is an image of the empty

499
00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:22,320
tomb. Right, is an image
of Christ no longer in the tomb.

500
00:43:22,679 --> 00:43:27,519
And if you think about you know, what we were shown before, you

501
00:43:27,519 --> 00:43:31,840
know this image, right, and
this and this image, we can understand

502
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:37,320
how this image of the empty tomb
is this this this little sigh of relief

503
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:42,199
in the end, this little like
and the fact that it's the women also

504
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:45,880
that are there. You know,
it also has to do I do believe

505
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:50,280
it has to do with something about
the secret of the resurrection, because even

506
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:53,920
in scripture, the resurrection isn't described, you know, it doesn't say or

507
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:58,000
say he was lying in the tomb
and then then he got up and he

508
00:43:58,519 --> 00:44:01,360
left. No, it's always described
from the outside, and it's described in

509
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:06,280
ways that is even contradictory, right. You know, it's like the disciples

510
00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:08,039
don't recognize them, and then you
know, they don't recognize them on the

511
00:44:08,079 --> 00:44:10,519
road, they don't recognize them.
There's this way in which they were trying

512
00:44:10,559 --> 00:44:16,440
to diffuse even the resurrection itself,
which is the central, our central teaching.

513
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:20,119
But there's something in the Gospel that
is wanted to say, hey,

514
00:44:20,119 --> 00:44:22,239
don't think you've got this, like, don't think you master this, like

515
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:27,960
you don't you don't control this.
This is something that is that that you

516
00:44:28,079 --> 00:44:32,880
have to approach with the type of
reverence and hesitation and almost fear that you

517
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:37,960
see in the women in the icon
of the bearing the murd bearing women.

518
00:44:39,519 --> 00:44:45,400
So what I want to propose to
you is that in some ways these two

519
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:51,760
aspects that I mentioned to you,
they are the key to understanding much of

520
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:54,920
of our iconographic tradition, which is, on the one hand, we have

521
00:44:55,039 --> 00:45:01,159
images in our ariconographic canon, which
are images that represent Christ as the glorious

522
00:45:01,199 --> 00:45:07,559
one, that Christ as the light
that is shining that everybody is seeing.

523
00:45:07,599 --> 00:45:12,159
We can think of the Transfiguration,
we can think of the icon of Baptism,

524
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:17,119
Theophany. There are many images like
that that represent this kind of glorious

525
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:23,119
aspect of Christ. But we also
have other images that seem to represent the

526
00:45:23,159 --> 00:45:28,559
making small or the going in and
in that we have, of course,

527
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:34,239
the icon of the Nativity. We
have we have the actually the icon of

528
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:38,559
Theophany has both a bit of both, right, because he's naked in the

529
00:45:38,599 --> 00:45:42,880
water, so there's something about that
that is also this this kind of mystery.

530
00:45:43,639 --> 00:45:47,199
But you can understand these two extremes
of Christ, which is both Christ

531
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:52,480
in the Dome of the Church as
the Great Judge, the one who comes

532
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:55,639
in the end and rules over all
of reality. But then at the same

533
00:45:55,719 --> 00:46:04,159
time he is the innocent victy him
who was destroyed by authority, you know.

534
00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:07,360
And that's the paradox, and that's
in some ways why he can be

535
00:46:07,519 --> 00:46:12,239
the great King and the Great Judge
is because he went through all the injustice

536
00:46:12,519 --> 00:46:19,800
of what authority is. Because we
you know, we have this problem right

537
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:24,960
now in North America, in the
world as well, and even in Christianity,

538
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:28,960
is that we have our own,
We have our Jesus. A lot

539
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:34,840
of people have their Jesus. And
many people like the victim Jesus. You

540
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:39,639
know. It's like the Jesus who
is an unjust victim of a tyrannical and

541
00:46:40,079 --> 00:46:45,920
corrupt system, and the Jesus who
is friends with the prostitutes, friends with

542
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:52,599
the marginal people, you know,
and that is definitely Jesus. And there's

543
00:46:52,639 --> 00:46:57,079
some people who like the other Jesus, who like the you know, he's

544
00:46:57,119 --> 00:47:00,519
the logos, He's the divine logos. He decides what's true. Besides what's

545
00:47:00,559 --> 00:47:05,760
real, He rules over all reality, all needs will bow, everyone will

546
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:08,400
confess that he is the Lord.
And so you have these this tension,

547
00:47:09,679 --> 00:47:15,880
but the reality is that they're they're
the same. And if with only one

548
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:19,440
you don't get the full image of
Christ, and with only the other you

549
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:22,760
do not get the full image of
Christ. And if you don't have them

550
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:28,400
together, then you have perversions of
Christianity, ultimately on one side or the

551
00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:34,000
other. And so we have this
powerful testimony of Christ. And even in

552
00:47:34,079 --> 00:47:39,480
the eschatological Christ, it's in the
image of the heavenly Jerusalem. It's described

553
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:45,119
that the Son of Man is ruling
over the city, and there's this description

554
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:47,639
of the Son of Man as the
one sitting on the throne, you know,

555
00:47:47,719 --> 00:47:53,320
and is ruling over all the reality. But also he is also paired,

556
00:47:53,639 --> 00:47:58,320
you know, with the lamb that
was sacrificed before the foundation of the

557
00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:02,719
world. And those two are together, they are the they're the same person,

558
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:07,119
and we need to kind of we
need to keep them together because that

559
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:13,960
is that is the testimony that Christianity
uh offers. That is the testimony that

560
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:15,679
that that we have for the world, and it is the only manner that

561
00:48:16,119 --> 00:48:24,079
we as Christians can find each other, because even we have to be able

562
00:48:24,119 --> 00:48:30,840
to see in others. If one
of us is the Christian that likes the

563
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:36,039
the king, the King Jesus,
we have to know that the Christian that

564
00:48:36,199 --> 00:48:42,159
likes the victim Jesus, he's right, and the other way the other way

565
00:48:42,199 --> 00:48:44,920
as well. And if we are
able to if we are able to do

566
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:47,440
that, I do believe that we
will find in the Church a great solution

567
00:48:47,639 --> 00:48:51,960
to many of the problems that we're
facing today. So thank you for your

568
00:48:52,000 --> 00:49:15,559
time. Thank you so much Jonathan. Now, this portion of the program

569
00:49:15,639 --> 00:49:20,519
is going to be a Q and
A with Jonathan and doctor Timothy Patitis,

570
00:49:20,559 --> 00:49:23,840
who we mentioned earlier. He's the
dean of Hellenic College and a professor of

571
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:29,519
ethics, also the author of the
Ethics of Beauty and co founder of Beauty

572
00:49:29,519 --> 00:49:34,440
First Films. And maybe doctor tim
and Jonathan can talk a little bit about

573
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:37,440
how they know each other or other
topics, and then after that we'll take

574
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:42,920
a few questions from the audience,
but just a few to keep our spirits

575
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:45,159
high, and then we'll have a
nice reception outside where you can have a

576
00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:52,840
chance to share your thoughts afterward.
So thank you all and let's continue fantastic.

577
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:57,159
Well, thanks thanks. Do you
want to say more right off the

578
00:49:57,199 --> 00:50:04,920
bat about the side that it's just
reality that the only one that can nothing,

579
00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:07,880
can rule accept it empties itself.
Yeah, yeah, no, so

580
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:10,280
this is I mean, this is
really I didn't want to go into too

581
00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:15,599
much, but it is in some
ways a technically true description, you know.

582
00:50:15,599 --> 00:50:20,280
And this is something that I think
the more the more that people study

583
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:25,679
complexity and they study also patterns of
cognitive science, they're realizing that that's actually

584
00:50:25,679 --> 00:50:31,480
how identity functions that in fact,
for things to exist, they always have

585
00:50:31,559 --> 00:50:37,639
to fit into higher participations, right, And this is as Christians, it's

586
00:50:37,679 --> 00:50:38,679
like, oh, yeah, we
know that's true, but it's not just

587
00:50:38,719 --> 00:50:44,079
true morally, where we know that
our goods have to stack up and we

588
00:50:44,199 --> 00:50:46,320
have to let's say, our goods
have to participate in higher goods or else

589
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:50,719
they become idols that we can worship. But that seems to be actually how

590
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:54,199
reality works itself because a simple example, like you know, it's like if

591
00:50:54,280 --> 00:51:00,440
I have a steering wheel and the
steering wheel doesn't give itself to its participation

592
00:51:00,559 --> 00:51:05,519
in the car, then it's ridiculous. It's a it's a fetishized object that

593
00:51:05,559 --> 00:51:08,400
has no purpose. And that's how
all things function. They always have to

594
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:15,559
kind of give themselves up, empty
themselves into their into their higher participations.

595
00:51:15,119 --> 00:51:19,079
Uh. And that seems to be
That seems to be actually the way that

596
00:51:19,079 --> 00:51:23,199
we perceive reality. And we're constantly
moving as we engage with things. We're

597
00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:28,840
constantly moving between the particular of an
experience. Like you know, if I'm

598
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:31,840
if I'm drinking water, I have
to both attend to my fingers you know,

599
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:36,280
around the thing and the right pressure
and everything, But ultimately I'm also

600
00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:38,840
attending to the fact that I'm thirsty, you know, And and ultimately I'm

601
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:42,280
attending to the fact that if I
don't drink some point, I'm gonna die.

602
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:45,360
Like there's a there's a kind of
there's a kind of hierarchy of goods

603
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:50,119
that stack onto each other. And
I think that this is the amazing thing

604
00:51:50,199 --> 00:51:52,440
about I think what Christ is revealing
on the Cross. I don't want to

605
00:51:52,599 --> 00:51:58,039
I don't want it to feel like
I'm diminishing what Christ is revealing. I

606
00:51:58,039 --> 00:52:00,639
think, to the contrary, Christ, everything that we say morally about what

607
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:06,159
Christ did is true, but it
also happens to be a description of how

608
00:52:06,199 --> 00:52:09,599
the world works, you know.
And and also things also have to give

609
00:52:09,679 --> 00:52:15,519
themselves down. They have to give
themselves up into higher participation, but they

610
00:52:15,559 --> 00:52:20,559
also have to kind of give themselves
down in a in a kind of flexibility

611
00:52:20,599 --> 00:52:25,000
towards variability. And so like it. I know it sounds it sounds technical,

612
00:52:25,039 --> 00:52:29,639
but you know, it's like for
a steering wheel to exist, it

613
00:52:29,679 --> 00:52:32,719
has to allow for a variability of
its existence. It has to allow for

614
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:36,719
all kinds of steering wheels to exist. There can just be one steering wheel,

615
00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:40,159
that there has to be like a
million possible steering wheels, you know,

616
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:43,760
but they all we all recognize them
as a steering wheel, even though

617
00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:47,000
they're all different from each other.
So identities always kind of give themselves down

618
00:52:47,119 --> 00:52:53,320
into their their variability, but also
give themselves up into participation, into higher,

619
00:52:53,440 --> 00:52:58,079
higher identities. And so I think
that the incarnation, you know,

620
00:52:58,159 --> 00:53:02,000
when say Maximus talks about the fact
that we all everything has a logos,

621
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:07,159
everything, all the logi are hidden
behind all things in creation. There's a

622
00:53:07,199 --> 00:53:10,280
way in which I you know,
right now, in these different fields,

623
00:53:10,599 --> 00:53:15,199
they are discovering this to be true. Just about our experience of the world

624
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:22,639
in general. It's a fractal,
right, a fractal thing. Sure,

625
00:53:22,639 --> 00:53:27,519
I'm gonna ask another question. We'll
see if there's any relation before we get

626
00:53:27,559 --> 00:53:31,119
to the audience. You hinted that
this, or you stated it that at

627
00:53:31,119 --> 00:53:37,000
the moment that the Roman soldiers thought
they were mocking Christ by you know,

628
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:43,599
he's a fake king, they actually
were revealing who he really was. Does

629
00:53:43,639 --> 00:53:46,519
that work in our lives or does
that work I mean, or does that

630
00:53:46,559 --> 00:53:52,119
work in the lives of saints?
That a moment where they're rejected or because

631
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:54,159
when I think of, for example, sitting Aktarius, because we've seen the

632
00:53:54,199 --> 00:53:59,800
movie Man of God. Everyone's seen
it. When he's rejected, how does

633
00:53:59,840 --> 00:54:05,480
that reveal that he's Yeah, yeah, so Jesus. Jesus uses these images,

634
00:54:06,119 --> 00:54:07,840
you know, he talks about the
idea, right that the stone that

635
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:12,440
was rejected by the builders has become
the head of the corner, has become

636
00:54:12,480 --> 00:54:15,880
the cornerstone or the I always think
it's a keystone. That's the best way

637
00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:17,559
to think about it. Right,
then you it's the stone that doesn't look

638
00:54:17,599 --> 00:54:21,880
like the others. And then if
you finish the arch, then you oh,

639
00:54:22,119 --> 00:54:27,440
that's where it goes. It just
holds the whole thing together. And

640
00:54:27,559 --> 00:54:32,320
so you have this image of the
stumbling stone and the keystone or the cornerstone.

641
00:54:32,719 --> 00:54:37,599
And that also seems to be a
feature about reality, which is that

642
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:44,400
ah, the higher, the higher
identities, like the higher things, when

643
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:49,199
they peek into the world, they
don't look like the flat world. They

644
00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:53,159
look different, and so they look
like you know that you can see it

645
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:55,920
like the pearl in the field,
right, you need the whole field,

646
00:54:57,559 --> 00:55:00,400
and then when you buy the whole
field, then you can get the pearl.

647
00:55:00,079 --> 00:55:04,239
But the pearl isn't like the rest
of the field. The field is

648
00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:07,599
full of rocks, but there's one
thing in the field that shows its allegiance

649
00:55:07,679 --> 00:55:13,599
to more value. And I think
that that's the one of the problems that

650
00:55:13,719 --> 00:55:17,280
happens, is that people don't recognize
that people because people are looking flat like

651
00:55:17,360 --> 00:55:22,239
their eyes are like this, and
they just see the facts, but they

652
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:28,079
can't recognize the one shining fact that
is revealing the higher purpose of something.

653
00:55:28,519 --> 00:55:31,800
And so because of that, people
tend to tend to reject it. Right,

654
00:55:31,920 --> 00:55:35,360
It's like the logo shines into the
world, but the world does not

655
00:55:36,079 --> 00:55:40,000
recognize it. And that seems to
be a sad fact of the fall that

656
00:55:40,480 --> 00:55:45,719
we struggle to be able to capture. You know, we get stuck in

657
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:51,440
the mire of what we're doing and
we struggle to see the purpose. So

658
00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:53,840
I don't want it to sound I
hate when it sounds woo, when I

659
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:58,559
say it sounds woo. So this
is something that you deal with all the

660
00:55:58,639 --> 00:56:01,679
time. Right. Imagine you in
a job and then people get caught up

661
00:56:01,840 --> 00:56:07,400
in the tasks that they're doing and
they forget the reason why they're doing something,

662
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:12,880
and they don't know but they're dying
and they don't even know that they're

663
00:56:12,920 --> 00:56:16,079
dying because they're busy and they're doing
all these things and they're super busy.

664
00:56:16,159 --> 00:56:22,400
But because they've forgotten their allegiance to
a higher purpose, they're dying. And

665
00:56:22,559 --> 00:56:24,800
so you need someone to come a
profit even in your business, like a

666
00:56:24,840 --> 00:56:28,760
little profit, not a profit from
God, but like a profit from the

667
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:30,559
purpose of the company, to come
in and say, hey, pick up,

668
00:56:30,599 --> 00:56:34,920
folks, You're supposed to be doing
this for this reason. You're not

669
00:56:35,039 --> 00:56:37,039
just doing a bunch of stuff like
there's a reason, you know. But

670
00:56:37,199 --> 00:56:43,920
sometimes people hate that. They hate
it because it's annoying because I'm busy and

671
00:56:43,960 --> 00:56:46,760
I'm doing all these things. Why
are you bothering me with this the uppity

672
00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:51,079
stuff? You know? And so
you know, when Jesus described as something

673
00:56:51,159 --> 00:56:53,599
that there are things that we deal
with all the time, I thought that

674
00:56:53,639 --> 00:56:57,920
would be a great T shirt.
People are dying, but they don't know

675
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:05,199
they're dying because they're busy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you see

676
00:57:05,239 --> 00:57:08,840
that. You know that, that's
definitely something that definitely gets some looks.

677
00:57:09,079 --> 00:57:13,760
You went through the theme park or
wherever wherever. Yeah, that's true.

678
00:57:15,719 --> 00:57:19,039
So that sounds a little bit like
the ugly duckling, right, Like the

679
00:57:19,199 --> 00:57:22,760
reason the duckling is ugly because it's
a Swan. I sorry, I think

680
00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:30,119
gave that away the story spoiler alert, that's but the but I recall a

681
00:57:30,199 --> 00:57:36,679
story of a Romanian abbess who was
absolutely loved and regarded as holy and would

682
00:57:36,679 --> 00:57:39,920
disappear one day a week and someone
someone followed her to another part of Bucharest

683
00:57:40,360 --> 00:57:45,639
where a very you know, sort
of run down place where she sat in

684
00:57:45,679 --> 00:57:49,800
a gutter and people would just spit
on her something. That's what's that about?

685
00:57:50,920 --> 00:57:53,920
What was going on in her psychology
if you know? So it doesn't

686
00:57:53,960 --> 00:57:59,119
think is that we have to be
careful like it so so you see it

687
00:57:59,199 --> 00:58:00,320
in the image of Christ, like
in the even the Christ, you see

688
00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:04,960
them both. Christ is always showing
the both. It's like when Christ comes

689
00:58:05,000 --> 00:58:07,000
in Jerusalem, people love him,
people recognize them, people see him as

690
00:58:07,039 --> 00:58:12,119
the king. And so sometimes that
happens, Like we have saints that don't

691
00:58:12,320 --> 00:58:15,360
that are just saints, and everybody
sees it and they don't get persecuted and

692
00:58:15,440 --> 00:58:20,039
they don't get you know, and
then that's just what I want to be.

693
00:58:20,119 --> 00:58:22,920
I want to be that saying and
when to recognizing don't life like Saint

694
00:58:22,960 --> 00:58:25,599
John Christistem people just you know,
loved him, and I mean obviously did

695
00:58:25,639 --> 00:58:31,280
get killed by the emperor, but
the people, but like people loved him,

696
00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:35,280
and people recognize them and people,
so you have you have, you

697
00:58:35,400 --> 00:58:37,880
have both of those stories are possible. And I think in the story of

698
00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:42,840
Jesus, you have you have an
aspect which shows you people seeing the king

699
00:58:42,920 --> 00:58:45,440
and recognizing the glorious one, and
then also people being blind to them and

700
00:58:45,559 --> 00:58:50,639
being caught up in their passions and
in there and in their own distraction and

701
00:58:50,679 --> 00:58:54,119
then not seeing him. So and
and that story. By the way,

702
00:58:54,119 --> 00:58:58,079
it seems like the nuns then sort
of rejected the abbess on that basic like

703
00:58:58,519 --> 00:59:00,519
at least mentally for a moment.
What does she like? What is this?

704
00:59:00,719 --> 00:59:07,679
Yeah, Like, why is it
that that saints tend to take take

705
00:59:07,840 --> 00:59:13,000
the the contempt like to take that
on. I mean, they're definitely they

706
00:59:13,039 --> 00:59:16,760
seem to be acting like Jesus,
you know, and and that they're seem

707
00:59:16,920 --> 00:59:22,199
we do seem to have the possitive
the capacity to participate in what Jesus did.

708
00:59:22,280 --> 00:59:24,119
I hate to say it because I
don't want to do that, but

709
00:59:24,519 --> 00:59:30,199
they seem to be able to take
people's sins and for and in in in

710
00:59:30,400 --> 00:59:37,199
taking them and forgiving them, they
are healing the world somehow. Hm hm.

711
00:59:37,679 --> 00:59:39,760
And you see that. I mean, you see all these crazy stories

712
00:59:39,800 --> 00:59:44,519
of you know, of of of
abbots, you know, or or you

713
00:59:44,599 --> 00:59:47,599
know, abbots of going and confessing
sins to to the to the novice.

714
00:59:47,719 --> 00:59:51,679
But it's there. It's the sin
of the novice. And then the novice

715
00:59:51,800 --> 00:59:53,760
is hearing his own sin being confessed
by the abbot, and it's like he's

716
00:59:53,840 --> 00:59:58,599
taking the sin of the and you
hear like all these stories of saints who

717
00:59:58,679 --> 01:00:00,800
take the blame for other months and
stuff. So you know, it seems

718
01:00:00,840 --> 01:00:06,199
to be part of of reality.
It's kind of scary though, because,

719
01:00:06,519 --> 01:00:10,119
like I said, I really don't
want to do that. It's like when

720
01:00:10,159 --> 01:00:13,920
I see it, I like,
oh, that's amazing, But that's rough.

721
01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:20,480
Should we go to the audience for
questions now? Because I don't care.

722
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:22,719
I think they want they want to
come to you directly, you know.

723
01:00:24,239 --> 01:00:27,760
So does anybody does anybody have a
question? I think there are two

724
01:00:27,800 --> 01:00:37,119
mics going through. So it sounded
like you said that the resurrection in the

725
01:00:37,679 --> 01:00:45,079
iconography and the in the scripture.
It's not like directly portrayed often, but

726
01:00:45,360 --> 01:00:51,239
to me it seems like, at
least in the hymnography, it's very direct,

727
01:00:51,280 --> 01:00:52,880
you know, it's very explicit.
You know, you know the hymn

728
01:00:53,119 --> 01:00:57,960
hymnography of Pasca. Of course,
you know how many times you say crisis

729
01:00:58,079 --> 01:01:00,599
risen all over the place. Yeah, of course Christ is risen. Yeah,

730
01:01:00,679 --> 01:01:05,440
so can you talk about like why
in the hymnography it's like so so

731
01:01:05,639 --> 01:01:08,159
direct when in the iconography in the
snow, what I mean is that the

732
01:01:08,280 --> 01:01:13,960
resurrection itself is not portrayed, and
so we of course Christ has risen,

733
01:01:14,079 --> 01:01:17,320
and of course he does appear to
the disciples and ultimately reveals himself completely fully

734
01:01:17,599 --> 01:01:22,920
where they all recognize him. But
there seems to be something left of a

735
01:01:22,000 --> 01:01:29,320
mystery in the mechanism. It doesn't
doesn't want to simplify the the fact of

736
01:01:29,400 --> 01:01:32,239
it like it's it doesn't in scripture, doesn't say, you know, he

737
01:01:32,320 --> 01:01:35,559
knocked on the door. I don't
know like what he could say, like

738
01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:38,320
like that that he opened the that
he opened the tomb and he walked out,

739
01:01:38,440 --> 01:01:42,800
or you see some Jesus movies that
do that and it's not good,

740
01:01:43,440 --> 01:01:45,920
Like there's some Jesus movies they actually
show him like in the tomb and then

741
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:52,000
like sitting up. It's like bad
stuff. That's bad stuff, you know,

742
01:01:52,119 --> 01:01:54,440
and so and so. Yeah,
And I think, I think,

743
01:01:54,719 --> 01:01:58,880
I mean, I can't completely explain
why that is, but there seems to

744
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:02,599
be there seems to be something about
the resurrection that is meant to be kept

745
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:07,280
mysterious. Not that it didn't happen, but that it's not It can't be

746
01:02:07,400 --> 01:02:13,760
reduced to a phenomena that we can
that we can reproduce. Let's say that

747
01:02:13,880 --> 01:02:17,079
we could analyze and put it in
the laboratory and say here's how the resurrection

748
01:02:17,199 --> 01:02:25,000
works. Thank you, that makes
sense. Thank you, Jonathan. Great

749
01:02:25,039 --> 01:02:29,199
to see you. It's good to
see your father. Yes, I think

750
01:02:29,880 --> 01:02:37,599
you gave the answer in your talk, and you're trying to keep that tension

751
01:02:37,679 --> 01:02:40,519
between the two. In other words, is he the king? Is he

752
01:02:40,599 --> 01:02:47,880
the humility humiliated one? And I
think the reason the church doesn't show and

753
01:02:47,960 --> 01:02:52,760
when you say resurrection, you mean
his resurrection coming out of the tomb.

754
01:02:52,880 --> 01:02:55,519
And I think there's a good reason
for that. And the reason is exactly

755
01:02:55,599 --> 01:03:00,440
what you showed us, Because there's
a danger of that coming a form of

756
01:03:00,519 --> 01:03:08,079
Nestorianism. Why because when you see
the resurrection, you don't have the other

757
01:03:08,119 --> 01:03:13,400
image that you showed, in other
words, the late humiliation. Because the

758
01:03:13,480 --> 01:03:17,559
whole thing is that it needs to
be. That's why the earliest icons of

759
01:03:17,639 --> 01:03:25,079
the resurrection or the crucifixion, like
the Rabbullah depictions, where you have the

760
01:03:25,239 --> 01:03:29,679
crucified and risen one. In other
words, the danger is to, like

761
01:03:29,760 --> 01:03:31,440
you said, if you get rid
of that balance, you have heresy.

762
01:03:32,320 --> 01:03:38,599
The danger is to say, okay, he he's divine and human, and

763
01:03:38,679 --> 01:03:44,840
the human part died and then the
divine part by itself rose. Of course

764
01:03:44,880 --> 01:03:49,199
he rose because he's got he's got. But then first of all you're dividing

765
01:03:49,280 --> 01:03:53,119
him into two people in a sense. But also the Church, i believe,

766
01:03:53,440 --> 01:03:57,760
seizes there's a danger there because then
it doesn't matter to us. In

767
01:03:57,800 --> 01:04:01,159
other words, that's his thing.
It's not a resurrection, and the resurrection

768
01:04:01,480 --> 01:04:06,960
icon that finally came about basically is
our resurrection. So because you said,

769
01:04:08,320 --> 01:04:13,679
the eschatological aspect is always there,
and that's very important because our historians want

770
01:04:13,679 --> 01:04:15,400
to always look from a Western point
of view, a Renaissance point of view.

771
01:04:15,480 --> 01:04:17,880
Oh it must be a picture must
be a depiction of something in the

772
01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:23,159
past, and therefore they say,
because you never see that, it always

773
01:04:23,199 --> 01:04:26,840
is anastesis. A nastis means resurrection, and resurrection is a physical resurrection.

774
01:04:27,079 --> 01:04:30,079
And he's not alone in the Orthodox
icon, whereas the Westerns will have the

775
01:04:30,880 --> 01:04:36,679
banner and he's by himself. But
that's not described in the gospels for good

776
01:04:36,719 --> 01:04:44,719
reason. And you have earlier,
before the final an icon developed, you

777
01:04:44,920 --> 01:04:49,679
have besides the empty tomb that you
showed, you have other depictions of basically

778
01:04:49,719 --> 01:04:53,400
an empty tomb like my house.
Yeah, maybe you've seen it, the

779
01:04:53,800 --> 01:05:00,320
old marbles of that. Again,
you don't have Christ by himself resurre because

780
01:05:00,559 --> 01:05:04,480
that can be misconstrued as, oh, of course he's God, and that

781
01:05:05,599 --> 01:05:11,079
doesn't affect me. So in a
sense, it's the danger of that separation

782
01:05:11,199 --> 01:05:14,800
of the one, mister, because
our theology starts from as your icon so

783
01:05:14,960 --> 01:05:19,480
beautifully showed, he is the crucified
and rison one in one action, you

784
01:05:19,519 --> 01:05:23,840
know, trampling upon death by death, and that's why all your icons showed

785
01:05:23,880 --> 01:05:28,239
both. And once you separate that, then you have a problem because then

786
01:05:28,280 --> 01:05:35,760
it becomes something that is made superficial
in the sense that you lose that radical

787
01:05:35,880 --> 01:05:40,960
newness. Well Western, I'm not
pulling your fingers, but it's a theological

788
01:05:41,039 --> 01:05:47,920
statement when you don't have this in
the pastor the Easter just passed, you

789
01:05:48,000 --> 01:05:51,239
know, did you know that it
happened? I mean, in a sense,

790
01:05:51,800 --> 01:05:56,559
you see bania rabbits, you see
chocolate, But is it an existential

791
01:05:56,920 --> 01:06:01,480
event. It's not, because if
you have crime coming out of the tomb,

792
01:06:02,199 --> 01:06:04,880
then in a sense, it's his
thing. See, I got back

793
01:06:04,920 --> 01:06:08,440
at you guys. I'm God,
of course, and I wrote I rose.

794
01:06:08,800 --> 01:06:11,639
But that other side, the humulation
side, is not there. So

795
01:06:11,679 --> 01:06:15,920
I think that's that's what the church
is, always keeping those two things together.

796
01:06:15,199 --> 01:06:20,400
And the earliest celebration of Pasca was
a one night vigil where all these

797
01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:26,440
things were celebrated together, you know, the Crucifixion, the death, and

798
01:06:26,519 --> 01:06:29,280
the resurrection. And that's why I
say trampling upon death by death and Pasca

799
01:06:29,360 --> 01:06:32,679
means suffering. Pascal also means resurrection. And that's why all your icons showed

800
01:06:34,000 --> 01:06:42,960
that whole mystery being always depicted together, in other words, held together.

801
01:06:43,440 --> 01:06:45,760
And you made that point, and
I think that's the answer to the question.

802
01:06:45,000 --> 01:06:47,679
Really, that's a great that's a
great insight. And I love the

803
01:06:47,760 --> 01:06:53,679
idea that the that the anesthetis icon
is our resurrection, because when you look

804
01:06:53,719 --> 01:06:58,199
at images of the Last Judgment,
you see like when when Christ picks up

805
01:06:58,199 --> 01:07:00,599
Adam and Eve, he's bringing them
to the Last Judgment, and you see

806
01:07:00,599 --> 01:07:02,960
them in the icon of the Last
Judgment, you know, kneeling before the

807
01:07:03,079 --> 01:07:08,079
prepared throne. It's like, that's
it. It is already our resurrection.

808
01:07:08,199 --> 01:07:11,639
You've seen the depiction. I think
it's Torcello or porch one of the Near

809
01:07:11,719 --> 01:07:14,599
Venice where Yeah, I did a
whole talk on that. Yeah, and

810
01:07:14,719 --> 01:07:17,679
on top is the resurrection, so
it's the end times. Yeah, it's

811
01:07:19,360 --> 01:07:24,440
yeah. And plus you're never going
to see that emblem you know, is

812
01:07:24,559 --> 01:07:29,039
adu. It doesn't exist. It's
an US and resurrection means a resurrection.

813
01:07:29,119 --> 01:07:30,719
And he's pulling them you know,
you're an artist. He's pulling it behind

814
01:07:30,760 --> 01:07:35,480
the wrist. It's physical, they're
heavy. It's a physical resurrection because then

815
01:07:35,519 --> 01:07:45,559
we spiritualize it and then becomes chocolate
and money. Rabbits, Oh, thank

816
01:07:45,639 --> 01:07:50,639
you for coming today. It was
a very uh impelled talk, the kind

817
01:07:50,639 --> 01:07:56,239
of bounce off what you said earlier
and to continued father's point of splitting the

818
01:07:57,280 --> 01:08:01,199
Christmas of Christ as being the King
and the servant, and that kind of

819
01:08:01,239 --> 01:08:08,079
sparked to mind, like how sometimes
the Catholicism they overemphasize the servant part with

820
01:08:08,239 --> 01:08:12,039
like for example, friends of a
CSI and the over exaggeration of like the

821
01:08:12,119 --> 01:08:15,520
imagery of the suffering, and then
also with like bringing to the Protestants the

822
01:08:15,640 --> 01:08:21,279
over emmeasis of the king, the
judge, the one that rules everybody.

823
01:08:23,000 --> 01:08:25,960
And it seems like an Orthodoxy,
it's they always bring it to they bring

824
01:08:26,039 --> 01:08:30,000
it together. They have the two
in unity, and I feel like that's

825
01:08:30,920 --> 01:08:38,840
kind of a theme in like the
other the other fate like denominations, is

826
01:08:39,680 --> 01:08:43,159
like the Catholics and the Protestants kind
of take one thing from Orthodoxy, but

827
01:08:43,239 --> 01:08:45,880
they only have they don't have the
complete truth. It's like a form of

828
01:08:45,960 --> 01:08:49,239
Nestorianism. They split them. And
was one of your thoughts on that?

829
01:08:49,880 --> 01:08:55,680
What I would say, It depends, like the Orthodoxy has had a tendency

830
01:08:55,760 --> 01:09:00,439
to focus on the imperial aspect,
you know, especially when Byzantine Emperor empire

831
01:09:00,600 --> 01:09:06,279
was quite strong. The image of
the of the Christ as emperor was was

832
01:09:06,359 --> 01:09:10,960
more prominent in the East, you
know, and the cross was less was

833
01:09:11,159 --> 01:09:14,960
less prominent, and so I do
believe that in the theology and in the

834
01:09:15,000 --> 01:09:18,800
mystery, we do have that that
that joining together. But we're not the

835
01:09:18,920 --> 01:09:25,319
Orthodox are not immune from excess.
Sadly, we wish we were. But

836
01:09:25,760 --> 01:09:29,640
you know, the Holy Spirit does
the work over the long term and kind

837
01:09:29,680 --> 01:09:32,760
of brings things together ultimately. But
there are moments when we have tended to

838
01:09:32,800 --> 01:09:44,439
emphasize the the imperial aspect of Christ
quite quite a lot. Hi, thank

839
01:09:44,479 --> 01:09:47,439
you so much for your speech.
One of my questions kind of relating to

840
01:09:47,560 --> 01:09:51,840
that. But if we take the
Hebrew, the biblical Hebrew, and bring

841
01:09:51,960 --> 01:09:58,199
the Hebreak emphasis onto this, So
for example, the word gospel comes from

842
01:09:58,279 --> 01:10:02,920
Basar, and Basar literally means flesh, so the word gospel is tied to

843
01:10:03,039 --> 01:10:08,920
this Hebrew idea already that is existing
in the Old Testament. So the fleshiness

844
01:10:09,000 --> 01:10:13,359
of God, the blood, the
water, the thorns, all the imageres

845
01:10:13,439 --> 01:10:18,039
that you mentioned from the Old Testament. Now that we have a chance to

846
01:10:18,279 --> 01:10:24,159
have concordances and the way that the
fathers and some of the iconographers did not

847
01:10:24,319 --> 01:10:30,159
have a chance to. So if
we reread the Passion week, but using

848
01:10:30,319 --> 01:10:34,359
the septugen but referring back again and
again to the Hebrew words, because that's

849
01:10:34,439 --> 01:10:41,000
the foundation of whatever is happening in
the New Testament. So do you think

850
01:10:41,399 --> 01:10:46,479
icons and our perception or what we're
being scandalized about seeing too much of the

851
01:10:46,600 --> 01:10:51,960
fleshiness maybe, or maybe we're ignoring
the imperial side too much. What do

852
01:10:53,039 --> 01:10:59,720
you think bringing the hebrek direct Hebrew
words onto the passion narrative, how that

853
01:10:59,840 --> 01:11:05,800
we affect iconography? Thank you?
Yeah, well, I believe that we

854
01:11:05,960 --> 01:11:11,119
do have the I think that we
are we do have that tradition in the

855
01:11:11,279 --> 01:11:15,920
Church. I mean we through the
Syrian fathers, we have this whole Hebraic

856
01:11:15,479 --> 01:11:20,720
thought that that that fed into the
Orthodox world, you know, and if

857
01:11:20,760 --> 01:11:25,640
you read Saint Ephraim and you read
Saint Isaac, you know, you see

858
01:11:25,680 --> 01:11:30,720
that they're deeply thinking in Hebraic terms. So I think it's there in the

859
01:11:30,039 --> 01:11:34,359
in the Church. I'm always worried
about, you know, our Gospel is

860
01:11:34,399 --> 01:11:39,920
written in Greek, and so I'm
always worried about attempts to want to then

861
01:11:40,800 --> 01:11:45,600
to simply, you know, like
speculate about what it's translating in Hebrew.

862
01:11:45,039 --> 01:11:49,560
It's not completely useless, but I
would I'm I'm always careful because you know,

863
01:11:49,760 --> 01:11:54,479
it's it is a bit it is
a bit speculative. Uh, And

864
01:11:54,880 --> 01:11:58,199
I would tend to take you know, I have a great love of Saint

865
01:11:58,199 --> 01:12:02,439
Ephraim. He's obviously when my great
go to people, and so that's how

866
01:12:02,560 --> 01:12:05,439
I tend to do it, you
know. And see, you know,

867
01:12:05,520 --> 01:12:09,680
but I'm not you know, I'm
not against the idea, but I would

868
01:12:09,680 --> 01:12:15,119
say it had to be done cautiously, you know. Yeah, thanks for

869
01:12:15,479 --> 01:12:20,760
the great talk, yes, right, yes, So you started your talk

870
01:12:20,840 --> 01:12:25,800
by talk by saying that Jesus came
to conquer the Roman Empire, and then

871
01:12:25,840 --> 01:12:29,079
you had my attention because obviously I'm
interested in the Roman Empire. Yes,

872
01:12:29,520 --> 01:12:34,079
if you're man, Yeah, exactly. But I also throughout the talk,

873
01:12:34,479 --> 01:12:41,560
I I tried to look at the
images as somebody living in the first,

874
01:12:41,720 --> 01:12:46,840
second, third century. And of
course this icons didn't exist, but the

875
01:12:46,960 --> 01:12:54,520
mental images existed and were circulating.
So I thought that the images themselves are

876
01:12:54,640 --> 01:13:01,520
very controversial, right, because you
have this Roman Empire that portrays emperors and

877
01:13:03,279 --> 01:13:12,840
warriors as godlike, and and then
you have somebody Jesus that is exactly the

878
01:13:12,840 --> 01:13:17,840
opposite. So and we had also
earlier somebody brought it up that and you

879
01:13:17,960 --> 01:13:24,520
also that we many people prefer the
humiliating Jesus. So I was asking myself

880
01:13:24,560 --> 01:13:29,680
and I want your take on this. Did he conquer Rome as a king

881
01:13:30,000 --> 01:13:32,640
or as somebody who is humiliated?
No, he did both. I mean

882
01:13:32,920 --> 01:13:39,000
it was both at the same time. You know, when Saint Paul's it's

883
01:13:39,039 --> 01:13:42,560
so crazy to read, you know, for example, to know that these

884
01:13:42,640 --> 01:13:46,600
texts were written, you know,
hundreds of years before Rome became Christian.

885
01:13:47,039 --> 01:13:50,560
Saint Paul, I forget which passion
he says. He says, right now

886
01:13:51,359 --> 01:13:56,840
he is ascending. He is conquering
the principalities. He is He's he's saying,

887
01:13:56,960 --> 01:13:59,560
like Christ. You don't see it, but Christ, right now he's

888
01:13:59,600 --> 01:14:02,560
conquering the world. He's actually going
up the hierarchy. He's subjugating all these

889
01:14:02,600 --> 01:14:06,199
principalities to himself. All of these
kingdoms are being submitted to him. And

890
01:14:06,319 --> 01:14:10,840
you don't see it, but it's
happening. And then and then ultimately,

891
01:14:11,359 --> 01:14:15,840
you know, a few hundred years
later, then the fruits appear, you

892
01:14:15,920 --> 01:14:19,920
know, and the image of and
we have to remember that the image of

893
01:14:20,079 --> 01:14:25,359
the kingly like the son of man, image is not is not just in

894
01:14:25,439 --> 01:14:31,159
revelation. Right, it's there all
through the prophetic literature. But the mystery

895
01:14:31,239 --> 01:14:35,760
of Christ is to join the image
of the suffering servant and all of this

896
01:14:36,199 --> 01:14:44,279
image of the lowly descriptions of the
Messiah in scripture. So like Joseph,

897
01:14:44,680 --> 01:14:48,319
Right, So, Joseph gets cast
out into Egypt, He's persecuted by his

898
01:14:48,439 --> 01:14:50,960
brothers, he's chased, you know, his brothers want to kill him.

899
01:14:51,119 --> 01:14:54,960
All of this stuff is going on. You know, he's ended up being

900
01:14:55,039 --> 01:14:58,039
a prisoner in a foreign land.
All of this is happening. That's an

901
01:14:58,039 --> 01:15:00,880
image of the Messiah, Okay.
And then it's like, oh, then

902
01:15:00,920 --> 01:15:03,760
there's also this David figure who is
like, he's the he plans a temple,

903
01:15:03,880 --> 01:15:09,880
he's the ruling king, he's this
he's this great conquering hero. And

904
01:15:09,880 --> 01:15:12,279
it's like that's also an image of
them aside, and it's like, okay,

905
01:15:12,359 --> 01:15:15,479
well, how do you fit those
two together? You know? And

906
01:15:15,680 --> 01:15:18,520
that's the mystery. That's one of
the mysteries of Christ is that he shatters

907
01:15:19,239 --> 01:15:23,000
that, you know, he brings
it all together into one one, one

908
01:15:23,079 --> 01:15:27,279
opposite, into these two opposites together. Uh. And so I do believe.

909
01:15:27,279 --> 01:15:32,600
I believe that that Christ you know
that Christ conquered the Roman emperor both

910
01:15:32,720 --> 01:15:35,800
as a servant and as a king, just like he did in his just

911
01:15:35,880 --> 01:15:43,159
as he was in his own his
own life. The image of one sows

912
01:15:43,239 --> 01:15:46,079
in another reap, so though in
this case Christ is the sower and three

913
01:15:46,159 --> 01:15:49,840
centuries later the reaper. Yeah,
I think we have time for one or

914
01:15:49,880 --> 01:15:54,800
two more questions, so I can't
whatever. If you're doing a great job,

915
01:15:54,880 --> 01:15:59,199
microphone people, keep it up.
Thank you Jonathan for being here.

916
01:15:59,239 --> 01:16:01,319
We all look for or two it
and we hope to see you back very

917
01:16:01,359 --> 01:16:08,560
soon we can. I wanted to
see if you would comment on the bridegroom

918
01:16:08,960 --> 01:16:14,359
icon, specifically the the image of
the read and the icon. So I

919
01:16:14,479 --> 01:16:18,000
know we have the other prop saying
Isaiah about bruised read, he show up

920
01:16:18,000 --> 01:16:23,960
break, But is there anything specifically
about the read and the scepter and the

921
01:16:24,079 --> 01:16:30,760
properties of those two things that make
them fit for for that icon. Yeah,

922
01:16:30,279 --> 01:16:33,079
that's I'd never thought about it enough. I don't think I have.

923
01:16:33,319 --> 01:16:39,079
There's definitely something there. There's definitely
something. There has to be an analogy

924
01:16:39,199 --> 01:16:44,960
between the crown of Thorns and the
kingly crown and the read and the scepter.

925
01:16:45,600 --> 01:16:47,039
There has to be an analogy there, but I don't. I'm afraid

926
01:16:47,079 --> 01:16:50,960
that I don't completely see it,
but I'm long to it now, so

927
01:16:51,079 --> 01:16:56,000
I'm going I'm going to think about
it. But there has there has to

928
01:16:56,079 --> 01:17:00,039
be because it's so Martin, it's
so striking. You know, you have

929
01:17:00,159 --> 01:17:04,159
to footnote that question when you're back. I just put it back in there.

930
01:17:06,279 --> 01:17:10,760
Yeah. So I was noticing when
you were talking about side right away.

931
01:17:10,840 --> 01:17:18,319
Sorry, when you mentioned earlier about
Christ's empty emptying himself and how that

932
01:17:18,520 --> 01:17:25,319
makes them the only legitimate king,
it occurred to me that that has a

933
01:17:25,359 --> 01:17:29,720
lot of parallels. I don't know
how familiar are with Daoism, but there's

934
01:17:29,760 --> 01:17:32,720
a number of parallels there. I
was just hoping maybe you would talk a

935
01:17:32,760 --> 01:17:38,359
little bit about some of those parallels
and kind of reconciling that continuity. Hmm.

936
01:17:38,880 --> 01:17:42,600
Yeah. I don't know Daoism enough
to be able to make that comparison,

937
01:17:43,199 --> 01:17:46,079
you know, I know that there's
a wonderful book on Christ and the

938
01:17:46,239 --> 01:17:49,319
and the Doo that has been written, and A. C. S.

939
01:17:49,439 --> 01:17:54,800
Lewis seemed to have seen also a
very strong relationship between the logos and the

940
01:17:54,880 --> 01:18:01,319
dow and so it is it is
definitely quite possible that the that the Taoists

941
01:18:01,319 --> 01:18:06,359
had an intuition about. I mean, the thing is the thing about once

942
01:18:06,399 --> 01:18:11,760
you realize that that that Christ,
that the divine Logos created the world,

943
01:18:11,960 --> 01:18:17,479
it's not it's not shocking to realize
that people would have had intuitions about about

944
01:18:17,520 --> 01:18:20,560
that before he was, before he
came, because that's actually how the world

945
01:18:20,640 --> 01:18:24,439
works. And so you know,
if there were people that were pure of

946
01:18:24,520 --> 01:18:27,920
heart, if there were people that
were you know, that that that were

947
01:18:28,439 --> 01:18:31,920
not taken up by their passions,
then they would have had intuitions about about

948
01:18:32,319 --> 01:18:35,520
the same things that we that we
teach. To me, that's not surprising.

949
01:18:35,640 --> 01:18:40,479
It's that, you know, it's
this whole idea of the of justin

950
01:18:40,560 --> 01:18:44,640
Martyr's you know, logos permaticos,
like this idea of the of Christ hidden

951
01:18:44,680 --> 01:18:46,720
in the world and hidden in reality
because he is the source, He's upholding

952
01:18:46,760 --> 01:18:53,079
the world. And so to me, the idea that that the Taoists or

953
01:18:53,119 --> 01:18:59,279
that other traditions would have would have
captured some element of of of the logos

954
01:18:59,399 --> 01:19:02,279
and how that works is not only
is it not surprising, but it just

955
01:19:02,319 --> 01:19:09,279
seems like completely inevitable, you know, And that's why like, you know,

956
01:19:09,319 --> 01:19:13,800
we have this idea of people of
Christianity imposing itself, and sometimes it

957
01:19:13,960 --> 01:19:18,319
has, but many many times it
didn't. It basically was like a last

958
01:19:18,880 --> 01:19:24,199
key to the puzzle of other people's
traditions. You know, there are there

959
01:19:24,239 --> 01:19:28,199
are even many Aboriginal you know,
Native native tribes when they heard the sort

960
01:19:28,199 --> 01:19:30,000
of Jesus, You're like, oh, yeah, of course that that fits.

961
01:19:30,039 --> 01:19:33,039
It's like it ties everything together.
You know, we've had the we

962
01:19:33,119 --> 01:19:36,800
have these traditions, and then it's
like, here's the here's the key.

963
01:19:38,359 --> 01:19:42,199
You know, the Gallic people converted
like that. We don't like right away,

964
01:19:42,319 --> 01:19:46,000
they just converted. And so I
think that I think that that's yeah,

965
01:19:46,039 --> 01:19:51,239
that's true. So I feel like
there's one more person who's gonna just

966
01:19:51,399 --> 01:19:55,840
burst if they don't ask that final
question. So who is that person?

967
01:19:55,960 --> 01:20:00,840
Is it someone done there? Maybe
in the white sweater there or someone over

968
01:20:00,920 --> 01:20:05,840
here? And this is the final
one. Because Hi, thank you for

969
01:20:05,960 --> 01:20:09,920
your talk. Nice to see you
up there. So I just had a

970
01:20:10,000 --> 01:20:15,199
general question if, as an expert, if you could explain the relationship between

971
01:20:15,880 --> 01:20:19,560
iconography and in for the individual in
terms of meaning, and what would you

972
01:20:19,640 --> 01:20:24,319
advise someone new to knowing Christ.
Is there a specific image that you would

973
01:20:24,600 --> 01:20:30,800
suggest looking at or anything, yeah, that you've known to be really impactful.

974
01:20:30,439 --> 01:20:34,359
Well, the icon of Christ is
the is the sense is the is

975
01:20:34,439 --> 01:20:38,479
the central image. Everything is in
that image. You know, it's just

976
01:20:38,600 --> 01:20:42,720
the just the icon of Christ.
Who's who's there, He's blessing with his

977
01:20:42,840 --> 01:20:45,359
right hand, he holds a book
in his left hand. All of the

978
01:20:45,560 --> 01:20:49,520
all of iconography is is gathered into
that image. You know, people often

979
01:20:49,560 --> 01:20:53,319
ask me, like, I'd like
to commission one icon, which one should

980
01:20:53,399 --> 01:20:55,760
be. It's like, that's if
you're going to just commission one icon,

981
01:20:56,119 --> 01:20:59,399
that's the icon you should commission,
because you know, you can have an

982
01:20:59,560 --> 01:21:01,800
icon core with a thousand icons,
or you can have an icon corner with

983
01:21:01,840 --> 01:21:04,319
the with the icon of Christ.
If you have the icon of Christ,

984
01:21:04,680 --> 01:21:10,640
it's all gathered into that one image. So that's that's what I would suggest.

985
01:21:12,479 --> 01:21:15,159
Well, very sadly and reluctantly,
we've got to wrap up for tonight.

986
01:21:16,439 --> 01:21:19,479
Jonathan, thank you very much for
coming. I don't know if you

987
01:21:19,520 --> 01:21:23,840
have one last word you want to
say or what I want to think.

988
01:21:24,079 --> 01:21:28,079
I want to thank thank you,
thank Holy Cross for coming. You know,

989
01:21:28,159 --> 01:21:30,399
it's been great. I was able
to come with my wife and my

990
01:21:30,520 --> 01:21:34,520
daughter, and you know, you
all received them wonderfully, beautifully. I

991
01:21:34,600 --> 01:21:39,520
was really happy to see, you
know, my family making relationships and even

992
01:21:39,600 --> 01:21:42,920
my daughter, you know, talking
to students and all that that's been for

993
01:21:43,039 --> 01:21:45,720
me. It's been a great joy. So I'm happy to be able to

994
01:21:45,800 --> 01:22:00,159
come. Thank you, Thank you
very much for coming everyone. Good night. Yes,