Because repentance is about admitting that we are against God and turning back towards Him
and re establishing relationship. Because we're in the wrong, we take on the
blame. And the more we take on the blame, you know, we
allow God to be God. This is Jonathan Pegel. Welcome to the symbolic
world. So hello everyone. I have the great joy to be here with
Father Joseph Lucas. Father Joseph is the priest and pastor at Christ the Savior
Cathedral, the Ocia Cathedral in Florida. He's also become a good friend and
he is the editor of the Rule of Faith journal that you can look up
on Amazon. It is an Orthodox journal theology. But here I have him
here with me today because we had amazing discussions when I was there. He
has published his own thesis on the question of sacrifice in Saint Cyril of Alexandria.
I am lucky to have a copy of it here, and I thought
that it would be really wonderful to explore that with him now and look at
how the church fathers, obviously especially Saint Cyril, sees the question of sacrifice
in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, how Christ transformed the question
of sacrifice and just in general the insight that he provides. And so Father
Joseph, thanks for coming with us, Thank you for inviting me. And
so when we talked, you said you had watched I think even one of
my videos and you thought there was some interesting connections to make with the manner
in which Saint Cyril presents the question of sacrifice. So maybe you can start
us there and tell us what it is that you think, what insight you
think that he provides. Well, I think, for one thing, it's
it's great because Saint Cyril really had a he focused his career. I would
say he focused his career on trying to understand the Old Testament and how the
New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. And because sacrifice is such
an important part of the law, he had to deal with it a lot
and it comes up frequently throughout his writing. So he gives, you know,
a very deep interpretation of it. But it's also important, I think,
to understand it as part of his overall biblical interpretation, like what he's
trying to do with the law, how he's trying to bring the law into
you know, into the Church in a way that can be understood properly,
and so sacrifice, I think is at the root of that. And so
what does he think sacrifice is for, Well, I think the very first,
the very first reference, if you go sort of chronologically through the Bible,
the first sacrifice is canaan Able and he mentions it two places. So
he has his commentary on the Pansaateeoic, so he mentions, you know,
he goes into it there, and then he also brings it up again in
his commentary on John, which is much later in his career, and between
the two of them we come away with a few a few ideas. And
the first one I think that's that's really important is the idea that sacrifice is
innate in human nature because there's no commandment. God doesn't tell Canaonable bise sacrifice.
He never says, you know, here's how you do it. They
just spontaneously do it. There's lots of ways that he could come out that
they could say, well, there's other things not written and you know in
the text. That would be one way of looking at it. But St.
Cyo approaches it that that there's this natural desire for humans to want to
offer to God something to be, to sacrifice to God. He doesn't flesh
that out until a little bit later what that ultimate sacrifice should be, but
in that context he said, it's just something natural. And so because one
of them was a shepherd and one was a farmer, they just took from
what gifts they had and naturally wanted to give something to God. And when
I when I first read that, it struck me because you know, that
kind of ties in with, say like an anthrople logical or perennial idea of
the fact that sacrifices is in every single culture throughout the world, right that
innate desires there people want to do something for whatever it is, the numinus,
the supernatural, you know, there's whatever they perceive God to be.
They want to make offerings. And so the very first offering that's recorded then
in the scripture of canaan Abel is about that innate desire and then how God
responds to that desire, the right way to do it and the wrong way
to do it, So its ables the right way to do it canane's the
wrong way to do it. So that's kind of where it starts out.
So for sure, at the outset. It's important to notice that since Hero
doesn't see the sacrifice of canaan Abel as in any way a propitiatory sacrifice,
he doesn't see it as something that is like kind of sacrifice for our sins,
the way that a lot of people think sacrifices only is only four right,
And I think, well, a good point would be to define what
we mean by pronunciation. So if we mean propitiation in the sense of just
it's pleasing to God, that anacceptable definition. Father Stephen Young and I just
he was here last week and we had a long talk about that and the
fact that they can be used in that way, right. But the problem
is is that it came to me in the West assuaging or removing anger that
God has. Right, So it's like, so that's kind of a pagan
definition, and definitely you won't find that pagan definition in Saint Cyril. And
later on when he starts talking about the law, that's when we get into
how he defines it. And probably the word I use a lot of expiation
in English because it has the it clearly connects to what Saint Cyril's trying to
do, but definitely not with the King enable sacrifice. There's no sense of
God being upset with them and they need to to, you know, somehow
turn God's face back towards them or something like that, and them to be
in commune with God. It's just it's Saint Cyril sees it as a natural
desire to want to offer to God, to be in relationship with God in
some way. Yeah, it's kind of yeah, it is. It's almost
it's like to give back to God or to offer back with that which has
been received. And so, I mean this is a I know, maybe
he doesn't, but what does he see as Cain's misoffering because in the text
it's very vague. It just says basically, God doesn't accept it, does
he does he talk about that? Well, the subtugen gives us a little
clue, and he hones in on this because the sotuogen says, you did
not rightly divide it, Okay, So so he picks up on that.
You know, So what does it mean to not rightly divide it? What
means he offered the leftovers? Basically that's how you know, to paraphrase,
and like, what so you have a not for the best part exactly right?
He didn't take the very best an offer to God. He took what
he already didn't want. Interesting that that would also connect it in some ways
to the classic story of the sacrifice of Prometheus, like in the Greek myth,
where Prometheus is supposed to like the people are supposed to offer the me
but then he offers the bones and just hides it with the skin so that
you know, they trick the gods basically. Yeah, So that's so.
So it's about disposition from the beginning, and that's kind of that's another theme
that runs throughout Saint Cyril's commentary in the Old Testament, this idea about the
right disposition when you offer what does it mean? So there's an there's an
internalization, you know, it's it's it's what's coming out of the heart that's
being exhibited through the external action, you know, to the sacrifice itself.
Now, but I didn't know that about that. In the septuagen there's a
hint about why it is that he the sacrifice. And that's interesting because I
mean, that's that's that's one of the most I mean setuogent is that one
of the most ancient testimonies of biblical interpretation we have in the in the translation,
it's like this is how we translated. It means that this is how
we see it. So that's a that's fascinating. And so then so then
after that, I guess Cyril kind of moves into the story of sacrifice.
And so how does he come from this this early sacrifices up to Christ,
Like, how does he see that relationship? Well, it's the way he
he approaches the law in particular, is that everything in the law. So
this is this is part of I think we have to look at how he
interprets the scripture, what his exegesis method is. And the first well,
I would say, you know, the experts disagree on this, but I
take this side is that his earliest work is called on Worship and Spirit and
Truth. That's the you know, the phrase from Saint John's Gospel. And
there's a debate whether that was first or whether he wrote his commentary and the
Pentituoke first, But it seems that that would make more sense he wrote on
Worshiping, Spirit and Truth first, because he lays out how he's going to
interpret the scriptures, and it seems that he followed like throughout his career he
started with then he went on to the Pentetoke, and he kind of moved
in chronological order through the scriptures and got to the Gospels and epistles later in
his career. And why that's important is because he starts out his book on
Worship and Spirit and Truth with how do we interpret the law and how does
it relate to the Testament? And he has this, he has this probably
imaginary interlocutor that he's talking with, and and and this, uh, this
guy is walking along with a copy of the Gospels, and you know,
it's this perfect setup. You know. He says, oh, you know,
Cyril, how do we reconcile these two things? And he quotes first
Matthew when it says when Christ says that not you know that he didn't come
to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. How do we reconcile that
with where he says in the Gospel of John that we're going to worship in
spirit and truth. It seems that he's he's doing away with the law.
And then Saint Cyril says, the answer is in Saint Paul, it's the
transition from the letter to the spirit. And then he kind of the rest
of that text. He's kind of unpacking what that looks like and applying it
in a kind of a almost looking at like the meta narrative a scripture like
or what what Saint nathanah Will called the scope of scripture, which like,
you know, the sort of arc of story from Genesis all the way to
Revelation. And he goes through and he shows how the two things relate,
and he has some pretty strong things to say about about the Law, Like
he picks up on what Saint Paul says when the law is a type and
the shadow, and so he says, the law is a type and the
shadow and the formation of a piety that is still in travail and has the
beauty of truth hidden within itself. And he says that the law was imperfect
only because they weren't ready to interpret it. Through Christ, there's this transition
that happens where where the law had its purpose, but it could never be
it could never do what it was meant to do. He says that very
clearly, it's never able to do what it was meant to do until the
fulfillment of the law came Christ. And then through the lens of Christ,
we understand it in an anagogical or elevated way, and so that's kind of
his starting point. So then he applies that to sacrifice. All the sacrifices
are in some way pointing to some aspect of what Christ was coming to do.
Mm hmm uh. And so that's that's kind of the way he looks
at it all the way through is he takes these very sacrifices and he reinterprets
them and says, this is how it pertains to Christ, or this is
how it pertains to the Church, you know, sort of this uh type
and anti type, you know, relationship throughout all the sacrifices. So can
you give us some examples of what like, let's say, let's take one,
let's say the Kapoor sacrificeing does he does he talk? Does he?
Oh? Yeah, he deal with that, because that I would love to
hear what he how he says about the two like the goat and the sacrifice.
The goat that is given as Azel, Like how does he reconcile that
with Christ? Yeah? So so so as a zel for him is is
the devil? It's interesting because because but but it's interesting that he says it's
not offered to the devil. Offer to the devil. Uh. You know.
Essentially he says that that that would be a myth. He said,
to say that was offered as as azel as the devil would be a myth.
But the idea is that is that. So he starts out with saying
that that the symbolism of the two goats, they have to be absolutely identical.
And the reason is is because they're just two aspects of the same offering,
just two different aspects of the same offering. The first one represents the
blood of the goat taken into the temple represents purification or expiation. So it
shows the fact that Christ would come to die and through him we are purified
of sin. Okay, So that's the first the meaning of the first half.
The second half he does talk about Christ's carrying sin away, connects it
to the ascension. The idea is that Christ going off into the desert land
whereas is Zil is, where the devil is. It's him going hearing hades
and then ascending up, rising up, and then ascending up into the heavens.
And then he calls it the untrodden land beyond is paradise. Right,
He goes up to be enthroned in the heavens, and so he sees in
a very away. So basically the two goes represent the Crucifixion, resurrection,
and ascension. That's kind of what together they mean. They're all part of
the same offering, but different aspects of the same. So he sees the
goat that's cast into the wilderness as resurrection and ascension. Yes, huh,
yeah, now he doesn't. He says that he does tie in at one
point and say that that definitely carries away our sins. Yeah, so I
can imagine like the herring of Hades. That makes a lot of sense to
think of that in the sense that he takes the sins and and he kind
of goes into it, goes into the world of death, you could say.
But it's interesting to think of it as as ascension. And yeah,
that one's kind of surprising. It's a surprising interpretation. Let's see if I
find a quote right here, so a good one. So he says that
he says he likens himself to the scapegoat in order to be sacrificed for a
sins, So in some sense he connects himself to sin. But then he
says, for he rose and departed to the untrodden land, meaning into the
heavens in some way, carrying our sins to the city on high to present
himself before the Father on our behalf. So it's a it's a it's a
weird connection of all of it, taking the sins on, carrying them away,
but then ascending up. And then he'll connect a little bit later to
the idea of him being the high priest mediator, so he curts them up
to offer them up before the Father as as our mediator to be purged of
these sins in the heavens. So it's in a sense still at the connected
expiation. Yeah, but it's it's unusual how he connects it to the resurrection
and the ascension up. But he uses that same theme a couple of different
ways with you. He says, the untrodden land, So he's he's connecting
in some ways the paradise with the strange land or a land that we don't
know, like as if the paradise in some ways is using the image of
wilderness for paradise like that. To me, that's weird, Like that's a
surprise. I have to say, Yeah, it's it's it's it's unusual.
It's it's not what I expected. Because you know, when you when you
first do a cursory reading of like the Father's uh, when you're trying to
try and come up with a hypothesis, you know, for a thesis to
examine the text, that's not what I would have come up with initially.
And then when I you know, of course, you read the text to
let the text teach you, and then you get to these things, you're
like, Okay, he's he's coming at this from a very different perspective than
I thought. Yeah, but it's interesting. I mean, it's it's interesting
definitely. And so uh and so what let's say, can you think of
a so does he still have this idea also of the offering to God,
like that the crucifixion isn't offering in the sense of the canaan able sacrifice?
Does he does he talk about that a little bit. So he's he's fine
with saying that the offering was made towards the father. All right, So
this is poor because it's not until about the tenth century that they work out
this whole idea that that that the son is also the receiver. But he
does mention elsewhere that the Son as God also receives the offer, so he
kind of presages that a bit by about five centuries, which gets worked out
later on in a local council in Constantinople where they say that the Son is
also the receiver along the Father and the Spirit. So he does say that,
so on one on one hand, yes, it's it's the it's the
Son in his human nature. So this is this is something that would be
controversial to maybe some people who think that cyri is kind of a like an
actual monophysite in some way has a definite idea of the distinction of the two
natures. And so Christ's mediation is really in his human nature right or through
his human nature. So so through his human nature he's offering himself up to
the Father, but as you know, as God himself with the Father,
he's also receiving that offering. So he does mention that as well. So
there's this kind of connection there. But but one of the things he's very
clear about is that there's no point in which the in which the Father somehow
is disconnected from him in this offering. Yeah, that's important like that that
on that because this is something we've seen recently, This idea that when Christ
says, you know, why have you abandoned me? That God did abandon
And this is something that I think Martin Luther ends up saying explicitly that that
that God abandoned Christ in that moment on the cross. But SyRI, Saint
Cyrio, does not go in that direction. No. In fact, we
don't have any idea who he's responding to, at least I haven't. I
don't know, and I haven't found any other researchers who have looked at this.
But he's responding to somebody when he says that, you know, there's
some there's some who would say that the father looked away from the cross when
the son offered himself. And then he goes at links to say why this
is a ridiculous idea. He said, first of all, you know,
first of all, there's there's two reasons. One is that he is with
one nature, with the Father, and that's that's obviously, you know,
on a theological level. But then he says, just on a very practical
level, said why would the father look away from that which he desired?
You know, this offering was the will of the father. And the Son,
and that which is most honorable. Why would he look away from something
so honorable as the self offering of his son. So there's this idea that,
you know, there's nothing there's nothing tainted in the in the in the
offering of Christ. This is his, this is what was meant to be,
And and the Father would never, would never distance himself from that offering.
He's a part of it in the fact in two ways, and the
fact that he's at one with the son in nature, and also that and
that he and the Son both desire this, They have a common will,
that they desired this thing to happen. And there's no sense of even in
his human nature, because that's the one thing Seria does. Even though he
definitely makes clear that there are these you know, there are two natures,
a human and defined nature, it's always the incarnate Son acting. I think
that's one of the important principles of his theology is this. It's it's the
one incarnate Lord acting, you know. And so therefore you cannot even though
it's through his human nature that he is the high priest did yeah, he's
not yet, you can't divide it anyway. So how does he I mean,
maybe you you don't have an answer to this, But how does he
interpret that phrase, you know, when Christ cries out to his father.
So he he has essentially laid out throughout this is more so not so much
in his exegesis, more so in his UH, his theological writings, especially
in response to the story is Uh. He makes clear that all the things
that Christ Christ went through h he did it not because he needed for his
own for his own sake, but in order to transform it for our sake.
So, for example, the the Gardner simone is very important for him.
Simi is a point where one of the blameless passions, one of the
things that human beings all suffer through, you know, even if they're even
if they were perfected, would be the fear of death. Because it's natural
for us to really die, We want to live, have a sense of
eternity, and the fear of death is real and that humans have to face
this. And so in the Garden Semi, he takes on the human fear
of death in its fullness in order to transform it for us, he says,
and does the same because he accepts finally, that's always what people have
to understand is that although he goes through that anguish, then ultimately he accepts,
he says yes to the to to what is going to happen? Right,
Yeah, he always Saint Cyril always emphasizes the idea that's a voluntary offering.
It has to voluntary, it has to be Christ doing this fully taking
it on, active in every single part of it, in order to transform
it for human nature going forward. Yeah. So yeah, there's in the
gardener gets Smene. There's so many mysteries about that because one of the things
that I think is going on in the garden of Getsemene is that we're actually
facing we're actually seeing Christ in the garden about to eat the fruit of the
knowledge of good and evil. But he he doesn't want it. But that's
a difference between him and Adam. He actually knows that if you eat of
that fruit, you will die. And he says, no, if if
I can be spared the fruit, if I can be spared this cup,
then then then then but if that is your will, then I'll do it.
And so it's like God gives him the fruit and now he takes it
and dies, but then that is the image of his of his being God
like. It's you could say that it's his deification. He's already God,
but like it's his moment where he does in fact manifest fully that he is
like God by eating the fruit. Right, Well, it's it's it's a
it's a it's a you know, the self emptying keeps happening throughout his entire
earthly life. You know, it's not just it's not just that he he
poured himself out in the conception in the Theotolkus's wound. It's not That's not
the only moment in which he he becomes humble and enters into the you know,
the status of a slave. There's an ongoing uh, you know,
self emptying throughout his life, all the way up to the crosscauseemity's part of
that progress. And then on the cross, when he's saying, you know,
my lord, my lord, why have you forsaken me? He's taking
on the the he's taking on that the human sense of separation, of dejection
of you know, and this is again part of him accepting all the blameless
passions and you know, because those are things we don't have control over,
right, just like hunger and thirst and all those other things. He's taken
on he has ultimately take on the fear of death, the fear of separation
from God, and then death itself is the final fo he has to take
on, you know, in his uh that he overturns through the resurrection and
you know, I know, I know, Father Stephen the Young Part and
others have pointed out that in that moment where he calls out and and ask
God, ask his father why he abandoned him, there's also a prophecy happening
while he's saying that, because he's quoting from a psalm in which at the
end of the psalm, God raises up, you know, David out of
the pit. And so it's like he's actually so he's saying, like you
said, he's purifying it. He's like, he's like, I'm going to
I'm going through this truly, but there's a secret prophecy hidden in what he's
doing, which is that God will raise him up in the in the in
the end. It's very powerful and it's always Cyril uses the phrase, you
know, for our sakes all the time, right. So his idea is,
I like to think of it, this is as you remember back in
the maybe late eighties and nineties, I don't know if you had this in
Canada, but we had the oxy Clean commercials when they first came out,
and you had the tank of oxy clean, you know, had the white
powder thrown in the water and they stir it up and uh. And they
have this immensely dirty cloth or something and they dip it into the oxy clean
and they make a point of saying it said, the oxy Clean looking dirty,
the cloth comes out white, you know. And so this is this
is my analogy to try to try to put a put forward exactly what Saint
Cruro's explaining. Right. So, so he's like this oxy clean, right,
So Sin and and these things are trying to, you know, to
attack him, and in his human nature he instead of him being affected anyway
by the sin, he doesn't. That's why Saint Cyril points out, you
know that Paul says that he's without sin. He's like us in all ways,
but he's without sin. Is that when Sin tries to tries to attack
him, or any of the blameless passions tried to affect him, instead of
him being affected, there's an immediate reversal for the sake of human nature at
large. Right, So he reverses it or repels it in a sense,
and because he's of one nature with us according to humanity, we share in
the benefits of that, in the potential right, we potentially share in the
benefits of that. When we by faith are united to Christ, we are
given that power to repel the sin, to not be affected by it.
So it's part of his It's part of his overall idea of how we're saved,
how we're transformed. It's all rooted in how he you know, how
he responds to these things. So it's interesting which kind of comes to mind
in terms of what the that he presents sacrifice is that it seems like if
the sacrifice of Cain and Abel at the outset is natural in the sense that
it's something that is in us to want to give up to God, then
it wouldn't. If that's how he sees the origin of sacrifice, then it
makes sense that he would move towards the idea of self sacrifice, right where
ultimately you realize that the ultimate sacrifice is the giving of oneself. And so
maybe you can talk a little bit about his ideas on that and how Christ
brings us into that that difference. So the first thing is that is that
the law was a way that to channel the innate desire. That's the first
thing, right, So people have this innate desire like Can and Abele and
so all of human mind was, you know, in some way making offerings
and reaching out to what they understood God to be. But in the revelation
that God gives the beginning with Moses and forward, he's basically channeling that.
He's basically or giving order to it, arranging it, but he's doing it.
And one of the things that says Cerial is very clear about is that
none of it was necessary. Right, there was no God's God is without
necessity. He doesn't need any he doesn't need meat offerings, he doesn't need
anything. Right, there's which is said, which is said, like it
says that in scripture, and that's really important to remember that, right exactly.
I mean, so especially in the prophets, you know, it's all
through like Isaiah and Ezekiel and things like that, and he does. One
of the things I focus on in my and my thesis was also on the
the prophets. You know how he sees that in the prophets. So so
none of the said let me just say, want to think of that's really
important because because if we believe that, then we understand that the idea of
the trade sacrifice, like of the simple trade of like you know, or
or also the idea that God needs sacrifice in order in order to forgive our
sins or some kind of weird idea that this is necessary in from the point
of view of God for this to happen in order, like as if there's
this like weird rule that you know, well, now you've sins, so
now you're impuris so you've got to kill these things so that God will God
will that you can have access to God again. Like that is not nowhere
right, this type of thinking. There's no quid pro quote yeah, in
the offerings, Yeah, the sense that God doesn't need it. And so
he does two things. So, for one thing, he makes it clear
that that he's going to organize and and sort of channel this desire entirely to
prepare people for his coming, and the only necessary offering of himself. He's
the necessary offering to accomplish what he desires to do, which is to save
humanity, to overcome death forr Us and things like that. So that's that
that is what he would say, would be a necessary offering in the way
that that God wants to to help mankind. So he basically establishes or channels
this this Old Testament offering system in order to point everything towards Christ. So
everything is pedagogical. He takes up that idea from Saint Paul that the law
as a tutor or a pedagogue, and so it's all pedagogical or symbolic to
point towards the one true offering of Christ. And then he can then he
can go through and apply the spirit of the law, which the spirit of
law is the intent. So what's the true intent? And he goes he
presses this really really far, because he essentially says that the Old Testament law
really had At some points he says it wasn't efficacious in any way. Right,
there's nothing he could actually do. There's a couple of points where he
concedes a little bit and says that so long as the as long as the
Israelites were doing it with the right intention, their faith had some efficacy.
Right, there was something they were gaining from being faithful and obedient to God,
but that it couldn't actually do anything because it wasn't just like a mechanical
system like obviously that that's ridiculous to think that that anyways, right, well,
that's why that's why it gets condemned by the prophets. The prophets say,
look, you think it's an automatic thing. It's all about your intent,
about your acting and faith. You're doing this in obedience and faith and
love towards God. When you do it in the right way, then God
is somehow blessing you. That's what Saint Cyril's basically saying, God is,
God will bless you in response because you're doing it out of faith, So
he's channeling this desire for sacrifice. If they do it the right way,
with the right intent, like like able, with the right with the right
heart, then God will respond back with blessings for them. Okay, yeah,
and let me just say I just want to say to the people for
the people watching and to understand how this is organically true in anything that has
to do with any type of relationship that you engage with others, whether it's
hierarchical or whether it's it's it's across levels. Is that you know, if
you it's not just like okay, so shake the person's hand, you know,
do this and that, and if you do all these things, then
you'll be in a right relationship with others. Like we all know that's nonsense,
Like, that's not true. Of course, we have to shake the
other person's hands. Of course we have to we have to be polite,
we have to do all these things that are kind of like rules. But
if they're not done with the right intention of entering into communion with the person,
then we know that we could do all the right things and and then
we would find ourselves in disharmony with others. And so it's it's as true
for a family meal, for how you relate to your children, to your
parents, to your to your spouse, as it is for how we also
relate to God. So it doesn't mean that we completely remove the rituals.
The rituals are there to embody the intention, But without the intention, then
the rituals ultimately can become can become pernicious even you know, it's like if
you shake someone's hand and you, you know, give them that look like
you know, it's like I actually hate you, then the handshake is nulled.
You know. Yeah, yeah, simple plus intention. I think that's
that's a good way to say that what Saint Cyril, how he defines it.
You know, you have to have the meaning is there, but the
meaning has to be backed up by the right disposition. And I think,
what's but But here's what he says, though, this is so, it's
this idea that that the anti type Christ is the only one who ah imbues
meaning to anything that happening. Of the types, the type only only exists
for the sake of the anti type. And so uh So, for example,
he says, uh he says, though the law of old was not
sufficient to help those in olden times, the mystery mystery of Christ was outlined
in it. But with the coming of Christ's purification by a type, then
of necessity fell in abeyance since the reality was now present. And then he
goes on to say that you know that the real reason that there was any
kind of you know, efficacy in the Old Testament sacrificial system was because already
Christ was there in it. And now the CHRISTI has come, it falls
away. And it sounds like some of the wording he uses. I don't
know if you have you ever read uh uh letos artists lidos artist is uh
this is a great if if you have time to get it sometime. I
know it's in the same last popular Patristic series. It's on Pasco. It's
the sermon that Saint Melido's Sardis gave in the second century were probably like on
the eve of Pasco. It's like a poetic sermon that he gave, and
there's sections of it that are quoted later on in our possible hymnography. So
I actually got picked up in the church, and it's many scholars think that
he was a Jew who converted to Christianity and became the bishop of Sardis,
and so Saint Melido. I'll read this little section of Saint Melido. It's
very similar to what Saint Cyril's writing a couple of centuries later. He says,
it's about the Passover and the blood of Christ. He says, tell
me, o, angels, the Angel of Death, at what were you
turned away at the sacrifice of the sheep or the life of the Lord,
at the death of the sheep, or the type of the Lord, at
the blood of the sheep, or of the spirit of the Lord. Clearly
you were turned away because you saw the mystery of the Lord taking place in
the sheep, the life of the Lord and the sacrifice of the sheep type
of the Lord and the death of the sheep. For this reason, you
did not strike Israel. But it was Egypt alone that you made childless.
So it's like the Angel of Death comes and he already sees the mystery of
the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world,
and he's turned away by that, very similar to what in fact, I'd
like to write an article at one point seeing if there's any connection of Saint
Cyril had any access to Saint Melido, because there's this sense in Saint Cyrio
that you know that that everything, any any kind of response, positive response
God had to Israel in the mosaic system was because he saw that they were
fulfilling what would ultimately point to Christ. Right, Christ's the one giving it
power in some way, he says, Otherwise it would become ineffectual if they
did not, if it was not connected directly to Christ. And so then
how does Saint Cyril or does he connect this ultimately with the Christian life,
that is to to show that our life is a living sacrifice. Right,
there's these phrases that we say in our in our liturgical practice, that or
that we see that we are meant to give ourselves ultimately, that that is
what all of this is leading to in terms of our own practice. Yeah,
that's actually that's I would say, that's probably what everything is about for
him, because he says, you know, and so the sacrificial system points
to Christ, and then Christ accomplishes what he needs to accomplish. And so
what is the spirit of the law now. The spirit of the law now
is to see how we become Christ in our self offering. So so basically
he sets up this idea that we have to voluntarily die, and then he
connects that to this idea of picking up our cross each day and following after
Christ every day is like a like a spiritual death or our own self emptying
for the sake of God. And this kind of sets up an entire way
of looking at the world. You know, this this idea that the Christian
is the one who's constantly sacrificing himself. Yeah, it's interesting. I tried
to, you know, when I was when I was completing the dissertation,
I spent a couple of years just reading all the literature and sacrifice. I
could possibly find, and so I had to read. I had to read,
like you know, you name it, Gustaf Island, all these different
ones. I read everyone who talked about different aspects of sacrifice, and some
of them Christians, some non Christian anthroological studies. And I came to Rene
Gerrard, and I was trying to see in what ways like his scapegoat,
you know idea, you know, And there's a sense that I saw that
there's some some parallels between his idea of the scapegoat and how he says that
Christ ultimately fulfills that he becomes one who takes on everything, you know.
But it was a little still, it's a little bit too protestanty for me,
you know. Well, it's not just that, it's that it's that
Gerard misses another aspect of sacrifice. And so if you take the onmkeyper sacrifice,
for example, it's like there are two sacrifices, my friend. There's
one that is out to the wilderness, and there's one that it's offered up.
And the sacrifice that's offered up is not the same. Is not that
Christ brings them together and in a very very mind shattering way, but they're
not the same. And so you know, it's like, for example,
like the pouring out of libations and all of these types of behaviors that the
ancients cannot be reduced to scapegoat sacrifice. And so Girardi says, if Gerardi
gets half of the story right, but he's missing an entire half of the
story, which makes his theory, in my opinion, insufficient and means that
it's difficult for him to reach this conclusion. So his tendency will be to
say that Christ has abolished sacrifice, and now there's no more sacrifice right now,
there's no more sacred, there's actually no more sacred anymore, whereas the
Christian, the true Christian position is to say Christ has shown how all of
this has to become internalized, and that we can be take the sins of
others to some extent, even that we can sacrifice ourselves, that we can
become the scapegoats in many ways. That is a healing and and that internalized
process now is the way that we live, and it's actually the way that
it's actually our morality is based on that implicitly or explicitly is based on that
image of what of what sacrifice is I think, well, in the twentieth
century and Saint Silivon the Athonite, he has this idea that you know,
the ultimate goal is for us to all become adam in a sense and take
on the sins of the world in a sense. Right to be like Christ
is to be able to become escape with ourselves, to become you know,
the passover offering ourselves to the entire all the symbolism of the Old Testament sacrificial
system capitulated in Christ. We have to imitate that. We had to take
that on in some way and live the life of self offering, of constant
sacrifice. And it's unbearable, Like it's I hate every moment of what you
just said, Like I just hate that. I don't want to do that.
But I can see in the stories, like if you look at some
of the stories of the saints, you have very powerful images, especially in
the monastics, stories of monks who do exactly that, who actually take on
blame of things they did not do towards the salvation of others. And in
the in the when people see the monk taking the blame for their sins onto
themselves, you know, they're transformed in ways that reproach, or that just
scolding or whatever punishment would never be able to accomplish. Some of these stories
are pretty amazing. But if I could branch off into just something else for
one second, it ties in with So I've been My kind of whole project
over the last twenty years has been looking at, you know, soulcreology,
how salvation works through the Father's interpretation of the Bible. And before I started
working on sacrifice and next Creation, I looked at justification and so I have
a little I'd put out a little book back in twenty ten based on my
research on that, and it was focusing on the Desert Fathers, and so
the Desert Fathers were picking up on the Gospel of Luke where in the Gospel
of Luke and the the parable of the of the public and the Pharisee,
the the publican basically by by accepting all blame, he descends down and the
u and he's the one who's vindicated or justified by God because he descends down
by taking on all blame, and God's the one who vindicates and lifts him
right. He exalts him, and then the Pharisee he exalts himself and God
lowers him, right, he brings him down uh and and condemns him.
And of course the words the word in Greek for to justify or vindicate the
kio, its opposite is which means to condemn. Those two words are used
in the parable, so it's the opposite of to vindicate. Right, he
gets condemned down and and that gets picked up in Orthodoxy in the the hymn
for one of the one of the Troparia for that Sunday of the Publican and
the Pharisee during Lent, it says, for the you know, for the
Publican exalted himself or lowered himself, based himself, and he was exalted up.
And the Pharisee exalts himself, and he was he was a base,
you know, he was brought down low. So he had this idea that
that when we take on the blame, when we take on and become that
offering, we allow God as judge, Christ as judge, to be the
one to lift us up and exalt us. He's the one who takes us
up to the to the heights rather than ourselves, you know. So it's
kind of linked to this. That's why he sees this, this sort of
language throughout, especially like the aesthetical writings and Eptic fathers, the desert Fathers.
Yeah, and it made the understanding that way makes so much sense of
so many Bible stories, you know, even from the beginning from Genesis,
you know, and so you know, that's how you can understand that what
God is asking of Adam, you know, to not raise himself up,
you know, to not himself take the fruit, to not to not pull
himself up, that what God wanted for him was too for that God doesn't
like that God was going to raise Adam up. And you see that in
the in the scripture. And sometimes it's tricky for people because it's people might
find it hard to see that in the text because it's like, well,
you know, it's it's a bit tricky of sand Ephraim to say that God
wanted to give him the fruit. Doesn't say that in the text, you
know. But if you take the entire scope of if you take the entire
scope of scripture and you kind of see it together, you realize that it's
there all through, Like even the story of Solomon, when it's like God
asks Solomon what he wants, It's like, I will give you, and
then he says, I want the knowledge of good and evil, and God
is like good. That's yes, that's exactly what you should ask for,
and I'm going to give it to you. But he doesn't, he's not
trying to take it for himself. So this weird moment from Solomon shows us
already that this was there and the whole narrative scripture, this idea that what
was received from above is different from than what is taken for ourselves. It's
the opposite in some ways, and we're lifted up when we when we abase
ourselves. It's it seems contradictory, but once you kind of see the logical,
well, actually know that's really how reality works. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's so it's so prevalent throughout all of the at least in that I'm
not as familiar with the Western liturgical tradition, but in the Eastern liturgical tradition.
I mean, this idea of humbling yourself is just ubiquitous. It's everywhere.
I mean, it's just i mean, all all of Lent focuses on
that, right, all the hymns and the various themes of the services.
It's almost always about how do we humble ourselves before God. Repentance is of
course part of humbling, which is so important during the fasting seasons, because
repentance is about admitting, you know, that that we are against God and
turning back towards Him and re establishing relationship. Because we're in the wrong,
we take on the blame. And the more we take on the blame,
you know, we allow God to be God. Because when Christ says that,
you know that he says judge, not unless you be judged. He's
not talking about a lack of discernment, because the same word guiteau is the
same word to judge or to discern it. They're not two different words.
We sometimes translate them differently, but they're the same word used in different parts
positively and negatively. In the New Testament, what he's saying is is,
don't usurp my position. I am the Lord, I sit on the throne
of judgment. I hold the keys you know, to life and death.
Don't usurp my position. Uh, it's not your place to determine, you
know, the the outcome of you know, human affairs or individual humans.
You have to humble yourself and see yourself only in comparison to me, he
says, right. And so again in the Desert Fathers, there's this idea
of you know, when when it's when it says, you know who is
man that you know he's made a little lower than the angels, and they
take that and they say, you know, God placed us down here,
you know, in this in this reality, and you know this idea of
up and down right, of above and below, we should only be a
little looking up. We should only be we should we're down here only looking
up at the Lord and comparing ourselves only to him, and we compare ourselves
only to Christ. We can't really exalt ourselves in any way. You know.
In fact, this ties into like in Isaiah six when Isaiah, who's
probably the holiest man of his time, right, he's this incredible prophet and
he gets initiated into the throne room of God. He's there in probably what
Saint Paul would call the Third Heaven or something like that, and he says,
I am undone, I'm a man of unclean lips. There's this idea
that that the that the Saints have that the more we focus on Christ,
the more we are moving towards Christ, the more we have to humble ourselves,
the more we have to sacrifice ourselves and lower ourselves because we recognize how,
you know, how flawed we are, how sinful we are in comparison,
right, that comparison, it's like this weird inversion where we're moving towards
Christ and maybe to an external observer it would seem like we're be coming sanctified
our own perception of it, we realize how much further we're getting away from
Him simultaneously, So various saints would say, like at the end of their
life, you know, oh, I haven't even begun to repent, you
know, or you know, or I'm afraid you know, they're glowing with
the uncreated light. And then and the people there here talking and say,
you know, he says he's respond to the demons. I don't have any
hope, you know. You know, So these kind of inversions of that,
this like a simultaneous movement toward God and the sense of moving away because
we're just so I hate to say, repugnant, you know, because of
our sins. But it's our perception of that, right, It's not saying
anything about God's perception of us. It's only speaking about our perception of our
selves when we start to really know ourselves in relationship to Christ, you know,
and the more we're able to offer ourselves up freely to Christ, the
more we move towards him. But the more we realize how much more work
we have to do in offering ourselves up. Yeah, yeah, and you
can see, like, you know, you can see how this applies either
at lower levels, you know, when you think, you know, when
you think of the problem of the politician, you know the problem of democracy,
for example, which is that you end up with like narcissists, you
know, because you have to you have to fight so much to get it,
like you have to do everything, you know, it's and basically to
get that position of power, you have to be willing to do anything,
lie, do whatever it takes just to get there. Whereas what we really
want is something like a reluctant king, Like that's what we would really want,
someone who we know is the best to be the king, but really
he doesn't want to be the king, and we almost have to force like
to say, no, you're the king, you know. Like all these
stories of the ancient bishops, you know, they go get the monk and
the cave and see say, okay, you're the bishop and you would just
run away and bring it back. No, no, we know that you're
the bishop, so that's what we would want. But it's a it's yeah,
it's difficult to Yeah, it's it's at the one hand possible. You
know, it just feels impossible. But on the other hand, you know
that it has to be that way, and that's the that's actually the best
image of reality, right Father jose this was amazing, Like, thank you
so much for for for this conversation and uh and uh and uh and yeah,
and I hope I will see you. I think you said you're going
to come to the Sabolic World Summit and so people can go to meet you
there. That's my plan. I hopefully get up there. I mean it's
not that far. I mean tarp and Springs. We call it a talk
pony Pe. That's that's a Greek because it's it's entirely greekably exactly. It's
like the Greek capital of America. I try to get up there once every
year or so and uh my family and walk around the sponge docks and buy
some Greek stuff and bring it back to Miami. So so definitely looking forward
to to to seeing you again. And uh, thanks for your insight and
thank you for your time. Father. Yeah. If you enjoyed these videos
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