Speaker 1: One of the questions people have sometimes is to wonder,
what exactly is the role of Saint John the Baptist,
Saint John the foreigner? You know, why do we need
this kind of wily, strange character to appear before the
coming of Christ? And so I thought this could be
an interesting thing to talk about. To look at it structurally,
there are, of course many things we could say, but
I really want to look at it in terms of structure,
in terms of you know, in terms of the symbolic
structure that we talk about, and what role it is
that Saint John plays in that.
Speaker 2: This is Jonathan Pejel, Welcome to the symbolic world. Now.
Speaker 1: Saint John appears, of course before Christ as this rather
wild looking character who stands out in the wilderness. He
wears camel hair, he eats grasshoppers, and he eats honey,
and he stands there at the outside of.
Speaker 2: The city, you know, near the Jordan River.
Speaker 1: Which is the edge really if you have to understand
the Jordan River as kind of the edge of the
of of Israel in terms of symbolism, we'll see why
that's the case. And he tells people to repent, and
he says the Kingdom of God is near, repent, turn
away from your sins, and he baptizes people. Now again,
it's it's very interesting because of course baptism in the
in the the text, it appears as something which is obvious,
you know, but there there aren't baptism in the Old Testaments.
There are things that are akin to baptism, and we
look at those as well, but there isn't baptism proper
in the Old Testament. So the key to understanding Saint
John the Foreigner and his role is something like the
role of destruction, the role of the destruction of the
old thing that is not appropriate. And so we have structures.
So you know, we talk about hierarchy on this channel
all the time, and of course hierarchies are good, but
there are definitely bad hierarchies.
Speaker 2: You know. Oh, case in point. I totally didn't plan this,
but I have a grant here case in point.
Speaker 1: You know, that's what Jack and the Fallen Giants is about,
to some extent, you know, which is in some ways
the dangers and the problems of hierarchy, you know. But
often all the things that we build in our lives,
like the false idols and the false temples and the
you know, and the the edifices that we construct, you know,
to the to foreign gods, you know, whether it's to
our own success or whether it's to you know, to
just just making more money, or you know, to get
what we think.
Speaker 2: We deserve, to get what we want. You know, all
of these.
Speaker 1: Things they have the structure of a hierarchy, and usually
they will be little, you know, little microcosms of the world.
But they are in some ways inappropriate because they're not
aimed in the right direction, because they are they're skewed,
they're crooked, they're not completely straight in the sense that
they don't aim high enough. You know, they kind of
stop before that. They are, for all intentsive purposes, towers
of Babel, and you know, in order for you to
come to truth and to be able to participate in
the proper hierarchies and the proper orders of the world,
the first thing that needs to happen is, of course,
the destruction.
Speaker 2: Of the old in order for the new to begin.
Speaker 1: Now, this is the role that Saint John plays, and
you'll see how it iterates itself at all the levels
that Saint John talks about.
Speaker 2: But before we look at that we want to look at.
Speaker 1: You know, some of the Old Testament prefigurations of Saint
John of this kind of destruction before the new world.
Now there are a few examples. Right at the beginning.
There's of course, the flood itself is an example of that,
where the entire civilization is destroyed. It's put through the waters,
you know, in order for there to become a new world,
you know, for the world to be made new, to
receive a new revelation from God and to reconnect with God.
You know, during the time of the flood, there's a
kind of forgetting, you know, and you see that in
the description of the flood, because at the end of
the flood it says, you know, God remembered Noah, and
there remembering between God and Noah. The remember between the
people and God is this reconnection between the heaven and
the earth. But before that happened, there has to be
a destruction. So that's why, of course the world is
destroyed before the flood. Then it's reiterated. The whole thing
is reiterated right after the flood in this little microcosm,
which is the Tower Babbel. And the Tower Babbel, you
see again the same thing, which is this building of
an hierarchy, of a tower and a city, that it
tends to touch the heaven, you know, and because of
that presumption, because it is it is completely let's say,
doing it on their own, without even trying to be
connected to heaven, without receiving you could say, the impetus
from heaven above it becomes an idol and it shatters,
and so it is destroyed. But it's destroyed from above.
God destroys it shatters the tower. Like it's not described
in scripture, but in many traditions you have the idea
that the tower falls, the tower crumbles, you know, things
get restored back to normal, and then you know there
has to be again a new beginning. There are again
other examples. The example of the Exodus is the one
which is probably one of the clearest. You have the
pharaoh who's a tyrant, who is a representation of hierarchy.
And in order for Israel to be able to enter
into a new covenant with God, they first of all
have to you know, the they have to go through
the waters, right, they have to go down into the
water and like restore the world, destroy the previous hierarchy
and the soldiers of the Egyptians and their chariots. They
are lost in the sea, and then they come out,
and now it's time for a new revelation. They can see,
like all right now, exactly what it is that Saint
John is doing. He is kind of repeating this, you know,
this crossing of the river and the destruction of the
old world, the crossing of the river and then the
re establishing of a new world.
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Speaker 1: This, of course, is an image again of what Elijah did. Elijah,
you know, participates in the falling apart of the Northern
Kingdom of Israel, you know, and then he crosses the river.
And when he crosses the river, there has to be
a new beginning. And so because there has to be
a new beginning, you can understand that in this particular version,
Elijah has to go up, right, he has to be
taken up and then and then there can be a
kind of a new re establishment. Now the re establishment.
It's it's interesting because it's hard for people to kind
of see the re establishment. But you know, some of
the miracles that Elisha does can help you understand the uh,
you know, the new beginning. And so one of the
things that Elisha does is that he finds iron axehead
and raises it to the to the top of the
of the waters, makes the axe head float, you know,
and you think, what kind of weird miracle is that,
But that's exactly it. It's exactly a miracle that would
come after the crossing of the waters. It's like you
go down into the waters and then you raise up
the head, right that you raise up the head out
of the water. Some of the body stays in the water.
Some of the outer stuff, you know, some of the
body that isn't appropriate stays in the water. And then
the axe head that the top part gets taken out,
and then there's a new world that is beginning. You know,
there are plenty examples of that. I don't want to
go into it. I'm going to bore you with like
all the examples, but just to help you understand the
structure of how this functions. And so Saint John does
this in many ways. He does this over and over.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that he does is, of course
he stands in the wilderness. He has to stand outside
of the structure. He has moved outside of the structure
and now is criticizing it and is telling people to
abandon the evil structure, both in terms of leaving the
city to be baptized, but then doing it personally in
the sense of that's what sins are. Sins are inappropriate
structures of patterns of action and of belief and of
orientation that are inappropriate because they're not aiming in the
right direction. And therefore, in order for you to be
able to get a new revelation, in order for you
to kind of enter into this new world. You have
to get rid of that, so you have to repent,
and it's repentant.
Speaker 2: It is also taken into.
Speaker 1: The waters, and you're representing, you're participating in the ancient stories.
And so although baptism is not explicitly in the Old Testament,
you could say that it's there everywhere. It's there everywhere
where there's a transition between world where there is going
to be an old world that will be destroyed and
a new world that will be founded. Now, of course,
there are aspects of Saint John's baptism that has even
more dramatic implications, which is that he also seems to
be prophesizing the destruction of Jerusalem, you know, and he's saying.
Speaker 2: This world is going to end, folks, So where do
you want to be?
Speaker 1: Do you want to remain in the waters? Do you
want to do you want to do you want to go?
Do you want to burn up? Do you want to
burn up like the old world? Or do you want
to participate in a new world that is being established,
a new world that will be established very soon? And
so there's also that which is happening, And of course
Saint John talks about he talks about the axe that
is at the foot, that is at the root of
the tree. It's like the axe is at the root
of the tree. The axe is about to to cut
off this tree, you know. And so all of that, right,
what do you think that is that making the tower
of Babel fall, destroying Babel and cutting the tree. These
are exactly the same thing. If you been following, you know,
the work on symbolism and kind of understanding how symbolism functions.
A tower and a tree are the same in terms
of their manifestation. They are order, right, It's like I'm
going to cut down this order because it's not producing fruit,
and we're going to throw it into the fire. And
now we're going to plant a new plant, you know,
or we're going to at least get rid of the
branches that don't that don't bear fruit in the hope
that the rest of the tree can produce, you know,
fruitful branches. And so all of that is happening in
Saint John. And of course it is clear as well
in this idea that he is the voice in the.
Speaker 2: Desert from Isaiah.
Speaker 1: You know, this voice in the desert that is calling
out and is saying make straight the way of the Lord.
You know, bring down the mountains, raise up the valleys,
make everything straight, make everything flat, you know, And that's
the way to understand. It's like if you make things flat,
then they are ready for a new world. Think about
what you need to do if you're going to you know,
if you're going to build a house. So you see,
it happen all the time when they build things. You know,
they will level things, they'll make things clear so that
they can build on them, so that everything is is
you know, the old stuff is removed. You're going to
remove the trees, you're going to remove the grass, You're
going to remove the rocks that are in the way
or whatever, and you're going to try to make the
ground level to be able to now build a new
building on it. You remove the rubble too, Like if
there's destruction of an ancient city, it's like remove all
the remainders of the ancient world. And so that is
of course everything that Saint John manifest and that's why
he looks the way that he does. You know, that's
why he is wild, because that is the aspect of
the wild, which is positive, which is the aspect of
the wild. Is think about the wild just like in
terms of if you live like where I live in Quebec.
You know, it's like or if there are many places
that you live, like if you don't take care of
a building for enough time, the wild will take it over.
It is human hierarchies need constant attention. They need to
be held up, They need to be you know, they
need to be kept up. But if you let them go,
then the wild will come and take them. And you
see these you know, these ruins that the vines grow
through them and the rain destroys them within one generation.
You know, the water comes in, breaks it down, you know,
the the like I said, the plants come and will
will participate in bringing everything down. An earthquake will come
and just calm, you know, shatter the building. And so
the wild is constantly, you know, coming in to attack.
And usually we see that as negative, you know, we
see that as in some ways consequence of the fall,
which you know it is, but we tend to see
it as negative as the wild beasts that are coming
to devour you, you know, the snakes on the edge
of the camp, all of this stuff. But this is
the thing about symbolism is that symbolism is not is structural.
I've said it many times. It's not a simple one
way street. And so it's not just like this good,
this bad. And so in this case, Saint John the
Baptist represents everything about this wild aspect you know that
is you know, it's like the just in the wild
is maybe a good way of understanding Saint John, Saint
John the Baptist, and therefore he is there to level
the world and bring about a transformation. And you know,
one of the one of the important aspects of Saint
John is of course in the way that Christ talks
about him. You know, this is of course one of
the greatest examples of one of the things that I
talk about in terms of symbolism and how symbolism functions
is that this is going to be harder for some
people to kind of get, but hopefully the example will
help you understand.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: Symbolism means that stability and meaning is held from above.
Mostly it's not held that much from below.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: The stability of something is its logos. The stability of
something is it in its instantiations.
Speaker 2: What do I mean by that?
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, sorry, the cup so The stability
of the cup is in is in the notion that
it's a cup. That's what makes it stable, That's what
holds it together. But you know, and that's why I
can recognize different instantiations of cups is because what mayi's
stable isn't the fact that it's made of wood or
the fact that has this or that shape or this
or that size, But it's its purpose and its name
and its identity, and that's what kind of holds it
in stability.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: You know, if I say something like the man had
a cup in his hands, you'll say, Okay, yeah, I
didn't tell you what kind of cup it was.
Speaker 2: I didn't tell you what color was. I didn't tell
you what size it was. I didn't tell you what
it was made of.
Speaker 1: But you'll say, yeah, but that's an event in the world,
even though I didn't give you any of the details
of how that event was instantiated. And I can say,
you know, what's something that's true that man was holding
a cup in his hands, and he'd be like, oh, yeah,
I believe that's true. But you don't know anything about
the cup. You know anything about its weight or whatever,
or its instantiations its stability is held in its meaning,
and that is how symbolism functions. So when there is
this prophecy in the Old Testament that Elijah will come
before the Messiah. And so when the disciples ask Christ,
Christ said, John the Baptist is the Elijah that comes
before the Messiah. Because in the prophecy it says that
Elijah will come before the Messiah. Now, this is the
thing about symbolism. This is going to be this is
the pill that you kind of have to swallow, which is,
if I ask you the question, did Elijah come before
the Messiah? What's the answer? The answer is yes, Elijah
came before the Messiah. What's the instantiation of that, John
the Baptist, John the Baptist is the Elijah that came
before the Messiah. I want you to think about the
implications of that. I want you to think about what
that means. Now, if I say, is Elijah coming before
the Messiah an event that happened in the world, what's
your answer?
Speaker 2: The answer is yes, And that answer is.
Speaker 1: Far closer to what the Bible is saying than if
I say, yeah, but not Elijah didn't.
Speaker 2: Really come before the Messiah.
Speaker 1: Like it's not really like Jesus was like using a metaphor.
Speaker 2: He was metaphorically saying.
Speaker 1: So Jesus showed us was that when in the Old
Testament it said that Elijah would come before the Messiah,
like it was a metaphor. You know, it's like everything
else in the Bible's on a metaphor, but that was
particularly a metaphor. And you know, and so when Jesus
kind of revealed that it was a metaphor, then in fact,
Elijah wasn't going to come before the Messiah, but St.
John the Baptist would come as a kind of Elijah, right,
you know, as a kind of metaphorical Elijah. And it's like, no,
that is that absolutely the wrong way. If you go
down that path trying to understand scripture, it's going to
come back and bite you a million times, you know.
And that is why the symbolic, the symbolic approach is
so powerful, because I do believe that Elijah came before
If you asked me, do you believe Elijah came before
the Messiah? The answer is yes, I really do believe that.
That is my first stand, my first sense that Elijah
came before the Messiah. And then I say you know,
and I say ah, in Saint John the Baptist was Elijah.
But my first, my first place to stand is that
is that the prophecy came true, Elijah came before the Messiah,
and that way of talking and that way of thinking
should inform so much of how you interpret scripture and
understanding that the reason why we care about it is
in its meaning and its structural coherence, and in how
meaning is used in a very different way then what
the kind of modern materialist reductionists would want it to be.
And the truth is that it is much closer to
reality in the very same way that if I ask
you again, if I tell you that that man was
holding a cup in his hands, I didn't. I'm not
in any way giving you the details of that instantiation,
and you don't need them in order to know that
they're true. I could, I could give you the details
of that instantiation, and if I do, you know, then whatever,
maybe if there's a reason why would be helpful to
do that, if I want to differentiate it from something,
or if I want to help you kind of see
something in particular, you know, but it's not necessary.
Speaker 2: The last part, you know, It's like.
Speaker 1: If I if I see that there are these characters
before the end of the world that are taken up, right,
and so you have an image of Enoch that is
taken up, you know, that is walks with the Lord
and disappears in this image that he's taken up.
Speaker 2: This is more in the tradition because they're basic.
Speaker 1: Then again on Elijah, that Elijah is taken up, you know.
And then the question about Saint John the Baptist, was
Saint John the Baptist, like Elijah and Enoch, taken up
before the end of the world, before the you know,
before the transition, And the answer is yes, he was,
you know, because his head was taken His head was
taken And this is this is going to be weird
for a lot of people, you know, because you're going
to say, well, that's not the same. You know, his
head getting cut off is not the same as being
taken up. But you know, if you knew the scripture,
you would know that it is actually the same. And
one of the things that Jesus is doing in the
story is he is collapsing the positive and negative symbolism.
Speaker 2: He you know, you know, the.
Speaker 1: Fact that Christ's on the cross is both being raised
up and then also being being killed and crucified and humiliated.
All of this is already there in the symbols of
Saint John the Baptist, and what it's referencing. The fact
that Saint John is taken up by his head being
cut off, is referencing the story in in Genesis, the
story of Joseph. So in the story of Joseph, Joseph
goes into prison. So these two characters in the prison
with Joseph have have dreams. And the cup holder has
the dream that he sees vines in front of them.
I think it's like three vines that represent the three days.
And he has the pharaoh's cup and he presses the
wine into the into the cup and he gives it
to the pharaoh. Right, that's the dream of the of
the cup holder. And then and the the dream of
the baker is that he has this I think basket
of bread on the top of his head.
Speaker 2: He has head on top of.
Speaker 1: His head, and then the uh, the birds come and
they pick the bread out of the basket. Now, there's
a lot to say about that symbolism. Maybe one day
I'll make a video about the entire thing about the
relationship between of course the bread and the wine. All
of this is very related, is relatable. But then they
ask Joseph what does the dream mean, And so Joseph
tells the cup holder that in three days, the pharaoh
will lift you up, you know, lift you up back
into your position at his side to offer him the cup.
And then he says to the one with the to
the baker, like he says, in three days, the pharaoh
will lift you up, you know, but lift you up
in the sense of cut your head off and lift
your lift that's why the birds were taking the bread
from his head or going to lift you up and
take you away.
Speaker 2: So here it's like it's very powerful.
Speaker 1: Because you can really see the symbolism of the negative
aspect of tyranny and of order, where the birds from heaven,
like the angels from heaven, come down and take the
bread and bring it up, and that's his head getting
cut off and being lifted up. But the text uses
the terms very similarly, like both it's the pharaoh that
is going to lift you up, and one is into
your death and the other is into the service. And
then in the story of Saint John, the Baptist. Those
two are the same. They brought together in some ways
it becomes an image of future martyrdom, where you know,
the death and glorification of someone are the same, and
that Saint John's head getting taken up by the King
ends up also him being taken up before the fall
and before the destruction of.
Speaker 2: Jerusalem and the founding of the New world.
Speaker 1: And so there are other examples of that, of course,
because Christ going up into Heaven is the ultimate final
version of that. But there's already an intimation of this
kind of symbolism in Saint John the Baptist had been
taken up. And so that's the last little bit of
maybe a little more esoteric symbolism that wanted to point
to you, But mostly I wanted you to understand that
the role of Saint John is very important in the
idea that one of the aspects of the incarnation is
a transition feed an old world and a new world.
Speaker 2: So you need this kind.
Speaker 1: Of character to hand off and to destroy and to criticize,
because if you remember, Saint John criticizes the King. That's
what gets them killed. To criticize the old world, to
level it, to destroy it before a new world.
Speaker 2: Can be founded and so and so, you know, so
don't can I say this?
Speaker 1: I think that we have to be careful as people
not to get caught up in criticizing the world in
which we live. You know, we have to ultimately focus
on God, but it is part of reality. We do
need to break down the idols and to break down
the things that are falsely built up. And so sometimes
and some people definitely have that role more than others.
And so even though for some people they can be
annoying to hear only criticism, and we have to be
careful not to feed ourselves only with that kind of stuff.
You know, this is an important role in the restoration.
So thanks everybody for your time, Thank you for your support.
Don't forget to get Jack and the Fallen Giants. It
is available on our store. There are a lot of
great stuff coming next year and I'm looking forward to it.
So thanks everybody for your time. Talk to you very soon,
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