September 7th, 1983, Serial No. 00387

00:00
00:00
Audio loading...

Welcome! You can log in or create an account to save favorites, edit keywords, transcripts, and more.

Serial: 
NC-00387

AI Suggested Keywords:

Summary: 

Monastic Theology Series Set 2 of 3

AI Summary: 

-

Is This AI Summary Helpful?
Your vote will be used to help train our summarizer!
Photos: 
Notes: 

#ends-short; #item-set-077

Transcript: 

Here we are. We're in the Procopio Coast, and this morning we're going to finish by dawn, just like the last two times. We're in Chapter 11, so we've got a chance. You remember, this is the final exhortation of the Lobos, to grab on to salvation, the government, the light, the work, the work itself. Notice the interplay between sound and vision, between light and word, between light and song. Both of those are in Prologo, John. Here they've been taken up and expanded in the development of that. I've talked about that in a way, maybe excessively. Often the symbols in the images are the things that stay with you through a lot of the concepts included in the book. So, let's see what we can do with Chapters 11 and 12. Now, notice that Merton, he's got a chunk of Chapter 11.

[01:00]

The Lobos are a teacher. And, of course, his language is a little more pleasant. I seem to know this translation. We got as far as page 203. Remember, we began that hymn, Hail, O Light. Page 203, right after that was about it. And we found that also in other pieces by Regan, who talks about all of the uses of the sun image by Clement. He's got a book on the DSO. Hail, O light, for in us who lie buried in darkness and prisoned in the shadow of death, life is comfort and that of the sun sweeter than life through the rope. That aesthetic dimension, which is characteristic, I think, of Greece, all of the Jews, the Jews have a different, I think, a momentary interest in that regard.

[02:10]

The way that the two peoples regard the universe when they think about it. Their way of enjoying it. Their way of talking about how they enjoy themselves. That is a way of the sweetness of the light. And especially to talk about the light itself. That light is eternal life for all those who share in it. But the night fears the light. And the night for him also is a night of paganism. And hiding itself in terror, it makes way for the day of the Lord. This is the light that never sleeps. The day of the Lord, the sun. This is the light that never sleeps. The light that hovers over all. And the west is commanded of the east. Now Merton translates that. All has become unfailing light. This is on page 25 on the middle in Merton. All has become unfailing light. And the place of the setting sun has become the place of what's rising. And that mystifies you.

[03:13]

But down a little bit further, I think it becomes clearer. He's talking about life coming out of death for the first time. So life, so death is like the setting sun. Death in that sense is like the west. And life, the resurrection, the new birth. The rising sun, the east. But how it stands geographically, I don't know actually. But you can't really picture salvation coming from the west here. For it is he who will change the place of the sun setting into a new east. Death into life by his crucifixion. Now if you remember on the cross, there was an eclipse. Which doesn't particularly expand our understanding of it.

[04:20]

It was death. And that symbol, the eclipse of death, made it cosmic. Expanded it to a cosmic. And that symbol, the eclipse of death, made it cosmic. It's not Ching Men where traditionally he gives him a short place of heaven. He takes up corruption and plants it in new corruption. He transplants the earth into heaven. He's singing the power of the logos of the world. Okay, Merton goes on a little further. And there's another significant passage. He is God's farmer. He's Father Merton. This is on page 27. He sets up tables and calls the people to go to work. And they go to work every week. He demonizes men by heavily preaching, giving laws to their intellect,

[05:24]

and writing these laws in their heart. Now, there's an important biblical reference here, which is first of all to Jeremiah, chapter 31, and then to Hebrews, page 10-12. Now, that passage in Jeremiah you'll know pretty well. The president on May 31 will be like the president of New York, but I'll write one of those in my heart. So here we're finding once again a kind of interiorization, which is in the law. Which is the interiorization of the logos. The logos are inside. They're very important. Now, quite different from what I knew, which I will tell you in the next one. This is the covenant that God will make to the house of Israel, after they've tasted the Lord. I will put my law within them, I will write it upon my heart, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Now, I don't want to get too deep into this, because maybe I need to tell you something, but it's a well-known truth. The number of their knowledge of the Lord, once again, is a question to find.

[06:25]

They shall all know that when they receive the word of the Lord, God will forgive them, and they shall know that they will receive no more. Hebrews 4-7 tells us, they never know if it has to be the system of text. I like to ask myself, why do you choose a certain text? Well, I think here it's because he wants to speak to God. The logos, as we interiorize, it's as a love which is revealed. Now, the fact that it's the logos, the word becomes important later on. Yeah, very much. Let's see what it does. It takes it out of history, and here in front, it's outside,

[07:29]

and it's historical. That is, he emerges, in some way, the making of man with history, in such a way that he's able to keep it rather externalized, keep it very much in the Jewish idiom. Then, when Ruth Clement, the Greek point of view, begins coming in, he begins talking about intellect. Remember, I talked about intellect as the image of God. The mind of intellect is the image of the logos. And, it is taken out of history, and you begin to get a kind of scheme projected there, as you see more in the pedagogue. If you ask Irenaeus, how does the pedagogue work? He wouldn't tell you, well, first he exhorts, and then he instructs, first he gives the fashions, and then he teaches it. I don't think he could introduce that. He would say, he molds you in history. So, it's a different scheme taken over. It's a different thought. Molding up the pages,

[08:32]

it's an easy thing to do. Yeah, yeah. God molding the Jews with hard gloves on his fists, there's a difference between that and some kind of a system, a school, in which things are sort of on track. And, of course, there is a point, we've largely got lost in the system. In a way, the idea was that in Rich's critique, by incorporating in the interior the philosophical, the philosophical state of things, in the sense of all sense of history. What seems to happen there is that we're unable to get an intellectual grip on what we're talking about. Which means that when we read the Stoics, Heraclitus, and then Plato, the other major Greek philosophers,

[09:35]

we have an intellectual satisfaction of really seeing it extend out to the bounds of reality, which is just kind of fuzzy or sporadic and implicit. For some reason, it's expressed in a way that permits the intellect to get a hold of it. At the same time, the intellect begins to inject its own schemes. It begins to get the mystery under control. And that's where the shadow comes in. It begins to reduce it to a conceptual level. Thus, no longer just sort of exposing a human being to God, but putting it in some kind of a really humanly constructed scheme whose mysteries it can no longer get through because it's built up so sporadically. It happens in the mysticism. Which starts in the desert dream, the way of exposing yourself to God, ends up in the domesticated enclosure in which you submit to the scheme. That's overstatement. The mystery works the same way.

[10:36]

As soon as we put more confidence in that scheme, then we begin to protect ourself from God's influences, from his own metadata. And this is the risk that you begin to see in Klamath, especially in another book, not so much in this book, but in the other. We hit it right away in the first chapter. Okay. We're on 204, the tenth column. About halfway down, there's another passage which is great. It is truth which cries out. The light shall shine forth from the darkness. Let the light then shine in the hidden part of man. It is the heart. He loves this interiority. There's a kind of, a sense of mysticism in this. But the mysticism of Irenaeus is curiously just kneaded and mixed in with all of his theology. Physical mysticism. Not in Irenaeus.

[11:40]

The contrast between Irenaeus and Klamath. The mysticism there, he doesn't allow it to get separated out from the physicality, from the body, the earth aspect of it, which is amazing. It's Jewish. Whereas Klamath starts refining out, and as he refines out, he moves to the intellectual, he moves to the interior. And whenever you do that, you're leaving out something else. You're preferred. You're beginning to sort things out. And that's the work of reason, which is the work of Klamath. And that's actually the degree of character that he's done for us. It's been an instrument of refining, a refining mind. And then as you refine, it's like breathing resources, you finally arrive at a breath which is so specialized, just so refined, and so fragile, that's perhaps what it's like. Let the light then shine in the hidden part of man that is the heart, and let the beams of knowledge arise to reveal and irradiate

[12:43]

the hidden inner man, disciple of the light. See, that's Christian Gnosticism, that interiority, and the risk, let's see, distinguishing that preferentially from what's going on outside, like the institutional churches and all those other issues. Let's go. The familiar friend, in fact, we all do. The familiar friend and fellow heir of Christ. That idea of the friend of Christ, you notice that the willingness for Christ is not just an intellectual choice, as it were, especially now that we have come to know the most precious and pinnacle name of a good father, the idea of the child, you notice that. You see, he's got a lot of counterweights, instinctive counterbalances to his intellectual choice. One is the love for Christ, another is the child. He never gets away from that. He deals with it tediously.

[13:44]

The idea of the love of Christ. Yeah, oh yeah. He's a lot like Aristotle. He knew of the early philosophies. And that's become the classic. Oh, really? Because there's so much in common. He's a philosopher, Oh, really? Because they're fragments, that's right. That's right. He seems to have had a particular likelihood of Christ, even though he doesn't fly to be a courtsman. Does Heraclius have a sense of mystery? Okay, now down at the bottom

[14:48]

we reach another important section. The soldiers of peace talk about the trumpet, which, and here, there's a lot of paradox. The trumpet which sounds and calls the soldiers and proclaims war. And he says the gospel is the trumpet of the logos, which calls together his soldiers of peace. And I realize that this reflects the first chapter and the new hymn, remember the new song of salvation, which is the word. He won't let the word just be words, it's got to be music. And here, it sounds like battle music at first, and then you realize that just as there's a paradox between the battle and the peace, there's also a paradox in the sound of the word. This sound, which is the sound, the sweet sound, the sweet sound rather than the where breathing a strain of peace to the ends of the earth is a sweet sound. And later on, he's going to be talking about the sirens in chapter 12. He says, shut your ears and sail out by them. You've got to listen to the music. I didn't look this up in the original. Breathing a strain of peace

[15:49]

because obviously we have a reference to this poem. Gather together his own soldiers, the soldiers of peace. By his blood and by the word he has gathered the bloodless host of peace. Let's follow him. And he, I mean, he's called to arms with his blood and his word, an army that sheds no blood. Bloodless is my name. To these soldiers he has ended up with the kingdom of heaven. The trumpet of Christ is his gospel. He has sounded it in our ears and we have heard it. We want the peace. And then he goes into Ephesians 6, remember, holy apparatus, the armament of of the word, which St. Paul talks about there. Trapping the sword of his spirit, which is the word of God. And then there's a mysterious deep passage where he says, let us, this is Mark, let us cut through his flaming attack with the blade which the Logos himself has tempered in the waters of baptism. Baptism is implicit there, but it's really there. See what

[16:50]

the original, that's a tricky one. There's one of those images you can never quite get together. In other words, it doesn't click, you know, to confirm itself as sometimes an image will do. Let us extinguish his fiery arrows. My goodness, this is a mixture. Extinguish his flaming darts or arrows with the moistened edge of our swords which the Logos himself has tempered. And the un-extinguished arrows of the sword. Yeah, but we're in baptism and so we're in baptism with the water of the word he's got there. See, they've got the water of the word in that translation

[17:53]

and in the French translation it says, our swords that the Logos has tempered himself and then they're still human. Their edges are still wet from that tempering in the water of baptism. The connection of the water with the word which is recurrent. Yeah. That's right. That's right. He's got it the same. Only he's not quite as sharp on the he's got his flaming attack, you see. He's not quite as sharp on the arrow because it does mix the hurt for him. The sword is a shield at the same time. And it's moist too, extinguished. Okay. Then there's another pretty soon he gets into a a Plato passage again. A little further down on 204, the right side. Nowhere beyond where

[18:53]

he's ascending. The heavenly and truly divine love comes to men thus and in the soul itself the spark of true goodness kindled in the soul by the divine word. Wow. The French has this with the heavenly and truly divine love comes upon men. It is when the true beauty see Nicene father doesn't get the true beauty. This is Plato. It's in the banquet actually. It's before that that he speaks to two loves. A higher love. I don't know if they were brothers. I'm sure he's got a brother but anyways. And so there's a higher love, there's a higher beauty. This is the true beauty and the true heavenly love. There's one which is kind of destructive. The true beauty

[19:53]

which is enkindled by the divine logos is able to shine in their soul. So here you've got an intense image once again. You see a kind of spark of a light of beauty which is enkindled by the logos in the soul. Notice the interiority of the inner things. The logos are looking inside. And so it's very much like some of the monastic words that he has never spoken. And then salvation runs parallel with sincere willingness. That kind of language usually runs right off us. He's saying choice and life are yoked together somehow. Now that's going to come up again in the last chapter when he talks about the yoke of Christ. Our good will in other words gets yoked with actual life which is Christ which is the will of God. That kind of

[20:55]

affirmation. And then kind of climax here in this chapter it seems to me. No, I'm thinking of the other chapter. He ends this chapter with a fairly not too exciting and that exhortation becomes very pressing and very personal. I urge you to be saved. This Christ desires in one word He freely bestows life on you. And who is He? The word of truth the word of incorruption regenerates man by bringing him back to the truth. He who builds up the temple of God determines he may cause God to take up his abode burns the temple. Okay. Now chapter 12. The argument here is the same argument as before avoid custom. Custom for him

[21:55]

means the pagan habits which for him were connected with immorality and they represented kind of slavery for him. It's supposed to be the idolatry of his mind. Now here he talks on out of two sides of his mouth in the book. He uses quotes the Greek authors a lot and then he slams away at another term. That's what he told me. Now there's a strong allusion to the Odyssey here which I heard the theologians talk about. It's in chapter 12 of the Odyssey and it's where they're sailing by the island where those ladies are singing. The Island of the Sirens. They stop and listen to the music before they finish the recital. Now this here commends it to lashing to the mass. They put wax

[22:55]

in their ears and they Now when we were as far from the land as a voice shouted that it was brightly flying as good ship as it drew nearer was seen by the sirens and they directed their sweet song for us. Come this way on to the district where they sat. Wait for the occasion and stay your ship so that you could listen here to our singing. For no one else has ever sailed past this place in this black ship until he has listened to the sweet voice of the ships from away. Then goes on well pleased knowing more than ever he did except as a whistle in the sun which promises a kind of whistling that some patient should know something. It sounds like news but nothing more than that. For we know everything that the Argives and Trojans did in separate and wide chores with regards to this place. Over all the generous earth we know everything that happened. So they sang in sweet

[23:57]

aria and the heart within me desired to listen and I asked my to set me free nodding with my brows as they leaned down to the low tower and the primities in the ear above us rising up straightway fastening me with even more lashings and squeezed me tighter. For when they rode on fast the silence of it no longer did their voices cross the sound of their singing. Presently my eager companions took away from their ears the beeswax with which I had stopped and they set me free from my lashings. I got drawn into it and I read part of it last afternoon where it goes on like the slaves of the circus. There are a hundred and three of them or something like that in the spheres of it. I don't know what part of it I'm going to talk about because I'm going to be able to address the questions

[24:58]

that in my I I'm going to do about it. I don't know to do about it. I don't know what I'm going to do about it. don't what I'm And the

[25:59]

is that is absolutely don't know I'm going to do about it. because it also moves the ship along. And it's also the staff which releases the system into the water. You shall be free from destruction. The word of God will be your pilot, and the Holy Spirit will bring you to life. Then shall you see my God and be initiated into the sacred mysteries. And the mystery language, the initiation language, continues through the rest of this chapter. And some say that there are references here. And a cryptic reference to the Eucharist. But it's not on the surface. And then he moves on to release this other character.

[27:00]

Remember, the soothsayer was blind to his androgyny. He was blind to man and woman. That's where this case was drawn. He appears in the Odyssey, but this part here is related to this. Come, O madman. These things don't perhaps make much sense to us. I'm not leaning on the fifth. This was some of the paraphernalia of the prophets. Or poets. The thirst is kind of sad. Come to your senses. I will show you the word and the mysteries of the word, expounding them after your own passion. This is the mountain. Remember, it's not the mountain or the poets. It's not the mountain or the poet. It's Mount Zion. So, he's deliberately reflecting this back to chapter one. This is a literary symmetry. As we find in the final scene of the Bible. The mount of sobriety, shaded by the forest of purity.

[28:02]

Now, here it's curious that the lambs turn out to be female. It's another case in which the femininity and the feminine dimension of the Bible become much more subtle. And along with that, there are a whole bunch of other things. His leaning towards music and his leaning towards literature, for example. Related expressions. Music is a hymn of the king of the universe. Deliberately appalling in this chapter. Come also, O aged man. I don't know why he picks up Tiresias to address him. To put him in such an important place in Christ. At the end of his work. Now, that must, I suppose, be the prayer of Euripides, the darkness. I should have looked that up. A couple of the references. Allow yourself to be led to the truth. I give you the staff of the cross on which to lean. Aced. Believe and you'll see. Christ, by whom the eyes of the blind have never sighted, will shed on you a light brighter than the sun.

[29:05]

O truly sacred mysteries! O stainless light! My way is lighted with torches, and I survey the heavens and God. I become holy while I'm initiated. The Lord is the hierophant. A hierophant, I suppose, is the initiator. Not exactly a priest. I don't know where to go with that. Someone who initiates. Or is he the one who reveals the mysteries? Hierophant. The realer mystery. The other side of that would be initiation. The person to whom it's been revealed. The process of initiation. And now, notice that hierophant is another word for teacher. Or instructor. But it's a mystery. In other words, school. Seals while illuminating. Who was initiated? We're talking about baptism. So, the mysteries in Christianity are the mysteries of initiation. Between baptism and the Eucharist. So, he's an object of worship. Presents to the Father in the Eucharist.

[30:07]

He lifts him. He sets him. He lifts him. And in the heavens, it's here. And down at the bottom, it's at the top. Here is a kind of crescendo. A kind of climax. After which the music subsides a bit. I'll see if I can get it from the original because it's stronger. This is the logo speaking. This is the word speaking. Christ. Come to me.

[31:18]

There's familiar words of wisdom. And also, Matthew 11. Remember? Come to me all you who are heavenly heard. And so on. So, that stretch starts there. The passage starts there. Which is going to talk about the yoke of Christ. Now, that's one of the strongest. It's the strongest wisdom text in the Synoptic Gospels. Matthew 11. It's directly recorded. The wisdom text of the Old Testament. A very synthetic ritual. Come to me. To be put under the one God. Already the notion of subjection or carrying something. The one word of God. To not only have the advantage of the irrational, which is in possession of reason. Now, he's going to talk about. It's a paradox. He's going to talk about putting on the yoke of Christ. And he's going to use, in other words, implicitly, the image of a beast of burden. It's a question of bearing, once again, because of the notion of bearing. Matthew's encouraged by that. He's going to use the image of a beast of burden

[32:19]

as we take on the yoke of Christ. Now, here, however, he's opening up the paradox first. To not only have the advantage of the irrational, which is in possession of reason, but to you of all mortals, I grant the enjoyment of immortality as well. Not only reason, but immortality. So, I want to give you this grace. I confer on you both the word and the knowledge of God. Let's find that in the passage. I give you the word, the logos, that is to say, the knowledge of God. Often, the English translation misses the power of it because it simply stakes things out in a linear fashion. That's meant to be clear, but the expression isn't clear. They're the same thing. I give you the logos. That is the knowledge of God. I give you myself. Perfect. It's a logos speech. There's no God. It's like Ignatius of Athens. This am I. Let's see. This is that which I am. This is that which God wills.

[33:22]

This is the symphony. This is the harmony of the Father. This is the Son. This is the Christ. This is the logos of God. The arm of the Lord. The power of the universe. The will of the Father. See, that's the climax. All of those synonyms, those epithets being applied to the logos themselves in the world. And that's the gift. For you who are, I'll continue with it. For you who are all images, but you're not all likenesses, I want to correct you according to the model, the archetype which is Christ, the logos themselves, so that you may become similar also to me. I wish, let's see. Let me tell you about anointing with the point that they emerge from your corruption. Okay, here we are in Matthew 11. Come to me, all you who are tired and heavily burdened,

[34:22]

and I will give you rest. Take upon you my yoke and learn from me that I am. Learn from me that I am. You can come up. I didn't look up the original text. Here's the part in this book. Yeah. I think it's a guide. I think in the, in the text, I didn't bring the text, but I think there's a number reading some manuscripts. Here it's O.T. which usually means lack. I remember reading Haggagy's Talmud. Now, he pursues this image of the yoke a little further.

[35:26]

Let's pray. Let us haste we who are portraits, he's got, of the logos. We could say also images. Portraits who love God and who resemble God. Let us haste, let us run, let us take upon ourselves his yoke. Let us pursue the incorruptibility. Let us love Christ, this wonderful conductor of the human chariot. He has united under the same yoke, the colt and the old beast. And having thus yoked or harnessed this human couple, he directs the chariot towards immortality. Now, what is the pair there? He doesn't explain it. What is the old beast? Remember, Jesus enters Jerusalem. It's in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 21. And he seated upon him

[36:30]

was a document full of two pieces, one older than the other. It was a strange combination. But tell me, the Jewish people and the Gentiles, you probably thought it was the Jewish people. I think the Gentiles are the new ones, the young ones, because they're only hearing the word now. Whereas the Jews have been, as they were habituated to the word. Even though not for Christ. Of course. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think in this way. I think in this way. There's no doubt that it's taking place.

[37:37]

We use it in a couple of different ways. It's in the Jewish tradition. One is your desiring power, and the other is your arresting of power. There's a couple of reasons as to why it's taking place. So, it's a synthesis, therefore, of a Biblical image. Actually, three different things are being brought together here. Certainly, there's the Platonic image, and maybe a couple of references to it. And Matthew 11, take the point I'm making, come to me and take the point I'm making. I know, that's what that's been used for in the text. And then, the Gospel passages, which we have to read. So, at first sight, you get very little of that. You're really up to it. Go back. That's the point. I think that's so.

[38:41]

It goes so quickly that you have to simply throw down an image and go by it. And it's certainly true that he doesn't follow them up in trying to strengthen or refine all of the dimensions. That's for a editor. Maybe because sometimes it's not possible because there isn't enough enough precision in the theology. The whole thing remains a little bit unclear here. I think it would require further study. The whole picture of his chariot and what it represents. The English is really unsatisfactory. Having yoked the theme of humanity to God, which is chariots, it doesn't fit that idea of the theme of humanity. Because then God becomes a chariot. What else was there to be done? Okay, Christ and God is a chariot too. That's right.

[39:46]

That's okay. I didn't hear the brief question. Yeah, okay. I didn't hear it. That's right. That's right. So the yoke includes all that, actually. Jesus is coming to take the final yoke. It really means take upon yourselves that directing

[40:47]

unity, that directing relationship with God, which he becomes a chariot, the universal one. That's a kind of glorification of the reason. Yeah. No, I don't think it is. I don't remember seeing it. In Justin you might find it when he talks about the Logos Hermodicus, which is reason as a seed of the great Logos. It's shown in the poem there. It says that somewhat. I think it's there. So that the reason that you have is like a fragment of the great reason, which is God, and therefore has a divine character about it that makes you a potential recipient of the church. There might be something in the wisdom books.

[42:12]

I don't remember anything in Justin. I don't think there is. I don't remember that. I don't remember that. I can't remember. I can't remember. See, the thing that takes absolute premise in Justin's faith, the reason is kind of implicit in it, but it never is allowed to physically go down as reason. Except, remember Romans 1 and 2, where St. Paul says, you couldn't know God by your reason, actually, he says. I mean, implicit in that. You could have concluded to the existence of God from what you see of his power and his glory in the world, but you didn't. So he accuses it of being irrational. I don't know whether he ever uses the word. See, reason is always in play. The question is, is it spoken of? Is it prized? Yes, but I mean,

[43:15]

I'm wondering if in some sense the fullness of Christianity had expanded. It wasn't like, maybe compared to some of it, it wasn't there anymore. In the last few years, it's really almost like we don't have it at all in terms of Christianity. Yes. Oh, I think that's true. Of course, that's true. There are lots of different churches now. The White House, for example, is a political issue. It's a very difficult thing because as also there's new things appear that have developed that also usually are lost. When you find what you've lost in it, besides the loss, there's a forgetting of what you've lost. But for instance, the government of Afghanistan has a big question. Can you really proclaim that as a military of a new faith, which is not the first, which is quite far from

[44:16]

the assumption, the exact assumption, that there is no strong religious religion. So that's really implicit content in very, very far from it. So, for instance, your capitalist policies are being built to curb the activity of the Holy Spirit's inspiration to prepare people to learn something more than the spiritual. Which is very, very encouraging. Very promising. One of the things most people don't understand is that those are the expressions of the feminine dimension of Christianity. That's the implicit one. You see, gradually, very slowly, and it's very strange

[45:16]

that it should appear in Oxfam when it's so, let us say, 1950, or in the last hundred years, it's incredible, the Catholic Church created the claim that when Catholic theology was going in a totally different direction, let's say, when the theology was so fully sectarian to mention Christianity, that the Church should be able to produce the word in a very nice way. There was something like that. I don't remember the name of the person who used to be there, but it's worth it. See, one of the real key things now is to know what are the implicit dimensions of the faith that you have in every one of them. Also, I mean, it can definitely be critical that when he speaks of the marriage of East and West, he's talking about his marriage of masculine and feminine. But has that been the marriage of the world or something else? Or has it been a marriage which has also been a potential

[46:17]

inside the world? I said that could be the case. But is that potential in the word itself? Or do we need to take the word and put it in context of something else? Or are we talking about the marriage of reason and intuition? It's a different place. It's obvious that we are in the place of the marriage of reason and intuition. It's a fact of the world almost like heaven. The question, the problem, is the problem of interpretation. It's as if we have been moved from one level to another. It's terrifying. So that issue is extremely interesting, especially for the masculine side, which has a particular relationship with the feminine. So along with the feminine, which is the equivalent of the ischronic,

[47:18]

there's also the interior, which is the equivalent of the ischronic. The fact that the ischronic of the feminine, is another fortunate paradox to interact with it. It helps to keep it from drying up into rationality. That's right. So it gives you a culture of the feminine. Mr. Romanowski, it's brilliant. Okay. Terry. Down at the bottom that would make problems for the stakes. We're the most excellent of the possessions of God, and if what belongs to friends

[48:19]

be recognized as common property, where God was speaking, he said, look, I give you the earth, and the land, and the sea, because all things are God, and it sounds lovely, both friends, God and man. And they sound banal, for now, whatever, they sound, I don't know, you know, think about it. That's that expansive, that sense of joy, of liberation, which is a Christian idea. And the fact that if you want to live, you don't want to do much, besides that. The translation of the following part is not so hot. It's time, then, just to say that the highest Christian element is the faith element, the other element. Right. Hmm? Yeah, I found it there, I'm looking for it. Now we can maintain, therefore,

[49:22]

that only the Christian is pious, rich, what is it, and wise. So, it's not pious Christian, but that's another one of those qualities which is added to the English, and of noble birth. And let's call and believe him to be God's image and also his likeness. He's saying, perhaps, part way, that only the Christian, you know, he has the likeness of God, the image. Remember what the image of God was? It was a mind of man, which is an image of the provost. That's back in the earlier chapter, on page 199. And so the likeness, what's happening here? Well, likeness is something you can acquire, and this is typical of most of the Greek existing tradition. In other words, it's what's cultivated in that image. It's the perfect image. Righteous and holy and wise, which is Christ. That means we're clearly those three qualities together.

[50:24]

Yeah. That's really something that a figure in Socrates would be so paradoxical. Yeah. The equivalent of the Russians would be the holy fool or the wise fool. Well, that's really extraordinary. Okay. He wishes to be called the father of us alone out of the unbelief, so he's coming on pretty strong. Such then is our position toward the attendance of Christ. Then there's that curious little verse there, which unites different levels of man's existence, it seems. Wishes, desire, interior intentionality, words and deeds, and then life, which somehow got that involved. There may be a Trinitarian image, but there's also a classical image. According to the Tantra,

[51:44]

Hierophilo has the same thing a couple of times. Something that Cicero was really sending us. Good is the whole life of those who have known Christ. And then the last part. Enough, he says. If I've gone on at length, it's because I've been pouring out what I had from God. The translation is not quite accurate. I think I've said enough. He says, maybe in fact I've been too long, because for the love of men I've been pouring out that which I have from God. So there it is, just opening a little bit to his own experience of fullness. It's like St. Paul when he says, well, that you may glimpse the understanding of the mystery that God is here. I'm just talking about what he did. Because he wants to invite you to salvation. That which is the greatest of blessings is salvation.

[52:45]

Now that sounds like another analogy. Why even bother to say that? But realize that fullness is the meaning of salvation for them, and how it's been diminished for often in their minds. See, we have to think of salvation as kind of getting over, getting over the threshold, as getting through, getting in. We don't think of it very often with the fullness that the Father has attributed to it. In other words, salvation is contemplation. Salvation is being full of God. Salvation is divinization. You see? It's not the minimal thing. It's not kind of the bottom line. It's the whole thing. Hausser was the one who resurrected this from the dead. The Jesuit writes about it in the Proverbs. The notion of salvation is being full of God. Oh, I see what you mean.

[53:45]

I'm saying kind of subjectively it's all inclusive. As far as I'm concerned, it's the totality of the group that I'm looking for. I don't mean to say that it is in some way beyond all duality and that therefore nobody can be outside of it. At least in his sense. What you or I might think about is something else. But as Clement has it, it's not holistic in that sense or non-dual in that sense. It's only in so far as it pertains to a possibility that it's portable and receives them. In a subjective sense rather than being... I don't mean to make that distinct and subjective object, but it's something like that. Okay, so he says, choose judgment or grace, life or destruction. So that's a powerful quotation. Anything you'd like to say or contribute to this before we go on to the other book? No. I don't know what you're asking.

[55:24]

I'm not sure if you're asking about the fact that I'm actually a writer. You write out something that happens right when you're sitting here. You came out with this and you're taking the middle and you're taking it in there too. You're taking it out and you're not going to be able to read it. The thing that bothered me there was the chariot. Why have that? It seemed just like a useless image, but then it's very much an image by that. It's not the biblical image. It doesn't... That sends you to the... either to Plato or to the chariot. So often the kind of obstacle, indigestible rock that you can hold it ends up to open to other dimensions which are... Yes. Oh, let's think about that.

[56:30]

Now the chariot in Ezekiel is actually the chariot of God. Okay. And it's that that epiphany of God, manifestation of God, which is one of the key things in Jewish mysticism, of course, where you have the poor living creatures. I don't think there's a strong enough specification here to point to one. I don't see any hints outside of the mention of chariot. And the fact that it's... Could be. Could be, because you've had it for incorruptibility. If so, he's been very discreet, very modest in his preferences. Yeah, it could be.

[57:33]

I don't know. There's two. One is Enoch, and he walks to the guy and they swim along. And the other is Elijah, the government guy in Israel. Those are the two that people who don't die, they just disappear. That's right. That's certainly there in the New Testament, in the Gospel of John. I don't think the Qur'an puts that one. But Elijah may be in his mind, because this being carried and going with a chariot is immortality. And the symbol of fire is here, you know. The other one, it may be just dimly reflected. I think what you have in some of these things is a kind of fusion of images in which it may not even be, as Rick said,

[58:39]

it's not explicit in the mind of the writer. But what's happening is we're moving into the density of multi-faceted reality of the thing itself, of the chariot, of the fact that God, in what he does in history, uses a thing in a richly meaningful way like that so that it becomes a symbol. So that the symbolism and the diversity of meanings of this more than ever flows into the things, and then flows into the whole fact of the revival. So that whoever refers to chariot immediately, it's as if all of those things potentially come alive, all of those different appearances of chariot in the New Testament. Thank you. I guess part of me is a perception that it's appropriate that we actually need to talk about this sort of thing,

[59:45]

that there would be the effort of writing a chariot in the image of a child with a buzzing little voice and a lot of musicians and a lot of artists, and a lot of musicians who have studied that and have written a work on it. It doesn't seem to give us a political narrative in which we have a history of resemblances between the ancient and the modern. Yeah, exactly. This whole book is about that. We didn't really have an introduction to it, but what he's doing is he's, differently from the earlier fathers, at the same time purifying and assimilating the Greek culture. So he spends half of his time telling the patrons how foolish

[60:48]

it all is, and the rest of his time apporting it, using it, and building it into his expression of the work. That's right. But he might be into the East-West triangle. He might be trying to build a bridge between Indian spirituality and Christian religion. Or he's having more fun with Christian stories than he is with American stories. Because, actually, in this way, we're dealing with the same issues now as we're dealing with in the Middle East and China. A wider range is playing. Yes.

[61:51]

Well, you know, in that quotation you mentioned, Plato, the title of Plato, the statement of two loves, there's some reference to music there. Maybe also there's a connection between music and the two loves and the two beauties. And he's probably saying that the higher beauty of music is the Christian work. The other one, which is really pernicious, it may be connected, it may be different, it is, with certain elements of a culture which are analogous to what you're talking about, the culture of the Baroque music and so on. So it was a pernicious kind of music or entertainment, especially music. That's right, isn't it? Exactly.

[63:03]

I think it's a kind of [...] I'm not a Christian. I'm not a Christian. Demon. That is, that's a kind of a kind of pernicious. Yeah. Rather than having a kind of a kind of a kind of a Christian. It's time to leave here. OK. That's booked up because

[64:16]

next time we'll go on to the pedagogues, the pedagogos, the instructor. I wish I had a copy. I do have to get it. OK. It may very well be delivered.

[65:17]

Let's see. It's the beginning of the 11th and pretty close to the end of the 12th. It could be delivered. We may be talking to different ages of man. Well, that's a history. It's not, he's not addressing anything as a child, is he? Oh, I see what you mean. OK. If he's saying it at that point, I'm not absolutely sure, but he says it a lot. He says the same thing a lot. In other words, he will say explicitly something like, you've grown old in your, you've grown old in your customs and in your myths and in your sins.

[66:18]

Come to Christ, then, you'll become a child. So it may very well be done explicitly in time, but it may be very poorly done. He may have partly chosen the reasons for that combination of problems, the combination of being blind. In this case, in the play, I don't think that the fact that the play is being done and perhaps also being hated is something that a lot of us are trying to heal or the other way around. Very interesting, I'm sorry. If I can, if I can answer in the way it was told in that, certainly, I've asked people to hear it in the way that you are trying to get it into their head. In this case, both you and the child And here he had called it a wisdom of the human species, which is the line that goes all the way around. And he gave this to us as the epistome of the wisdom of the human species. So he certainly put an angel in the person's hands. It's pretty strong, because he puts it at the end, doesn't he?

[67:19]

And why would he put it at the end? Because if the whole of the Greek, the whole of pagan culture had been listening to it. That's what it stands for, isn't it? That other... That's what he's writing about all the time.

[68:20]

The connection in the logos is certainly... That's obsessive, the roof of it, the word of God. It's always interesting. That's the key. And the interiorization, the initiation. I'm going to start with the word initiation. Yeah. The roof of it. It brings it inside. The word inside. It's very important. It's a religious place. It's a religious place. You know, it's not... I think it was integrated with baptism. I think it was integrated with baptism. Yeah. That's right. That's right. And in the other book, if I'm kind of talking, I think about baptism as the illumination.

[69:21]

Chapter 6, I think it's called. It's 5 or 6. Very... Oh, yeah. See, that's the key in this thing. Beginning beyond the letter of the word, beginning beyond the letter of the scriptures, the idea of initiation. So initiation into the mysteries in the sense of wisdom, and initiation into the sacramental mysteries of God, in the sense of co-participation with life, the eternal sacrosanct. Right. And speaking of the word as teacher or critic, he uses initiator or hierophant, the dissonant word. He brings in every possible resource from him that may be helpful to him. So we'll find that coming up soon. The pages that I gave you are the first chapter of the next book,

[70:26]

The Instructor, which would be... The translation you have in the Nicene Father's Name, which I gave you before, I did in New Jersey, is a terrific tango, that first chapter. It's really hard to see what's happening. Can you try it? Yep. All right. And one big difference you'll notice is that when you find a real arid stretch like this tango, rather than go through it quickly, try to find something that reveals it. One of the big troubles there is he doesn't use the word logos. He doesn't carry through the same order. So he translates it discourse sometimes, which loses the connection in what he's trying to say. So that's one of the difficulties in following it. So you can prepare a little bit of what I gave you, which is from the part of the first book. You happen to have that in that series, in your translation. You might have to do the same thing in a later chapter, but this first one is complex and structured,

[71:28]

and you can't get this connection right. And what he's doing there is setting up the structure by way of teaching and learning, learning the books. You don't have to do much. You don't have to do it a bit, simply because it is what it is. Yeah, yeah. And it's all jammed together, that tango. Notice where he says discourse. That's logos, that's words. Each time it's ringing, once again, the great logos. If we don't understand it, then it doesn't make any sense. And those words in front of it, the specificity of those words is important. Because they're actually the title of the book.

[72:29]

And he's really looking at the structure, which is a little, you know, dying at the minute. We need it so we can all get this together. So next time we're trying to do, say, chapters one through six. Now, one, five, and six, I think, are the rich chapters there. And some of the others, not so much. However, some of the ones in between are fairly simple, also. Simpler, sure. And the first one is the most problematic one. The first one in this translation is very strong. So perhaps it would be the other translation that's very strong. Okay, and then we're going to turn off the music. We won't spend too long on it. That's very awesome. That's it.

[73:59]

No, that's the sequence itself. We could get David to use that. Okay, sure. That would be fine. Okay, pretty well. He's only talked to the community once in general. I think they'll probably do it two more times next week. There's a lot of individuals there. However, he and the others, I think, are interested in seeing a lot of it. They're coming back. I just want to see them all. They're going to be talking to all of us next week. What's the next one? A couple of times. What is the next one? It's...

[74:45]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ