The Prophet of Paradise: Life of St. Ephraim the Syrian (Sponsored Stream)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. This is David
Patrick Carey with Church of the Eternal Logos, and today
we have a special sponsor stream. A shout out to
the Saint Ephim Orthodox Church in San Antonio, Texas, and
a particular shout out to Jeremy for sponsoring today's stream,
in which we're gonna be diving into another great saint.

(00:39):
Of course, last week we did Saint Stephen the Great,
arguably one of the greatest warrior kings or warrior saints
of the Orthodox Faith. That was a lot of a
that was a really fun stream, and we had a
lot of fun with the live chat. Today it's gonna
be kind of a different vibe. Saint Ephraim didn't, you know,

(01:02):
annihilate the Ottomans in battle or anything like that. But
we're going to be diving into a really important church
father in some of the aspects that we're going to
be getting to is very interesting. For example, Saint Ephram
actually refuted heretics and defended the Orthodox Faith, not through debate,

(01:26):
not through typical apologetics, not through philosophical outlinings like the
Cappadocian Fathers, but through hymns and poetry, and so we're
going to be looking at some of that today, and
there's a handful of things, you know, I just want
to say a few quick things before we get started
in this opening monologue. There's not a whole lot of

(01:47):
visual material I could find for Saint Ephraim. There was
a good Trisagyon Films video, it's about eleven minutes. We're
going to check that out. And then there's a bunch
of Oriental, Orthodox and Catholic stuff on Saint Ephraim, which
some of it was quality, but of course I don't
want to use that as any source today. So Sebastian
Brock's book on Him to Paradise or Him Paradise, which

(02:11):
is going to be really the primary source for a
lot of my research today. And the reason why I
chose that is searching YouTube videos to begin my search
on deep dive, finding documents, finding website articles. Jonathan Pagio
had like an hour and a half long speech that

(02:31):
he gave to Orthodox clergy about sat Efrom and his
Him on Paradise, So that got me curious. So then
I started reading through all of it and it's very
very interesting, but it's very different it's a different feel,
and it has to do with the historical context and
the geographical location that same Efrom found himself. He was

(02:52):
in the Sibbis, which is at that time Mesopotamian, really
on the very edge of the Roman Empire. In fact,
the Roman Empire didn't even take control of that territory
to like two ninety eight. We don't know his official
birth date. We think it's somewhere around three h six.
Even as death, we believe it's three seventy three, although
I found sources that claim three seventy nine. Regarding the

(03:17):
stories about his life, there's so many sort of pseudographies
that are written after his death. Some have become legends,
some are tradition of the church. Some of we are
hard to decipher what is what. So I put a
study guide together for today's discussion, and basically everything that

(03:37):
I could source based on an orthodox Christian source or citation,
that was basically what I lived in myself too. But
you know, just to get an image for today's topic,
you know, imagine a man who could have been a bishop,
who had the esteem of all his counterparts, all his colleagues,

(04:00):
both in the church and in the community, and yet
when asked to become a bishop, he rolls around in
the dirt and eats scraps off the ground and acts
insane so that they will revoke a vote for him
to be bishop. He essentially feigns madness. And why is
this interesting Because Saint Ephraim, despite his you know, there's

(04:25):
stories about Saint Basil the Great, you know, one of
the Cappadocian fathers, who is at that time considered I mean,
it's not a stretch to say that Saint Basil the
Great at that time was one of the most learned,
if not the most learned man during his period. He
was astounded by Saint Ephraim, and he was kind of

(04:47):
all struck by the depth of his understanding of scripture.
And so when we read these poems, these hymns, it's
really really deep with meaning and symbolism. And so Saint
f again during with these poems and these hymns he's pulling,
especially the one that we're gonna be focusing on today,

(05:07):
is really the story of the Garden of Eden Genesis
two through three, and him using paradise and the conception
of paradise symbolically. This is why Jonathan Paggio liked it
so much he wasn't aware. And then Paggio is talking
about how much he loved his hymn on Paradise and
how it was it's deeply eschaological, and yet it's constantly

(05:30):
pulling scriptural layers of meaning out and he makes it
available for everyday people. And that's one of the things
about his hymns that is so profound, is that we're
going to get into some of the heresies that he
was fighting. I mean, there was the Manicheans, the Arians,
the Marcianites, the Gnostics, all these groups were vying for

(05:52):
power and all claiming to be the true Orthodox Church.
There is one story, and we'll get to it, about
a Pollinarius and a potential debate that Saint Efram actually
offered him. It's a little bit funny. We'll get to
that in a second. But Saint Ephraim used hymns to
defend the church and poetry. Why did he do that?

(06:13):
Because he was more focused on i want to say
convincing but cementing Orthodox theology and the minds of the faithful.
In the minds of his community is Christian community, the
Orthodox Church. Then basically convincing the minds of other people.
And so his hymns, you know, imagine this. His hymns

(06:36):
are so powerful and so beautiful and so apologetic against
heretics that they are still sung sixteen hundred years later
in our church. Anybody who's done a great Lent in
the Orthodox Church knows the prayer of Saint Ephraim. And
we'll read that today. It's very short, but we recite
this multiple times throughout the Linton Fast as we lead

(06:58):
up to Pasca. And so Saint Ephraim and what he did,
and this was not an incredibly learned man. That's why
Saint Basil was so all struck by his poems and
his hymns is that, you know, for Basil, he's one
of the most learned man. I mean, he knows the philosophy,
he knows the intricacies of theology. And when he reads
Saint Efraim, he's impressed. He's impressed by the simpleness, by

(07:22):
the complexity, by the depth. And that's really the sort
of character of who Saint Ephraim was. You know, this man,
like I said, born around three h six in Nisibis.
We're gonna I'll give you a map here in a
little bit, you'll in fact, we're gonna open. I don't
have much of an opening monologue, so we're gonna actually
begin a little bit different today. Once I finished my

(07:44):
little discussion, I just got a few bullet points here,
we're gonna watch the trisaggyon Films video on Saint Ephraim,
which gives you a mental map, gives you a little
bit of an overview, and then we can dive into
some more detailed things that give everybody sort of more
well rounded perspective. And so he lived literally on the
frontier of the Roman Empire. As I said, the Roman

(08:04):
Empire didn't even have his city that he was in
until about two ninety eight, so very multicultural, not exactly
an explicit Christian city, you would say, although they did
have a thriving Christian community. And he becomes a disciple
of Saint Jacob of Nisibis now Saint Jacob of Nisibis,

(08:26):
interestingly enough, was actually one of the co signers in
attendees at the Council of Nicea in three twenty five.
This was the spiritual father of Saint that from the
Syrian so direct connection back to the Council and it
was Saint Jacob of Nisibis that baptizes him and that

(08:46):
eventually ordains him as deacon. Now I did find again
that's what was a little bit confusing for today's research.
Diving into everything, found so many different different claims. One
claim that I read was was arguing that Saint Basil
the Great consecrated him as a deacon by convincing them

(09:07):
to both prostrate to an icon. I didn't find any
other evidence of this, and in fact I found it
in an Orthodox Christian dot com article. So according to
what I was reading, and again most of my opinions,
so maybe that was the case. Most of my opinions
coming from the Sebastian Brock book The Hymn on Paradise
and going into his life, that was the fullest, most

(09:30):
i would say, academic attempt to lay out who Saint
Ephraim was. So everything that I found was not that
Saint Basil the Great consecrated him as a deacon, although
there is a legend, and that's one of the difficulties
with Saint Efraim Is, so much was written later after
his life that some of the stories become tradition or
become legends, maybe societal or local legends, not necessarily Orthodox

(09:54):
Church legends, but just a little bit convoluted on some
of the details of things. But anyways, it's Saint Jacob
and Ni Sibis, and there's a fascinating period in which
sharpur the second. If anybody's familiar with your Sasanian Empire
regarding the Persians, you know, we've talked about the Persians
a few different times in some of these dreams, and

(10:17):
I think it's a very interesting period. You you know,
you got the documented Empire with Cyrus the Great and
those but within the Sasanian Empire, they wanted to take
over these territories that Rome had recently conquered. And this
was during really the reign of Julian the Apostate, right,
so Julian he himself as Roman Emperor with persecuting Christians.

(10:40):
This is after Constantine the Great again. Mental timeline for
dates three oh six is the birth of Saint Ephim
the Syrian. Three twenty five is the Council of Nicea,
you know, early three hundreds at Saint Constantine the Great
converting the Roman Empire to a Christian empire. By the

(11:02):
time of Julian the apostates, so we're now getting into
the three fifties. He was trying to revert back to
a sort of pagan Roman Empire, and he himself, as
I said, was persecuting Christians. Well, even though he was
persecuting Christians, he didn't want to give up his Roman territory.
And so due to conflict in the West, the Roman
Empire really wasn't able to deal with Shapur the Second

(11:25):
trying to take over Nisibbus. And so there's three different
attempts to siege besiege the city that Saint Ephraim the
Syrian was in, and there's really interesting tales he even
he actually documents some of these experiences in his hymns.
Interestingly enough, they fail multiple times. So there's three different

(11:47):
attempts in which Shapur tries to take over Nisibbus, and
at one point the third attempt, he re routes one
of the rivers so that it begins to flood the
land all around the city, uh destroying villages, destroying small
towns around it. And Saint Ephraim talks about how Nisibis
felt like it was the ark of Noah floating above

(12:10):
the above the waters, above the flood waters. We're gonna
read a little bit about that today. But according to
Saint Ephraim, Saint Jacob, the bishop actually said a prayer
and a plague stopped the first besieging. So this is
I think three I want to say, early three fifties,

(12:34):
somewhere around there. I have the dates written in my
study guide, but I'm not looking at it. This is
all off off the top of the dome right now,
So forgive me if I have a few of the
dates wrong. But there's actually an account by Saint Efram
claiming that Saint Jacob prayed and that a plague began
to form and actually swarmed the Persians and forced them

(12:55):
to retreat. And of course they come back about five
years later and try to do it again, fail, come
back about another five years later. This is where they
flood it. They fail, But then in by like three
sixty three, Shapur is successful and Nisibis is besieged. It
is now in Persian occupation, and Saint Ephraim becomes a refugee.

(13:19):
He's forced to flee him and many of the Christian community.
Now at this point, Julian the Apostate is no longer
the emperor and Rome is back to being a Christian empire,
and so he ends up fleeing to Edessa. And it's
here that he poured himself essentially into scripture, writing hymns.

(13:41):
And that's where Saint Efraim. You know, when you hear
Saint Effrom the Syrian. I did not know tons about
him before diving into today's stream, or really diving into
the research for today's stream. And I always thought he
was a monk. I thought he was a desert monastic,
Assyrian monastic. Turns out I stand corrected. Yes, he lived

(14:02):
in asthetic life, absolutely did he Was he a centibitic
or aramitic monk. No, he was not, And in fact
those really aren't founded until right around the end of
his life. So I'll pull this up here in a
few I'll come back to this point. So was he
an orthodox Christian monk, Not necessarily, not by definition, not

(14:26):
by consecration. Did he practice a monastic lifestyle, absolutely, absolutely,
he was an incredible asthetic But what he did is
he engaged with the community. He wasn't one of these
hermits that was totally divorced, although at times he was.
He was out on the fringes of Odessa at times
for forty days fasting, doing things like this. But really

(14:48):
his power was how he engaged with people and he
conveyed and taught the faith. That was really his calling.
And as I said, he did this through poetry, and
he did this hymnography. These really were the main Now,
now he did write things like normal prose and stuff
like that, but that really wasn't his avenue. He changed

(15:10):
the minds and hearts of people, and he actually defended
against heresies through poetry and hymnography. There is a story
I'll show you guys again. It comes from this Orthodox
Christian dot com article which had a multiple spelling errors
and a few things that I kind of was left
scratching my head wasn't sure about. But one of them

(15:31):
talks about a Pollinaris and this heretic who was going
around and was popular. He was questioning the incarnation of Christ,
who was popularizing his heresy at the time. And Saint
Ephraim kind of had enough of it, and so he
took his book where he was spouting all this nonsense,
and he glued all the pages together and then he

(15:51):
gave it back to the heretic. A Pollinaris and then
asked him to a public debate. And when the heretic
went to open up his books so he could quote
all his little heresies and the things, sort of the
quips that he had written down, it was all glued shut.
And then he declined the public debate and to fame

(16:12):
and sort of left the public stage, and that heresy
ended up sort of dying out, at least according to
one run retelling that I heard so very interesting sort
of way of apologetics, very different from some of the
you know, the Cappadocian fathers, some of the other church fathers.

(16:33):
But I thought that was really poignant because people complained
about Dier and some of the Orthodox Christians doing debates,
and right there we got Saint e from the Syrian,
an ascetic celibate devoted to Christianity, and he's gluing the
book of a rival heretics shut and then in front
of everybody asking for a public debate, of which the

(16:55):
man then shies away in shame and sort of is lost.
The history essentially Saint Efraim growing up, I've read multiple
things about whether his parents were Christian or not. It
seems to be a debated historical topic. Some claim that
his parents were Christian and that he grew up in
a sort of Christian education. Others citations and these are

(17:19):
Orthodox too, so it's not like I'm, you know, comparing
secular antidotes with with Orthodox tradition or something. I found
Orthodox sources that had multiple claims. Some claim that his
father was actually a pagan priest and that Saint Ephraim
was educated in sort of Christian terms Christian conflict, or
maybe went to some type of Christian gathering of Christians

(17:42):
to be educated. We're not sure. There is a legend
that his parents had this dream where they saw that
the tongue the mouth of their son Ephraim was going
to really do amazing things for God. This is now
Whether this is a church tradition, I'm not exactly sure.
It's very difficult with Saint Efraim, unlike you know, Saint

(18:04):
Stephen the Great when we did him on Moldovia. It's
very easy to lay out everything because there's so many
historical facts. I mean, that's in the fourteen hundreds. Saint
Efram being in the early to mid three hundreds a
little bit harder on some of the historical references here.
But according to Saint Efram, he was not Christian young

(18:25):
in his life and he was lost to lust. He
was lost to really just sinful living. He wanted to
invoke pain. There's a story that he recounts, and I'll
see if I can find the citation. I'm not sure
if this is in Sebastian Brock's book or one of

(18:45):
the articles, but there was a story talking about how
one day did it to signify for Saint Efraim, to
signify who he was as a young man. There was
a cow he was passing and he began to throw
rocks at the cow. Now this was a random cow,
and he forced it to go into the wilderness, into
the forest, and it was later it was hurt won

(19:08):
by the rocks that Ephraim threw at him, and it
essentially wound. It had to lay down in the woods,
and then it was killed by wild beasts. And the
poor man who owned the cow came out and said,
why did you kill my cow? Why did you throw
rocks at it? And Ephraim begins to laugh and mock
the man for being poor in his relationship to the cow. Now, Ephraim,

(19:33):
as we'll see, had the gift of tears, and he
spent the rest of his life essentially in repentance. This
is one of the reasons why he became an ascetic.
Is he then, you know, mocks the man who had
this cow. He begins getting into a group of young
men that are doing probably nefarious things. So they're certainly
doing robbery and theft. Something comes up stolen, and the

(19:57):
local community they blamed this group of men that was
with They all get arrested. Ephraim then goes to prison,
and this is really the first time he begins to
call out to God and apparently he has a vision
of an angel appears to him and he tells the angel, look,
I'm innocent. I didn't steal anything. And he says, yeah,

(20:17):
but what about that cow? Do you feel bad about that?
And this was really the first time that Fraim, as
a young man, began to repent for what he did
to that cow. He then goes appears before the judge
and the judge is getting ready to set him to
the rack, meaning they're gonna be ready to stretch him
in pull him a terrible torture. And when he saw

(20:38):
the tortures that are happening in prison. This was another,
according to Ephraim, a call for his repentance. He didn't
want to be a part of this scene. And so
the judge is getting ready to sentence him to torture,
and somebody comes in the room and says, basically, dinner
is ready, Our meal is ready. And the judge says, oh, great, well,

(20:58):
then this boy send him back to prison and we'll
deal with his sentence tomorrow. The man eats the judge.
They then reconvene to sentence f from the next day,
and lo and behold, believed by Ephraim to be a
providential miracle, the judge's heart changes, says, you know what,
I believe that you didn't do it. You've been punished enough,
You're free to go. And from that day forward, Saint

(21:20):
Ephraim devoted his life to Christ and devoted his life
to Christianity. And so from that sense, I think a
lot of us can find a little bit of a
connection with Saint Efraim in regards to our rebellious youth.
I've talked about the term anitheism, or returning to God
after God. If Ephraim, as some of the legends, claimed
that he was sort of educated amongst Christians. Certainly he

(21:41):
was aware of christian I mean even according to his
own testimony of being in jail, he said a prayer
an angel appeared to him, so clearly he had a
sort of Christian mindset at that point. But he was
getting into trouble. He was doing things he didn't need
to be doing, causing mischief, I mean, causing harm to
the poor man's cow eventually being killed and destroyed.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
And and for that man that probably was a lot
of money. That that cow was probably how they had
sustenance through milk, through butter, all different types of things
maybe uh again, other sort of farming practices or whatnot.
So Ephraim was not just a teacher or a poet.

(22:24):
He was a warrior and song. He's often referred to
as the prophet of Tears, as the harp of the
Holy Spirit, and that's because of again, it's the belief
traditionally tied back with this dream that his parents had
about his about his mouth, about his ability to speak,
and how essentially he's going to do great things. And

(22:44):
we as Orthodox Christians are thankful for him because we
believe that's exactly what he did through his hymns and
poetry and his orations. He's basically the founding of Syriac Christianity.
Everything he did was in Syriac and at this point
there really wasn't a Syriac Christian community. It really doesn't
emerge until Odessa. And there's like some interesting legends that

(23:09):
I really wasn't fully aware of regards to what was
it called the Mandolin. Let me pull it up. Yeah,
the Mandelion, which is like a it actually ties to
Odessa being a Christian city. I'll come back to this,

(23:29):
but it has to do with an icon not made
of hands and some type of garment or cloth square
in nature that had the face of Christ on it.
And it connects to and I have an article here.
Let me just pull it up right now. Instead of
just segmenting everything, let me just pull it up real quick.
So this is what I'm looking at. So this was

(23:51):
oh no, yeah, So this is an archaeology mysteries website,
and I was looking into the Mandolin and and the tradition.
If you ask the Catholics or the Orthodox what happened,
it's you know, you get different answers. I was just
looking at, like what became of the Mandolin Mendelian. And

(24:14):
this comes from King Abgar and his letter to Jesus Christ.
I don't know if you guys have heard this story before,
but King Abgar apparently wrote to Jesus and asked for
him to come heal him because he was terminally ill.

(24:34):
And Jesus said Apparently, he wrote back, and according to Eusebius,
he actually saw these letters. According to Eusebius, he translated
these from the Syriac into the Greek. I'm not even
sure if we still have them now, but according to Eusebius,
he did. In this letter, King Abgar of Odessa writes

(24:57):
to Jesus, believing the miracles his healings to be true,
and asked if he would come and heal him. Jesus
basically says, look, I got to go to Jerusalem. I
really don't have time to come there. Long story short,
I need to go die on the cross for all
of humanity. But I will send you my disciple after
the ascension. Now, which is amazing that Jesus Christ actually

(25:21):
say after the ascension, somebody will come to Odessa. According
to Eusebius, he did. He saw these letters and eventually
what was it is it Thaddeus? It is I believe

(25:43):
it's Thaddeus, one of the early disciples. I'm sure it's
in here somewhere. Yeah, Thattius in the Greek tradition, comes
and heals King Abgar. From his healing, this is after
the ascension of Christ. And apparently this mendilion, this garment

(26:05):
that had the face of Christ was believed to be
the first icon. But it was not made of hands.
It was the actual sweat of Christ's face put into
a cloth or a towel of some sort. And it's
believed that that he has brought this to King Abgar.
And this really cements Adessa as being a sort of
Christian city. Now why do I say all this Because

(26:26):
Odessa's where Saint Ephraim and ends up fleeing from the
Sibis and really kind of submits his legacy as a saint.
So anyways, so last thing I want to say. You know,
Saint Ephraim had the gift of tears. As I said,
he was constantly weeping for his sins and the sins
of others. It was noted by multiple contemporaries that his

(26:49):
eyes were often red or swollen from weeping, and as
I said, this is considered a gift in the Orthodox tradition,
that somebody's heart is so pure and so tender that
just the recognition and repentance of sin brings about tears.
And I actually have a video if you guys want
to watch them. We're not going to be watching it today,

(27:09):
but Father Josiah Trenham has a good video on the
gift of tears and what tears signify and mean in
the Orthodox tradition. So anyways, Saint Ephrem had it, and
so in his final days, one of the interesting things,
and I'll leave this before we start getting into the
actual content, is that there was a plague in Odessa.

(27:33):
And this is really the real you know, this was
the thing that really kind of inspired me about Saint
Efim's life reading about it, is that there was a
famine that struck Odessa and he did not withdrawal into solitude,
and in fact, where people refuse to go, he would
actually try to heal or console the dying. So during

(27:54):
this play, you can imagine disease running rampant, even other
Christians saying, Okay, we'll help these sick people, but those
sick people are like really bad, and we don't want
to get. We don't want to catch whatever they have.
Saint Afram convinced the wealthy of the city to use
their resources to feed the needy. He distributed food.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
To the poor.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
He was noted for all the money that he received
got to the people who needed it. And eventually he
ends up dying from the same plague that he was
healing people from. And that's how he goes out. He
goes out as a man who was an incredible ascetic.
He was an incredible deacon. He had a love for teaching.

(28:40):
He revolutionized Syriac Christianity. He defended the faith through poetry
and hymnography, something that is still sort of unique to
him even now. When we think of some of the
great apologists, the Cappadocians, Gregory Polams, Maximus the Confessor, John Crasostom,

(29:04):
John of Damascus, what are they doing? All of them
are using pros. They're using, you know, typical articulation of
larger ideas and words. Saint Ephraim, even though he was
unlearned or supposed supposedly like not fully educated, had a
full command of Syriac and a full command of scripture.

(29:24):
Uh that was one of the things that Basil was
blown away with was his his biblical recall, how much
he knew and memorized of Scripture, and then how many
layers of meaning he would pull from it. So, if
you're interested, like Jonathan Pagio, into like symbolism and sort
of eternal symbolism, we're not talking about Jungian archetypes. I mean, yeah,

(29:45):
in a sense, they are archetypes, I mean, but we're
not reducing them to that. Right, This is a true mystery.
This is something way bigger than a symbol But what
Saint Ephraim's work does, and when we read on Paradise
he pulls he just has these little bitty words or
little bitty sentences. It's a poem, obviously, it's a hymn,

(30:08):
but there's so much symbolic meaning and layers to everything
that he does. This is one of the profound things.
This is why Jonathan Pagio says that his reading on
the Hymn on Paradise was one of the real profound
things that shaped his understanding of hierarchy, the Tree of Life,
the Tree of Knowledge, the Garden of Eden, and how
this all relates to our eschological journey back to Christ

(30:30):
and our judgment at the Gates of Paradise and that
type of stuff. So, guys, this is what we're going
to get into today. Smash that. Like, thank you all
very much for being here. Shout out to Austin Graham
for throwing five bucks in. Thank you so much, brother,
no comment, truly appreciate that. Again, a major thank you
for today's stream goes out to the Saint Ephraim Orthodox

(30:53):
Church of San Antonio, Texas and Jeremy the special contributor
regards to this, and I want to say, guys, St
Efraim Orthodox Church, they are building a new building and
if you would like to help them, the link for
that is in the video description you'll see after the
quick about the video section. In the video description, the

(31:17):
first two links are to the Saint Afrom Orthodox Church
in San Antonio, Texas, and then two if you feel
drawn to and you want to contribute to their building
fund to build their new church. So, and honestly, I'll
say too that out of a lot of the online articles,
I found their article on their website one of the

(31:39):
better ones. I found so many different things that had,
you know, legends that other people would claim, Oh, that's
from the seventh century, and that some people would write
as if that was part of the life of Ephraim
is kind of confusing. But their website actually had a
pretty good overview. Let me just double check real quick
see if anybody send any other questions in. Teka throws

(32:00):
in ten, thank you so much, Teacup over on the
Dono chat and he says, God blessed eph let Sat
from the Syrian protect you and your family. Well, thank
you so much, Teacup, and may Sat Efraim interced for
you and your family as well. Thank you so much
for the support. Really appreciate that. Okay, so before we
get too deep into everything, just want to do some

(32:23):
quick housekeeping and first thing, if you would like to
become part of a men's only Orthodox group, join the
Logos Academy. We are doing deep philosophy, theology, contemporary cultural stuff.
We have a meeting next Wednesday at seven o'clock pm

(32:45):
Eastern Standard Time on women on women, and you'll see,
like we got Tommy Putt here. He's been doing great
overviews on a history of philosophy. There's a video playlist
that I share with everybody, and he's been putting together
these great overviews in regards to some of the different topics.

(33:06):
So that again, just a member within the community on
this one right here, thank Tank on women and reading materials.
We're going to be reading Arthur Schopenhauer's commentary on Women.
It's been referred to as controversial and at least contemporary
progressive terms, and we're going to then have a men's

(33:29):
only conversation about marriage, dating, women's role in the church,
women's role in society, really anything you can get into, feminism,
radical feminism, divorce, courts, anything and everything. And so this
is the type of stuff we're doing. If you would
like to become part of the Logos Academy and all

(33:51):
the educational stuff that we're doing and be part of
our groups, join right here at this link. We would
be very appreciative to have you. As you can see,
we always got new content up. All the show notes
from my videos are up here again Saint Stephen, Alien
and the New Age Alien Jesus in the New Age.

(34:12):
You can get all those documents there and you can
see all the events I need to fill out the
rest of the month, but I gotta stream this Friday
with doctor Michael Mohler. We're gonna be exposing the fitness
industry and all these hacks online, like doctor Mike isratel
and they're really fruity and weird worldview. He wants to

(34:33):
worship an AI robo. We'll get into all that stuff
with doctor Michael Mohler. If you would also like to
sponsor a stream, as did the Saint Ephim Orthodox Church
of San Antonio, Texas and Jeremy did today, you can
do so with this link right here. I'd be happy
to dive into whatever topic you'd be interested in. Just
purchase and I'll email you and then you can tell

(34:54):
me more about what it is that you had in mind.
Anybody who wants to sign up for a one on
one session, we can get into a private Zoom meeting
and talk about whatever your heart fancies. You just sign
up with this link right here and you can sign
up for half an hour hour, multiple sessions, whatever it
is that you would like to dive into. And then also,

(35:15):
if you guys are looking for an Orthodox cookbook for
fasting periods you want to maintain your physical gains, check
out Seraphim Brayden Murricks Orthodox Fasting Cookbook for Strength and
performance forward by Father Moses, and you can get a
little discount by using my affiliate link right there and

(35:39):
get yourself an Orthodox cookbook so you can maintain your
fast during these fasting periods or maintain your games during
these fasting periods. I'm sorry, So anyways, just throwing that
out there for anybody who'd be interested. Moose Knuckle throws
in five says shout up to the rest of Saint
Ephrum's community. I believe, uh, somebody's gonna have to double

(36:01):
check in the live is moose Knuckle Jeremy and Jeremy.
We don't need to say last names or you know,
docs anybody. Uh, but I'm curious with your moose Knuckle
and the thumbnail you got very funny, especially given the

(36:22):
topic today that mister moose Knuckle uh is sponsoring today's
stream on Saint Afrom the Syrian uh So, anyways, I
do believe that moose Knuckle may be uh maybe a
member of the Saint Afrom's community. But anyways, moose Knuckle
will have to let us know if that's Jeremy or not.
If not, it sounds like it's somebody from the parish.

(36:43):
So anyways, okay, with that being said, let's begin to
dive into some of our content today. First thing is,
oh to go over here and give a shout out
out to St. Efraim Orthodox Church in San Antonio, Texas.

(37:04):
If you want to see their leadership, a shout out
to Father Mark, the pastor of the St. Ephraim Parish,
and Deacon George, the deacon of that parish. So shout
out to you guys. I'm also Antiochian, so I'm also
under at Patriarch John of Antioch and Metropolitan Sava, so
we are brothers in the Antiochian tradition. And then here

(37:27):
on their saint that from the Syrian This is actually
one of the better articles that I found, this one
right here. Though it had some interesting things. There was
tons of spelling errors in like grammatical errors, and you
know when it talked about how Saint Basil made Saint
Efraim a deacon, that is just not what I found.

(37:54):
So you know, have it be what you made. But
here's the story again. What about the heretic Apollinaris. He
was creating havoc in the church with his erroneous teaching
concerning the nature of Christ at his incarnation. Say that
from tricked Apollinaris again, you see the grammar air servant
into leading him to to lending him the two books

(38:16):
in which these teachings were set forth. After gluing all
the pages together, he returned the books to the unsuspecting
servant and then challenged Apollinaris to a public debate. When
a Pollinarius found himself unable to open his books to
quote from them, he became thoroughly confused and retired in shame.
His heresy soon died out. So a lot of this

(38:41):
we're going to be covering. And so this was the
vision where that his parents supposedly had when he was
still a baby. His parents had a proveetic dream from
the boy's tongue sprang a lush vine which produced abundant
clusters of grapes. The more the birds ate the fruit,
the more it multiplies. Later it was revealed that these
clusters were his sermons, the leaves of the vine, his hymns.

(39:06):
So at least that's how we as orthodox Christians kind
of interpret some of that stuff. And then judging from
his youth, this was talking about sort of his wandering
spirit young in his earlier in his days, judging from
his youth. However, one could never have guessed his future greatness.
In spite of his parents having educated him in your

(39:27):
Christian precepts. He was impetuous and even rather wild, like
an unruly cult which resists the bridle. I would quarrel
over trifles, acted foolishly, gave into bad impulses and lustful thoughts.
My youth nearly convinced me that life is ruled by chance.
But God's providence brought my impassioned youth to the light

(39:48):
of wisdom. He relates to this story as follows. One
day my parents sent me out to town, and I
found a pregnant cow feeding along the road. I took
up stones and began pelting the cow, driving it into
the woods till evening, when it fell dead during the night,
it was eaten by wild beasts. On my way back,
I met the poor owner of the cow, my son.

(40:10):
He asked, did you drive away my cow? I not
only denied it, but heaped abuse and insult upon the
poor man. A few days later, he was idling with
some shepherds. When it grew too late to return home.
He spent the night with them. That night, some sheep
were stolen and the boy was accused of being in
league with the robbers. He was taken before the magistrate

(40:30):
and cast into prison, and a dream and angel appeared
to Afrom and asked him why he was there. The
boy began at once to declare that he was innocent. Yes,
said the angel, you are innocent of the crime imputed
to you. But have you forgotten about the poor man's cow?
When Ephraim saw the tortures which criminals were subjected, he

(40:52):
became terrified. He turned to God and vowed that he
would become a monk if God would spare him such
a cruel ordeal. The magistrate, however, just laughed at the
use's tears in order that he be stretched on the rack,
just when the servant came to announce that dinner was ready.
Very well, said the magistrate, I will examine the boy
another day. He ordered him back to prison providentially. The

(41:14):
next time the magistrate saw Ephraim, he thought he had
been punished enough and dismissed him. Although he was spared
the rack. Ephraim had learned his lesson and liked the
prophet David. He entreated the Lord to overlook his youthful
folly true to his vow. Upon his release, he went
straight away to the hermits living in the mountains, where
he became a disciple of Saint James. But this is

(41:35):
not it should be. It should be Saint Jacob of Nisibis.
So that's where again one of the things that are
wrong with this particular article. But I thought that was
a pretty cool story nonetheless. So anyways, without further ado,
I want to get into actually this first video, So

(41:57):
to keep everybody's attention sharp, we're gonna watch a video
instead of me just reading and explaining things to you,
and then we'll come back and add some more layers
to everything. So here is the video by Trisaggy on Films. Again,
they always do great videos on saints. There wasn't a
lot of highly engaging videos on Saint Efrom I could use,

(42:18):
so really the only things we have is this video
and then this conversation on the Garden of Eden and
cosmic structure Saint af from the Syrian by Jonathan Pagio.
We're gonna watch a little bit about this after we
go through some of this stuff on Hymns on Paradise.
So that from Hymns on Paradise, uh translated introduction by

(42:38):
Sebastian Brock. We're gonna read Saint Efraim and then we'll
hear Pagio talk about why this is so important and
how this influences his thought on hierarchy, God, cosmology, symbolism,
all this different stuff. And as I said, I had
one on on the gift of tears. Although Father Josiah

(43:01):
does not mentioned Saint Efraim, I was curious if he did,
because Saint Efraim was gifted the gift of tears. He
does not, but he does talk about how what tears
signify in the Orthodox Church, and they signify a cleansing,
They signify a securing, a forgiveness and moving us towards
the Kingdom of God. And Father Josiah highlights is a

(43:25):
king Hezekiah who believes that he's getting ready to pass
away and cries in repentance, and God gives him fifteen years.
Prophet Jeremiah laments and cries for the sins of Israel.
Christ sheds a tear in the garden of gysemone so tears.
In this video, Father Josiah is talking about how tears

(43:46):
are not, you know, a weakness. You know, obviously We're
not in favor of men constantly crying and being influenced
by their emotions, and that's really not what this is.
This is a spiritual gift about the sensitivity regarding sins
and how the deprivation of God that occurs through our

(44:09):
enacting of sins is something that is so remorseful that
it causes sins of amongst people that have that gift.
So just throwing that out there. But anyways, we'll get
to some of this other stuff. Let's watch this video first.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Christianity has a long history in the land east of Jerusalem,
the land from which Abraham sojourned on his way to
what is now Israel, the land where once mighty power
is emerged, such as the Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires.

(45:00):
In part due to the Muslim conquests of the seventh century,
but also due to the vast geographic and cultural distance,
many in the West are unaware of the rich spiritual
and cultural heritage of the Church east of the Holy Land.
In the past few years, there has been awareness only

(45:21):
through tragedy, as we continually witness the destruction of churches
and monasteries in Syria and Iraq and the displacement of
a Christian population that has existed there for over two millennium.
This long history began soon after the Resurrection of Christ,

(45:44):
as faith spread from Jerusalem and Antioch east towards Syria
and Mesopotamia. As recorded by the church historian of Sevios,
the apostle Thomas sent one of the seventy, a man
named Thaddius, to the city of Edessa and Syria soon
after Pentecost to preach the Gospel. By the second century,

(46:08):
there were enough Christians in Odessa to support the construction
of a church. Thus began the Syriac tradition, whose Golden
Age spanned the fourth through eighth centuries. During this time,
great centers of learning flourished in Odessa, Nsibus, and Nineveh.

(46:29):
Sacred sites, such as the tomb of the prophet Jonah
in Nineveh were set apart and venerated by pilgrims.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
What you're weightissing is the tomb of Jonah being destroyed
by the Islamic Caliphate really really heartbreaking and heart ranking.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
A great number of monasteries and churches were built. Saints
such as James of Nicibus, who was one of the
three hundred and eighteen bishops at the first Council of
Nicea in three twenty four.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Make a correction. I saw in the chat everybody's saying
Jacob and James is the same. I did not realize that,
so I stand corrected. So Saint James of Nisibis is
Saint Jacob Nonisibis. Majority of the sources said Saint Jacob.
This video says Saint James, and I saw a James
and a Jacob in the chat. Both said it's the

(47:20):
same name. I wasn't aware, so thank you for that clarity.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Five. Saint Jacob of Serug, Saint Isaac the Syrian, and
an untold number of great ascetics and martyrs labored for
Christ in this land. But of all the saints, none
contributed more to this tradition than the one who was
there near the start and is today seen as its pillar,

(47:48):
Saint Ephrem the Syrian. From his life we can learn
much about this time period. Ephraim was born in the
eastern Roman frontier of Mesopotamia during the early fourth century,
close to the start of the reign of the Emperor Constantine.
His parents lived in the town of Mesbis, and there

(48:10):
Ephim also lived for most of his life. According to
several accounts, one night his parents had a dream in
which they saw a vine spring up from their son's tongue.
The vine grew until all under the heavens were filled
by it. From the vine hung clusters of grapes, and
all the birds of the sky came and ate of

(48:32):
its fruits. His parents, no doubt wondered what this could mean,
especially in light of their son's youthful behavior. As Ephraim
later wrote, I was born in the path of truth,
even though in my childhood I was unaware. For even
though born into a Christian family, Ephraim spent his early

(48:54):
years in reckless fashion, guided more by prodigal thoughts and
a fiery temperament rather than by good judgment. As he
later recalled, my youth would almost have convinced me that
what happens with us in this life occurs but by chance.
But the providence of God brought hot blooded youth to

(49:16):
its senses, and so according to the providence of God.
One day, as citizen falsely accused Ephraim of stealing sheep,
Ephraim sat in prison for days, lamenting what he saw
as a random and unjust occurrence, but one night while
he slept, an angel spoke to him, saying that the

(49:39):
punishment was due to his many sins, and that once freed,
he should return home and repent. This spurred in him
a thorough self examination, and upon release he withdrew to
the neighboring hills where several hermits lived. He became the
disciple of Saint James, and from him learned much about

(50:00):
the Bible and the Ascetic life. Several years later, James
was named Bishop of Nsibus, and Ephram continued with him
as his assistant. Ephram served first as a reader and
then as a deacon and catechetical teacher. Now a devout Christian,
Ephram fully committed himself to a life of service to

(50:23):
God and others in the church. He spent much time
in study and shared what he learned through teaching and writing.
Ephram is best remembered today as the great poet of
the Syriac language, the predominant language in the region and
a dialect of Middle Aramaic, with Mesbus being a meeting

(50:46):
place between east and West. Ephrem's style developed under the
influence of the Mesopotamian literary tradition Judaism and Hellenism. His
blending of these influences created work works filled with extended metaphors,
profound theological insight, and beautiful rhythms. He wrote across genres,

(51:11):
including standard and rhythmic prose, versified homilies, narrative and lyric poetry,
and a great number of hymns that are still in
use today. His most well known work is the Prayer
of Saint Ephraim, now used in Orthodox Church services during
Great Lent, and no doubt a product of his own

(51:34):
repentance and ascetic labor. O, Lord and Master of my life,
give me not the spirit of sloth, idle curiosity, meddling,
lust for power, and idle talk. But grant unto me,
thy servant, a spirit of chastity, integrity, humility, patience and love. Yea, O,

(51:57):
Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults
and not to condemn my brother for blessed art thou
unto the ages of ages. Amen. Ephim probably expected to
remain in Messibus for the rest of his life, but
in three sixty three the Emperor Julian died in battle,

(52:17):
and the peace treaty that followed gave control of Mesibis
to the Persians. Ephraim became a refugee in his late fifties, and,
along with much of the displaced Christian population, moved some
one hundred miles further west to Edessa. But even this
became a blessing for him, as the final decade of

(52:39):
his life in Edessa was also his most fruitful period.
In Edessa, Ephim combated a number of heresies, including those
of the Martian Nights and Arians. As in Mesibis, he
won the love and respect of those he sat. He

(53:01):
even encouraged women to chant, becoming as Saint Jacob calls him,
a second Moses for women. Ephram also intensified his asceticism
during this period. Although not a monk in the traditional sense,
he lived a very similar way of life in the

(53:22):
Syrian tradition. At this time, organized monasticisms, such as was
seen in the deserts of Egypt and Palestine had not
yet fully developed. Rather, many like Ephraim lived in a
community of ascetics who remained celibate and devoted to God,
but also remained active within the church and community. Ephraim

(53:46):
spent much time in service to the sick and the poor.
In three seventy three, a great famine plagued Odessa. Ephram
noticed the wealthy hoarding grain, and so he challenged them,
how long will you fail to pay attention to God's compassion,

(54:06):
allowing your wealth to be corrupted, to the condemnation and
damnation of your own souls? Rightly convicted, they entrusted Ephraim
with their grain, and he did much in Adessa to
feed the hungry and care for the sick during the famine.
When the famine ended in three point seventy three, he
returned to his cell and a month later reposed in peace.

(54:32):
Ephraim left behind a large corpus of writing in Syria.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Now this video didn't mention and maybe it's another contentious thing.
There's so many different differences with Saint Ephraim's life. But
as I said, the other things that I read claimed
that he also contracted whatever virus or whatever disease was
going around during that plague. This doesn't mention it. It
just says that he was old and he kind of

(54:56):
went off out of the city for a month and
then reposed. Maybe that's the case. I don't know, It's
hard to tell, but just wanted to throw that in there.
Some accounts claim that he got the plague that he
was helping people with This claims that he kind of
just repose after a month or so of after the.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
Family yak that is still being translated to this day.
Though many hymn have been lost, over four hundreds still remain.
Because of the great beauty, eloquence, and wisdom found in
his writing. Ephraim is now known as the harp of
the Holy Spirit, confirming the prophetic dream that his parents

(55:35):
once had when he was but a child. His work,
like the many clusters of grapes in the dream, fed
the faithful in the East and enriched the spiritual and
cultural heritage of the Syriac Church. Today, that heritage is
being destroyed as we witness the stream of refugees from

(55:57):
Syria and Iraq, the auction of churches and holy sites,
and the execution of many Christians. Let us remember both
the long history of the Church in this region and
also pray for those affected by the great tragedy. Let
us continue to remember saints like Ephraim, James and Isaac,

(56:19):
so that even if all that remains in their world
is destroyed, we still keep them alive in our memory.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
So that's a little bit of an overview. I want
to share the link here. This is the Orthodox Wiki page.
I was reading through this. Much of what we've already
said is is present here. I will add that it
talks about the lifetime the baptistery of Nisibis. The inscription
tells that it was constructed under Bishop Vulagesses and three

(56:55):
point fifty nine, so this is after Saint Jacob of
Bishop Saint Jacob Sibbis has passed. That was the year
that Shapur began to hurry the region once again. The
cities around the Sibbis were destroyed one by one. I'm
not sure if that baptistry is still with us, but
I found that mentioned multiple times about that that baptistry

(57:18):
was built during the life of Saint Ephraim, and that
he would have been present for people being baptized as
a deacon in that particular baptistry somebody from the region.
I could not find specifically whether that baptistry is still
even even if that is in existence. Okay, let me

(57:45):
do go over a little bit of my document real quick,
my study guide, and we're not going to spend too
much on it. Then we'll get into the readings of
Saint Ephraim, So I got like fourteen pages here. Again,
we're not going to go over anything, so some of
this is already mentioned. You know, three h six is
believed to be his his birth, three seventy three his death.

(58:07):
I did see something about three seventy nine. We talked
about Nissppa's being a border city the major sieges, and
that actually affected too. It's believed that during that time,
the sort of mesopotomia Mesopotamian tradition was very interested in
symbolism and the levels of symbolism, and it's believed that
Ephraim then incorporates all this stuff, the prophetic, the Greek philosophic,

(58:33):
and then the symbolism that was kind of indebted to
the tradition that or the culture that he comes from.
So we'll kind of skip most of that. The religious
and cultural maluse or Astrian persia. So Nissippus and a
death existed at the margins. As we said the Sasanian Empire,
Christians lived under suspicion, and this precariousness shared ephraim sense

(58:57):
of the church as a pilgrim community under siege. Syriac
Christianity's identity Ephraim's work demonstrate the independence of Syriac Christianity
from the Greek speaking Church, even while sharing the same
theological commitments. His theology was expressed not in Greek philosophical categories,
as we said, in Semitic imagery and biblical symbolism, and
he pioneered a distinctive mode of poetic theology rooted in

(59:20):
paradox typology and imagery of light, fire, water, and clothing.
And then the heresies. I got a section on heresy,
so we'll come back to that again. The events of
his death, this is what I could find online. Specifically,
so the plague of Dessa three twenty seven to three
three seventy two to three seventy three. In the last

(59:43):
years of his life, there was a devastating plague epion
called widespread death, social breakdown, overwhelming families and local institutions.
Chroniclers described famine, poverty, and atmosphere of despair. His response
Organizer of Relief that the video kind of mentioned that
that Saint Ephraim began to distribute food in alms to

(01:00:05):
the starving. He persuaded wealthy people in a desic contribute
to their resources and tradition says he became a trustwethery,
steward of donations concerning goods God to those who truly
need them. Servant of the sick, he personally cared for
the afflicted, risking infection. He is remembered for going into
places others feared, tending to the dying with compassion, and

(01:00:27):
then even amid organizing relief, he continued his ascetic life
of fasting, prayer and tears. His hymns of this period
emphasized morality, repentance, and urgency of turning to God. His
death while ministering the plague victims from himself contracted the disease.
That's what I found online. Again. Our video says that
he kind of just died a month after the plague

(01:00:47):
and maybe or maybe not it wasn't affected. And then
Counts emphasized that he met death with serenity and humility,
seeing it as entrance into paradise, which again connects with
the theme today titled the Stream the Profit of Paradise,
because we're going to be focusing on the hymn on Paradise.

Speaker 4 (01:01:07):
And so.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Writings Corpus of Saint Ephraim. Obviously it's in Syriac main
genres hymns, and then I don't know how to pronounce
this word exactly. I'd call it MADRASI thousands of metrical
hymns intended for liturgical use, sung intifonally, often by choirs

(01:01:30):
of consecrated virgins, doctrinal, devotional and categorial function homilies, biblical commentaries, prayers.
Here are some of his major words. Hymns on faith,
hymns on Nativity, hymns on Paradise, what we're going to
read today, Hymns on virginity, and then hymns against heresy,
which I saw this mentioned multiple times. I could not
find a copy in English. Though I was looking for

(01:01:53):
a copy in English regarding hymns of Paradise, couldn't find anything.
So it is what it is. Oh, it looks like
we got did Jeorde Landia just did just Land. Jim
Bob got fifty five seconds today for his goal. Yell,

(01:02:14):
let's beat it all right, Hey, I'm down with that.
Let's be let's beat fifty five seconds. I will beat
fifty five seconds. I can't be outdone by a man
with the shoulders of Jim Bob. I mean that my
reputation be ruined. So I'm gonna have to really really

(01:02:35):
focus for today to beat the fifty five seconds, but
I think I can do it. I absolutely think I
can do it. David James Flood threw in a cotal
crew membership. Thank you so much, David James Flood whoever
got that. Shout out to Christopher Scott for the five
dollars super chat no comment. Thank you very much, Christopher.
Oh and Rachel Wilson. Our sister Rachel Wilson just gifted

(01:02:56):
five total crew memberships. Thank you so much, Rachel. God
bless you in the family. I was actually getting ready
to text you today about maybe if you were free
to do a stream in the next couple of weeks.
I know you and Andrew been busy. I'm not sure
what your guys schedule is, but if you were available,
would love to do it. It's been months and months
since we've done a stream together. But thank you so much, Rachel.

(01:03:19):
Shout out to the Wilsons as well. God bless you guys.
David James Floodson, JB is calling you out, DPH. I
will beat jim Bob today. I will beat him today.
I cannot be outdone by Jimbob. I will beat Jim
Bob today. So I'm calling Jimbob out chair throwing a tie,

(01:03:42):
says it's all on the shoulders. God bless you guys.
I'm mogged by smalders. Love you, Jim Bob. God bless you, brother,
God bless you and the family and Jimbob. I got

(01:04:05):
my gift, so it will be in the mail tomorrow.
I got a gift for Jimbob and meg Bob. You
know that Jimbob really helped me out during my time
on the Whatever podcast because my wife wasn't sure how
to do some of the streaming software. So Jimbob really
helped me out when you know, those were his days off.
So I got a little something special for Jimbob. I

(01:04:26):
think a little piece of the Midwest that I think
he's gonna appreciate. So Jim Bob, I'll have that in
the mail for you tomorrow. VS. Goat said, Jimbob did
go hard today. Well, we will see, we will see,
you know, once the bar has been raised. You know,
it's just like the four minute mile. You know, the
first guy that got the four minute mile, then everybody

(01:04:48):
started breaking the four minute mile fifty five seconds, fifty
five seconds by Jim Bob, it's like the four minute mile.
I'm getting ready to do like a three fifty mile.
I mean, it's what else would you expect? So anyway,
shout out to Jim Bob and Meg Bob. Love you guys,
I hope you and the families are doing well. And
shout out to the Wilsons as well. God bless you guys.

(01:05:11):
All right, so let's get back to the document. Here
regards to Saint Ep from the Syrian Eric Vngelince says,
Jay Dyer is my best friend.

Speaker 4 (01:05:20):
Mom.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
I'm glad you guys have been able to form a friendship.
Dyer is a good dude. I've been friends with Dyer
for a while now, years now, and so yeah, I
wouldn't say we're best friends, but Dyer is a good friend,
a good friend, and so I always have his back.

(01:05:41):
But glad that Eric Vigilant also has his back. So
God bless you guys. I don't know is this an
inside joke or something. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
Brady Harvey says, to be fair, Jim Bob tried twice.
If you can't hit fifty six or higher, try it again.
Opens up your lungs who tried twice. All Right, all right,

(01:06:08):
I'm gonna beat jim Bob. Okay, I gotta beat Jimbob's
that's the only option at this point. All Right. Anyways,
let's get through this document. Then we'll get into some
of the hymn on paradise. So anyways, I was gonna
say the hymns against heresies. I couldn't find anything in English,
although I'd love to have read some of it because
it connected with some of the stuff I put on

(01:06:29):
the study guide today. Theological significance, we already hit it.
Theology and poetry, Christology of the Incarnation. He defended christ
full divinity against arianism and gnostic tendencies. Emphasized the mystery
of the incarnation rather than explaining it rationally. God clothed
himself in flesh so that humanity might be clothed with divinity.
That is a direct phrase that comes from Saint Ephraim

(01:06:50):
the Syrian. And then Christ as the new Adam, and
also Mary as the new Eve. That was another thing
that I was not familiar with. But he's one of
the earliest fathers to develop a robust theology of the theotokos,
and really sort of inaugurated, referring to Mary as the
new Eve whose obedience undid Eve's disobedience, and then Mary

(01:07:14):
and hymns emphasize her perpetual virginity. Of course, he has
a whole hymn section on virginity and roll as quote
gait through which God entered the world. Sacramental theology, he
was big on baptism and the Eucharist. Clothing and light
is what are referred to as the baptism mystical rebirth

(01:07:35):
in Christ. And then he refers to the eucharists as
fire and spirit in the bread and wine, and then
Eucharus as medicine of immortality, anthropology of theosis. You guys,
get it. That's part of why he was so emphatic
about defending against the Arians and the Gnostics. Concerning Christ divinity,
asceticid and virtue advocated chastity, fasting, humility, and almsgiving. Asceticism

(01:07:59):
purifies the heart, making it capable of receiving divine wisdom.
And then symbolism and cosmic vision. This is kind of
the thing that I wanted to emphasize today. While we'll
be listening to Paggio, nature, scripture and liturgy, are mirrors
of divine reality. Creation is a vast network of symbols
pointing to God. Paradise, Eden, and eschological kingdom overlap in

(01:08:21):
his symbolic vision influence legacy status in the church. I
just added this because I thought he was a monk,
and technically, technically it was not. Even though he's described
as a monk, especially in Western accounts, technically he was
not a monk in the Egyptian or the Cappadocian since
he was not a synabitic or aramatic monk. He lived

(01:08:43):
in asthetic life, was formally was less formally monastic and
more communally ascetical deacon. So if you want to know
what his position, he was not a full priest. He
was a deacon of the church under Bishop Jacob, and
the Sibus remained a deacon for life despite his stature

(01:09:05):
as a theologian and teacher, and his choice to remain
a deacon reflects his humility. As we said, when he
was offered to be a bishop, he actually pretended to
be insane. People believe that he felt he was soue
sinful to actually be a bishop and the honor that
came with that position, and so he rolled around in
the dirt and began eating like scrap food out of

(01:09:27):
the trash, and everybody's like, oh my god, Okay, we're
not voting for him for bishop. But he kind of
feigned like a fool for Christ. But he's not a
fool for Christ. This was a particular instance where he
just wanted people to think he was insane so they
wouldn't want to elevate him to bishop. And then deacons
in his time had strong liturgical and charitable roles, assisting bishops,

(01:09:48):
organizing relief, caring for the poor, and supporting the teaching ministry, teacher, hymnographer,
ascetic servant, you guys, get it. Here's some of the
interesting stories I found, and that again, some of the
are legends. Not all of these are sort of rooted
explicitly and you know, orthodox Orthodox fact. You know, again,

(01:10:09):
it's very difficult for me to go through all his
stuff and try to decipher. But these were some of
the cool ones that I found. So, whether it's legend
or not, these are stories about his life that have
been passed down through the generations. So first one, obviously,
his relationship to Bishop Jacob of Nisibis tradition holds that
Ephraim was a disciple of Saint Jacob. We know this

(01:10:31):
when Nyssibbus was besieged by the Persian king Shapur the second,
Ephraim is said to have stood by Jacob and witnessed miracles.
One story says that Jacob prayed in a swarm of
insects invaded the Persian army, forcing them to retreat, an
event that Ephraim later celebrated in his hymns. This shows
Ephraim was a witness of God's protection and firmly situates

(01:10:52):
him within the struggles of frontier Christianity refusal the episcopacy
again becoming a bishop. We already talked about that one
the hermit aw of the Mountain. Some sources claim that
Ephraim spent periods of time in a semi arigmetic solitude,
meaning a hermit outside Odessa, living in prayer and fasting.

(01:11:14):
He would then descend to the city to teach or
compose hymns when the church was in need. This balance
of solitude and service became a hallmark for his sanctity
encounter with Saint Basil the Great. Now I've I've read
a handful of accounts and some of them were very
different than others, so I put legendary. The legend recorded

(01:11:34):
in later Byzantine hagiography says that Ephraim traveled to Cappadocia
to meet Saint Basil the Great. Though historians doubt the
literal meeting, the story is spiritually symbolic. The two great
fathers embrace, speaking to each other despite the language barrier
Greek and Syriac. Through the power of the Holy spirit,
Basil said to have recognized and Ephrem a man filled

(01:11:55):
with divine wisdom, and the story illustrates Ephraim's universal stature
during the world beyond the Syriac world service during the plague,
we kind of talked a little bit about that already.
Visionarian mystics, some traditions describe Ephraim as a man of
visions and dreams. One account claims that he saw vision
of a column of fire rising from the earth to heaven,

(01:12:16):
symbolizing the prayers of the faithful. Another story says he
wept daily, his eyes swollen from tears and repentants, earning
him the title the Prophet of Tears. These accounts shaped
his image as a seer of mysteries and a model
of penitential life from's tears and writings. Traditions says that
he wept constantly for his sins. Again kind of the

(01:12:39):
same theme harp of the Holy Spirit. According to tradition,
when he preached or chand of hit voice and words
had such sweetness that it was said he was the
harp of the Holy Spirit. Choirs of consecrated versions with
sing his hymns anti finally embedding doctrine into the hearts
of the faithful. That's one of the coolest things that
I thought he did. Imagine being in a cultural situation

(01:13:01):
in which you have all these different faiths, in all
these different languages, and you have all these different heretics
claiming different you know, different Gnostic traditions or the true
Orthodox Church, and what he did was create poems and
hymns for the faithful to embed in them the true theology.
I thought that was pretty Again, just instead of debating
the outside all he did he focused his resource on

(01:13:23):
educating the inside, the actual body of Christ. This is
less a single story than a collective memory of his impact.
Theology became music in his hands. And then some of
the heresies that he fought arianism, I already mentioned that
one we know what Arianism was his response and his
hymns on Faith Ephraim defends the Nicing Confession again. His bishop,

(01:13:45):
Bishop Jacob of Nisibis, was there at the Council of
Nicea in three twenty five. Christ is true God and
true man. He used paradoxical imagery. The Mighty One entered
the womb and clothed himself in frailty, so that the
frail might be robed in strength. So you can see.
This is when you read his stuff. It's always in
this manner, this symbolic reversal. Right, the Mighty One clothed

(01:14:09):
and frailty. It's really beautiful. Rather than abstract arguments, he
presented the incarnation as mystery, affirming that only God himself
could save Martianism was another big one. He wrote hymns
insisting on the unity of the Old and New Testament.
Emphasized typology. The Old Testament foreshadows and is fulfilled in Christ.
Saw creation and scripture as a unified symbolic tapestry pointing

(01:14:32):
to Christ. Obviously, we find modern echoes of Arianism and
Jehovah witnesses and modern Martianism and various Antinomian traditions today anyways,
Manicheanism was also very popular if you're familiar with the

(01:14:55):
workings of man I. Essentially, Manicheanism is a gnostic blending
of Christianity, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism, and it's a dualistic, very
very strictly dualistic worldview. Efrom attacked Manichean hymns with counter hymns,
often mimicking their style, but embedding an Orthodox doctrine. Emphasized

(01:15:16):
the goodness of creation and the incarnation of Christ took
on flesh. The matter cannot be evil. Use fire and
light imagery positively. God's fire purifies and redeems. It does
not war eternally against matter. Again, regarding Manicheanism, New Age spirituality,
Gnostic revivals sort of the modern echoes of this stuff.

(01:15:37):
The followers of Bardessan Bardassianism. He was a Christian philosopher
poet from Odessa who taught who thought blended christian who
thought blended Christianity with astrology, a gnostic ideas. He taught
that human fate was partly determined by the stars. His
hen remained popular in Ephraim's Odessa and then Ephraim directly

(01:15:59):
can pose counter hymns to replace Bardassian's songs. Mocked astrological determinism,
insisting that human freedom is real in salvation by God's grace,
not the stars. Again, is mocking a sin? Uh? No?
I actually had a guy on comment or was it
an email? I think it was an email. A guy

(01:16:20):
say me an email because I did a stream on
Christian Zionism, and towards the end we were mocking some
of the evangelical pastors that were promoting Zionism that had
this like dispensationless theology, and I can't what you're trying
to bring people to the Orthodox Church. I can't believe
you would mocked these people. Like, if you've ever been

(01:16:41):
in one of these churches, it's really hard to get out.
And okay, fair enough, but just because I'm mocking somebody
doesn't mean I'm like not Christian or I'm defeigning Christ
because I mocked a heresy. What are you talking about?
I mean, read the life of these saints, guys, Saint
Ephroim freaking glued Apullinarius's booked so he couldn't debate because

(01:17:01):
all this stuff was in a book. He mocks, you know,
this this other heretic Bardasian in Odessa like you No,
it's it's okay. I mean you can go too far obviously,
but no, mocking is not a sin, especially if it's heresy.
So he emphasized scripture, not cosmic force into that governed
history Gnostic and Setic extremes, and his hymns on virginity

(01:17:24):
Ephrom praise his celibacy but balances with the honor of
marriage as holy. He emphasized that salvationist for all, not
a secret Gnostic elite. He taught that knowledge of God
comes through humility, tears, and scripture, not secret doctrines. And
then the pagan and Zoastrian influence that he had to
fight against. Also, he reinterpreted the imagery of fire not

(01:17:45):
as the Persian sacred element, but as the symbol of
God's spirit, baptism and the Eucharist, and then frame Christianians
fulfilling and surpassing these symbols without denying their power. So
that was just some of the forces, the historical context
and force that he had to refute during his time.
So again that document will be available over on the

(01:18:06):
Logos Academy, So if anybody wants to get access to
some of these items all our members, videos, our members again,
for anybody who's now joined, we're actually going to be
doing a men's only discussion on women. So if you
join the Logos Academy, as I showed here, we're doing
a think tank. This is a men's only group anyways,

(01:18:29):
but we're gonna be doing a think tank where we're
reading Arthur Schopenhauer's famous work that's considered misogynistic on women.
We have a link of Saint John Chrisostom talking about
women's roles and veiling in the church and what that means.
And then we're going to be having a full form
debate or discussion on women, feminism, dating relationships, marriage, women's

(01:18:53):
role in society, women's role in the church, all this
different stuff. So if it's something you want to get
access to to these conversations in our community, you can
do so with this link right here. So anyways, now
let's get into Oh, it looks like we had a
few super chaps come through. Let me check these out.

(01:19:15):
Michael Misner throws in a generous fifty dollars. Thank you
so much, Michael, he says, grifting for our parish. Sat
from San Antonio. We're in a bunch of debt from
the building project. Please donate to our web to our
we share if you can't, Yeah, I have that link.
If anybody wants to donate to the saintfrom Orthodox Church
in San Antonio, Texas. That link, both the link to

(01:19:38):
their church and the link to their we share is
in the video description if anybody would like to support them.
Thank you so much Michael for your support today. God
bless you, and shout out to Jeremy and shout out
to the whole parish of Saint e from Orthodox Church
in San Antonio, Texas for sponsoring today's stream. All right,
before we dive into Okay, let's let's just do it. Okay,

(01:20:08):
So here is the book Saint Efram Him's on Paradise.
This is an introduction by Sebastian Brock, nineteen ninety book
from Saint Lad's and this basically was the resource that
I used for much of my discussion today. Is reading
through the life of Saint Ephram, looking at all this
different stuff, and there's a few cool things that we're

(01:20:30):
gonna mention. And this gets into page sixteen here we go,
talks about the potential meeting between Basil and Ephram, and
it talks about let's see here, Basil, who was subsequently
bishop of the metropolitan Metropolis of Cappadocia, was a great

(01:20:54):
admirer of Ephram and was astonished at his erudition. Again,
Ephraim was not incredibly learned like Basil was. The opinion
of Basil, who's universally confast to have been the most
eloquent man of his age, is a stronger testimony, I think,
to the merit of Ephraim than anything that could have
been indided to his praise. It is said that he
wrote three hundred thousand verses, and that he had many

(01:21:17):
disciples who were zealously attached to his doctrines. The most
celebrated of his disciples were Abbess Zanibius, Abraham Marris, and Simeon,
in whom the Syrians and whoever among them pursued accurate learning.
To make a great boast. Anyways, so moving forward here,

(01:21:37):
this is a big introduction that he has getting into.
We've covered much of his life, so we're not going
to go too deep into it. I want to talk
to you guys about his visions of paradise. So here's
his theological frame, types and symbols. On a number of occasions,
Saint Ephraim speaks of the natural world and the Bible

(01:21:58):
as God's two witnesses, and the Paradise Hymns verse two
we have the following statement. In his book, Moses described
the creation of the natural world so that both nature
and scripture might bear witness to the Creator. This is
Saint Ephraim. So when you see these this sort of
prose style, this is always Saint Ephraim. Nature though man's
through man's use of it, Scripture through his reading it.

(01:22:23):
They are the witnesses which reach everywhere. They are to
be found at all times, present at every hour, confounding
the unbeliever who defames the Creator. Nature and scripture testify
to God by means of the symbols and types which
they contain, for these acts as pointers to spiritual reality
or truth. Saint Ephraim uses a variety of different terms,
more or less interchangeably, but the most important of these

(01:22:45):
is razah equals mystery. The word of Persian origin first
appears in Daniel, where it's primary meaning is that of secret. Subsequently,
it occurs in the text of the Kumran Community, and
very probably is the Semitic lying behind Saint Paul's use
of the word mysterion. By Saint Ephraim's the time, rosa

(01:23:06):
had taken on a wide variety of different connotations, and
in the present context, it is significant that the plural rose,
like the Greek mysteria, refers to the liturgical mysteries. As
a typological term, rasa symbol indicates the connection between two
different modes of reality. And here's an important to remember
that the Father's employ the term symbol in a strong sense.

(01:23:27):
We've talked about Cimbalo the Greek throwing together two realities.
That's what we understand to be a true symbol. And
then it gets into the garment of words. Here we
go his concept of paradise. So this is where we're
going to be focusing some of our conversation today. The

(01:23:50):
literal reading of the Biblical text would leave one with
the impression that paradise is a concept which belongs only
to the beginning of creation and the religious climate of
the centuries. At the time turn of the Christian era, however,
a much richer understanding of paradise had grown up within Judaism,
finding expression and apocalyptic work such as the first Book
of Enoch, and these writings, Paradise is understood as representing

(01:24:12):
both the primordial and the eschological state at the end
of time, for it has now also become the abode
of the Righteous. The location of this paradise was variously expressed.
Some writers, taking Genesis two eight as their que held
it to be on the eastern extremities of the earth,
while according to others, Paradise represented the escological transfiguration of

(01:24:35):
the Promised Land, where the Paradise Mountain was equated with
the New Jerusalem situated on Mount Sion. More significant from
the point of the view of Saint Ephraim's conception of
Paradise is the interpretation given in Genesis two eight, which
is to be found both in the Peshita and the
Syriac translation of the Bible, and in the targumim the

(01:24:57):
Jewish Aramaic versions, which often reflect Exejesus and synagogue circles,
whereas the septuagint renders the Hebrew mcdem as the east
the Pasheta. Of the two Targum traditions, Palestinian and Babylonian
take the word as having temporal rather than spatial reference
from the beginning that is belonging to primordial sacred time,

(01:25:20):
and this is saying neph from the garden had been
planted in Eden for just by the word of the
Lord God before the creation of the world. He made
Adam reside there once he had created him. And it
goes on and on. And I'm going to share this
link because you could again, I could spend the whole
stream just reading to you guys aspects of this book,
which I'm not going to do, but if anybody would

(01:25:45):
like to read that, I've just shared that link with you.
Thank you very much. Pablo winskebar throws in three dollars,
says to the goal, Thank you very much. Brother. I
will say I believe the goal is set for five
dollars or more, or four ninety nine or more, so
it may not register, Pablo, but I do appreciate the support.

(01:26:06):
God bless you. And I got to beat Jimbob, so
I may have to do some grifting today, even though
I know that's been my achilles heel according to my
live chat is. I don't grift like Jimbob and Andrew
do or even even dire, So if you'd like for
me to beat the fifty five second challenge issued by Jimbob.

(01:26:28):
We got to get to the twenty superchat goal and
I will defeat him. Anyways, moving forward, we're going to
actually get into his hymns. Now again, you could go
through all this commentary. Sebastian Brock basically lays out some
of the important important aspects of how to interpret what

(01:26:49):
you're getting ready to read. Paradise Regain divinization. The ultimate
name of the incarnation, however, was not just to restore
adams humanity to Paradise, but to raise humanity to the
position of honor that Adam and Eve would have granted
had they kept their divine commandment. So like Maximum the
Confessor that says, well, whether we fell from paradise or not,

(01:27:14):
Christ was always going to incarnate to unite human nature
with divine nature. Saint Ephraim says the exact same thing.
And this is this section talking about. And so this
is Saint Ephraim right here. Had the serpent been rejected
along with the sin, they would have eaten the tree
of life, and the tree of Knowledge would not have
been withheld from them any longer from the one they

(01:27:35):
would have acquired infallible knowledge, and from the other they
would have received immortal life. They would have acquired divinity
in humanity and they and had they thus acquired infallible
knowledge and immortal life, they would have done so in
this body. And so talking about how Christ is the
new Adam, obviously it's emphasizing how he believed in theosis

(01:27:56):
before any sort of full artic you know, his is
through theology, poetry, hypnography. Okay, So now we go the
Hymns on Paradise. So here's him one, and we're gonna
read a few of these. We're gonna skip through a few,
and then we're gonna listen to Jonathan Pagio, who, uh,

(01:28:20):
it's his whole lecture to clergy is actually about these
Hymns on Paradise. So glitchy Rhythm throws in five says
thanks man. And what's your favorite movie? What is my
favorite movie? Wow, I'm gonna be pretty basic. I'm kind
of like a basic white girl in regards to movies.

(01:28:42):
I mean, i'd have to go with like Braveheart. What
is a movie that I've watched tons of times I
always enjoy I don't know it, probably like Braveheart. The

(01:29:03):
you know, those kind of violent masculine movies. I mean,
I'm a fan of the Actually I wouldn't say it's
my favorite, but my wife just wanted to watch The Matrix.
So we just watched the first Matrix last night. It
was our first time watching it. The Big Lebowski. Big
Lebowski is.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
A good one.

Speaker 1 (01:29:20):
I don't know if my I don't know if it's
my favorite, but The Big Lebowski is definitely a good mine.
It's got to be up there. I really don't know
what is my favorite movie. I would have to think
about that exactly. Freedom. So the first thing that comes

(01:29:41):
to mind to me is Brave Heart Predator. Yeah, I'm
not as big into some of the sci fi stuff
I did. I watched All the Star Wars my wife
and I because we never watched that was like months
and months ago. It's all right. All the new Star
Wars actually suck, just glitchy. Rythsmuth just rewatched Braveheart like

(01:30:02):
two weeks ago for the first time in a decade.
At least. It's a fantastic movie. It's a fantastic movie.
Last Samurai that is a good one. That's with Tom Cruise.
That's Tom Okay, anyways, we're derailing. We're derailing the Streamlet's
we'll get back to all that stuff in just a second.
Let me read a few of these hymns from Saint Ephraim,

(01:30:25):
and then then we'll get into Pagio talking about some
of this stuff and we'll wrap things up. Uh. But
we got to get twenty super jazz. We got to
get the goal so I can be Jimbob's goal. I'm
feeling it today. I'm really feeling it today. Moses, who
instructs all men with his celestial writings, he is the
master of the Hebrews. He instructed us in his teaching

(01:30:46):
the Law, which constitutes a very treasure house of revelations,
wherein is revealed the tale of the garden, described by
things visible but glorious for what lies hidden, spoken of
in few words, yet wondrous and many in its plans
praise to ye righteous, which exalts those who prove victorious.
I took my stand halfway between all in love. A

(01:31:08):
yearning for paradise invited me to explore it, but all
at its majesty restrained me from my chearch With wisdom. However,
I reconciled the two I revered what lay hidden, and
meditated on what was revealed. The aim of my search
was to gain profit. The aim of my silence was
the fine sucker. Joyfully did I embark on the tale

(01:31:29):
of Paradise, a tale that is short to read but
rich to explore. My tongue read its story outward narrative,
while my intellect took wing and swared above in awe
as it perceived the splendor of Paradise, not indeed as
it really is, but insofar as humanity is granted to
comprehend it. With the eye of my mind, I gazed
upon Paradise. The summit of every mountain is lower than

(01:31:52):
its summit. The crest of the flood reached only its foothills.
These it kissed with reverence, before turning back to rise
above and subdue the peak of every hill and mountain.
The foothills of Paradise it kisses, while every summit it buffets.
I'm going to skip forward to the next one where
we find Moses. This is right here, this is going

(01:32:13):
to be mentioned by Paggio. And because my tongue overflows,
as one who has sucked the sweetness of Paradise, I
will portray it in diverse forms. Moses made a crown
for that resplendent altar, with a wreath entirely of gold.
Did he crown the altar in its beauty, thus gloriously

(01:32:33):
entwined with its wreath of paradise that encircles the whole
of creation. When Adam sinned, God cast him forth from Paradise.
But his grace he granted him the low ground beyond it,
settling him in the valley below the foothills of Paradise.
But when mankind even there continue to sin, and they
were blotted out, And because they were unworthy to be

(01:32:55):
neighbors of Paradise, God commanded the art to cast them
out of mouth Cardu. These there are the families of
the two brothers had separated. Cain went off by himself
and lived in the land of Nod, a place lower
still than that of Seth and Enosh. But those who

(01:33:15):
lived on higher ground, who were called quote the children
of God, left their own region and came down to
take wives from the daughters of Cain. Down below. The
children of Light dwell at the heights of Paradise, and
beyond the abyss they Espy the rich man. He too,
as he raises his eyes beyond Lazarus and calls out
to Abraham to have pity on him. But Abraham, that

(01:33:38):
man so full of pity, who even had pity on Sodom,
has no pity yonder for him who showed no pity.
The Abyss serves severs any love which might act as
a mediary, thus preventing the love of the just from
being bound to the wicked, so that the good should
not be tortured by the sight of Gehinna, of their

(01:33:58):
children or brothers or family, a mother who had denied
Christ employing mercy on her son, or the maid of
her daughter, who all had suffered affliction for the sake
of Christ.

Speaker 2 (01:34:09):
Teaching.

Speaker 1 (01:34:09):
Anyways, it goes on and on and on like this,
and you can see, you can see right here, I'm
only halfway through or not even halfway through the book,
and the rest is all these different hymns on Paradise. Now,
I know you guys could get bored if I just
read this whole thing to you, so again I'm going
to share this link. I do encourage you guys for
spirit for your spiritual edification to check these out. They

(01:34:33):
are really good and it actually has some interesting things.
Just like as you saw there he talked about where
was it?

Speaker 2 (01:34:48):
Where was it?

Speaker 1 (01:34:53):
He talks about the daughters of Cain down below. So
interesting little tidbit, maybe get of a different perspective on
the the Nephlim and talking about the Nephlam. Ay, you know,
at least according to his perspective, were those who lived
on higher ground, those were of Cheth and Enosh, and

(01:35:14):
they went down to Caine's people to have wives. Interesting,
interesting little thing. Okay, so here we go. Here's Paggio
talking about again his reading of all this different stuff
on the Hymn of Paradise and why it's so important.
D Rock throws in fives. Is glad I found your channel? Well,

(01:35:36):
thank you so much. D Rock really appreciate that. Michael
throws in another five. Thank you so much. Michael says,
father Mark calls Saint Ephraim the New Testament psalmist. Oh
that's fair enough, fair enough. I think that's that's actually
a pretty good point. Glitchy Rhythm throws in another five.
Thank you so much, Glitchy Rhythm for the support. God
bless you, brother. Where's that put us we're at? So

(01:35:58):
we need nine more, nine more and we will reach
the twenty goal and I am going to beat Jim
Bobs fifty five seconds. I'm going to do it today.
So thank you guys very much for the support. So
let's dive into as we once we listen more about
Saint efrom here, we'll hear a little bit of Pagio

(01:36:19):
talking about that little section that I just read to
you about Moses and the Golden wreath.

Speaker 4 (01:36:28):
And he says, he talked about the paradise as the
as this holy mountain, as this mountain, so you have
to imagine this mountain, and I'm already going to give
you the image. And so he has this idea of
this paradise as a mountain. At the summit of the
mountain is the tree of life, right, And let's say,

(01:36:52):
above the tree of life or coming down upon the
tree of life is the glory of God, just like
the glory of God descended onto the arc of a covenant.
He has he does he talks about how the glory
or that the glory of God descended to encounter Moses
on the Mount Sinai. So too, the glory of God

(01:37:13):
is at the summit of the mountain, and we have
the tree of life. So he talks about how the
limits of the garden. So imagine that, so the summit
of the garden is higher than all the mountains, and
the limit of the garden is beyond all the ocean.

(01:37:33):
So you imagine the way that the ancient people saw
the world. Basically, this giant island surrounded by oceanus by
the infinite ocean, which it is still true today. There
still is this ocean that kind of surrounds everything, you know,
that's all connected together, that kind of flows around everything.
And so he saw the paradise as the limits of

(01:37:54):
Paradise being beyond the ocean. Here's a description that he
that he talked to me. He says, Moses made a
crown for that resplendent altar with the wreath entirely of gold.
That he crowned the altar in its beauty. Right, So
around the altar in the tabernacle there was this this
golden braid, or this golden crown, which went around the altar.

(01:38:20):
So he says, thus, gloriously entertwined is the wreath of
paradise that encircles the whole of creation. So the crown
of Paradise, the wreath of paradise encircles all of creation,
so its summit is beyond the highest mountain, and its

(01:38:41):
limit is beyond all of creation. So already we're trying.
We're starting to see that the place that he's talking
about is maybe not the same kind of place that
we're used to thinking about in our kind the very
materialistic world. Let's say that he is talking about a place,
but this place is is uh, it's say, it's the

(01:39:05):
place of places. You could call it, right, it's the
it's that which makes place possible, something like that, and
maybe a way to describe it. And so this mountain
is also a hierarchy. It's it's a hierarchy of beings
or hierarchy of being itself. So here's some descriptions that

(01:39:30):
he gives. He says, when he made this intricate design,
he varied its beauties so that some levels were far
more glorious than others. To the degree that one level
is higher than another, so too, is its glory the
more sublime in the In this way, he allots the
foothills and the most slowly the slopes to those in between,

(01:39:52):
and the heights to the exalted, so that which is
exalted exalted that which is that, because glorious is higher
up on this mountain, and that which is confused or
in between or is lower, is lower on the mountain. Right,

(01:40:15):
things are starting to take shape and understanding what he's
talking about. So then Saint sant Effert talks about the
four rivers of Paradise. So we know that in the
garden there were four rivers of Paradise. Now if you
if you think of the Paradise as a mountain, right,
all of a sudden, the image of the four rivers

(01:40:36):
will change as well, because it's hard. You can't really
see it otherwise as these four rivers that are coming
down the mountain. So you can kind of imagine, I mean,
you don't have to think about it too much. But
like a source, there's a source, some kind of source,
that is.

Speaker 1 (01:40:53):
And Michael just made a great point. So Michael, thank
you so much. He said, please don't in the stream
without showing Pagio's cosmic image art. I actually have that
pulled up in another browser. I'll show that right now
while he's talking. And Michael threw in five and said,
you can't get or you can get Saint Efraim's a
spiritual assalter on reflections on God from Eighth Day Books. So,

(01:41:15):
if anybody's interested in that, thank you so much, Michael
for the support. Brother really appreciate you. And while he's talking,
I'm actually gonna show you guys. So I had this
pulled up. I should have had it in this web browser.
So here is So this is the little kind of
freehand depiction of what they're talking about. This is Pagio's

(01:41:39):
artistic rendition of this. So you see Christ on the cross,
the Orthodox excuse me, the Orthodox cross which he's situated on.
You see Saint John the Theologian. You see the Theotokos underneath.

Speaker 3 (01:41:55):
You see.

Speaker 1 (01:41:57):
The tree of Jesse in which Adam and Eve are
taking the fruit. You see the serpent in presence. Now,
Ephraim actually makes an interesting there's an interesting point if
we were continue to read his hymns. He claims that
the serpent was not actually allowed into paradise, or at
least the contours of the garden, and that Eve had

(01:42:22):
to leave the paradise because paradise was perfect. She encountered
the serpent on the outside, told the serpent what was
inside paradise, and the serpent understanding the sort of spiritual
game is the one that convinced her. So again we
don't this was just Ephraim's rendition, So I was just
thrown that in there. I thought it was I thought

(01:42:44):
it was a noteworthy But you can see his depiction here.
You see the chalice of the Eucharus here, presented by
one angel. I assume this is probably Archangel Michael defeating
the dragon, symbolic of our warriors scene in Saint George.
Maybe it is Saint George looks like an angel to me.

(01:43:04):
You see the seraphim down here, you see Adam and
Eve being cast it out, and you see the skull
representing Hades, representing the defeating of death. Of what this
is all standing on. Of course, it's surrounded by water, again,
all in the topology that Paggio speaking about here. So

(01:43:26):
this is inspired. This whole thing right here is inspired
by what we're talking about, these hymns on Paradise by
Saint Ephraim. And so if we continued reading, you'd see
more and more. I think I read to like him
six through this, and it has very interesting little takeaways,
very interesting symbolism, Like you'll read through it and you'll

(01:43:48):
go through a page and then they'll just be like
two lines. You're like, WHOA, that is really interesting, that
symbolically connects. And so, yeah, Michael made a good point.
I had this pulled out. I don't know why I
didn't have it in my tabs. But this is Paggio's
depiction of what he's talking about, his artistic rendition of.

Speaker 4 (01:44:08):
It pushing the water and then it's coming down, coming
down the mountain. So he talks about how its fountains
delight with their fragrance, but when they issue forth towards us,
they become impoverished in our country, since they put on

(01:44:28):
the savers of our land as we drink them. So
he has this idea that the waters of the rivers
of Paradise water all of creation. They are the source
of all the waters. We always have to remember when
we look at in the Bible and it talks about water,

(01:44:52):
flowing water always comes from above. It has to It
has to come from above the the way for it
to be flowing. And so when we talked about flowing waters,
we're already in this notion of this hierarchy. The water's
coming from above, it's coming from heaven. The water is
coming from heap. So here are these four rivers that

(01:45:15):
come down water the world. And as they get lower
and lower on this mountain, they lose their quality. They
become mixed with the local places, and then they become
they become less pure, you could say. And then he
talks about talks about the beings. He talks about the

(01:45:39):
children of light, So he talks about from their abodes
the children of Light descend. They rejoice in the midst
of the world where they had been persecuted. They dance
on the surface of the sea, and they do not
sink because he Sant Effery understands that paradise is all there.

Speaker 1 (01:46:01):
And Sat Afroim in his hymns has another interesting symbol
where he talks about Peter. Obviously the etymology being a rock, right,
the Catholics always talk about how their church is founded
on the rock of Peter. Okay, but he uses in
the hymns Saint Evre mentions that again he always does
the paradoxical. He takes symbols and then shows how their opposite.

(01:46:23):
It really is a great read. I highly recommend reading
Saint Afraim's hymns. And he talks about how just as
Christ allowed the rock to walk across water, but the
rock did not did not sink. Talking about how Peter
was the one that was asked to come out remember
in the storm, and he walked on water with Christ,

(01:46:44):
but then he lost faith, begins to sink, and then
Christ rescues him. He plays on the analogy or the
symbolism of Peter's name being a rock, and how there's
there is no rock that floats on water, right but Christ.
When Christ, all things are possible.

Speaker 4 (01:47:01):
It's always. It's not something which was only there in
the past. It's always, it's always there. And then if
we want to participate in paradise, there are ways in
which you participate in paradise. And he gives us the ways.
He tells us. First of all, he tells us in
the Old Testament what those were. He says, this structure

(01:47:24):
with this mountain, and he divides it into three. So
he has the Tree of life at the top, and
that is the same as the Holy of holies of
the Temple of the Tabernacle. And then he has the
tree of knowledge of good and evil, and that's the
same as the holy place in the Tabernacle or the Temple.

(01:47:47):
And then he has the lower part, the gate or
the big tree, which would be the outer court of
the tabernacle. So he divides it into these three parts.
Why is the fig tree? Why is the fig tree
the third part?

Speaker 1 (01:48:07):
Do you know the story?

Speaker 4 (01:48:07):
Why there's the fig tree in this? In that story?
Why is there a fig tree in the story of Paradise? Remembers, Sorry,
they cover themselves exactly right, So that becomes the first covering.
So then everything else is going to flow from there,
this notion of the covering. So imagine this these levels.

Speaker 1 (01:48:31):
And then tied with that, you know, you remember the
isn't it Zachariah the tax collector, and one of the
parables that we read during liturgy Zachaus. It's Zachaius. And
Zachaius is this small little Jewish man and he climbs
up into the fig tree to see Jesus because he
hears that Jesus is coming again. We can see the

(01:48:53):
symbolism of the fig tree and being hidden and hiding something, right,
So when Adam and Eve then fall, they use the
fig tree to cover them themselves. When zach Chaeus then
wants to see Jesus but wants to remain hidden, he
climbs up in his small stature into the fig tree.
But Christ walking by then turns immediately and calls him
by name and tells him you're gonna be hosting me

(01:49:13):
and my apostles tonight, of which then he does so
and uses his wealth and opulence to serve Christ in
the in the community. I'm just bringing up that fig
tree symbolism. Oh is it a sycamore? The chaus went
into a sycamore tree. I always thought it was a

(01:49:34):
fig tree.

Speaker 4 (01:49:36):
As three coverings, three veils, the three veils of the temple.
You have the veil to the Holy of Holies, you
have the veil to the Holy place, and then outside
you have this rougher coverings. You have the covering of skin,
the garments of skin. It's a different does the talk
about the garments of skin, But Saint Gregor Visa definitely

(01:49:57):
talks about the garments of skin, and he is how
the covering of the tabernacle, which was hairy it was
made of animal skins, is the same as the garments
of skin that Adam and Eve put on themselves. So
as we as we get lower and lower on the

(01:50:18):
uh on the hierarchy of beings. There is this need
to cover ourselves more, right, And it's not that hard
to understand that. It's not that hard to understand it.
I always talk in my in my and I talks
about the garments of skin, trying to understand what that is.

(01:50:38):
What does it mean that Adam and Eve had to
cover themselves with garments? And it really does have to
do with this moving out towards death. So in the
garden they were self sufficient to the extent that they
were only dependent on God. And as they move away

(01:51:00):
from the garden, then they start to become dependent on
They start to have to deal with the outside world
more and more. And the reason why God gave out
of any garments of skin was to encounter the thorns.

Speaker 1 (01:51:16):
Just to clarify, Austin in the chat said he thought
it was a sycamore tree. I just looked again, according
to Ai, I just did a quick search. They said
it's a sycamore fig tree. So I think we're both right. Austin.
I kept remembering it as a fig tree regards as
Zakay has climbed and it's saying that it's a specifically

(01:51:38):
a Ficus sycamornis, but it's referred to as a sycamore
fig tree. So just fy and clarity for everybody.

Speaker 4 (01:51:47):
God said, because of your fall, the trees will start
to produce thorns, and so the world will be hostile
to you. And you have to cover yourself in order
to face that hostility. So you add a layer of
clothing to be able to face the cold. Then if
you want more colds, you go further out into a

(01:52:09):
place where human beings. It's more difficult. The world is
more hostile to you. You add a house. And if
you want to go further out into a world that's
hostile to you, you add a wall to your city.
You add this and that, and you add technologies in
order to supplement your existence out in the world of
the of the hostile world. The story of the Fall,

(01:52:30):
you see it happening. There's the fall, Adam and Eve
have garments of skin, and then there's another fall where
Caine killed his brother, and then what does Kin do
downd the city. So you have this garment around Adam
and Eve, and then Kine puts a garment around around
let's say the group, and then his descendants they end

(01:52:51):
up creating weapons of war and steel. You know, metal, weapons,
metallurgy in order to add that, and then at the
final result of that is the flood where it all
breaks apart. You can't at some point that garments should
keep adding garments around yourself. At some point, you know,

(01:53:11):
it cracks. And then I went through that recently. For
those who know that I've been through a flood that
the our city, they build a dike at the end
of our city because they used to get flooded, And
then they started to trust that dike completely, and everybody
forgot that the dyke even basically disted. It was like,

(01:53:32):
this is just normal world. As the waters rose and
rose and rose, and at some point the dyke gave
in and the water came in. So these garments of skin,
which are which are immediately described by the fathers as
our physical bodies, that are that are fleshly bodies, are
the first garments of skin that we all know that

(01:53:55):
those they give us, they give us protection for a while,
but they're gonna break apart. The better to do what
you need to do. You've got them, you know, because
at some point they're gonna go away, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:54:11):
I just want to respond to a few more super
chats looked like a few more came in. Michael threw
at five more, says the garments increased as they descended
down the mountain towards death, and yeah, you can see
this in the depiction of Adam and Eve naked Abneve
with the fig tree, and then Adam and Eve clothed

(01:54:32):
with the garments of animals. So great suggestion, Michael, I
can't believe I forgot to include that in the tabs.
And Silva Gore five, four, six, nine throws in five
says now I'm hungry for fig Newton's. Yeah, yeah, I

(01:54:57):
love that U. But hey, quit being a fat ass SiGe,
Silva Gorre, and make sure you're getting in your your
daily workout too. All Right, we can't just be we
can't be having fat Ortho bros eating fake Newton's. But
if you got your workout in, enjoy your fake Newton's brother.

(01:55:18):
And Pablo winskebar throws in five says to the goal, guys,
we got four more, four more super chats and then
I'll be beating Jim Bobs fifty five seconds today. So
help me out. Four more super chats and then we'll
be doing goal. I'm gonna play this for just a

(01:55:39):
few more minutes. Again, let me share this whole video
with you guys, just in case anybody wants to watch
the rest of this I watched. I watched this lecture
UH in preparation, and it's pretty quality. It hits some
really good good takes on some of the symbolism, and
you can can clearly tell that Paggio was influenced by

(01:56:00):
From's Hymns on Paradise Thomas seven to seven eight zero
three throws in ten bucks. Thank you so much, says
wish I could make it to the men's think tank,
but you work evenings and consolation. I just talked to
my priests a minute ago, and I should become a
catechuman October nineteenth if all works out. Glory to God. Well,

(01:56:23):
Glory to God, Thomas. That's amazing, man, Welcome, Welcome to
the church. At least as a catechuman. You'll have it
probably a year or more until you be brought in,
depending on how your church does it. But Glory to God, brother,
that's fantastic. We'd love to have you in the think tanks,
but we do do them in the evenings. Most of
the guys work during the day. So seven o'clock PM

(01:56:45):
Eastern Standard time tends to be the best for everybody
except all the Europeans. So the Europeans got to be it.
It's like midnight, midnight or one two in the morning
for them to to participate. So anyways, if you'd like
to join join the Logos Academy, we'd love to have
any man who's interested in joining a community of Orthodox guides.

(01:57:08):
Some people aren't Orthodox. There's some Protestants, but they know
it's an Orthodox group. So anybody join and knows what
it is. But if you guys would like to be
a part of it, please check it out. School dot
com Ford slash Logos Academy. D Rocks throws in five
says must beat Jimbob. Yes, and with that we have

(01:57:33):
just reached the goal. So let me play the video
for just a couple more minutes like I said I
was going to, and then we will beat Jimbob's fifty
five second fifty five second attempt today.

Speaker 4 (01:57:53):
So the notion is that this thing, this mountain, it
goes all the way until so at Santa from had
different ways of describing it. He talks about when Adam
and he felled, then God chased them out of the garden,
and then they were lower down on the slopes of
the garden. And then when Cain killed Abel, then Cain

(01:58:18):
was chased lower down still, and then Seth was higher
up on the mountain. So it is, it's a hierarchy
of beings. It's it's ontological hierarchy. The more you're closer
to God, the higher you up on the mountain. The
further you are from God, the lower you are on
this this mountain. For all all of these buildings who

(01:58:40):
are Orthodox, it's the ladder of divine and scentse' the
same thing. The ladder of divine a scent is exactly
what he's talking about here. You know, several centuries before
that that text was written. The the it's the same,
it's the same structure, Okay. Sat Ephraim talks about how
this is the same structure as the arc that Noah's art,

(01:59:03):
because the human beings were on top, and then the
birds were there after after after lower than the humans,
and then the animals were at the bottom of the arc. Right,
like I said, the same as the tabernacle. The tabernacle
had the glory of God at the in the in
the in the Holy of Holies, and on the outside

(01:59:26):
there was the outer court where they had these and
around the tabernacle they also had these these animal skins
that were around it. So it's it's it's all of
it is the same in the same structure. And so
then when when when it says in the Bible that
the children of God mixed with the daughters of men,

(01:59:46):
right in this he actually gives such a he's able
to avoid the problem of the whole angel thing because
he he he has it on the mountain. And so
you have the the children of Set, the sons of
Set that go down the mountain, and and then they
mixed with the daughters of King, and so they go
they're going down onto logic hierarchy, and they're perpetuating this

(02:00:07):
this fall, like going further and further down.

Speaker 1 (02:00:11):
That's why I read that section to you guys in
regards to him one, because he's covering all this stuff
and relating it back to Saint Effroich.

Speaker 4 (02:00:21):
And then finally, like I said, you have this fig
tree that was an image of the covert and Sinefran
does a beautiful thing. He tells us why Christ curses
the fig tree, right that text, which is one of
the strangest texts in the gospel. Right, Christ comes up
to the sig tree and he curses it because it

(02:00:42):
hasn't produced fruit. Sinefran says in the San France, just
like this makes total sense because that's how the fall started.
Adam and he fell and they tried to cover themselves,
and Christ is saying, I'm removing those coverings. I'm going
to remove them, and in the process he in the price.
It's also in the in the story of his entry

(02:01:02):
into Jerusalem, he's going towards crucifixion. He removes the garments
of the fig garments, and then he ends up by
ripping the last veil in the temple and entering into
the Holy and so Christ is going, he's going back up.
He's doing it in reverse, He's going he's going back

(02:01:22):
up the mountain. In that in that story, part of
it is cursing the fig tree.

Speaker 1 (02:01:32):
Okay, so we'll stop there again. I share that link.
If everybody wants to watch the rest of Paggio's video,
you really need to have that in comparison with the hymns. Right, So,
because he's going through and showing the symbolism and how
they relate. So let me share those links one more time.
This is uh Saint aff from him on Him's on Paradise,

(02:01:53):
and this is Pagio going through them and talking about
so by talking about its relationship to the church, theology
and the teachings of Afrom and how all that stuff relates.
So that is there. Okay, Now, as as promised, Oh,

(02:02:19):
we got to beat Jimbob. Now we gotta beat Jimbob.
So let me just double check on some of the
super chats. Make sure I caught every of them. Okay. Oh,
looks like Michael just sending a generous another fifty dollars, bro.

(02:02:41):
Thank you so much, Michael, Thank you so much today
for the generous support, brother, he says, one more gift
from Saint Efraim San Antonio and the building fund. Thanks again, Dph.
Yes absolutely, and I will share those links real quick.
So again a major shout out to Saint e from St.
Afram Orthodox ch in San Antonio, Texas. This is the

(02:03:04):
link to their parish and I'm going to share the
link to their new chure or the we Sharing Fund
to help to pay for the building of their parish.
And so there are those links. If anybody would like
to support sat Afroim Orthodox Church of San Antonio, Texas,

(02:03:25):
you can do so with those links right there, and
they'll be up in the video description afterwards as well. Okay, So,
so jim Bob did fifty five seconds? Did he? That's
what I'm hearing. Jim Bob did fifty five seconds and
he did multiple attempts? Is that also what I'm hearing?
He did it twice today? Okay, so let me get

(02:03:49):
my stopwatch. Got the stop watch. I'm not stopping until
we get to fifty six seconds and Jim Bob can
suck it all right? So mhm uh. Fred says he's

(02:04:13):
gonna who both of us. You may have, but my
beef is with Jimbob. Okay, so I don't have beef
with you. My beef is with Jimbob. I'm just kidding.
We have no beef whatsoever. It's an ongoing conversation about
who can hold goal the longest. So here we go.
Let me get my breath because last time I didn't
take a big breath before. All right, are you even gonna?

(02:04:43):
Are you even gonna take the alps out? Just so
we can't get distracted, here all right, here we go
three two one.

Speaker 3 (02:04:54):
Go vision. Oh dang it, dang it?

Speaker 1 (02:05:57):
Who m noise suppression? We got a noise suppression. Let
me check my mic, Let me check my mic? Is
it echo canceling? I don't know. I don't know I

(02:06:18):
have I have fifty four. I have fifty four. But no.
If he did it twice, I'm doing it twice. If
he did it twice, I'm doing it twice. All right,

(02:06:42):
all right, audio is messed up. You guys can't hear me? Check?
Check check, check, check check it's quiet? Can you hear me? Now?
What the heck is Jim Bob sabotaging my do you equipment?

(02:07:03):
Jim Bob is sabotaging my audio equipment just to win
this unreal Absolutely, I'm showing that my my microphone is working.

(02:07:29):
Check check?

Speaker 4 (02:07:29):
Check?

Speaker 1 (02:07:30):
Is it still quiet? What the hell? Normalize audio on?

Speaker 4 (02:07:40):
What? Check? Check?

Speaker 2 (02:07:48):
Check?

Speaker 1 (02:07:49):
What about now you hear me? Check?

Speaker 2 (02:07:51):
Check?

Speaker 4 (02:07:52):
Check?

Speaker 1 (02:07:56):
Check?

Speaker 4 (02:07:56):
Check?

Speaker 1 (02:07:57):
People in the chat better, I don't know. What All
I did was turn on the turn on and I
don't even have automatically adjust mic volume. I don't even
have that on. I just have echo cancelation when I
turn cancelation off. It looks like my microphone gets if

(02:08:23):
I keep echo cancelation on. I think it's normal. Sounds good, okay, well, okay,
so now we know that the microphone gets quiet whenever
I start doing that. All right, I am at or
around Jimbob. Right, so I had fifty four ish seconds.

(02:08:44):
I think it said fifty five. Somebody said they had
fifty five point thirty six. All right, yeah, I mean
Jimbob sabotaging my audio. I mean, he's as bad as
the Jews. What's going on here? What's going on here?
Jim Bob? All right, here, we're gonna beat it. We're

(02:09:09):
gonna beat it right now starting If he did it twice,
I'm doing it twice. Yeah. Oh my gosh, jew Bob
that's his new name, Thank you, Eric. Jew Bob is

(02:09:32):
wrecking my audio equipment. Can you believe this? He's probably
already sent a virus to my computer. Okay, all right,
let's beat jim Bob's fifty five second I was at
fifty four fifty five. Somebody said they had fifty three seconds.

(02:09:55):
So yeah, jim Bob mutes his voice as an energy
directed weapon to sanatorium. It's unreal the guy has no limits.
I mean, I don't does the guy even have morality?
Meg Bob needs to get his ass in check. That's

(02:10:16):
all I know. That's all I know is Jim Bob's
ask needs to get in check and his wife needs
to do it. She needs to slap him around a
little bit. I'm tired of this. I love Jim Bob
and meg Bob. So anybody is confused, this is totally

(02:10:37):
a joke. Okay, we're just competing on who can say
goal the longest. All right, here we go, Here we go.
We're beating fifty five. We're not doing this crap. We're
not doing this mediocre crap that Jim Bob does of
fifty five seconds. We're beating it right now.

Speaker 3 (02:10:58):
Go oh.

Speaker 1 (02:11:17):
Oh god, I needed to swallow. Hold on, We're going
straight into it.

Speaker 3 (02:11:23):
Gooh, I'm out of breath.

Speaker 1 (02:12:06):
I'm out of breath. He got more time in between,
He definitely got more time in between. I just need it.
I just need one good breath. I just need one
good breath. Eric says, I need to popping up or down.
You're you're right. The probably the nicotine. That was probably

(02:12:28):
my mistake, as I took one out. I need to
put one in. All right, all right, all right, here

(02:12:52):
we go. Excuses, excuses. I love you, guys, Brady Harvey,
L's in the chat four times a charm.

Speaker 3 (02:13:13):
Alright, good?

Speaker 1 (02:14:20):
Oh, come on, come on, jim Bob, let's go.

Speaker 3 (02:14:30):
Let's go.

Speaker 1 (02:14:33):
He's breaking the sound barrier. Let's go, let's go. Jim
Bob is in shambles right now. Jim Bob. Meg Bob

(02:14:55):
is consoling him right now because he did the best
he could. He did the best he could. Hey, even
if when Scobar got fifty six, that's still a win.
That's still a win. Dude. I literally was about to
pass out. I'm going to get one minute. I'm going

(02:15:18):
to get one minute. Two things I didn't account for.
One was having to swallow your spit, So I was
not accounting for that. Once you start, I got fifty seven,
I had fifty seven seconds, because why I stopped it
at fifty eight? I had fifty seven seconds. Even Pablo

(02:15:42):
has fifty six. Pablo has fifty six. Gosh, bang bang Lulu,
Jimbo's gonna need some shoulders to lean on the upper deck.

(02:16:05):
Hee was cheating, Eric, That was your advice, Bro, You're
the one that told me to put in the upper deckie.
You told me to put in the upper deckie. Now
you're saying it's a d Q. Who are you working for?
I feel like Eric Vigilance working for Jubob Now what
the heck? He's wrecked. He's in shambles. His wife is

(02:16:31):
literally petting his head as we speak.

Speaker 4 (02:16:44):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:16:45):
Eric Vigilance says, I even left Orthodoxy? What even who
joins my open panels left Orthodoxy? Is that what you're
talking about? I even he's on my open panels left?

(02:17:09):
What is he now? Is he Catholic? He said it
on a debate with Democracy Defender? What is he now?
What he was so zealous about the the faith? Is

(02:17:32):
he gay? Did you get a boyfriend and he left Orthodoxy?
What happened? I'm as he's atheist? Now what that's the dump?
What he literally went on for hours on my channel

(02:17:54):
about atheists and rationalist materialists? What what happened to Ivan?
Are you kidding me? In the comment section you can
see my comment and his reply is on his channel

(02:18:17):
his latest live stream. What okay, let's just go check
it out real quick. What what is his channel? What's
his channel? Never go full drift.

Speaker 2 (02:18:41):
What happened?

Speaker 1 (02:18:42):
I'm confused? What's his channel? Christ is king as his channel?

(02:19:03):
What Christ is king?

Speaker 2 (02:19:27):
Hi?

Speaker 4 (02:19:27):
Welcome to.

Speaker 1 (02:19:41):
Oh my gosh. Okay, So this is Ivan's response. So

(02:20:20):
Eric vigilant here in the chat, says Ivan, why do
you leave Orthodoxy? And his response is if God gives
me faith, I'll return. As of now, five things keep
me apart. One is that I think ortho bros Are
too intellectually arrogant and believe they have an air tight
argument in tag. But tag has holes, Okay, I like

(02:20:41):
to hear. Second, I was very poorly treated by priests
and laity and have seen a lot of bad things
in the church. So bad people bad, the church not good.
That doesn't make sense. Third, I have lost my faith
in Christ being there for me, taking care of me,
for if perhaps most importantly for me, I cannot see

(02:21:04):
how mercy and rigor compliment each other when to fight
and when to be merciful? What how are those antagonistic
to each other. Lastly, to truly bear the cross is
to reject and sacrifice this world for the promise of
the next. And I cannot live like that. It eliminates
worldly virtue because now you don't know if you are

(02:21:27):
doing well or not what. It sucks the life out
of me. It leads me to the constant paralyzing self
doubt of whether I'm sinning or not, and removes the
joy out of being creative because all the glory of
God is God's and I would just be a mouthpiece.
Even if you speak about synergy, I could not reach
God on my own, but would need his help in

(02:21:49):
the first place to know him. So I actually would
not have truly expressed myself in him. I would have
expressed him and myself what I think we need to
pray for Ivan that that doesn't make really any sense.

(02:22:14):
I could understand having moments of uh, you know, questioning
doubts of your faith. That's normal. He acts like he
has to live as a monastic to be orthodox. I'm
not sure about that. So I don't know. Uh, I'm

(02:22:38):
not sure what exactly. Hm hm hm, Wow, Well I'm

(02:22:59):
so already hear that. You know, maybe we should ask
Saint e f From to intercede for him to connect
today's stream with Saint e f from the Syrian Maybe
he needs the you know, he needs some intercession. I
don't know if he's to have him experiencing pre list.
If he's just experiencing doubt of his faith, that somebody
send him orbs.

Speaker 4 (02:23:30):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:23:30):
He attacked Mela in the chat. Mela is great. What
always something fishy with Ivan? I always got along with him.
I thought he was a good dude. He was very
passionate about the faith. I mean, whenever he would do
my open panels, he was pretty zealous. I don't know
if his zealousness got him into like almost living a

(02:23:51):
semi monastic life or something. You know, there is a
royal path. Uh, demons are attacking him. That's what it
sounds like. It sounds like something's going on in his
life and some demonic forces are are prying on it.

(02:24:16):
Bang bang Lulu orbo. Bro's first orthopis oh man, No,
I trust your opinion, Crispy.

Speaker 4 (02:24:28):
You.

Speaker 1 (02:24:28):
You know, you know the Ortho community probably better than
anybody because you're in everybody's chat. So I trust whatever
vibe you pick up on people's probably there's probably something there.
But I'm really disheartened to hear that Ivan has left
Orthodoxy and that he's that again. It sounds like he's

(02:24:52):
like struggling with like a monastic form of Orthodoxy and
in the world. So I don't know. I'm going to
keep him in my prayers tonight. I had no idea, Eric,
so thanks for Sharon, brother. I had no idea. But yeah,
that's a little lit unfortunate. Anyways, today's stream was a success.

(02:25:13):
We put Jimbob to shame. We did a fifty seven
second goal despite his best efforts at fifty five. I
want to give a special thank you again to the
Saint Ephraim Orthodox Church of San Antonio, Texas. Again, here
is their link to their parish and and if I
would like to help them with their we share. They

(02:25:34):
just built a new church, are in some debt and
asking if anybody of the faithful, anybody in the Body
of Christ, would like to help them, you can use
this link as well. So major thank you to Jeremy,
major thank you to the Saint Ephraim Orthodox Church in
San Antonio, Texas. And a major thank you to Michael

(02:25:54):
for supporting me so generously today. That's very very kind
of you and I do truly appreciate that. Brother, Thank
you very much. And oh n h Joe, gosh, you
just have a bunch of random letters, he said, he

(02:26:14):
isn't humble enough to be Christian. Well, it sounds like
that based on the comment. Interestingly, he said that Ortho
bros Are arrogant, and then he said he's not humble enough.
So I don't know. Maybe he just isn't at a
bad parish. I don't know. I'm going to say a
prayer for the guy tonight. I wish him well. I

(02:26:36):
hope he returns back to the faith. He knows, he
knows so much about the faith to just reject it
like that's a serious it's a serious relapse. So anyways,
thank you all so much today for the support. God
bless you all again ask for intercession by saying that

(02:26:57):
from the Syrian an incredible, incredible saying. Ain't uh known
for taking his apologetics of Orthodoxy and fusing them into
hymns and poetry, taking the the musical style of the
Manicheans and the Bardessians and turning those into two Orthodox hymnals.
He converted many. He was an incredible teacher, an incredible ascetic.

(02:27:23):
So major thank you again to Saint Efraim Orthodox Church
today on on the stream, and I hope, I hope
it was beneficial for anybody out there they wanted to
learn more about Saint Ephraim. But uh, who's Chris Law? Chris, Oh,

(02:27:43):
Chris Law. Oh, thanks brother for the for the raid.
Really appreciate that, man, God bless you. We're just getting
ready to uh to wrap up. I really appreciate, appreciate
the uh support. Brother. I hope you and the family
are doing well. All right, that's going to do it

(02:28:05):
for me. Guys. We're gonna have a real fun stream
on Friday. Uh, Doctor Michael Muller is going to be
joining me, and we are going to be exposing the
fitness industry and all these fitness YouTubers. We'll be getting
into steroids, god, sexuality, all types of stuff. So gonna
be a really fun one Friday evening, five o'clock PM
Eastern Standard time, me, doctor Michael Moeller, and we're going

(02:28:27):
to be doing a deep dive. We got tons of
videos to go over exposing the fitness industry and all
their lives and their funniness. So I will see you
all then. Oh and just for another shout out, Michael says,
come visit San Antonio, folks. We'd love to have you
at coffee Hour if anybody's in the Texas area. If
you're an inquire if you want to go to an
Orthodox church, you're in the San Antonio area, go to

(02:28:50):
Saint from Orthodox Church in San Antonio, Texas. Everybody I've
interacted with from the Paris which are all men, very
cool dudes, very cool dude. Sounds like you guys have
a great perish down there. So shout out to you guys,
and thanks again Michael Fraud to support today. Really appreciate it. Yeah,
it's uh it. If he doesn't have Christ faith in Christ,

(02:29:16):
he should probably change his YouTube channel. But you know,
that stuff happens. You know, how often does that happen
where somebody you know, creates a YouTube channel and is
pretty zealous and all of a sudden they have like
a lapse, a relapse in their faith. I mean, it's
not uncommon. It's not uncommon, you know. I'll tell you
making making Orthodox Christian content. I always fear that that

(02:29:40):
what you say online are going to come back to you.
And uh, you know, so you literally put yourself in
the spiritual battle by making online content talking about Orthodoxy,
whether it be other people attacking you, whether it be
people trying to find personal information. I had one guy
find my address and send like in me a message

(02:30:01):
that he found my address. Weird stuff. People driven to
do that are clearly like possessed by something. But also
when you get out here and you take a stand
for something and then you start promoting the truth, which
I believe the Orthodox Church is, you're going to be
spiritually attacked. And it's not just other people, it's also demons.
And if you have struggles with certain things, they'll probably

(02:30:24):
ramp up because of it. So you know, it's just
something everybody needs to be aware of. So anyways, guys,
thank you so much. Yeah, you're painting a target on
your spirit. That's exactly right, Bro's It's seriously true, especially
if you're sincere and you're trying to do the best
you can. You really are, I'm telling you. It's just

(02:30:46):
like when you get brought into the church, like weird
shit happens. I really feel that, like weird shit if
you like have if you make the stand and become Orthodox,
like weird things begin to have, especially if you're promoting
it regularly in public. So that's why the church always
says that a judgment for anybody who's a teacher of
the church which I have a blessing from my priest.

(02:31:09):
That's what I would consider my function. I'm a lay teacher,
any teacher of the church, their judgment is going to
be harder than somebody who doesn't teach, because anything that
I've said that is wrong that I refuse to correct
or or typically that I mean. Obviously, if I'm ignorant
about something and I'm trying to do my best, God
will take mercy on me. But if I'm willfully wrong

(02:31:31):
about something and won't correct it because of pride or
not taking seriously my vocation, That's gonna hammer my judgment
big time. So it is what it is. But God
bless you all. Thank you so much. Major shout out
to Saint f from Orthodox Church in San Antonio, Texas,
and intercede and pray for a Saint e F from Assyrian, Syria.

(02:31:58):
We need all the help we can get in today world.
So I will see you guys on the next one
as always until then, God bless

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